New Securom, the new Starforce?

dteowner said:

3/4 of the discussion is beyond my feeble little brain, but the trivial detail of limited installs is what actually troubles me the most. I still try to load up my M&M games, among others.

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The installs are limited to two *unless* you uninstall the game. You can do any number of uninstall-reinstalls. If you do need to do more than two installs (e.g., you nuked your hard drive, twice), you can phone the publisher to get a new activation code. That sounds reasonably reasonable to me.

And yes, there will be a problem if SecuROM goes out of business and nobody issues a patch to get around the DRM. (I've no doubt the game will have been cracked by then, and I for one would have no qualms whatsoever about applying the crack under those circumstances.)

I'm a little touchy to the whole rootkit thing since my best guess is that a rootkit is what killed my old rig.

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That's kinda unlikely. Most rootkits I've heard of don't kill computers; they're evil because they're used to hide stuff that does do nasty things.

That said, I'm not smart enough to differentiate between ring 0, ring 1, ring 3, and nose ring.

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It's pretty simple: the "rings" simply describe architecturally walled-off areas that allow different levels of access to the computer hardware. Ring 0 is "kernel mode" -- you can do anything the computer can do, like write any series of bits to any device or memory location. Ring 3 is "user mode," meaning you only have access to high-level calls and can't, for example, write to or read from a file that has been flagged as off-limits to you. In Windows, rings 1 and 2 aren't used much, although I understand some drivers do things with them. (This could have changed with Vista; I understand UAC uses them.)

If some copy protection package is lurking somewhere in my system, I'm not likely to recognize it anyway. I guess I'm willing to live in ignorance. OTOH, if at some point in the future I can't play a game that I paid good money for, I'll be reaching for the pitchfork. Unfortunately, that situation kind of implies that there won't be a castle to march on, but my wailing shall be loud.

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Unfortunately, that's pretty much bound to happen with or without DRM. Stuff gets obsolete and back compatibility breaks.

Prime Junta said:

The installs are limited to two *unless* you uninstall the game. You can do any number of uninstall-reinstalls. If you do need to do more than two installs (e.g., you nuked your hard drive, twice), you can phone the publisher to get a new activation code. That sounds reasonably reasonable to me.

And yes, there will be a problem if SecuROM goes out of business and nobody issues a patch to get around the DRM. (I've no doubt the game will have been cracked by then, and I for one would have no qualms whatsoever about applying the crack under those circumstances.)

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The problem wouldn't be with SecuROM going out of business, it would be with the game publisher disappearing, right? The activation code is supplied by Atari (for example), not SecuROM, right? I'd actually be more worried about not being able to play NWN1 because Atari died/got bought/stopped caring (again, just pulling names out of the air).

Thanks for the other education.

I'll have to break up the replies, ugg, I hate the 6 emote limit

mute
"You have a fear about it and thats ok with me."
If you replace the word “fear” with concern, as I have been saying from the beginning while others try to take that out of context or put words in my mouth, I would agree.

I have stated behaviors common with root kits seem to be present, yet when I present them, some are acting like no that's not a behavior even though it is.

Prime Junta
"I don't know. I do know that Rootkit Revealer gives out lots of false positives, "
Of course all forms of protections give false readings, from root kit revelers to copy protections, but the point is your acting like I am making this up and over reacting and the reason I posted that is because it shows as I have mentioned that behaviors are present, which YOU are denying.

"Just a question, Acleacius -- do you actually know what a rootkit is? I get the impression from many of your posts that you don't."
Enough to have had this conversation and provide accurate links of definitions in this thread and to know that Starforce was ring 0 , which you are trying to deny so you position will have some stability.
You can believe what ever you want and if it does not agree with reality, then guess whose right, you or reality?

Why would you even ask this, if you pretend you can't get rid of a rook it with a format, yet I corrected you accurately saying yes you can, especially by doing a format of a boot sector, not to mention the clean drive, which you recognized as accurate.

So please stop trying to act like I am not able to at least have a conversation about this, additionally if anyone is over reacting it's YOU.

I haven't had time to reply to everything yet, trying to learn more about these problems.

"it is either a ring-0 or ring-1 driver, but to my knowledge it is not a rootkit. "
Well most likely due to your position being limited to what you want to believe and requiring absolute proof, which is extremely difficult and proving it’s a root kit is very difficult as you know if you know anything about this, especially since I just found this like 2 days ago.

