Solve : I found this to be a coincidence?

1.	Solve : I found this to be a coincidence?
Answer» I was reading about the history of anti-piracy systems like SecuROM, starforce, etc. I noticed an interesting trend. Nobody seemed to have an issue with them, until they started to work effectively to prevent people from getting a hold of illegal copies of the game. Starforce was used for years, but when they IMPROVED version 3 enough that it was able to prevent a successful crack of a popular title for a entire year (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory). Towards the end of that year (2005) with that game still uncracked, suddenly a "petition" to "stop" Starforce was put in place. I can't help but find this to be more then a coincidence. Doesn't help that all the "claims" against the protection I can find are either anecdotal, or CLEARLY fabricated (like people claiming that it destroyed their discs or disk drives, which is utterly stupid. The boycott site in google's cache even has a picture of a broken CD, implying that it was a Driver that was able to do that. That's preposterous, I don't even see how software could be manipulated to destroy a CD-ROM disk. And then the company using Starforce (Ubisoft) switched to SecuROM, which was less able to combat piracy and everybody was happy. Until SecuROM was updated and was made more effective to do what it was designed to do. Can't help but see a pattern there. All the arguments against these two- "they install hidden drivers" and stuff, are ridiculous. They were doing that for years, why is it suddenly evil when it starts working better? And programs like speedfan install low-level drivers that have known security vulnerabilities, nobody petitions against it for that reason. Anyway found that interesting and thought I would share.That is an item of interest. The issue of DRM and copy protection becomes an issue when it works. How odd! When it does not work the users are not up in arms about how wrong it is to have a copy protection that does not work! Instead, the protests come when it is effective! Amazing! The wikipedia article is not up to date, but provides a general outline. Quote SecuROM From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (January 2011)... ...SecuROM is a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management product developed by Sony DADC. SecuROM aims to resist home media duplication DEVICES, professional duplicators, and attempts at reverse engineering software. It is most often used for commercial computer games running under the Microsoft Windows platform. The method of disc protection in current versions is Data Position Measurement; this may or may not be used in conjunction with online DRM components. Developer(s) Sony DADC Type OPTICAL disc copy protection, Digital rights management ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM Recent news: https://www2.securom.com/Tribeka.155.0.html The idea that any DRM nor copy protection would harm your PC, -- is just ABSURD. Not in this part of the world. (But over in India, yes.) Interesting statement about speedfan and security vulnerability. I use Secunia PSI for trying to keep up to date with all patches and on top of all known vulnerabilities, and that wasnt black flagged by Secunia PSI. Thanks for the heads up on Speedfan. Going to dump it and only use it when i need to. Is speedfan issue related to the old dcom issue?Quote from: DaveLembke on October 31, 2011, 07:45:31 PM Going to dump it and only use it when i need to. I don't see this as a reason to dump it. I presented it merely for comparison, pirate-supporters/ DRM fighters claim that the DRM techniques install drivers, and those drivers have vulnerabilities and that they expose everybody to malware and need to be stopped, and yet you don't see the same sort of thing raging against speedfan, or hwinfo, or any number of other products. Quote Is speedfan issue related to the old dcom issue? No. Completely unrelated. speedfan uses IOCTL in a insecure way. IOCTL is something that drivers only use, and it's certainly not used by DCOM. Overall, I agree with BC_Programmer. DRM is legal and is required by the Movie industry and others. Microsoft, Sony and others would not destroy their market by nusing software taht would harm any Personal Computer. Yes, I did make a remark about India. But that is another issue. There Microsoft has made it clear they will play hard ball with users who would 'crack' windows authentication. Of interest, some critics have credentials. Here is one. Quote Peter Gutmann, a computer security expert from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, has released a whitepape ^ Gutmann, Peter (2007-01-27). "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". Retrieved 2007-01-27. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html The paper was about Vista's design and specifically about the DRM. The article is now out of date, but the same kind of stuff is being parroted on some forums that claim to have the users' interest at heart. Any low-level software or firmware has the potential to do harmful things. To try and stop the vulnerability, you would need a virtual machine that would police ever instruction being executed by the CPU. An big drag on system resources where I/O speed is important. The pratfall solution is to have Anti-Virus software that prevents a virus from getting into the system DRM software takes just a small part of the CPU load to test the authenticity of a media file. The encryption overhead is no longer an real issue with modern CPUs that have dual-cores and clocks about 2 GHZ. After all, this is 2011, not 2001. Ten years makes a lot of difference. Even fur years makes a difference.Quote from: Geek-9pm on October 31, 2011, 08:53:51 PM Even fur years makes a difference. My cat says the fur years are the best of your life!

