FBI Conducts Raids for Half-Life 2 Hackers (News)

Funky Zealot, GamePro

28/01/2004 14:21:01

The Feds are on the prowl in search for the hackers behind the Half-Life 2 source code leak. According to a blog, one bay area resident's place was victim to an early morning raid, with the FBI searching the premises and seizing most of his computer equipment.

Programmer Chris Toshok says his home was raided on January 14 at 6:30 am by the FBI and Secret Service, who confiscated nine PC's, CD-R's, "music to massage to," and many other items. The warrant stated that they were searching for "any IP addresses related to any of the Valve internal and external networks," "E-mail addresses including any addresses with the '@valvesoftware.com domain'", and "Valve passwords and/or user names."

Whether or not Chris Toshok is found to be innocent, it sends a clear message to hackers that Valve and the government are serious in cracking down. Although the leak only contained a partial build, it compelled Valve to delay the game from its original holiday 2003 release to April 2004.