"I've been slapping you for a while now, trying to get you to snap out of it."
Well you may as well slap yourself, if you call "denial until absolute proof" is as a realistic position, I call it absurdist.

"The Wikipedia article on StarForce (look it up if you like) ......"
Lol, I was the one whom posted the link.
I followed the starforce, because I was affected (infected?).
I specifically remember it being ring 0.

"*Anything* could be a rootkit or malware, but most things aren't"
I don't really agree that anything could be, but I don’t want to go off on some wild debate about anything can be a root kit either.

"But that don't make it a root kit."
You know what else?
It doesn't make it NOT a root kit either, anymore than you or I saying it's not a root kit if it really is, we can't effect reality with our opinions, no of us can.

"Can we be absolutely certain? Of course not. But can we be *pretty* certain? Yup, I think so."
Well that's certainly a better position than your previous one's, that seem to imply that I am certain it is (which I never said) and your certain it's not.

Well until I found these directories, there was nothing on the net I could find either and additionally until I mentioned the behaviors being present I hadn't found anything on it being a root kit, either.

What does the world have to instantly know what is a root kit and not, the second someone finds a problem?
Gezz and you claim I am over reacting.

Appoligies, totally forgot to post about how to remove these folders at least, kept waiting for Moriendor to post how he deleted his and then I got off on other issues.

First rememeber by removing these there is a chance any securom 7 games you currently have installed might not work, but if you are more intrested in security then this is how you do it.

We are dealing with Nulls here which are more of a symbol than a numeric or alphabetic, so things like xp, can't really recognize them for the most part.
To remove the folder in the Application data\securom you need to delete the files.
This program can do it, it for the most part can delete any file or folder when you recieve the "You don't have access" type of messsage.
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/#download

Next we will deal with the regestry folders and as anyone who is familar with deleting regestry enties, you can/should make a backup first, also I would suggest lokking for a no cd for your purchaed games ,before you do this.
This one is a tougher to use, since you are required to use Dos commands but the instructions from m$ are pretty clear.
SO the two regesrty strings you want to scan are regdelnull hkcu -s and regdelnull hku -s
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/RegDelNull.mspx


Also if your not sure what to do with starforce, since that has been talked about and you have to play that game.
I have a small hard drvie setup with just XP and the basics like dx, video and sound drivers, but I don't let that drive have access to any important information or connect to the internet, then you can install a game you feel you just have to play without risking problems.

Acleacius said:

Appoligies, totally forgot to post about how to remove these folders at least, kept waiting for Moriendor to post how he deleted his and then I got off on other issues.

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Post where I said I would delete it and quote me. Or stop making shit up. Your choice .

Prime Junta said:

Unfortunately, that's pretty much bound to happen with or without DRM. Stuff gets obsolete and back compatibility breaks.

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I think this is one of the most relevant points in this discussion. I remember buying and playing Freedom Force on XP - and then waiting for a patch to play it on XP SP2. I never, ever got Wizards and Warriors to work under XP - and there are endless examples where the simple evolution of hardware and OS'es has rendered game unplayable without DRM being part of the issue.

In many cases, the community has come to the rescue with fixes. Just as they would if Securom / 2K stopped activating. And assuming it worked on your hardware/OS in 20 years time.

I sometimes wonder why it has to be this DRM-like copy protection ? Are they trying to save the plain old copy protection in printed manuals, cards etc. because printing costs more than this electronical stuff ? To me, this almost appears so.

I don't think it would be easy to photocopy a dark red text on even darker red background like I've found in my package of Elite Plus. Or shiny black text on matt black background of the Micro Machines 1. Or even code-wheels ...

Ah Code Wheels, the fun of putting them together. I still remember the triple one we needed for Bard's Tale 3!!

That code wheel was fun.

Another good one was the one for Starflight. What's really interesting about the Starflight protection is that the fast computers of today have broken it. There's no need for it anymore or a crack.

The Red background I remember being either on the Wizardry IV or Simcity or both. I remember my friend running the numbers and trying to come up with a formula based on the results. He didn't get it but he got something. This same guy cracked Apple's Prodos to get it to show a Green light when disk was notched on both sides.

dteowner
"3/4 of the discussion is beyond my feeble little brain, but the trivial detail of limited installs is what actually troubles me the most"

I never intended this to drift off into copy protection issues and all I have ever talked about are functional issues present, so maybe another thread about copy pretections would be a good idea for that?

