Pornagraphic Images in Halo 3 File Shares
July 22, 2008 26 Comments
When I first heard that pornographic images were making their way into Halo 3 File Shares (a place to share in game assets including pictures, videos, and custom maps), I hopped on over to Bungie.net’s Community Screenshot forum to see if I could unearth one. Not only did I find one, but I found it in less than 60 seconds. The screenshot was not immediately viewable and was labeled with the warning, “This file has been reported for violating the code of conduct. Click arrow to view at your own risk.” But with a simple click of the arrow, two perky breasts happily greeted me along with the visual of two females enjoying relations with each other. The text that appears to be Painted in says, “The Inter Net IS 4 Porn”. While that may or may not be true, Halo 3 is certainly not for porn although some argue it is a fun fringe benefit.
So why are pornographic images adulterating Halo 3 File Shares all the sudden? Some are tying it to a new underhanded tactic to win mutliplayer matches. Numerous people are relating stories about incidents where someone on the opposing team sent them a screenshot before the game started, the screenshot was opened, and then the recipient’s Xbox 360 froze. The game then continued with the offending team having more players and thus an innate advantage. Some people are even claiming that viewing the modded screenshots are not just making their console freeze but also causing the infamous Red Ring of Death. While that connection is more than likely coincidence more than anything else, the freezing issue seems to be fairly well substantiated. There was a warning on halo.bungie.org yesterday along with discussion on their boards and of course Bungie.net’s forums are alive with stories as well.
Regardless of if the pornographic images are related to Xbox 360s freezing or not, it is clear that you need to be taking extra precautions right now when playing Halo 3. What can you do to protect yourself? Don’t open screenshots sent to you by anybody you do not know. Simply delete the message without viewing it and warn other members of your party to do the same. If you accidentally open one of these screenshots, file the appropriate official Xbox Live complaint (under “Profile and Content” there is a “Player Content” option and there is also a stand alone “Tampering” option as well) and report the image by locating the offending player’s File Share on Bungie.net. If you have children you are concerned about, go into “Family Settings” and choose “Xbox Live Controls”. From there you can select “Content” and disable the ability to download member-created content from other Xbox LIVE members.
Bungie does appear to be addressing this growing issue as these screenshots seem to be disappearing from File Shares just as quickly as they are going in. Will they be able to stay on top of it until the newly discovered fad passes? We can only hope. I receive a large amount of screenshots on my Xbox Live account from running my other website. I will no longer be opening them up though because if I wanted to see porn, I would go to a real site to see the good stuff, not ogle some crappy image downloaded to a video game.
Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play 
First it was boosting and achievement whoring, then it Host Booting, now its pr0n in file shares. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. There are a ton of kids that play halo, and while many of them may have seen images like that before, there is no need to expose it to them. And don’t get me started on the “Freezing Pics”…ugh…its pretty bad when people are willing to possibly destroy someone’s Xbox just to win a match…
=/
Anyone who is making this stuff, putting it on their file share or even just looking at it obviously isn’t getting any. These immature morons need to realize the depraved ridiculous world they are living in and wake the hell up. There are better things in life than hacking a video game to upload contraband material for no good reason at all. Go out, get a haircut, buy some clean clothes, stop eating those Twinkies and live a real life. I’m not saying you can’t play games, but just play them for the sake of relaxing and chilling with friends that might not be in your neighborhood, or your country. No-one thinks your cool because you could find a picture of two naked women and put it up for the Halo community to see. It’s people like you who are corrupting a potentially flawless online culture. Just leave us alone and stop wasting your time.
Thank you.
Porn in Halo is totally unnecessary. Why would anyone bother looking at crappy naked pics while they have Halo 3 online to play? People need to get their priorities straight and they need to grow up.
*facepalm*
This is absurd.
Ooo, Boobies, Ah crap they are killing me. What do I do! I know, I’ll say my game froze because of a weird picture… I didn’t loose because I was looking a boobies, not at all!
Kids these days…..
:(
As mendicant said, they’re are kids that play Halo too. I mean what if a kid was playing in his/her living room with his/her parent and they got a screenshot message of this. What would the parent think? That the Xbox 360 is full of pr0n, and mostly that Halo 3 has this? That’s showing that we are bad people. Some of the communtity may be but they aren’t part of our community any more. It’s good to see that Bungie is takining care of the problem and that they’re dealing with these people. And one word to those people, “You will NEVER haz recon!”. Hope you enjoy your ban, see you back on Xbox Live in the year 9999! I feel like ranting on but lets leave it at this.
I posted some technical thoughts about this (conjecture mostly) over on h.b.o, if anyone’s interested.
You might want to remove the link to the ‘example’ fileshare. Until Bungie removes it, this site is the one linking to pornographic images.
