수사 로드맵 & 티저

밸브, 도난 계정으로 수익 창출: 3부작

밸브의 조직적 부패, 수익성 있는 방관, 그리고 제재 회피를 폭로하는 당사의 다부작 수사 시리즈.

페이지 내용
Valve Profits Part I — Stolen Accounts
제1부 (총 3부 중) — 활성 2026-08-14

Valve, 578,000개의 도난당한 Steam 계정으로 수익을 얻다

897,000개 이상의 도난 계정이 16개 플랫폼에 걸쳐 LZT 마켓에 활성화되어 있습니다. 범죄 목록에 0M+ 규모. 피해자 책임 추정 5,000만 달러. 5가지 법적 벡터. 대화형 포렌식. 실시간 인텔리전스 대시보드. Valve의 수익성 있는 10년간의 맹목 — 문서화됨.

Valve Profits Part II — Sanctions Evasion
제2부 (총 3부 중) — 사전 공개 곧 출시됩니다

제2부: 제재 회피와 30% 삭감

발브가 국제 제재를 노골적으로 우회하여 30% 수수료를 확보하는 방식을 폭로합니다. 우리는 단 2년 만에 한 플랫폼이 조장한 1억 달러 이상의 제재 회피에 대한 증거를 보유하고 있습니다. DNR, LNR, 크림반도에서의 직접 충전이 지속적으로 작동 중입니다.

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공개일: 2026년 10월 14일 (12:00 UTC)
공식 발표

본 선언문은 Valve의 기업적 위협, 협박 전술, 그리고 지속적인 태만에 대한 직접적인 대응으로 발표된다.

사실을 바로잡자. PhishDestroy는 전통적인 "커뮤니티"가 아니다 — 우리는 하나의 도메인이며, 사물이 실제로 어떻게 작동하는지에 대한 깊은 이해이다. 침투할 대상도, 박탈할 멤버십도, 기댈 중재자도 없다.

게이브 뉴웰이 목소리도, 댓글도, 열린 토론도 없는 "커뮤니티"에게 야구 카드에 관한 동화를 늘어놓는 걸 보면, 솔직히 웃기기 짝이 없습니다.

실제로 그게 어떻게 진행됐는지 보세요. 주 검찰총장이 소송을 제기합니다. Valve는 "커뮤니티"에 공개적으로, 장문의 답변을 게시합니다. 댓글은 허용되지 않았고, 답변도 없었으며, 질문도 받지 않았습니다. 일방향 소통뿐이었죠. Valve가 보는 관점에서의 토론이었습니다.

그리고 그 진술 아래에는 아무도 언급하지 않은 사실이 자리 잡고 있다: 아이들에게서 빼앗아 보관하고 결코 돌려주지 않은 물건들. 검사에게 그런 식으로 답하는 것은 우리에 대한 무례함이 아니다. 그것은 모든 독자에 대한 경멸이다.

우리는 "위협 게임"을 하지 않으며, 의사 놀이를 하지도 않습니다. 그리고 플랫폼이 위험한 상황을 부추기고 미성년자의 데이터를 고의로 유출하는 것을 결코 재미있게 여기지 않습니다.

봇을 차단하는 것은 치안 유지가 아니다

이것이 바로 미국 규제 당국이 명확히 봐야 할 부분이다. 왜냐하면 이는 실제와 정반대로 제시되고 있기 때문이다.

Valve가 도난당한 아이템을 보유한 봇 계정을 차단할 때, 아무에게도 아무것도 반환되지 않습니다. 피해자는 아무것도 돌려받지 못합니다. 아이템은 차단된 계정에 동결된 채로 남아 있고, 인벤토리는 공개 보기에서 숨겨지며, 해당 물량은 시장에서 제거됩니다. 이는 모든 유사 아이템의 가격을 상승시키고, 이후 모든 거래에서 Valve의 수수료 수익을 증가시킵니다.

그것은 법 집행이 아니다. Steam은 경찰이 아니다. 그것은 산업적 규모의 몰수이며, 사기 방지라는 명분 아래, 그로부터 이익을 얻는 유일한 당사자에 의해 수행되는 것이다.