" That said, I'm not smart enough to differentiate between ring 0, ring 1, ring 3, and nose ring."
Anoher way to look at them is levels of security you would think about say in a movie that includes Top Secret classifications, with level 0 being the highest level security, an example would be Antivirus moslty opperates at level 0.

Prime Junta
"That's kinda unlikely. Most rootkits I've heard of don't kill computers; they're evil because they're used to hide stuff that does do nasty things."

Maybe but the main issue in the past with all the lawsuits against Ubi, starforce and others were for damages to systems caused by conflicts, so that’s a really tough line to call, as you have.

Moriendor
"Post where I said I would delete it and quote me. Or stop making shit up. Your choice "

Post where I said, you said, you would delete it and quote me. Or stop making shit up, Your choice.
Obviously I never said, you said you would post it, though if you read the posts you know I asked you to post your method for deleting the files, as I understand you said you did, previously.
I had found/figured out a couple of ways and wanted to see if you really knew how to delete them, think of it as a challenge, hehe.

The issue is do I believe Mark Russinovich whom says we should be cautious, or should I believe the same corporate line and same people that denied starforce was a dangerous product through out it’s existence, with some still claiming today it wasn’t?

To me the choice is clear, this is securom is very suspicious proven by the some of the most advanced “Detectors” in existence and there for people should be trying to get as much accurate information out about this asap.

All I am saying is be aware and be careful, good luck.

"To me the choice is clear, this is securom is very suspicious proven by the some of the most advanced “Detectors” in existence and there for people should be trying to get as much accurate information out about this asap."

Just to put a little more fuel to the fires.

FEAR.EXE has been flagged as a virus by AVG. Does that mean i have had virus on my computer for that long? Outrageous.

My 2 cent, getting the detectors working right isn't that easy. Alot of false postivie derives from people not reading the results correctly. Or understand doing forensic on a computer.

I still haven't hade any problem with starforce, altough i see how it could create problems, by getting another driver presenting itself between the hardware layer and the driver of the CD/DVD reader (SecureROM does no such thing). I also am aware of the two side here. The pirate lobby how by the sheer forces of the internet masses make everybody creates a stirup shouting danger, danger, where there is none. And until this day bioshock has been uncracked. No wonder people is mad. (Uncracked if you aint using a modded XBOX360)

The people who hast most to lose by doing something stupid is still SecureROM whos business is making functioning copyprotections.

And of course, still - blame the people copying for making us the consumer have to deal with this stupid scheme of things!

Oh, and doing what other people is saying - SecureROM is evil. Its sony owned, and they put a rootkit on my computer - see, they did it again. The difference from that to this is

a) Sony isn't SecureROM.
b) The forensic done by analyzing the SONY rootkit was done by using softwares and then analyzing the results of the software. Not just RUNNING the thing.

Although i smile and i am a litte scared about this way people react without fact finding. Not because of this false rootkit debacle but how people rather believe someone named "TerraByte_110" without any knowledge of who he is, and just take his word for it.

When we are reading what people in the business is writing (nothing) i am safe. This could of course change overtime.

Oh well. i am currently dissapointed in Bioshock for a whole other reason, as i will mention later. In another forum. In a forum dealing with action games.

Hey, it's supposed to be an action game; it's an FPS, NOT an RPG!! Enjoy it for what it is.

Acleacius said:

Prime Junta
"That's kinda unlikely. Most rootkits I've heard of don't kill computers; they're evil because they're used to hide stuff that does do nasty things."

Maybe but the main issue in the past with all the lawsuits against Ubi, starforce and others were for damages to systems caused by conflicts, so that’s a really tough line to call, as you have.

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But Starforce wasn't a rootkit. It was a badly behaved ring-0 driver.

To me the choice is clear, this is securom is very suspicious proven by the some of the most advanced “Detectors” in existence and there for people should be trying to get as much accurate information out about this asap.

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Such as...?

All I am saying is be aware and be careful, good luck.

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No, you're not. You're spreading false information and fomenting hysteria.

Acleacius said:

"Post where I said I would delete it and quote me. Or stop making shit up. Your choice "

Post where I said, you said, you would delete it and quote me. Or stop making shit up, Your choice.

