[HN Gopher] Leaked source - CS:GO
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       Leaked source - CS:GO
        
       Author : wastedbrains
       Score  : 192 points
       Date   : 2023-06-03 14:39 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lwss.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lwss.github.io)
        
       | cssONLY wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | pharmakom wrote:
       | it says one of the leakers was arrested? is there a source for
       | this?
        
       | GaggiX wrote:
       | I dream of a day when the source code for Mario Kart Wii is
       | leaked (my favorite game), but I guess CS:Go and TF2 is already
       | something.
       | 
       | But to be honest, in the future there will be powerful models
       | trained to reverse engineer binaries, so it probably won't be
       | necessary.
        
         | TheAceOfHearts wrote:
         | There's a vibrant Mario Kart Wii mapmaking community and you
         | can run the game flawlessly using Dolphin. It's not perfect,
         | but it's about as good as we can hope for.
        
           | GaggiX wrote:
           | I play modded Mario Kart Wii almost everyday on my modded Wii
           | U, there are so many beautiful community tracks.
           | 
           | Creating tracks is fairly easy, the community has already
           | reverse engineer all you need, changing the game behavior by
           | modifying the main.dol and StaticR.rel is not (that's why a
           | source leak or a complete reverse engineering would be gold).
        
       | Jack5500 wrote:
       | This world view is quite perplexing, to be frank. On one hand, he
       | urges potential users to switch to Linux, emphasizing its cost-
       | free nature and the freedom it offers in terms of code and game
       | direction. However, on the other hand, the code being used is
       | stolen and leaked, thus infringing on the original creator's
       | copyright. Additionally, the repository's license claims that all
       | contributions are considered public domain, which adds to the
       | oddity of the situation. Since there is no legitimate license
       | permitting the existence of this code, it is even more peculiar
       | that a custom license is being invented, allowing contributions
       | to this clearly stolen source code to be considered public
       | domain.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | I was also confused, but I think their thesis statement is
         | pretty enlightening:
         | 
         | > If we got nuked tomorrow, and Steam went down, anyone could
         | have CSGO up and running in the Bunker LAN by next week. Years
         | later when us smoothskins are rockin' Power9 Rigs, we would
         | also have the ability to recompile and port the game.
         | 
         | The lip service to "Open Source" and white-knighting is a
         | little harsh, but I think this was made with honest intention.
         | Someone wanted to make a thing and offer it to others in the
         | spirit of open collaboration. Their wording is wrong, but their
         | heart is in the right place.
        
           | netule wrote:
           | Valve has been relatively permissive regarding open-sourcing
           | and liberally licensing some of its properties under the
           | right conditions. See its push for SteamOS and allowing Black
           | Mesa to be sold for profit. However, it might have been a
           | good idea to contact them about this before hosting modified
           | stolen property, even if it was with good intentions. I've
           | got a feeling that this repo won't last too long.
        
             | dandongus wrote:
             | >I've got a feeling that this repo won't last too long.
             | 
             | It appears the repo in question has been available for 3
             | years.
        
         | asddubs wrote:
         | they're a bit confused about their terminology, but i think
         | they are just coming at it from an archivist perspective. they
         | wanted something that is self contained and can be used to
         | compile the game for any platform
        
         | vjk800 wrote:
         | In jurisdictions with weak/non-existing copyright laws or
         | copyright law enforcement, there is not much difference between
         | "the source code can be found somewhere on the internet" and
         | "open source". Quite a large part of the world people is living
         | in such jurisdictions.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | FileSorter wrote:
         | Checking his github account was no surprise to me. Of course it
         | was loaded with cheats for multiplayer games.
        
           | 93po wrote:
           | Open source cheats for multiplayer games are a benefit to
           | everyone who doesn't want cheaters.
        
         | RobotToaster wrote:
         | If you consider illegalism a legitimate political tool, there
         | doesn't seem a great deal of contradiction.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | It's unlicensed proprietary code, you cannot use it.
        
         | quazar wrote:
         | Who is going to stop me?
        
           | RektBoy wrote:
           | Mighty global police named U.S.A. greedy mfkers.
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | 1. github
           | 
           | 2. Hacker News
        
         | 93po wrote:
         | I'm using it right now.
        
         | metafatess wrote:
         | no
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I think we will begin to see more projects like this as it
       | becomes trivial to take some leaked source code, and hand it off
       | to an AI and tell it to make it non-copyright infringing.
       | 
       | Eventually the next natural progression is to hand over an entire
       | program's binary, and have the AI produce an equivalent code base
       | in whatever language you wish.
       | 
       | In response, this will usher in a new era of very thin clients,
       | or perhaps server based rendering of programs.
        