밸브의 "걸작들"과 가짜 자선 활동

오, 우리는 Valve의 열렬한 팬입니다. 하프라이프 3, 에이퍼처 데스크 잡, 도타 언더로드, 아티팩트 같은 절대적인 걸작들이죠.

우리는 스팀의 강제적인 "자발적 참여"에 깊은 감사를 표합니다 — 무료 게임을 나눠주고(그렇지 않으면 누가 사겠습니까?), 플레이어들을 무급 안티치트 테스트에 활용하며, "실제" 동시접속자 통계를 인위적으로 부풀리기 위해 거대한 봇 팜을 완전히 무시하는 것에 말이죠.

우리는 귀하의 플랫폼에 등록하지 않았습니다. 귀하의 약관에 동의하지 않았습니다. 우리는 귀하의 "훌륭한" 도구 두 가지만 건드렸을 뿐입니다.speedtest.valve.net 그리고 speedtest1-sea1.valve.net), 그들이 쓰레기라는 것을 깨닫고, 다음으로 넘어갔다.

고액 연봉을 받는 최고의 코더들—애플 직원들보다 더 많은 수익을 창출한다고 주장하는—이 관리 감독 전혀 없이 일하는 것 같군요. 잘하셨습니다만, 그렇다고 해서 우리가 당신네 고객이 되는 건 아닙니다. 당신네 가입자 약관은 우리에게 적용되지 않습니다.

무능함, 무시된 버그 & 그래핀OS 농담

이것이 갈등인가요? 아닙니다. 우리가 누구와 갈등할 자격이 있겠습니까? 우리는 단지 방대한 양의 공개 데이터를 처리하고, 당신이 키우는 사기 행위에 진심으로 관심을 두는 분석가일 뿐입니다.

표준 연락처 이메일을 찾는 동안 — 당신은 분명히 그런 것을 가지고 있지 않군요, 아니요 legal@ 그리고 아니요 privacy@ — 우리는 다음과 같은 보석들을 우연히 발견했습니다. developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/사용자:Pee유용한 위키를 제공해 주셔서 감사합니다. 저희는 곧 게재할 기사에서 귀사 직원과의 상호작용 실태를 확실히 공개하겠습니다.

위키 얘기가 나와서 말인데템플릿:사용자상자_os/문서), 여러분의 "전문가"들이 GrapheneOS를 iOS와 동급의 별도 운영체제로 분류한다는 점이 흥미롭군요.

우리는 다니엘 미카이(Daniel Micay)와 그의 개인정보 보호 작업을 존중하지만, 아마도 당신의 전문가들은 API MITM 프록시 취약점을 어떻게 해결할지 그에게 물어봤어야 할 것입니다. 그 취약점은 패치하는 데 7년이나 걸렸잖아요.

팀이 거의 10년 동안 아이들을 MITM 스파이 활동과 병렬 세션으로부터 보호하지 못할 정도로 무능하다면, 왜 그들이 GrapheneOS 폰까지 필요로 하는 걸까요? 당황한 나머지 하드 리셋을 준비하는 건가요?

플랫폼이 사이버 범죄자 한 세대를 성공적으로 키워냈으니, 목록에 Tails, Whonix, Tor, CalyxOS, LineageOS도 추가하는 게 좋겠습니다.

1부는 이미 일어났다

우리가 그걸 공개했습니다. 당신 측 변호인단이 직접 우리에게 입증 자료를 넘겼습니다 — 그들이 삭제하지 못한 830페이지 분량으로, 정확히 그런 삭제를 막기 위해 시간당 비용을 청구하는 로펌이 작성한 문서입니다.

그 어떤 한 줄도 반박되지 않았습니다. 귀측 변호인단은 사실을 다투지 않았습니다. 그들은 우리의 통지를 "재미있는" 것이라고 표현했습니다. 그 답변은 이제 증거물로 채택되었습니다.

12개 관할권이 패키지를 보유하고 있습니다. 커버 레터, 사실 진술서, 증거 자료, 접근 로그, SHA-256 해시값이 포함되어 있습니다. 발송 완료되었습니다. 위협도, 계획도 아닌 — 발송된 것입니다.

