Steam Hacked

[mrt144]

I don't know about the rest of us, but making fun of Steam when their website got hacked and the credit card information of hundreds of people to be possibly stolen sounds rather petty.

What are you talking about, this is the perfect time to congratulate ones self on their consumerism habits.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

What are you talking about, this is the perfect time to congratulate ones self on their consumerism habits.

What are you congratulating yourself about? Not everyone lives within a convenient distance to a video game store. For me it's a half hour walk to the closest one and that only sells console games; if I want to physically buy a game I either have to catch a train or scrounge a lift from one of my room mates.

I can understand why people are adverse to Steam exclusive games and how their personal information is stored on a remote server, but bashing something just because it has some of your personal information on it is absurd. Facebook is basically an information vacuum that sells to the highest bidder, ISPs do the same (unless stipulated in your contracted otherwise but I know Virgin media does) and sites like Amazon will have similar information stored.

Obviously you're perfectly free to chose not to use Steam, and I must confess that when I can I use Good Old Games rather than Steam because of their no DRM policy. However you have to accept that either you have user information scattered accross the web which you can secure to the best of your ability or you can forgo the lot. Gloating over people because their site got hacked is just as pointless as telling customers of bank A that they should have been more consumer savvy when their local branch was robbed because you chose to go with bank B.

 

[innonimatu]

Funny, it had exactly the opposite effect on me. I bought much more games before they became routinely interwined with mandatory "screw yourself" software.

Me too. Bethesda just lost a sale to me, and I bought all othet TES games since Daggerfall as they came out. Not this latest one: steam/Valve will never again get my money, not a single cent of it, not any company which publishes exclusively though it. It's a matter of principle to me.
And Skyrim, unlike civ5, even looks like a game I'd like.

 

[warpus]

Me too. Bethesda just lost a sale to me, and I bought all othet TES games since Daggerfall as they came out. Not this latest one: steam/Valve will never again get my money, not a single cent of it, not any company which publishes exclusively though it. It's a matter of principle to me.
And Skyrim, unlike civ5, even looks like a game I'd like.

Which principle is that?

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

What are you congratulating yourself about? Not everyone lives within a convenient distance to a video game store. For me it's a half hour walk to the closest one and that only sells console games; if I want to physically buy a game I either have to catch a train or scrounge a lift from one of my room mates.

I can understand why people are adverse to Steam exclusive games and how their personal information is stored on a remote server, but bashing something just because it has some of your personal information on it is absurd. Facebook is basically an information vacuum that sells to the highest bidder, ISPs do the same (unless stipulated in your contracted otherwise but I know Virgin media does) and sites like Amazon will have similar information stored.

Obviously you're perfectly free to chose not to use Steam, and I must confess that when I can I use Good Old Games rather than Steam because of their no DRM policy. However you have to accept that either you have user information scattered accross the web which you can secure to the best of your ability or you can forgo the lot. Gloating over people because their site got hacked is just as pointless as telling customers of bank A that they should have been more consumer savvy when their local branch was robbed because you chose to go with bank B.

I think that it's fairly obvious that he was being sarcastic.

 

[The_J]

I never used the forums, so I'm safe, right?

No, it seems the hackers might additionally have accessed the Steam database itself.

I can understand why people are adverse to Steam exclusive games and how their personal information is stored on a remote server, but bashing something just because it has some of your personal information on it is absurd. Facebook is basically an information vacuum that sells to the highest bidder, ISPs do the same (unless stipulated in your contracted otherwise but I know Virgin media does) and sites like Amazon will have similar information stored.

And it's all bad, so where's your point?

 

[innonimatu]

Which principle is that?

Opposition to what is called "digital rights management". Take that out of Steam and I'd be a staunch supporter. But I won't pay for games and be at the mercy of Valve to use them in the future.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

And it's all bad, so where's your point?

I went on to explain my point in the next paragraph:

"However you have to accept that either you have user information scattered accross the web which you can secure to the best of your ability or you can forgo the lot."

If you want to avoid any realistic possibility of your personal information being leaked on the web then you'll have to take some extraordinary means to do so, e.g. as described in the book Desktop Witness:

http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/~csharold/cv/files/desktop.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Desktop-Witness-Personal-Computer-Security/dp/0471486574

 

[warpus]

Opposition to what is called "digital rights management". Take that out of Steam and I'd be a staunch supporter.

This is what the CEO of Valve thinks about DRM:

“This belief that you increase your monetization by making your game worth less through aggressive digital rights management is totally backwards."

