Ubisoft's Use Of The (Star)Force Lands It In Court
from the wonder-what-defense-they'll-use? dept
Remember Starforce? The somewhat insecure makers of video game copy protection, who are often criticized for problems brought about by their copy protection system? It appears that someone finally got fed up enough with them to sue... However, they're not suing Starforce (based in Russia), but video game maker Ubisoft for using Starforce's copy protection, which they claim opens up huge security holes on computers without warning and without an easy way to remove the software. Remember, Starforce is also the same company that launched a silly publicity stunt contest to "prove" its software didn't do any damage. In order to win the contest, you had to bring a PC (must still be under warranty) to their Moscow headquarters at your own expense -- then install their software on their premises, and then prove that your CD/DVD drive no longer worked (only one of the various complaints some have had). If you failed, the company would publicly shame you on their website. And, of course, you only had a month and a half to show up at their office. Of course, at the end of that month and a half, when no one had shown up to take the "challenge," the company announced that it was proof their software was fine. I wonder if that's the defense Ubisoft will use in court. After all, it's been "proven" that the software is fine.
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Starforce is lame
Penny Arcade made a comic about it:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/03/15
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Re: Starforce is lame
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Penny Arcade is lame
The hacker community is just pissed that it's working so well. Even though a relatively easy hack is to just disconnect your IDE drive and then mount an image of the game as usual, the hackers don't consider that a "win" over StarForce.
I'm sure they will eventually prevail, but even when they do, I think this has proven that the technology is viable and worthwhile. Prior to StarForce, all the other copy protections were a total joke and hacked days after release.
Companies only need to protect their game for the first few critical months before the game hits the bargain bin. StarForce has succeeded in that way. After it is cracked, it may take only another revision to put the hackers at bay for another 9 months or so, but 9 months or so is all it needs to protect the product for.
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Re: Penny Arcade is lame
And all of this because I have cd image software that I use to test images of my cd's before I send them off to be pressed.
"The hacker community is just pissed that it's working so well. Even though a relatively easy hack is to just disconnect your IDE drive and then mount an image of the game as usual, the hackers don't consider that a "win" over StarForce."
Wow, unplugging the ide drives still doesn't work, because of the way the driver works, the driver replaces the standard cd driver, which also happens to be the SAME driver that is used by most image emulators.
since then I have traced the root of many of the system instabilities that have occured unexplainedly, to the fact that a game that uses starforce was played on that system. my only recourse was to reinstall windows.
The biggest issue here is with the way this copy protection works, it doesn't, in fact it cause more problems that generate bad publicity for the game publishers for using it, and ruins peoples computers. I don't see other more effective copy protection strategies such as SecuROM, or SafeDisc causing these problems.
S
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Re:
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Starforce is Lame
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TRue and maybe nOT
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List of games that use Starforce
http://www.glop.org/starforce/list.php
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Avault Forums.
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At least most the good games...
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Ubisoft's was initally helpfull, however after many troubleshooting steps & backing them into a corner on the fact that the drives were actually damaged they decided to tell me that they never released the game with starforce on it and they had nothing to do with it, and I should contact Starforce for tech support.
It's the _VERY_LAST_ time I EVER spend $ on a Ubisoft game.
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As starforce ain't any new tool, i have to conlude that: Either they don't know about the program (unlikely) or they *do*.. and the latter worries me quite a lot.
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Don't you dare restart my computer
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Discover & Remove StarForce
>>> How can I tell if StarForce is on my machine? How can I remove it if it's there?
>>>Will Un-installing a SF protected game also reverse the driver swap?
I've mostly been playing MMO games for two years, which rely on Server-side protection and verification, so i doubt I'd have gotten StarForced recently.
>>>How long has it been in use?
>>>Is there a list of 'infected' games?
I believe the answers to these questions will be helpful to the whole community.
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Hackers and Starforce
To get around star force is easy and there are plenty of programs that do such things. I will not mention them here, but they are out there, the IDE thing doesn't really do it esp. on XP.