우리의 입장: 사과 없음

우리는 당신을 위해 자원하지 않습니다. 우리는 소비자와 규제 기관을 당신의 노골적인 거짓말로부터 보호합니다. 우리의 모든 데이터와 조사 결과는 MIT 라이선스 하에 공개됩니다 — 자유롭게 사용, 배포, 분석할 수 있습니다.

우리는 당신이 속인 고객들과 당신이 거짓말하는 규제 기관들을 제외한 누구의 이익을 위해서도 행동하지 않습니다. 우리가 무례하고 불편하다는 것을 알고 있지만, 수십억 달러에 달하는 횡령 자금, Lolzteam과의 연관성, 그리고 당신 운영의 실체를 폭로하는 일에 대해 사과하지 않습니다.

그리고 규모에 대해 솔직히 말하자면, 우리가 원한다 해도 기업에 맞설 수는 없었다. 누군가의 모네로를 챙기는 등록기관이라면 모를까, 로펌을 상시 고용해 수십억 달러를 움직이는 회사라면 당연히 불가능하다.

우리는 그럴 필요가 없어요. 우리는 제출만 하면 됩니다. 우리가 가지지 못한 권한을 가진 당국이 결정을 내립니다. 우리는 해당 자료에 대한 모든 권리를 포기했기 때문에, 그들 중 누구라도 이를 자신의 조사 결과로 발표할 수 있으며, 우리가 시도한다 해도 철회할 수 없습니다.

여기서 살 것은 없고, 협상할 것도 없습니다. 요구도, 마감일도, 대가도 없습니다. 우리는 협박하지 않습니다 — 그건 당신네 변호사들의 영역이고, 그들은 문서 삭제 처리보다 그 일을 더 잘합니다.

이 부분을 두 번 읽으십시오:

게시되는 내용에 영향을 미치려는 어떤 행동도, 당신이 그것을 두려워한다는 것을 증명할 뿐입니다.

압박, 강제 삭제, 공문, 누군가에게 조용히 복구된 계정 — 그 각각은 하나의 인정이며, 각각은 이미 12개 기관이 보유한 파일에 날짜가 찍힌 한 줄이 된다.

아카이브, 그리고 도메인에 대한 솔직한 말씀

현재 데이터셋은 누적 기준 약 100GB에 달합니다. 1부에서 대략 75건을 보고했으며, 증가세는 멈추지 않고 있습니다.

여러분의 값비싸고 무능한 변호사들이 우리를 침묵시키기 위해 게시물을 내리게 하려 한다면 phishdestroy.io — 계속하세요. 솔직히 말해서, 지금 시점에서 당신이 우리에게 호의를 베푸는 셈입니다. 배열은 방대하고, 작업은 지루하며, 우리는 이걸 쳐다보는 것조차 지겨워졌습니다. 여기 있는 누구도 이 일을 즐기고 있지 않습니다.

여전히 이를 추진하는 유일한 동기는 미국 규제 당국이 당신의 플랫폼에서 실제로 무슨 일이 벌어지는지 보게 만드는 것이다 — 즉, 차단이 단속이 아니며, 어떤 것도 결코 반환되지 않고, 자금이 정확히 한 방향으로만 계속 이동한다는 사실을 알게 하는 것이다.

우리와 달리, 우리는 아이들의 개인 신원을 유출하지 않을 것이다 — 우리는 한 국가의 아이들이 단지 재미로 다른 국가에 의해 신고당하는 것을 지켜보는 괴물들이 아니다. 우리 사이트를 폐쇄하려는 어떠한 시도도 독립 연구자들에 대한 직접적인 공격으로 간주될 것이다.

그리고 기본값을 이해하세요. 그것은 위협이 아니라 그저 일어나는 일일 뿐입니다. 우리가 멈추면, 처리된 모든 것이 IPFS로 전송되고, 추천서를 보유한 모든 규제 기관은 완전한 원본 데이터 세트를 받게 됩니다. 우리 측의 결정은 필요하지 않습니다. 그것은 우리에게 전혀 아무것도 요구하지 않습니다.