I found that example on the second page of the screenshot forum with a fairly obvious title. The entire point was that it is extremely easy to find those images right now. I clearly labeled it with an accurate description plus it requires action to open the picture so I have no problem keeping it up.
I’ve been sent a few of these prono images, I just delete and report. I’ve also received the “freezing” pictures too. I was waiting for a match to begin and two people from the other team sent me a screenshot titled “im on fire!” and thought it was strange, but still tried to open it anyway :) Promptly froze my 360. So yea… don’t open screenshots from people you don’t know.
does anyone else think of the world of warcraft south park episode. i imagine all the people doing this…look like that
As long as a system can be abused, there will always be someone out there who will abuse it. It sucks, because modding could be used for cool or useful stuff, but instead you get these kids posting porn in their file share or wannabe pros freezing the competition’s consoles so they can believe for a couple minutes that they don’t suck at Halo. As far as I see it, custom content became unsafe the minute that it became possible to transfer files back and forth between a computer and a 360. The fact that there is a way to freeze a 360 using a modded screenshot is pretty worrisome, because it makes me wonder if there is possibly a way to craft a screenshot file that could cause the 360 to run malicious code when viewed.
possibly could lead to the end of screenshots and possibly the file share…
We live in a sick world.
Just a nice little tip, you can set it so that you can only see player created content of your friends, or none at all in the dashboard or at Xbox.com under privacy settings.
this is just another example of having to pander to the lowest common denominater as I worry that as Bryan says it could lead to the end of screenshots & filesharing.
there are millions of people out there who love this community & use it the way it *should* be used & those few who are abusing it mean that all the responsible users now have to check everything & Bungie will have to look at how the system runs.
like the internet & on line gaming doesn’t have a slightly dodgy reputation already!!
And people wonder why Microsoft is so skittish about allowing user created content. Velocity Girl, indeed. At least she had a shirt.
Seriously, the world has gotten to the point that the word discretion has no meaning anymore. There’s a time and a place for everything, including boobies, but “everywhere” isn’t it. People will say anything, do anything, show anything, anywhere, at any time. Doesn’t even cross their minds that blaring your stereo in a grocery store parking lot with $!@# %#(@ )$@*)*! screaming out the speakers isn’t appropriate. Roll up your windows, keep it in your house, or wear some headphones. People will do anything JUST because it’s wrong.
WOW you people are more concerned about kids seeing these images while playing Halo3 then the fact that they shouldn’t be playing it at all? M rating for a reason people be responsible parents. That is what’s wrong with our country, it is more acceptable to see a bullet blow someones brain out than to see nude images.
the ESRB would LOVE to hear about this! : )
I agree with the post about M rated games and kids. But I don’t see Halo 3 (multiplayer at least) deserving an M rating. The worst that happens is you see blood texture (not splatter, its literally a texture applied to specific spot of the game environment). Compare that to Gears where you have dismembered parts lying everywhere with characters swearing in multiplayer matches (yes, characters, not the players). Halo 3 multiplayer, if it was standalone, would probably be T. So I can see why some parents would allow their children to play/watch their parents play it.
first off. This is an M rated game. Kids shouldn’t be playing this game in the first place. Second, this is nowhere near a ‘flawless’ online culture. 1 out of 10 games there’s either a racist redneck speaking his mind against black people or someone who just wants to piss people off. I don’t see why anyone is getting mad. You’ve got to expect stuff like this to happen. There’s always going to be people looking for a way to get an unfair advantage towards other players (whether they suck at it or just don’t feel like trying).
In all honesty – Its more like 9 in10
These ppl dont care about who’s watching or viewing, they just care about the enjoyment of being able to have it in there File Share (Not to mention how some players make Pornagraphic Pics out of guns in forge!).
i agree with everythin thts been said im 13 i have halo 3 nd ive had gears of war in the past halo is always good but gets boring after a while and gears is just terrible all ikno is tht people who put these images on there file share are lowlives tht want to ruin perfectly good games also anyone wants to add me my gamer tag is
iTz Grizly Bear
“WOW you people are more concerned about kids seeing these images while playing Halo3 then the fact that they shouldn’t be playing it at all? M rating for a reason people be responsible parents. That is what’s wrong with our country, it is more acceptable to see a bullet blow someones brain out than to see nude images.”
As this person already stated, this is the problem with most of you people. You are totally fine with violent imagery, murder, and killing, but when it comes to something as harmless as a woman’s breasts or just simply two individuals gratifying themselves like any normal, healthy couple would, you consider it disgusting and inappropriate. Halo is an M rated game, and if a person is not mature enough understand sex and its prevalence in all aspects of life (yes, even online), then they shouldn’t be playing halo. Even as a parent watching your kid play, you can’t just censor everything your children see, because that will just intensify problems. Instead, you should put things like porn and violence into context with reality… seriously, many of you who post on here really scare me… It’s like you can’t accept that we are human.