Valve launches Steam Guard security
Valve has rolled out Steam Guard, a new security system for the Steam platform.
Steam Guard essentially blocks all attempts to access a protected Steam account, then sends verification emails to a registered email address which allow the account owner to monitor account activity and grant access on a single PC at a time.
While Steam Guard may not be hugely helpful for some users who already access Steam from a single location, it provides a valuable extra level of security for those who use Steam in public locations or cybercafés.
Valve is so certain that Steam Guard is a secure system that when Valve founder Gabe Newell was discussing it at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, he publicly revealed his personal Steam password.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
This article has been updated to remove an incorrect report that Steam Guard required Intel CPUs to function.
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Discuss in the forums Replyhttps://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8232-WSGZ-8021#iptbeta
Might want to check the last FAQ answer Joe. :)
Whoops - will correct ASAP. +rep
Security Status: [empty] :?
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=205599
Wu mate, just check for the latest client updates in the menu. If it says you have latest, make sure your e-mail also says Verified next to it.
When those two things are met, close Steam and reopen it.
lets hope it doesn't get too out of hand when someone finally breaks it.
As for Mr. Newell's password release... what does it matter? Unless there's something special about his Steam account, wouldn't it just be like stealing any other account? Surely he could just deactivate it and make himself a new one?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/wuyanxu/4b7aee9e.png
2nd time changed email to another email, changed it back to original, close steam. delete everything except steamapp and steam.exe.
end result is above screenshot.
edit: i've posted on steam forums for help. didn't mean to disturb this bit-tech thread.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21307849
I had an account security scare a while back and while I don't think my account was actually compromised it's nice to have the peace of mind of knowing that only the two systems I game on will be able to access my Steam account, and that I can authorize others later if I need to.
Kudos, Valve.
Obviously it can, and will, be defeated, but it should certainly put a dent in the amount of account theft going on. I wonder if Gabe gave out that information to encourage hacks on a dummy account to look for vulnerabilities.
I'd know I'd get my account back eventually when I send Valve my long list of keys for my games. Personally I'm more worried that I'd get VAC banned, since that can't be undone to my knowledge.
The world is bigger than your underpowered cyber cafes. For example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang
I haven't investigated it, but I'm guessing that it uses an authorization key stored on the system; much the same as how it authorizes a system for Offline login.
Games that are enabled for SteamCloud do this already, as far as I'm aware; but other than that I think you'd have to copy the files manually or set up some kind of network share and symlinks or something.
Play in the CustomPC server. No hackers.
I don't play a loads of pub, mostly warm up on DM servers then do 5on5 mixes. But always good to have well managed public servers in your favourites for when the mixes dry up though ;)