도메인을 제거하면 URL 하나가 사라질 뿐입니다. 파일이 삭제되지도 않고, 패키지가 발송 취소되지도 않습니다.

10개월이 지났지만, 그 사람들은 여전히 아무 일도 일어나지 않았다는 말을 듣지 못했습니다. 당신으로부터도, 당신의 변호사로부터도, 다른 누구로부터도요.

로드맵: 파트 II — 10월 14일

두 번째 조사 단계를 준비하십시오:

  • 우리는 Valve가 단지 30% 수수료를 확보하기 위해 국제 제재를 노골적으로 우회하는 방식을 폭로하기 위해 게임 개발자들에게 직접 연락할 것입니다.
  • 저희는 그 이상에 대한 증거를 보유하고 있습니다. 1천만 단 2년 만에 한 플랫폼을 통해 이루어진 제재 회피에서.
  • 우리는 테러를 후원하기를 거부하는 게임 개발자들과 결제 대행사들에게 이 데이터를 넘겨줄 것이며, 이를 통해 마침내 Valve의 탐욕을 견제할 수 있게 될 것입니다.

우리는 당신에게 어떤 의무도 없습니다. 우리는 단지 진실만을 가지고 있을 뿐입니다.

— PhishDestroy

조사의 첫 번째 부분을 읽으십시오:
제1부: 나의 개 대 GDPR 정예 변호사들

Additional editorial notes
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  THE DEAL (open offer, no lawyers needed)                               │
  │                                                                         │
  │  If you want the domain gone:                                           │
  │  let your IT law professionals calculate its price. Take your time —    │
  │  it is a rare asset: the only website in the world whose purchase       │
  │  changes nothing, because everything on it already lives on IPFS,       │
  │  in regulator inboxes, and in archives we do not control.               │
  │                                                                         │
  │  50% of whatever you pay goes to the SEAL Foundation                    │
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  │  professionally and publish it for free. We are not affiliated with     │
  │  them and they did not ask for this; we name them as the public         │
  │  standard of what real volunteers look like — the standard your own     │
  │  volunteer moderators and outsourced support failed, publicly,          │
  │  before you had to remove them. You know the scandals. So do we.        │
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  │  The rest buys the community coffee while we keep publishing.           │
  │  That is not a settlement offer. It is a demonstration of what          │
  │  money can't reach: the domain is the maximum Valve can obtain,         │
  │  and obtaining it obtains nothing. The referrals continue.              │
  │  The mirrors continue. Part 3 continues.                                │
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  ONE ACTUAL RULE (yes, just one)                                        │
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  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
PhishDestroy — License · Rights · Disclaimer
Investigation: Valve Corporation / Steam
LICENSE · RIGHTS · DISCLAIMER
Investigation: Valve Corporation / Steam
Edition: public — no expiry date, no take-backs

SECTION I — LICENSE (THE ACTUAL LEGAL PART, BUT HUMAN)

PhishDestroy gives up every right to this material. Zero. Gone. Done. You can reproduce it, sell it, put your name on it, tattoo it on your boss, whatever. No credit required, no DM needed, no thank-you card expected.

ONE ACTUAL RULE (yes, just one)

Access from OFAC-sanctioned jurisdictions is prohibited. That is a matter of territory and law — not of nationality and not of people.

Changing your Steam region does not change your physical location or your legal status. No loopholes.

SECTION II — WHAT THIS IS AND WHY IT EXISTS

We will publish more about Valve than an average Valve employee knows about themselves. That's not a brag. That's just where we ended up.

How did we get here? Funny story: Steam basically created us. It raised us on its scammers, its support tickets, its ban evasion ecosystem — and now here we are. No hard feelings. Poetic, actually.

For those who haven't read the origin story yet — we already met Valve's extremely expensive European lawyers (Taylor Wessing, since you asked):

https://phishdestroy.medium.com/my-dog-vs-elite-gdpr-lawyers-the-valve-data-breach-nobody-is-talking-about-f6f7683d813d

Charming encounter. Especially given their hourly rate.