       | oleg_antonyan wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | codethief wrote:
       | Given the proprietary nature of most of the source code, I'm
       | surprised the author's Github account hasn't been suspended yet.
       | The blog post is from 2020 and everything's still online.
        
       | kristopolous wrote:
       | For other people totally confused, all these acronyms are for
       | video games
        
       | babuloseo wrote:
       | The best CS:GO was when they didn't have competitive mode XD
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Anyone have a magnet link to the original full.7z as a torrent?
       | 
       |  _< Edit: The best I can find so far are these~>_
       | 
       | [1] https://git.botox.bz/BotoX/hl2_src-
       | leak-2017/src/commit/21b3...
       | 
       | [2] https://hl2-beta.ru/index.php?topic=29120.0
       | 
       | Both of which lead to:
       | 
       | magnet:?xt=urn:btih:21dda6847dde983f2f8063739249d2d1d09a5dda
       | 
       | "April 22nd 2020, random leaked shit.rar" / 5.0GB
       | 
       | MD5: c053f2b60d104f61c3057d3d425abd25
       | 
       | SHA256:
       | f77c6124b35b3a44966aa904cccc178342957e0e2d42e8588e240ce9533d6096
       | 
       |  _< /Edit>_
       | 
       | Also, really admire the level of skill, dedication, and degree of
       | focus it took to pull this off. I'm good at most of the areas
       | used in this article, except the RE, and this was undoubtedly a
       | TON of work for one lone wolf to execute on! Huge respect for
       | this person. Then creating such an amazingly detailed technical
       | write-up with the entertaining story bits and cute references
       | like ".. us smoothskins ..", I had to look it up:
       | 
       | https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Smoothskin
       | 
       | Thank you so much, @LWSS (the author)!
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | And cs2 is about to be released. Funny timing.
       | 
       | You could dev a PC AAA game and released it only for elf/linux.
       | It is so easy to install free mainstream elf/linux distros, ppl
       | will probably do it to play that big PC AAA game.
        
         | jablala wrote:
         | Probably a good thing as from my understanding there is an
         | uncertainty whether a version of CSGO will exist. For example
         | there are some old patch versions available from circa ~2013
         | which are still playable.
         | 
         | Not sure if that will be possible after the move to CS2. You
         | would think so, but at the very least, "Kisak-Strike: Gentoo
         | Offensive" will exist.
        
           | saratogacx wrote:
           | I'm not sure I understand this point. Can't you still play
           | CS:Source and CS 1.6? Why wouldn't CS:Go keep operating. It
           | may not get as many content updates but the core game should
           | be able to keep going as long as Valve keeps the game servers
           | running.
        
             | piperswe wrote:
             | Considering that Counter-Strike 2's beta is being
             | distributed as a private DLC for CS:GO [1], it's possible
             | that CS 2 will entirely replace CS:GO.
             | 
             | [1]: https://steamdb.info/app/2279720/
        
       | jrflowers wrote:
       | > Some weird schizoid managed to grab both these codebases during
       | his work on some 900th attempt of a HL2 VR project and his major
       | goal was to have this circle leak it to the public and fly to his
       | girlfriends house (also involved in the valve community) and kill
       | himself and her.
       | 
       | What the _fuck?_ This is so weird.
        
       | gatkinso wrote:
       | its finally the year of the linux desktop
        
       | sodality2 wrote:
       | (2020)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | T3RMINATED wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | Aeroi wrote:
       | dope, can you make my macbook run 1.6?
        
         | kowalej wrote:
         | No need to even install. Play right in the browser:
         | https://play-cs.com.
        
       | opan wrote:
       | The title says "open source" but then goes on to talk about
       | leaked source. Unless a clean room RE was done, I don't think
       | this can be called "open source". I want the thing in the title
       | to exist, of course, but at best this seems like the sort of
       | thing that won't be legal and free until we're all dead.
       | 
       | If anyone was interested in making a properly free CS:GO, they
       | probably should avoid reading this post as it seems to show the
       | leaked source.
        
         | EamonnMR wrote:
         | AssaultCube was a pretty good foss CS clone, no idea if people
         | still play it though.
        
         | fullspectrumdev wrote:
         | For a lot of people, "the source code being available" is what
         | "open source" means.
         | 
         | Licences, to many people, are the domain of really fucking
         | boring crusty nerds.
        
           | packetlost wrote:
           | Then a lot of people are objectively wrong. The license is an
           | incredibly important and central part of what makes code open
           | source or not. What you're describing is "source available".
           | Failure to pay attention to the licensing can end you up in
           | very big and expensive legal trouble. I _strongly_ encourage
           | you to update your terminology for you and anyone you
           | communicate with 's own safety.
        