The protection is out there due to capitolist paranoia plain and simple. Passing the buck to "Hackers" is a lame attempt to ignore responcibility on the consumer and the game companies at large. The company making starforce should be ashamed and punished for their public actions, as well as the damage caused by their software, not some silly stupid contest which they knew that no one could do.
Consumers - Start telling these companies they are making crappy games by not buying them.
Companies - start making games worth something more than just the simple mindless 2 - 4 hours of game play.
Star Force - Your protection was beatin, your company needs punishment for their actions, and get over yourselves.
In order to "Hack" the game someone has to buy it. They get their over priced buck for poor quality. If a game is good enough, you will buy it irreguardless of if you have a "hacked" copy to show your support of the product. If it's a waste as most games have been recently, with no re-playability or decent storyline, your very happy to uninstall and walk away glad you didn't waste your money.
Saying anything more would just be long winded. I've made the point...
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seems to have some useful info on StarForce.
>>> Includes list of 'infected' games.
Few of the listed games are "Top Ten" quality; only 'King Kong' and 'Icewind Dale' seemed to be rather popular. Most of the titles were unknown to me.
Dozens I recognized from bargain bins and Dollar stores. I did find two titles that I have bought at Big Lots for three bucks each, and I gave a big "Phew!" at the thought that I have not ever installed either of them.
I hope most of you will find the same sense of relief from knowing you don't have that crippling driver.
_______________________
WORNG! ! ! ! !
Gratefully, the Glop Homepage also has an easy method to discover if Starforce is installed, and Indeed I DO Have that infection.
> > > Gratefully again, at the end of the detection routine is a link to a removal tool.
So thats my next move.
This kind of thing usually needs a reboot, so I'll close now, and if all goes well I'll be back here soon.
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The Removal Tool has removed the StarForce drivers from my Device Manager listing. I should have taken note of the file names to see if they were also erased from the drive. You will probably want to do that if you do a lot of Burning or editting from optical disk sources.
It's worth noting that the 'Removal Tool' is from the same folks that made StarForce.
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Games played...
I think an overwhelming momentum has grown against them simply because they are fighting piracy, and doing an ok job at it- which, don't deny it, scares anyone who relies on the pirated versions of games/software.
I didn't notice any warnings saying that that software would be installed, unless it was at the bottom of that massive end-user-license-agreement, and would have liked to have known just to know. I just really don't appreciate being force-fed piracy-protection programs wether it comes from DRM/music cd's, or PC games- I'd just like to know.
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Track Mania Nations
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The should add to suite.
some games unable to be played by the purchaser solely because of the protection software malfunctioning.
Ex. Splinter Cell Demo runs on XP x64
Splinter Cell full version does not.
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Looks like I will be pirating Chaos Theory
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Problems for the legitimate users.
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Why would you want something that doesn't benefit you at all and in addition causes damage to your computer. Ironic how capitalism turned against us from an ex communist country...
This just makes people want to pirate more to get around having to install that crap. Of course it won't affect all computers equally fast, but eventually it will screw em all up.
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umm... right
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these days i still 'pirate'. Starforce games tend to be inferior titles, but it hasnt caused me much trouble, not does it really deter me from pirating games that use it.
Just unplug you CD rom after you dump the image. All pirated games come with the cracks anyway.
But b4 you flame, I always delete games i dont want to buy within 24 hours. Demos are bias. Ive bought and play retail... CS:S, battlefield2, diablo2, warcraft3 and TFT, WOW and i dont play anything else :)
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And as for the pirating...well, I don't think of pirating as all bad...many movies and shows I have downloaded, I have boughten soon after...so without the 'bad' copies floating around, some of these companies would never have gotten anything from me.
So, to wrap things up, I say:
Pirating doesn't severely damage sales(even helps in some cases), but copy protection DOES severely hurt consumers.
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Re:
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