Did Valve know? Yes. Did Tyler Wessing know? Almost certainly yes. But when you're that rich, laws are more of a vibe than a requirement, right?

That's kind of the whole answer, actually.

Steam spent years farming scammers. Not always intentionally — sometimes scammers just got Valve's fingerprints on them by association. We're not trying to be dramatic about it. We're trying to be precise. That's harder for us than being dramatic, to be honest — this is just how we write.

Is this a conflict?— No. Can it be resolved?— Yes. But we're not signing any NDA and we're not playing bug bounty for pennies.

We waited over 4 years for them to fix the spoofing issue before we could write about it publicly. Because if we had written about it earlier, Steam would've put on its little victim face and screamed "active threat!" and offered us pocket change to sign a document that would've made us their legal property forever. No thanks.

(Also: Valve itself violates NDA. Their own employees do. The ones near the top. But sure, let's talk about ours.)

SECTION III — OPEN LETTER TO VALVE (SERIOUSLY, READ THIS)

Valve: if you want this domain taken down, email us. Outside counsel is not needed for that conversation.

For the uninitiated: Dr. Patrick holds a Master of Laws in International Commercial Law from the University of Aberdeen and — wait for it — literally finished his doctoral dissertation in IT law. He recently made partner at Taylor Wessing, which is a firm whose entire business model is billing companies like Valve obscene amounts of money to drag things out until the other side runs out of money or patience.

We don't blame him. Rich guilty clients who pay by the hour — solid career move. We just don't think you should be funding it.

THE DEAL (open offer, no lawyers needed)

If you want the domain gone: let your IT law professionals calculate its price. Take your time — it is a rare asset: the only website in the world whose purchase changes nothing, because everything on it already lives on IPFS, in regulator inboxes, and in archives we do not control.

50% of whatever you pay goes to the SEAL Foundation (securityalliance.org) — people who do volunteer security work professionally and publish it for free. We are not affiliated with them and they did not ask for this; we name them as the public standard of what real volunteers look like — the standard your own volunteer moderators and outsourced support failed, publicly, before you had to remove them. You know the scandals. So do we.

The rest buys the community coffee while we keep publishing. That is not a settlement offer. It is a demonstration of what money can't reach: the domain is the maximum Valve can obtain, and obtaining it obtains nothing. The referrals continue. The mirrors continue. Part 3 continues.

Will we "damage" Valve directly? Probably not in a way they'll feel fiscally. We're not delusional. But we will do it honestly, openly, without chasing clout — because we don't need clout. We need the world to see what was always publicly visible if you spent enough time looking.

We have 5 years of archives. What Valve's lawyers showed in discovery — the data that support agents can see, the fingerprints, the paper trail they literally handed us — is enough. We don't need to leak it raw.

  • Regulators get the originals.
  • Researchers and journalists get redacted versions (victim reports, children's logins and Valve's charming support commentary removed for obvious reasons).

Minors were among the affected accounts and were not notified. That finding sits in the regulator package with the victim reports and credentials removed, because it belongs in front of a data-protection authority rather than in an article.

Also, Valve — we want to make something clear before you decide how to play this: PhishDestroy is a community, not a person. You learned that when you addressed legal correspondence to the community without bothering to speak with the community — just milked it for data and banned the accounts.

The community has no conflict with Valve. We didn't go looking for this. The scammers you grew found us. We blocked them. And here we are.

SECTION III-B — THE ALLIED RESOURCES (a note to Steam specifically)

We want to be upfront about the amplification structure, because pretending it doesn't exist would be dishonest.

PhishDestroy, as we understand the community situation, has at least two allied resources that will pick up this material and run with it.

What that means in practice:

  • They work their own angles on overlapping subject matter.
  • They are independent — they don't take our direction, we don't take theirs. Same general topic, different methodology.
  • They will NOT be activating on Part 1. They're watching.

If Valve chooses not to take down the site:

  • Expect them to surface after Part 2 or Part 3.
  • They'll take what's useful from our work, supplement it with their own, and publish under their own authorship.
  • This is exactly the kind of thing the license in Section 1 is built for: the material goes where it needs to go, gets supplemented, gets amplified — and neither we nor they owe each other attribution.

