Valve Bans Developer From Steam for Prank Exposing Vulnerability - Update
- Thread starter Mike Hoffman
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I'll admit I have no clue what hacking is before I respond, so I could be very wrong on this. But he still tampered with something and the definition of a hacker is "someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network" He exploited a weakness by changing... whatever he did.Sectan said:
A revolution could be considered illigal but the perspective of 'who' your rebeling against is a factor to consider and a point of view so, and evil in the same logic comes into the defintion of who views what evil and when?WhiteTigerShiro said:
Perspective really matters this whole thing could've been worse if it was found and abused later by people with real ill intent, so forcing Valve's hand was quite likely for the best. Shame this man got punished for what was a break of the rules and so be it they have rules they must inforce. But it takes nothing away from him being a martyr in some regaurd for Value's failure in acting quickly on a breach of its systems.
Just to clarify something you seem to mistaken. The dev did not commit a crime in any form, he used his access that he had from work to demonstrate that scripts can be executed in announcements and store pages after alerting valve to the potential of misuse. They banned him because he made them look bad not because he broke any laws.gigastar said:
Hacking is gaining access to a system (weather network, hardware or software) which you have not been granted access to (breaking and entering/tresspassing would be the real world equivalent). The dev had access and was allowed to modify the news post. He added a code that made the screen shake to show that there was potential for misuse. As such he did not hack or misuse anything and valve should apologise and reinstate his account immediately if they haven't already.Elfgore said:
Like I needed another reason to hate Valve. They should be paying this guy not banning him. He pointed a problem with their system, they didn't listen and when he proved it, then they banned him.
The share audacity of Valve. Yes he broke the contact but this feels like a total violation of not only his basic consumer rights but ours as well.
I really believe more government action needs to be taken towards those end user agreements. EULA are obvious being used to exploit people and it needs to stop.
The share audacity of Valve. Yes he broke the contact but this feels like a total violation of not only his basic consumer rights but ours as well.
I really believe more government action needs to be taken towards those end user agreements. EULA are obvious being used to exploit people and it needs to stop.
Which is an interesting way of putting it, because technically it makes both of our arguments right. He was right in that the expression does apply to this situation, but I was right in that it doesn't apply to his actions. Simply put, his actions didn't lead to any sort of metaphorical "hell" that were caused by his good intentions. Meanwhile, the guy who issued the ban, while he meant well (he was just following what the ToS dictated, after-all), caused a little bit of negative PR for Valve and Steam.Charcharo said:
But anyway, it looks like they were able to sort it out, so at least it all had a happy ending.
*Ahem*Magmarock said:
erbkaiser said:Update: looks like there's a happy ending. The dev got unbanned
https://twitter.com/tomasduda/status/479031656184295424
Even after reading the news and the comments section and getting the whole story, I still have one simple question from all this, should we go back to dick sucking Valve and praising them to the high heavens like they are our personal best buddy?.WhiteTigerShiro said:*Ahem*Magmarock said:
erbkaiser said:Update: looks like there's a happy ending. The dev got unbanned
https://twitter.com/tomasduda/status/479031656184295424
Can you overreact too little?Kenjitsuka said:
Valve is known for its heavy-handed approach to these kind of things. But in other cases when people expose exploits in TF2 for example, such as recoding crate-a-pults (that MIGHT be the actual name...) to be usable as a key since they are the only item besides keys usable on crates, which was more quietly exposed to Valve because it would have broken the economy. And then they gave them unusual hats!
(But one of the guys asked for an unusual which the TF2 Wiki people didn't like him having [unusual wiki cap], so they got butthurt and asked him to pick a different one. Guys. He's one of the two people who saved the TF2 economy. LET HIM HAVE YOUR STUPID HAT.)
Considering the kind of thing the OP says this exploit could have created gateways to, I think Valve's reaction was actually pretty gentle. If all the repurcussions last only a year, damn, that's light.
Good intentions, but he didn't think it through. Nobody's the bad guy, here.
Valve should be more careful with this kind of thing. Sure, he did hack steam, but they should give him a slap on the wrist and then fix the bug, not ban a game developer over it.
Valve really need to hire more community managers/support so they can deal with all of this.
Valve really need to hire more community managers/support so they can deal with all of this.
So he claims, and he may well believe that. But he has absolutely no idea if it's actually true. Fixing bugs and releasing a new version of something like Steam is far from trivial. With the limited information we have, this seems much more like a case of "I reported something and they didn't act fast enough or give me sufficient acknowledgement for my liking" rather than "I reported something and they didn't care and told me to bugger off". If you have a complaint, with any company for any reason, the next step after reporting it and not getting the reaction you want is to keep complaining, escalate things, demand to talk to a manager, and so on. Taking things into your own hands is almost never a sensible course of action.Elfgore said:
Good Valve saw a degree of sense in the end.
It would be one thing going mental when someone breaks into your house, it's quite another to go mental when someone who works with you spends weeks telling you your front door's broken and you ignore them until they walk in and sit on your couch.
Yes he broke the system, but Valve really brought that on themselves.
It would be one thing going mental when someone breaks into your house, it's quite another to go mental when someone who works with you spends weeks telling you your front door's broken and you ignore them until they walk in and sit on your couch.
Yes he broke the system, but Valve really brought that on themselves.
Yep that's the same thing I figured, and totally called this in the 6th post. When you 'report' something it tends to have to be filtered through some bureaucratic process. When you 'break' something you're calling down the law with a much swifter response. Generally these are two different entities that don't necessarily work on the same page. That's why in Valve's case you allow for an appeal process.
i bet people will still accuse valve of not listening to its community
well its good to see the man banned, he had good intentions in the end afterall, but he and everyone else should think twice before trying to break their contracts
well its good to see the man banned, he had good intentions in the end afterall, but he and everyone else should think twice before trying to break their contracts
I agree. Steam's moderators are known for their quickfire nonsensical bans, and this case reeks of overreaction on the part of a single employee. Maybe Valve will look at this as a "lesson learned" and finally start putting leashes on the mods that are more prone to hysteria.FancyNick said:
Honestly though, I wouldn't put it past one of the bigwigs at Valve to have ordered the ban simply because they were embarrassed that Duda exposed the company's ineptitude in such a colorful manner.