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Steam Hacker Says More Vulnerabilities Will Be Found (arstechnica.com) 37

An anonymous reader shares an article on Ars Technica: The teenager who grabbed headlines earlier this week for hacking a fake game listing on to Valve's Steam store says there are "definitely" more vulnerabilities to be found in the popular game distribution service. But he won't be the one to find them, thanks to what he sees as Valve "giv[ing] so little of a shit about people's [security] findings." Ruby Nealon, a 16-year-old university student from England, says that probing various corporate servers for vulnerabilities has been a hobby of his since the age of 11. His efforts came to the attention of Valve (and the wider world) after an HTML-based hack let him post a game called "Watch paint dry" on Steam without Valve's approval over the weekend."It looks like their website hasn't been updated for years," Nealon told Ars. "Compared to even other smaller Web startups, they're really lacking. This stuff was like the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit."
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Steam Hacker Says More Vulnerabilities Will Be Found

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  • by rvw14 ( 733613 ) on Friday April 01, 2016 @12:45PM (#51824431)
    I am disappointed to find out that this is not a real game. I was just imagining an 8 hour marathon multiplayer session with hundreds of players and how awesome that would be.
    • Go play the original, Desert Bus, nothing beats in terms of testing dedication and perseverance in the face of utter boredom and your ability to not sleep.

    • by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )

      It's just a cheap copy of the original:

      Watching Grass Grow

      which actually has some exciting interactions when the sheep come along

    • by ioev ( 4345525 )
      I can guarantee that "Twitch" would play it.
    • i know, right? all i could think was "finally, a game i can win against all the 14-year-olds who torment me! \o/"

  • With all those exploitable vulnerabilities at least it will easier for indies to get their games green lit than it normaly is.

  • I really do wonder how many games got past the team responsible for the curation of the Greenlight games. Could this explain the pure crap that has been published over the course of the past few years?

    Don't get me wrong, I feel like Greenlight has been a net positive for the indie game community. I just wonder if Valve had started with stronger guidance and participation we wouldn't be having these sorts of questions happening.

  • Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fredgiblet ( 1063752 ) on Friday April 01, 2016 @01:55PM (#51824777)
    I'm totally unsurprised by the assertion. I honestly wonder where the hell Valve's money goes. They must be making it hand over fist, yet they can't fix their CS even though they keep promising to and they haven't made much for new games in forever. We need to get someone to infiltrate Valve and do an expose on their inner workings.
    • by vux984 ( 928602 )

      I honestly wonder where the hell Valve's money goes.

      Steam Controller
      Streaming play from other computers
      Steambox
      Streaming spectating from friends
      Recent VR support

      You may not be interested in any of that, I'm not interested in most of it myself, but I'd say Valve has clearly been doing a lot of development work for the platform.

      I recently pickedup a steam controller, and have been impressed with it overall. Its not going to replace keyboard and mouse for shooters for me; and its not going to replace my xbox 360 for twinstick games like binding of isaac... but

      • True, but they seem to be ignoring the basic functionality of their marketplace, which is where the money for all that comes from. It's like if Amazon had let their storefront stagnate 5 years ago in favor of JUST doing their special projects. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe those are all money-making projects, but I doubt it.
        • by vux984 ( 928602 )

          I disagree. They've added the curators, and the explore your queue feature. They've done some work with 2 factor, and completely revamped the marketplace for trading cards etc. They added the refunds.

          They did something with GoG I think to enable some sort of cross-chat / cross-play? I think.

          As for the "basic functionality" of the store front... I'd say it doesn't need much attention... it works. And it doesn't need a team of "UX monkeys" rewriting the user interface every week.

          • Maybe it works for you - but in the steam app I can't get to the store front, and support has ignored me for almost two months now despite me posting daily the issue is still there.

            • by vux984 ( 928602 )

              On one device or on any device?
              On one account or on all accounts?

              I will say their support is insanely hard to reach and tedious to deal with, especially for one off issues that aren't widespread.

        • by aliquis ( 678370 )

          True, but they seem to be ignoring the basic functionality of their marketplace, which is where the money for all that comes from. It's like if Amazon had let their storefront stagnate 5 years ago in favor of JUST doing their special projects. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe those are all money-making projects, but I doubt it.

          What's the problem with their marketplace?

          One thing they have been doing there is trying to increase the safety for misused accounts so it will be harder to sell or give-away someone elseÂs stuff.

      • by marsu_k ( 701360 )

        I recently pickedup a steam controller, and have been impressed with it overall. Its not going to replace keyboard and mouse for shooters for me; and its not going to replace my xbox 360 for twinstick games like binding of isaac... but it definitely has a niche where it is best in class.

        Out of curiosity (haven't tried it myself), what niche is that? What kind of games? By the looks of it I'd say not fighting games at least.

        • by vux984 ( 928602 )

          The steam controller has moved a LOT of games from games i would only play with keyboard and mouse at a desk to games I will also happily play on the couch with a steam controller. Its not so much better at anything (yet) that I literally won't play the game without the steam controller; but it IS so much better at "mouse and keyboard on the couch" that there are now a whole slew of games I can happily play from the couch with the SC. I'd say that's its niche right now.

          Games such as CivV, Xcom2, Endless Spa

  • I have no doubt Valve will fix this right after they have revamped their support portal.

  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Friday April 01, 2016 @02:09PM (#51824843)

    Fisherman report there are more fish in the sea other than those they have already caught.

Happiness is a positive cash flow.

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