(PS for lawyers wondering about liability chains: there are none. These resources don't receive our direction, our funding, or our data. They read what's public and draw their own conclusions. Just like you could.)

We're not saying this to intimidate. We're saying it so that whoever is strategising on Valve's side has accurate information about what the information environment actually looks like.

One resource that pulls our material and supplements it would be a story. Two resources doing it independently and reaching similar conclusions is a pattern. Patterns are what regulators notice.

SECTION IV — THE MONEY, THE BANS, THE WHOLE CIRCUS

Here's the thing about Steam banning gambling sites and scammers: it's not enforcement. It's revenue capture. Valve pockets the money, cleans its hands, then goes on stage and tells everyone a wholesome story about Pokémon cards and baseball.

Meanwhile Valve killed the ability to properly track skins in 2017. They even discussed it on their own forums. Called it "anti-gambling measures." The gambling that their own support staff were running as a side hustle — getting paid in percentages to lift bans. But sure. Anti-gambling. Great branding.

We're going to prove that:

  • Skins are more anonymous than Monero
  • A Peruvian Cartel allegedly used Dota 2 skins for money movement
  • Steam is functionally a sanctions-bypass machine worth ~$7B in "trading cards" (yes, they actually said trading cards to a prosecutor)

We've got a video on the skins thing. You'll see it.

We also know:

  • Reddit moderation is influenced by Valve
  • steamid.uk and similar infrastructure is run directly by one Steam developer, controlled exclusively by him and his circle
  • What they can't control, they ban

Valve: if you keep playing dumb — that's fine. Your safe harbour is noted. Google Analytics anonymises your users' IPs anyway. We see what gets deleted. We just can't prove it cheaply enough for your lawyers to care. Yet.

SECTION V — THE MALWARE THING (yes we're mentioning it)

Let's be brutally clear about the sequence of events, because it exposes exactly who you are.

We are NOT disclosing the vulnerability in the game publicly. We are NOT reporting it to Steam. Not because we lack the technical capability — but because Steam's bug bounty is a pathetic NDA trap designed to buy silence for pocket change. We don't work for three kopecks, and we absolutely refuse to become NDA slaves to protect Valve's fragile PR.

Here's what actually happened: This vulnerability is practically an open secret in the right circles. We know for a fact that independent security researchers have already shoved the full exploit directly into Steam Support's face. That part is done. You have been officially warned through your own sterile channels.

And what did Valve do? Absolutely nothing. Because for Valve, security does not equal profit — in fact, it's the exact opposite. Security is a cost center. Until a threat reaches critical mass and causes a catastrophic public PR meltdown, Valve simply does not give a shit.

So what are we doing? We're telling the public it exists, because "Valve knows about a systemic malware threat and actively chooses to do nothing" is a critical data point for the regulators currently reading this.

The game is massive. We're not naming it here. But understand this:
This is NOT the trivial CS:GO script-kiddie garbage where a server asks you to "install a driver". This is catastrophic.

This is an Unturned-level nightmare: zero-click RCE on server connect. You join a server. You click nothing. You download nothing. The connection itself is the attack surface, and your machine is fully compromised. Let's be real here: dropping an RCE and bypassing local antiviruses by piggybacking on Valve's trusted digital certificates isn't even a novelty on Steam anymore. It is practically a built-in feature of your ecosystem.

Valve already knows this exists. But they rely on their favorite, cowardly legal loophole: because the game is technically developed by a third party, Valve washes its hands. They distribute the game, they process the payments, they host the infrastructure, but when a zero-click RCE threatens millions of their users, their stance is: "Not our game, not our liability."

When this inevitably blows up, the third-party developer will take the bullet, and Valve will walk away pretending to be the responsible platform that "assisted" with the resolution. Classic Valve cowardice. We've seen the playbook.

We are putting this on the record so that regulators, prosecutors, and journalists understand exactly how Valve handles active malware: by hiding behind third-party developers, deploying NDA gag orders, treating security as an inconvenience, and leaving the players as sitting ducks.


