Why Steam is NOT the answer

[tusler]

Thank goodness I bought the download version and not the steam version of A10C. My steam account has been stolen by hackers, it appears many people have had this happen. Even though I have submitted a support ticket to steam who knows how long it will take to fix this and in the mean time I can not play any of my steam games.

But I can still fly my A10 :pilotfly::joystick::):):):):thumbup:

 

My advice from experience now is stay away from steam, even with steam guard they can still steal all your games on the steam network.:cry:

[Lange_666]

I'm not a Steam fan either. I bought Cliffs Of Dover through Steam and i just don't like the way i have access to "my" game. I'm happy that i could get my coppy of A-10C the normal way.

[MasterZelgadis]

In Steam are many good ideas. A central place where you can buy and download games, play them, have a friendlist, an ingame overlay chat, a voice chat (never used it though, have TS3)...

What I dislike is, that it is used more as a copy protection than a nice gaming community

[Feuerfalke]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this argument: Why is it STEAMS fault, that somebody stole your account?

 

If you fell for a phishing-mail or your computer got hacked to retrieve the password or email-account, the same can happen to your non-STEAM-key. This is not a STEAM-related issue, to be honest.

 

If at all, it is a problem, that your account is linked to several games. But this is also a problem, if e.g. you use the same account for EA, UBIsoft, Blizzard or other multi-game online-service.

[EtherealN]

Agreed with Feuer. The main "issue" with Steam as far as this goes is that it's a "big target", the same way Windows is a "big target" for OSes and the major banks are more likely to be phishing targets than minor ones.

 

If someone gained access to your computer, Steam Guard will not do much. They'll have access to the mail that your account is linked to. If the exploited vulnerability is something on your computer, Steam Guard will do nothing, and the same issue will apply to everything you have accessed with that computer.

[MasterZelgadis]

@tusler: Do you play any SEGA titles (like Total War)? Got a Mail that their servers have been hacked, and people should change login data on all sites where they use the same login name and password...

[tusler]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this argument: Why is it STEAMS fault, that somebody stole your account?

 

If you fell for a phishing-mail or your computer got hacked to retrieve the password or email-account, the same can happen to your non-STEAM-key. This is not a STEAM-related issue, to be honest.

 

If at all, it is a problem, that your account is linked to several games. But this is also a problem, if e.g. you use the same account for EA, UBIsoft, Blizzard or other multi-game online-service.

 

It is steams fault because they were hacked and not only my account was stolen but many peoples accounts.

I did not fall for any phishing-mail scheme, and my computer has not been "hacked", I do not have viruses or trojans on my system. I have been in computers way to long for that.

I do not link to other services or mess with multiplayer on steam.

The only time I have ever used steam is when the game I buy in the store requires the use of steam.

I play only in single player mode with my steam games.

 

And It has been 1 day now going on day 2 and I have not heard from Steam support and I can not access steam or my games I have on there.

Like any Web business providing a service to the public where credentials are involved. The company is responsible to provide security for your credentials. Stem is responsible.

That is why I do not recommend this service to any one.

[sobek]

I did not fall for any phishing-mail scheme, and my computer has not been "hacked", I do not have viruses or trojans on my system. I have been in computers way to long for that.

 

Nobody is ever secure of being phished, as demonstrated by some very successful spear phishing accounts towards high ranking US officials lately. Do not underestimate the power of social engineering.

[andysim]

they should have an authentication system like a (slightly famos) mmo has that takes your computer out of the system when loggin in. Its still breakable but its another layer of saftey.

[EtherealN]

It is steams fault because they were hacked and not only my account was stolen but many peoples accounts.

 

A source (teeheh, geddit?) would be interesting to read.

[Revvin]

A source (teeheh, geddit?) would be interesting to read.

 

Agreed, a source (no pun intended) would be nice. I've not heard any news of Steam being hacked this year, not even amongst the current crop of high profile hacks/DDOS attacks including Sony, Nintendo, Codemasters, Bethesda, Epic, EVE Online and Minecraft not to mention US Sentate servers. There was a recent list of email addresses and passwords released by a hacking group so could it be possible that rather than Steam being hacked you were perhaps using a common password across a few providers/sites and have inadvertantly had your Steam account stolen through a third party being hacked?

 

I've found Steam to be very reliable and secure, more so now with the Steam Guard feature they added a while ago. The Steam software is pretty robust, well featured and not intrusive and to cap it off the regular cheap game deals they runs its hard to resist using the service.

[MasterZelgadis]

It is steams fault because they were hacked

 

So it is Steams fault, when they get hacked? Is ist your fault, when someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff? Is it your fault, when someone steals your car? :huh:

[S77th-konkussion]

I was about to ask if the Sega episode and steam were related/ one and same.. guess not..

[cichlidfan]

A source (teeheh, geddit?) would be interesting to read.

 

You would think someone in this group would have heard about this. :book:

 

...and yes, I goddit...small teeheh...

Edited June 19, 2011 by cichlidfan

[sobek]

So it is Steams fault, when they get hacked? Is ist your fault, when someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff? Is it your fault, when someone steals your car? :huh:

 

It is when you leave the car unlocked.

[macedk]

also the most used scam attempt is sending an email saying that you account is hacked.....click here for help/support etc. Most the times its the users own fault and most attacks come from within the pc through an app or action by the user. So all the firewalls protect from outside attack but not from a program from pc to internet.