“I think [publishers with strict DRM] will sell less of their products and create more problems.”

But I won't pay for games and be at the mercy of Valve to use them in the future.

You're not though, you can always revert back to piracy if you don't like Steam. Or you can buy games from a physical vendor, but then that would probably mean DRM. I like steam because it's a good middleground between those two extremes.

And so far I've managed to hold on to far more games on steam than with physical media games.. which I usually lose.. or they get scratched.. or only work on older systems.. or whatever.

 

[Akka]

Shrug, I haven/t experienced any of that with steam...

Ignorance is bliss, hu ?

 

[Camikaze]

Stealing credit card info is probably a moot point for most Australians, seeing as Steam charges such exorbitant prices compared to alternative vendors here, no-one's probably given it to them in the first place, or if they have, they apparently don't mind having their money wasted.

 

[jtb1127]

I deleted my credit card off of it. Will that save me?

 

[azzaman333]

Stealing credit card info is probably a moot point for most Australians, seeing as Steam charges such exorbitant prices compared to alternative vendors here, no-one's probably given it to them in the first place, or if they have, they apparently don't mind having their money wasted.

Admittedly it's been a while since I've bought anything off steam, but most of the time it was way cheaper than buying from retail outlets.

 

[BirraImperial]

What's with all the Steam hate?

Steam is what turned me from a game pirate to a guy who buys ALL his games. ...

Same here. I live in a country in which games cost $80-$100 at release, if they ever get imported here. Sure, there are other ways to buy them from the US, but shipping takes a few days time. Steam offers me a way to quickly buy them and donwload them with no problems.

Origin, on the other hand, it's the devil... but it's needed for BF3

 

[Leonel]

I deleted my credit card off of it. Will that save me?

It's probably too late by now BUT supposedly Valve encrypts that kind of stuff with some heavy duty encryption and I personally believe the primary goal of the hack was for hackers to attract attention. So I think if you change your password as a precaution, use that Steam Guard thing and if Valve's encryption system was up to snuff, I think we'll be okay. Just keep a watchful eye on your bank account for the time being.

 

[innonimatu]

This is what the CEO of Valve thinks about DRM: [...]

Then he's a hypocrite, because Steam is DRM! They may present themselves as "less aggressive" DRM, but a lesser evil remains evil.

 

[CommonKnowledge]

It's probably too late by now BUT supposedly Valve encrypts that kind of stuff with some heavy duty encryption

I think I read in an article about the hack that Valve uses AES256 encryption which is definately secure. The only problem is that if you have a password vulnerable to a dictionary attack it really doesn't matter how good the encryption is, it's still vulnerable.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

There's always a risk of getting some online account hacked. My credit card company has been hacked several times in just the last few years. But the convenience of Steam cannot be overstated. I have regularly noticed that most of the games that I like are usually not available in most stores, especially not on the day of release. Even big stores like Best Buy will claim to have the product in stock on their website, but when you go there, it turns out you have to request it in advance and go pick it up when it arrives. Why should I bother going through so many steps when I can click once and have it arrive instantaneously? And as for prices, I have seen no difference in price between the store's and Steam's.

 

[Leonel]

I think I read in an article about the hack that Valve uses AES256 encryption which is definately secure. The only problem is that if you have a password vulnerable to a dictionary attack it really doesn't matter how good the encryption is, it's still vulnerable.

Yeah that was the encryption I heard, like some serious military type of encryption. Just hope they didn't leave a copy of the same information unencrypted elsewhere on the system. I heard stories where people building websites had clients specify they have their clients info encrypted BUT also make an unencrypted version.

 

[Maniacal]

I couldn't care less about the Steam forums or my account there. Although I definitely care about my Steam account but thankfully Valve salted and hashed the Steam user account passwords and stuff. So unless your password is already terribly easy and you didn't change and you didn't enable Steam Guard (prevents people from logging into your account on a computer you have not approved without using a code that is sent to your e-mail) you should be fine.

I uninstalled Steam and Civ 5 ages ago. Never purchased anything via them.

Your Steam account still exists, and if you really don't want I wouldn't mind trying out Civ5

Hackers are just criminals that hide behind a computer screen these days.
Look, hackers aren't standing up for anything like rightousness or any of that stuff, their just jerks and criminals. Criminals that needed to be treated just like a guy who robs grocery stores.

Look, I think you posted in the wrong thread seeing how this incident has absolutely no relation to hactivists.