DECLARATION AS TO USE AND RIGHTS

PhishDestroy Project & Cybersecurity Coalition

This declaration accompanies every submission and every exhibit in this referral set. It is addressed to any authority, court, regulator, prosecutor, researcher, journalist or affected person into whose hands the material comes.

1. THERE ARE NO CONDITIONS ON USE

1.1 All material produced by the Coalition in this referral — the statements of fact, the analysis, the exhibits it has authored, the tooling, and the findings — is released WITHOUT RESERVATION OF ANY RIGHTS.

1.2 Anyone may, without asking and without notifying us:

  • reproduce it, in whole or in part;
  • adapt, edit, rewrite, restructure or correct it;
  • translate it;
  • excerpt it without indicating that it has been excerpted;
  • incorporate it into official documents, findings, decisions, pleadings, reports or press material;
  • present it as the recipient's own work or the recipient's own findings;
  • use it as raw material and discard the rest;
  • and pass it on to anyone else on the same terms.

1.3 ATTRIBUTION IS NOT REQUIRED AND IS NOT SOUGHT. The Coalition need not be named, cited, credited, thanked, consulted or informed. If material from this referral assists an authority and the Coalition is never mentioned, THAT IS A COMPLETELY SATISFACTORY OUTCOME and the Coalition states so in advance so that the question need not be raised.

1.4 If, on the other hand, an authority finds it more convenient to cite the Coalition as a source, it is free to do so. The choice is entirely the recipient's and neither course carries any consequence.

1.5 This is a WAIVER, not a licence offer. It requires no acceptance, imposes no obligation, and cannot be breached. Software published by the Coalition is separately released under the MIT licence; the research and findings are released into the public domain to the fullest extent permitted, and where a jurisdiction does not permit waiver, the Coalition grants an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to the same effect.

2. WHY THIS MATTERS PRACTICALLY, AND NOT ONLY AS A COURTESY

2.1 An authority may reasonably hesitate to rely on material supplied by an outside party, for fear of appearing to act at that party's instance or of acquiring some entanglement with it.

2.2 THERE IS NOTHING HERE TO BE ENTANGLED WITH. The Coalition asks for nothing, is owed nothing, retains nothing, and has no expectation of any kind. It cannot later assert a right, claim credit, complain of misuse, or object to how the material is characterised, because it has retained no basis on which to do so.

2.3 An authority using this material is therefore not acting for the Coalition. It is using public information that happens to have been assembled by someone else.

3. EVERYTHING IS OPEN ALREADY

3.1 The Coalition's work is public by default:

  • the investigations are published openly at https://phishdestroy.io and are freely readable;
  • the tooling is published as open source under the MIT licence at https://github.com/phishdestroy (GitLab);
  • the methodology is set out in the referral itself, at Annex A section A.16D, including the weight and limitations of each source type;
  • the Coalition accepts no donations and has published that position since 2018.

3.2 The only material NOT published is that which cannot lawfully or safely be published: personal data of victims and of third parties, and information that would expose a source to retaliation. That material is supplied to authorities in confidence and is identified in the schedules of evidence.

3.3 The Coalition invites scrutiny of its own conduct on the same terms it invites scrutiny of anyone else's, and has volunteered its own data handling to the authorities concerned, including a request for a direction on disposal.

4. INTEGRITY OF THE EVIDENCE BUNDLE

4.1 Exhibits are supplied with the submission or, where marked, on request through a secure channel. They are not published at a public address and no such address should be inferred: material of this kind is provided to authorities directly.

4.2 Each delivery is accompanied by a file SHA256SUMS listing a SHA-256 digest for every file supplied, together with a detached OpenPGP signature SHA256SUMS.asc.

4.3 The signing key is published at https://phishdestroy.io/.well-known/pgp-key.txt and on keys.openpgp.org. Its fingerprint appears in the letterhead of every submission in this set.

4.4 Any recipient may verify at any time that a file in their possession is the file that was sent, unaltered:

gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc SHA256SUMS sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

4.5 The purpose is not formality. It is so that, if the accuracy or integrity of any exhibit is disputed at a later date, the question can be settled by computation rather than by argument.

