Valve Tried to Trick Half Life 2 Hacker Into Fake Job Interview
After the secret source code for its then-unreleased shooter* Half Life 2* showed up on file sharing services in 2003, game-maker Valve Software cooked up an elaborate ruse with the FBI targeting the German hacker suspected in the leak, even setting up a fake job interview in an effort to lure him to the United States for arrest.
The gambit ultimately failed, and Axel "Ago" Gembe remained safely in Germany. He was indicted last month in Los Angeles on new charges of creating the Agobot malware, and sharing it with a crew of U.S. hackers who used it to stage denial-of-service attacks in 2003.
In September 2003, the source code for the much-anticipated Half Life 2 game turned up online, and Valve's managing director, Gabe Newell, revealed that the company's network had been breached. In a post to the company's web forum, Newell asked for gamer's assistance in finding the hackers responsible.
"If you have information about ... the infiltration of our network, please send the details," Newell wrote. "There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great."