So start protecting your pc traffic to the internet and not only the other way around.

[RSharpe]

I've found Steam to be very reliable and secure, more so now with the Steam Guard feature they added a while ago. The Steam software is pretty robust, well featured and not intrusive and to cap it off the regular cheap game deals they runs its hard to resist using the service.

 

+1

 

I find a buy a lot more games because I have a reliable and relatively secure system easily accessible. Steam sales are great, especially for older games that no longer have the at launch hype.

[MasterZelgadis]

It is when you leave the car unlocked.

 

Somehow I don't believe Steam Servers are accessed so easily, they will have some sort of firewall and enrcyption algorithms, so this "car" was locked...

[EtherealN]

Somehow I don't believe Steam Servers are accessed so easily, they will have some sort of firewall and enrcyption algorithms, so this "car" was locked...

 

Point is that you can "hack" a Steam account without even touching the Steam servers. You can phish it, you can trojan someone's computer and pick up login details for Steam and their e-mail (thus defeating the Steam Guard system) and so on.

 

Saying that one's computer cannot be exploited is a good way to become a target - it's the same thing as gets many scientists to be fooled by "psychics"; they're too smart to fall for silly tricks, so they drop their guard. Same applies to people's computers where there essentially are three types of "marks":

 

1 - The "noob". Easily exploited.

2 - The paranoid. May not be tech-savvy, but hard to exploit.

3 - The overconfident. Irrespective of how tech-savvy they are, still relatively easy to exploit.

[MasterZelgadis]

I know that, I just disagreed with what the Threadopener said, that it is Steams fault, because they got hacked.

 

If only your account has been "hacked" because you fell for a phishing mail, it is indeed your fault ;)

[Buzpilot]

Only problem I have with Steam, is the Euro scam they are doing. They charge like 50 Euros for something I can get at my local store at about 35 Euro, in a DVD hardcopy. Scary they don't want to 'see' that 50 Euro is about 70 USD.

[Jinja]

It is steams fault because they were hacked

 

Steam was hacked? Where's this reported? I can't seem to find anything via Google.

[cichlidfan]

I know that, I just disagreed with what the Threadopener said, that it is Steams fault, because they got hacked.

 

If only your account has been "hacked" because you fell for a phishing mail, it is indeed your fault ;)

 

If it is one account, and so far that appears to be the case, then Steam did not get hacked. An individual got hacked, phished or some such.

 

Perhaps, a valid point against Steam would be...

 

If they did get hacked and decided not to tell their users. Then I would have an issue.:huh:

[EtherealN]

Only problem I have with Steam, is the Euro scam they are doing. They charge like 50 Euros for something I can get at my local store at about 35 Euro, in a DVD hardcopy. Scary they don't want to 'see' that 50 Euro is about 70 USD.

 

Sure, but the differences aren't as big as you might think. Add VAT and adjust for PPP (to sort of approximate the higher costs of labor here) and the equivalent dollar price would be 61.5. (That is, when they pay 50 dollars, we should think of it as 61.5 dollars, since they don't pay our taxes and prices are different and so on.)

 

And of course, the big player in that room is the fact that the dollar has absolutely tanked. One year ago the same calculation would have come up to 73.83 dollars - meaning that while the numbers looked strange, the americans were actually paying more than we europeans were. (Or to be more precise; they were paying Valve and the Publishers more as adjusted for PPP and with taxes excluded, we europeans are just better than the yankees at slapping taxes on stuff and that made the difference.) Didn't stop europeans from complaining back then either though...

 

This is best illustrated through the Big Mac Index in economics:

 

Is the Swedish MacDonalds "scamming" us swedes? Well, not as far as price goes - stuff is just more expensive here. You can still get a cheaper big mac if you want - just order one from the US... ;)

 

Though, seeing as you're Norwegian... You are not in the right territory to complain about high prices. :P

Edited June 19, 2011 by EtherealN

[Panzertard]

Now you know why I don't eat McDonalds. Wendy's FTW!

 

Jokes aside - Steam hasn't been hacked have they?

You probably were hacked / leaked information while you surfed.

You were the victim - not Steam.

 

Anyone can get their online accounts hacked if they use internet.

Internet is a dangerous place, nobody can give you a 100% safety guarantee, no software, no company.

- Uploaded your personal images to a online service lately? (cloud)

- Buying all your software online?

You can easilly loose that information you use everytime you use these services.

 

The best prevention from loosing personal information is to - change your surfing habbits. Yes. You, the user.

- Stop clicking all of those funny links from your friends, "haha cool pict of Nnn, look here"

- Stop playing all the Flash-games everywhere.

- Never trust anyone sending you a link in IM, Facebook, Email, your smartphone.

If you need the info that badly - you go find it manually yourself, make sure you found a trustworthy site.

 

Why?

- Flash is a favorite tool to break in / gain info.

- Images can be a tool to break in / gain info.

- No browser is the same - but they all have serious security issues.

- there are ways of tapping everyone's computers, as long as they do surf the net.

Eg someone could hit sony / facebooks quietly - just leaving a IFrame segment, Flash-snippet, compromised image - and they would probably getting data from 50% of the users visiting these sites.

 

Not that I would rely on online services for any important aspects of my personal life.

- But I would certainly trust Steam to keep a copy of my (32bit) games.

- and make it available to me when I want to download / update it again.

Which Steam does really well.