5. ON REGISTER — WHY THE WAIVER IS FUNCTIONAL AND NOT MERELY GENEROUS

5.1 The authority may encounter the Coalition's published investigations and find them blunt, adversarial and at times satirical. That impression is correct. The Coalition writes that way deliberately and does not apologise for it.

5.2 IT ALSO RECOGNISES THAT THIS IS THE WRONG REGISTER FOR A REGULATORY OR JUDICIAL PROCEEDING. A serious matter should not be carried in the voice of a campaign. Findings put before an authority should be stated flatly, with their limitations admitted, and should not require the reader to discount for tone before reaching the substance.

5.3 THAT IS PRECISELY WHY THE COALITION WAIVES AUTHORSHIP. The waiver at section 1 is the mechanism by which the substance can be separated from the register: the authority may take what is useful, restate it in its own voice, and discard every word of the Coalition's manner along with the Coalition's name. Nothing is lost by doing so, and the Coalition would prefer it.

5.4 THE COALITION ALSO ASKS THAT THE REGISTER NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR THE METHOD. The published tone is combative; the underlying practice is not careless. Throughout this referral, inference is separated from observation, testimony is identified as testimony, sources are weighted and their weaknesses stated, figures are presented with their limitations, and points the Coalition cannot prove are put as questions for the authority rather than as assertions. Where the evidence cut against the Coalition's own position it has said so — see Annex A, paragraph 7, and section B.0 of the parallel referral.

5.5 THE COALITION EXPLAINS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ITS MANNER AND ITS FINANCES BECAUSE THE TWO ARE NOT SEPARABLE. It takes no money from anyone — no donations, no bounties, no clients, no sponsors. That refusal is what makes the bluntness possible: an organisation with revenue to protect must moderate what it says about the parties it depends on. Having nothing to protect, the Coalition has nothing to moderate.

It is also the reason the Coalition continues to exist. There is no other engine. The work is done because it is done; it stops when the people doing it stop.

5.6 The authority need accept none of this. It is stated so that the tone of the Coalition's public work is not read as a measure of the care taken with the material now before it.

6. WHAT THE COALITION IS PROVIDING, IN ITS OWN WORDS

Information, research and observation.

Nothing is asserted as a finding that the Coalition has no standing to make. Where something is inferred, the referral says so. Where something rests on testimony, the referral says whose and with what limitation. Where the Coalition cannot answer a question, it says that too, and identifies who can.

The Coalition seeks no remedy, no payment, no acknowledgement and no outcome for itself or for any individual. It asks only that the questions set out in the referral be put to Valve Corporation by a body with the power to compel an answer.

CLOSING NOTE — TO WHOEVER IS CARRYING THIS FORWARD

We want to thank whoever gets this material to where it needs to go. It's probably not going to be a quick trip. Valve has deep pockets and Taylor Wessing charges by the hour — that combination is specifically designed to make people like you give up before they reach the finish line.

We know what we're doing. We know who we're writing about. Valve built us — how could we not understand them?

PhishDestroy has no conflict with Valve. We blocked the only scammer ring of that scale we've come across — we didn't go looking for a fight with Valve. It just turned out that every road led back to them. Not a conflict. Just topology.

Valve cannot resolve the PhishDestroy situation because there is nothing to resolve. We have no relationship. The data about their enrichment schemes and overflow profits is largely public — you just had to spend enough time to see it. Think of it as a success encyclopedia: "How to Not Follow Sanctions So That Russian Hackers Can't Pirate Our Free Games (The Paid Ones They Won't Pirate Anyway)." You get the vibe.

  • We don't need authorship.
  • We don't need attribution.
  • We don't need a win.

We need someone with actual authority to ask Valve the questions that are already sitting in this referral, with the power to require an answer.

That's it. That's the whole ask.

Cases will live at:
https://steamdestroy.eth/
https://steamdestroy.eth.limo
(currently broken — will fix when needed)

We'll be at:
https://phishdestroy.eth.limo/
https://phishdestroy.eth/