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I'm honestly beginning to believe that you, Sir, are either severely retarded or lacking the most basic reading comprehension skills (or both).
Please. Just read the quote. What part of "...kept waiting for Moriendor to post how he deleted his.." should I have interpreted differently? Obviously you're saying here that you expect me to post how to delete the files since I must have claimed somewhere that I would or could... or did. Which I didn't. I could. Maybe I would, too. But I never did. I neither claimed that I would delete the files nor that I would come back and post how to delete them. Stop. Making. Shit. Up. Learn. To. Read. kthx .

Obviously I never said, you said you would post it, though if you read the posts you know I asked you to post your method for deleting the files, as I understand you said you did, previously.

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No, I didn't. I said that I deleted the service, not the files. I could hardly give less of a shit about these files. They can stay on my hard drive forever. I don't care. They are totally harmless.

Levine says they'll be removing it in time anyway:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/48641

So there you go.

Corwin, i am still dissapointed of it - as an action game for some stuff i think it makes it less fun. It has to do with how the enemies spawn.

And this is still the best damned action game i played.

Yes, I understand what Ken L. is saying. Howeverm in this thread over at the 2K forums, in the very first post,

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8531

Ken himself admits that he has no say in whether to copyright or not as this decision is made entire in 2K New York.

The problem with the Securom thing is not that it is used to secure the online activation since many games today require internet access to get the game activated. The problem is simply that people were taken aback with surprise over this. Part of this problem is that the internet access thing is written in very small letters and in normal font and colour It needed to be in bigger letters and in red font and colur, I think. Then people would have known about it, and maybe decided not to bu the game...

Part of the problem is also, that the game (and even the demo!) install SecuROM files on your system, files that cannot be deleted via the registry or don't go away with the un-installtion of Bioschock. Nowhere, during the preview where this mentions (not to my knowledge anyway), nor was it mentioned that you only could activate the game 2 (now 5) times. It is the publisher's, in this cae, 2K and Take Two's responsibility to disclose any & all information regarding their product. They have not done so.

The game, when it is being installed, does not disclose, either that it will be installing (hidden) files to be used for security and activation purposes nor that these files may not be removed when the game is un-installed. Also, it seems that you have to be online, to un-install the game, to get one (1) of your 5 install
spaces back. To me, this is totally unacceptable. I can understand why you need to be online to activate the game, but to to un-install the game? I'm not totally sure if it is legal or not? to let a game, like Bioshock, be installed on a computer without disclosing that the game also install (hidden) files on your computer?

Someone at the 2K forums seems it is illegal under English law, which is sort of funny, and perhaps a little bit tragic, too - since the EULA for the demo clearly states that this game is regulated under English law, (which is interesting since English law doesn't seem to have as tight copyright § than laws in other countries do).

I would rather have that they had used Starforce, since this can be removed using the 'starforce removal tool'. Starforce also asks 'do you want to install Starforce now' when the game is being installed, or after the game is being installed. Dreamfall uses Starforce for protection purposes. And I once uninstalled Dreamfall and thought I'd better remove Starforce as well. It just took a quick googling to find the correct Starforce removal tool...

The thing is though that all these DRM issues have been in vain. Everything tech and digital can and will be broken. (not a recommendation, though). Probably by someone who is bored or by someone who doesn't want to play the game anyway.
(still not a recommendation).

Legal buyers of Bioshock have trouble enjoying their games. while 'others'... well, you get the drift... (still not a recommendation!)

AVG just deletd the bioshock.exe on my other comp and now the game doesn't start. So i guess there is some anti tampering code in there aswell so there goes 1 legit activation.

Uninstalling AVG seems to cure the problem, maybe just deactivating the shield will work. The latest AVG undate certainly doesn't like Bioshock though thats for sure.

woges said:

AVG just deletd the bioshock.exe on my other comp and now the game doesn't start. So i guess there is some anti tampering code in there aswell so there goes 1 legit activation.

Uninstalling AVG seems to cure the problem, maybe just deactivating the shield will work. The latest AVG undate certainly doesn't like Bioshock though thats for sure.

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But Bioshock isn't the only game to ever conflict with a virus scanner - heck, Dungeon Lords gave some people with certain virus setups absolute fits, and it has no copy protection!