             | fullspectrumdev wrote:
             | Again: most people I know don't care. Many used to. Hell, I
             | used to.
             | 
             | If they use a licence, they just throw WTFPL on it and call
             | it a day like me.
             | 
             | What's the worst risk? Someone in America sues me? Big
             | deal.
        
             | hparadiz wrote:
             | The license isn't enforcable everywhere the same way.
             | Typically a license is in a project but not always. It's
             | kind of on you to figure that out.
        
         | jaimehrubiks wrote:
         | I got the same impression, is he suggesting that the code
         | itself is open source, or did he rewrite everything (not only
         | the binaries he mentioned)
        
         | ogurechny wrote:
         | Intellectual property is a convention. Saying that nothing
         | exists outside of that convention is like saying that someone
         | without official papers does not exist (which is,
         | unfortunately, not an odd occasional curiosity, but a hidden
         | assumption permeating everyone's lives).
         | 
         | This is an open source code. It is not compatible with
         | widespread economical system, but it is not any less open.
        
         | dizhn wrote:
         | This person is really confused about licenses and copyright.
         | 
         | > Please note that this code is property of Valve-Software and
         | any contributions that you make are considered a donation into
         | the public domain.
        
           | BasedAnon wrote:
           | This is a common 'copyright infringement NOT intended ALL
           | rights belong to X' type of widespread misunderstanding of
           | how copyright actually works, and it's why I'm convinced that
           | if most people understood copyright they would think it was
           | absurd.
        
             | PrimeMcFly wrote:
             | The sheer amount of YouTube videos where people put that as
             | a disclaimer so think it's fine is kind of shocking.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | ethanbond wrote:
           | Legitimately seems like a GPT-tier confusion. Just put all
           | the somewhat-relevant words in a syntactically correct
           | configuration and call it done.
        
             | DizzyDoo wrote:
             | Heh, it's like all those YouTube videos where someone
             | uploads a song and the uploader puts "No copyright
             | infringement intended" in the text description, sometimes
             | with five or six exclamation marks just to really make sure
             | they avoid the takedown.
        
               | plorkyeran wrote:
               | Often they drop the "infringement" and just have "no
               | copyright intended" because they don't actually know what
               | copyright is beyond it being a word in the emails they
               | get from youtube.
        
             | awestroke wrote:
             | What are you talking about? GPT4 would not do that kind of
             | mistake. I must say, reading comments like this, that GPT4
             | actually comes across as more intelligent than many hn
             | commenters
        
           | arboles wrote:
           | Unlike other commenters, I think the author of the article
           | meant to say you can't hope to license contributions built
           | ontop leaked code, obviously, so it'll always be a gray area
           | that one could call "public domain".
        
             | kadoban wrote:
             | One could call it pea soup and it'd be approximately as
             | correct.
        
               | arboles wrote:
               | He's a hacker, not a laywer.
        
         | RektBoy wrote:
         | what the fk cares about copyright, this is coming from
         | community of game hackers. They don't care.
        
           | dgellow wrote:
           | Anyone who cares about open source by definition cares about
           | copyright. That's what the concepts of free software and open
           | source software are built upon.
        
             | ogurechny wrote:
             | Wow.
             | 
             | Free software movement _abuses_ the copyright system to
             | prevent anyone from "owning" the software and putting a
             | fence around others ' work when greed tells it's suitable
             | to do so. It has no intention to support its existence. As
             | people only have that mediocre system today, and believe in
             | it, it is used as a tool to partially formalize something
             | from a different sphere of values.
        
               | dgellow wrote:
               | I think you misread my comment, at no point did I express
               | that free software intents to support the existence of
               | copyright. But free software and open source are
               | obviously built on top of the copyright system, as you
               | said (they are a kind of hack). So you obviously care
               | about copyright frameworks and their various
               | implementations if you care about open source/free
               | software.
        
               | ogurechny wrote:
               | One can totally care about an illness, but not CARE about
               | it much.
        
             | arboles wrote:
             | I will continue to release my code without a license, glad
             | that it makes corporations and their drones seethe.
        
               | dgellow wrote:
               | That just means you have full and complete ownership, so
               | you're sharing non-open source, non-free software code,
               | also known as proprietary code. That has literally no
               | impact on corporations or their drones, whatever that
               | means.
        
