Tag Archives: Valve Steam

EA's Origin has an Exploit, Leaving Gamers Vulnerable to Hackers

March 19, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The ability to infiltrate a remote computer via uniform resource identifiers (URI) exploits is nothing new, per se. A hacker gets someone to click on a link, which actually opens up the victim’s system to the infiltration of malware. But as reported by Ars Technica, research group ReVuln has found a potentially dangerous URI exploit within EA’s Origin client which could leave as many as 40 million gamers vulnerable.

The ReVuln team gave a presentation last week at the Black Hat security conference in Amsterdam. Apparently, getting someone to click on an “origin://” prefixed link is all it takes, as the Origin client then downloads a dynamic link library file to the victim’s computer. The ReVuln team has also released a paper, detailing the exploit, which mentions a similar vulnerability discovered in Valve’s Steam platform last year.

Computers

Valve’s Steam Box: The plot thickens for PC-based game consoles

March 18, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

For a product that’s received so much attention from the technology press, it’s astounding how little we actually know about Valve’s Steam Box, the half-PC, half-console hardware concept that could potentially redefine the video gaming landscape.

Sure, Valve boss Gabe Newell has offered some vague descriptions of his company’s plans, along with grand statements about the games industry and Valve’s place within it. Valve has also laid the groundwork for the Steam Box with the launch of Steam for Linux and Big Picture mode.

The former would serve as the new hardware’s lean-and-mean OS. The latter would make it easy-peasy to control Valve’s Steam service on big-screen, living room TVs. But what Valve hasn’t done is talk specifics about hardware features, tech specs, and pricing. There’s no release date for the Steam Box either, though Newell has said that prototypes could ship within four months.

The picture got even murkier last week, when Valve and modular PC maker Xi3 Corporation had a public spat. Despite having invested in Xi3 last year, Valve said on Tuesday that it has “no involvement” in any Xi3 product, including the Piston, a $1,000 gaming PC that many had believed to be some sort of Steam Box reference design. In response, Xi3 suggested in a press release Wednesday that the Piston’s use of Windows, rather than Linux, was a source of disagreement between the two companies.

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Video Gaming

Arma 3 is Exclusive to Steam

February 21, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Bohemia Interactive has revealed that its upcoming military sandbox game will be exclusive to Valve’s Steam platform. According to a blog post by project lead Joris-Jan van ‘t Land, this was a necessary step in order for Arma 3 to hit its 2013 launch target.

“A long four months ago, I took over as Project Lead for Arma 3, having previously worked on the game as Lead Playable Content. As a team we were facing two quite serious situations: we were not happy with how the project was going, and on top of that two of our colleagues were suddenly arrested for alleged espionage in Greece. The first two months on the job were all about taking an inventory of the project and team, seeing what was going well, what was not, and coming up with plans to fix it all. The mission set by our CEO, Marek Španěl, was clear: do all we can to release Arma 3 in 2013.”