Answer»

I was reading about the history of anti-piracy systems like SecuROM, starforce, etc.

I noticed an interesting trend.

Nobody seemed to have an issue with them, until they started to work effectively to prevent people from getting a hold of illegal copies of the game.

Starforce was used for years, but when they IMPROVED version 3 enough that it was able to prevent a successful crack of a popular title for a entire year (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory). Towards the end of that year (2005) with that game still uncracked, suddenly a "petition" to "stop" Starforce was put in place. I can't help but find this to be more then a coincidence. Doesn't help that all the "claims" against the protection I can find are either anecdotal, or CLEARLY fabricated (like people claiming that it destroyed their discs or disk drives, which is utterly stupid. The boycott site in google's cache even has a picture of a broken CD, implying that it was a Driver that was able to do that. That's preposterous, I don't even see how software could be manipulated to destroy a CD-ROM disk.

And then the company using Starforce (Ubisoft) switched to SecuROM, which was less able to combat piracy and everybody was happy.

Until SecuROM was updated and was made more effective to do what it was designed to do. Can't help but see a pattern there. All the arguments against these two- "they install hidden drivers" and stuff, are ridiculous. They were doing that for years, why is it suddenly evil when it starts working better? And programs like speedfan install low-level drivers that have known security vulnerabilities, nobody petitions against it for that reason.

Anyway found that interesting and thought I would share.That is an item of interest. The issue of DRM and copy protection becomes an issue when it works. How odd! When it does not work the users are not up in arms about how wrong it is to have a copy protection that does not work!
Instead, the protests come when it is effective! Amazing!

The wikipedia article is not up to date, but provides a general outline.
Quote

SecuROM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (January 2011)...
...SecuROM is a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management product developed by Sony DADC. SecuROM aims to resist home media duplication DEVICES, professional duplicators, and attempts at reverse engineering software. It is most often used for commercial computer games running under the Microsoft Windows platform. The method of disc protection in current versions is Data Position Measurement; this may or may not be used in conjunction with online DRM components.

Developer(s) Sony DADC
Type OPTICAL disc copy protection, Digital rights management
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

Recent news:
https://www2.securom.com/Tribeka.155.0.html
The idea that any DRM nor copy protection would harm your PC,
-- is just ABSURD.
Not in this part of the world. (But over in India, yes.)
Interesting statement about speedfan and security vulnerability. I use Secunia PSI for trying to keep up to date with all patches and on top of all known vulnerabilities, and that wasnt black flagged by Secunia PSI. Thanks for the heads up on Speedfan. Going to dump it and only use it when i need to. Is speedfan issue related to the old dcom issue?Quote from: DaveLembke on October 31, 2011, 07:45:31 PM

Going to dump it and only use it when i need to.

I don't see this as a reason to dump it. I presented it merely for comparison, pirate-supporters/ DRM fighters claim that the DRM techniques install drivers, and those drivers have vulnerabilities and that they expose everybody to malware and need to be stopped, and yet you don't see the same sort of thing raging against speedfan, or hwinfo, or any number of other products.

Quote

Is speedfan issue related to the old dcom issue?

No. Completely unrelated. speedfan uses IOCTL in a insecure way. IOCTL is something that drivers only use, and it's certainly not used by DCOM. Overall, I agree with BC_Programmer.

DRM is legal and is required by the Movie industry and others. Microsoft, Sony and others would not destroy their market by nusing software taht would harm any Personal Computer.

Yes, I did make a remark about India. But that is another issue. There Microsoft has made it clear they will play hard ball with users who would 'crack' windows authentication.

Of interest, some critics have credentials. Here is one.
Quote

Peter Gutmann, a computer security expert from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, has released a whitepape
^ Gutmann, Peter (2007-01-27). "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". Retrieved 2007-01-27.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

The paper was about Vista's design and specifically about the DRM. The article is now out of date, but the same kind of stuff is being parroted on some forums that claim to have the users' interest at heart.

Any low-level software or firmware has the potential to do harmful things. To try and stop the vulnerability, you would need a virtual machine that would police ever instruction being executed by the CPU. An big drag on system resources where I/O speed is important. The pratfall solution is to have Anti-Virus software that prevents a virus from getting into the system

DRM software takes just a small part of the CPU load to test the authenticity of a media file. The encryption overhead is no longer an real issue with modern CPUs that have dual-cores and clocks about 2 GHZ. After all, this is 2011, not 2001. Ten years makes a lot of difference. Even fur years makes a difference.Quote from: Geek-9pm on October 31, 2011, 08:53:51 PM

Solve : I found this to be a coincidence?

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