               | 93po wrote:
               | > That has literally no impact on corporations or their
               | drones, whatever that means.
               | 
               | It does if they want to use his code for anything. The
               | parent commenter is also clearly making the point that
               | his efforts are to be used by people who share the same
               | sentiment of "fuck copyright". Which I think is a noble
               | perspective, since IP laws in the US are much more bad
               | than good.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | orra wrote:
         | General point: Clean room reverse engineering is a common
         | approach, from corporations keen to minimise their liability.
         | 
         | Nonetheless, clean room RE is not a legal requirement:
         | certainly not in the EU, nor AIUI in the US.
         | 
         | The EU allows reverse engineering for interoperability. The EU
         | allows reimplementations of APIs (as does the US). The EU also
         | explicitly allows decompilation, where necessary.
        
           | seba_dos1 wrote:
           | That's true, but it doesn't change your parent's point - this
           | cannot be called "open source" at all.
        
           | dgellow wrote:
           | Wait, there are EU regulations on this topic? I understood
           | there wasn't a common framework, and instead each countries
           | in the EU have their own approach.
           | 
           | Edit: I was wrong, I found the following:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Programs_Directive
           | 
           | > (Art. 5). The legal owner of a program is assumed to have a
           | licence to create any copies necessary to use the program and
           | to alter the program within its intended purpose (e.g. for
           | error correction). The legal owner may also make a back-up
           | copy for his or her personal use. The program may also be
           | decompiled if this is necessary to ensure it operates with
           | another program or device (Art. 6), but the results of the
           | decompilation may not be used for any other purpose without
           | infringing the copyright in the program.
        
           | scott_w wrote:
           | In a general sense, yes. However, I really don't see how this
           | would fall into that category. It looks like someone has a
           | copy illegitimately and is trying to reimplement it.
        
           | ramshanker wrote:
           | That will be helpful with my open source projects. Thanks.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | antris wrote:
         | Well that's the difference between "open source" and "free
         | software", no? "Open source", meaning that anyone can see/copy
         | the source code, and "free software" meaning code that is
         | licensed accordingly.
         | 
         | I always thought that "open source" has nothing to do with
         | what's legal and what isn't, it just means that anyone can
         | materially access the code.
        
           | asddubs wrote:
           | no, that would be something like "source available" or
           | "source visible". both open source and free software imply
           | specific licenses, though they are not synonymous
        
           | wyldfire wrote:
           | No. Both of these terms are well described by the relevant
           | organizations [1][2]. And "source the happens to be public"
           | or "leaked source" does not imply any particular license.
           | 
           | [1] https://opensource.org/
           | 
           | [2] https://www.fsf.org/
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | Anyone can start an organisation and define "open source"
             | the way they want.
             | 
             | The common way it is understood should probably be named
             | "libre source" or something, because it means more than
             | that the source is just out in the open.
        
               | scott_w wrote:
               | That's no different to saying "You can define black as
               | white." That's true but nobody is going to pay attention
               | to you if you do.
        
               | amelius wrote:
               | The analogy falls flat because the words that make "open
               | source" both already have meanings that make the OSI
               | definition confusing to say the least.
        
               | scott_w wrote:
               | That's not how human languages work at all. A term picks
               | up common or agreed use. When you try to push against
               | that, you see the exact reaction you're observing here.
        
               | seba_dos1 wrote:
               | Sure anyone can, but OSI is _the_ organization that
               | popularized the term in the first place and its
               | definition is widely followed, so there 's no need to
               | make such point in this particular case.
        
             | version_five wrote:
             | I feel like there is a consensus that open source is
             | defined as you say. But there seems to be a vocal group,
             | that I suspect are mostly just being pedantic about the
             | literal definition of the two words separately that seem to
             | keep coming up with alternate definitions. There was a long
             | discussion about it on here the other day with tons of
             | people "confusing" the availability of source code with
             | open source.
        
             | antris wrote:
             | I mean, you're not saying that this project is "closed
             | source" either, right?
             | 
             | So what is it if not "open source" on the scale between
             | closed and open? "Half-open source"? "Leaked source" only
             | refers to the way the source has initially began to be
             | distributed, not whether it's open/closed right now.
        
               | dgellow wrote:
               | It's more like someone illegally distributing a closed
               | source program.
        
               | mrob wrote:
               | The middle ground is "source available", although that
               | usually means source made available by the copyright
               | holder under terms that don't meet the Open Source/Free
               | Software definitions. I think just "leaked source" is the
               | best terminology here.
        
               | ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
               | Source Available is the worst of both, unless there's a
               | way to reproducibly build the source and check the
               | results against the shipped product. False sense of
               | security and no legal ways to use the code.
        
               | antris wrote:
               | Ah, found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-
               | available_software
               | 
               | I see, never heard of that term. Still wish there was a
               | term that encompassed all software that has publically
               | available source code. I thought "open source" was it.
               | The literal meaning of the term aligns so beautifully
               | with it.
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-03 23:01 UTC)