$t34md!

[Noyb]

Hooray for form letters from underpaid interns with no critical reading skills nor compassion nor the likely ability to do anything if they actually did have the former qualities.

I guess they're so bombarded by dumb freaks like the one who stole your account begging for their own account to be unbanned that they just don't care about trying to sort out legitimate complaints from the chaff (chavs?) anymore. I'm pretty surprised there's no three strikes system or temporary bans going on, since as you've noted, multiplayer is a huge part of Steam both in popularity and revenue.

So they can't even move single player games from banned accounts? Geez, that's ridiculously harsh for something that wasn't your fault.

Have you tried calling tech support and politely-but-forcefully trying to climb the ladder of call centers until you get a manager? Maybe see if the Consumerist will give you a public pity play, although that might be a long shot even with the utter hilarity of that guy's photo. Hope you can work something out.

[toblix]

Yeah, I'm not going to call them. But I'm still astounded they're able to have this policy of never ever lifting bans. I just told my brothers about this, and they were shocked to know that their precious games hanged by such a thin thread.

With all the rage on the internet, where's the outrage about this? Is it just that it never happens to a lot of people at once, or what? From their support pages I get the impression they get a hojillion unban requests a day.

[Scrobbs]

Just make the password really strong next time.

I can recommend Keypass.

[toblix]

But that's not the point! They're forcing me to attach all my games to one account, making a single point of FAIL if it gets hijacked. At least earlier I'd get banned from either this game or that. Now all the games are affected in one, how you say, fell swoop. But that's not the point either. The point is that they allow no way whatsoever, ever, not as long as you live, not in a million years NEVER NEVER! to lift the ban. So, say some guy uses Steam for ten years and buys a shitload of games. Unfortunately his password gets keylogged or hijacked or there's some security hole in the software, and he's fucked up the ass like this:

[toblix]

Okay, i sent off one to gaben too, just to have tried everything. My guess is he's not too interested in my experiences with Steam Support.

[DanJW]

It's silly that they don't allow you buy back your account fidelity. What are they, communists?

[toblix]

Well, I admit that there's probably no perfect way of doing it (paying for it was only a suggestion, and likely a bad one), but I don't agree that preventing cheating among players is so much more important than keeping the players happy. I mean, I have full confidence in VAC, but I still fill cheated.

[Scrobbs]

I suppose I see your point. I guess it's kind of like why the banks made sure a chip and pin was introduced on payment cards - it transfers the responsibility to the user for protection (keeping your PC logger/trojan free) of the pin (Steam password) and completely removes liability from the banks (Valve) for monetary fraud(game stealing).

However, having a strong password (i.e. about 16 characters alpha-numeric-case) is my best defence because if someone did get a keylogger or trojan on my machine (and no matter how many measures you take, you're likely to get done at least once), I'd have more to worry about than just my steam account being stolen!

[brkl]

I don't know how a strong password could help against a keylogger. They're good for stopping people guessing the password or brute forcing their way through, but a keylogger will just log the keystrokes and send them on.

[Wrestlevania]

I think this is more about shifting thinking. If you're conscientious enough to be creating passwords that much stronger, you're likely to start routinely combing your system for security risks (like keyloggers) too.

While we're on the subject of better, more managable passwords, I'd like to point people in the direction of the SuperGenPass bookmarklet - it's dead clever and really handy.

[Scrobbs]

I don't know how a strong password could help against a keylogger. They're good for stopping people guessing the password or brute forcing their way through, but a keylogger will just log the keystrokes and send them on.

Sorry, I forgot to add the bit that WV actually said - I'm very concious of the security of my system. It was supposed to included with the bit that if there's a keylogger on your system, you've got bigger problems!

I have a hardware firewall (SPI) with tuned rules at the network entry point, a powerful software firewall on my machine with tuned rules, corporate level AV, memory protection, anti-spyware software, fully patched OS, restricted local accounts. That's not to say I'm perfectly safe, by any means, particularly in my line of work, but I do my best to ensure my system is as secure as possible.

[Cigol]

This thread is depressing. Would you mind at all Toblix if I just ignored your plight and went back to living in ignorance I can't believe this is how STEAM works. Somebody needs to stand up to them. Not me personally, but someone damnit.

[toblix]

Sure, I completely understand. Steam is packed with awesome shit, and it's horrible and hard to force myself to avoid it because of this.

Also, everyone agrees that awesome passwords are awesome. I'm not saying it's wrong of Steam to let the player be the responsible part, but I don't think I'm being totally ridiculous in expecting there to be some way out of it. Honestly, I would expect them to have that from a business perspective. In my experience, when I describe what is likely to happen to your account if someone guesses or steals your password (or, I repeat, someone exploits a security hole), which is being marked a cheater for the rest of your life, buying games through Steam starts to seem a bit less attractive. The only thing I see this as is a balance between Steam having these properties:

A) People whose accounts have been hijacked can have a VAC ban lifted, and people won't have to fear permanent, non-liftable bans. Steam support receives a huge amount of unban requests, which they don't like.

People who cheat are permanently banned, acting as both a prevention and a detterant, reducing the cheating problem.

Obviously they just went with B.

Oh, I just thought of another model for getting bans lifted. Each time your account was banned you could pay to get the ban lifted, the cost increasing each time. That way, repeated offenses quickly becomes impossible, and people who have weak passwords or don't secure their computers can learn their lesson but still continue playing.

[DanJW]

I see your point; if we assume that people are going to keep using Steam for the rest of their lives, how many multiplayer games will someone have on it if their account gets hijacked in 10 years time? That's going to to be a pretty big investment that they suddenly can't play any more.

[Thrik]

Class action them.