Starforce Petition!

[impic0]

Originally Posted by Stevi

But then again, Daemon Tools developers will release just a small update, and thats it. It will be easier for them, because they know now, how SF3 works.

Wait a second, shouldn't the people who actualy make the protection know better what they do, because they have the source? It's always more difficult to reverse-engineer, because you only have the asm "source".

[Stevi]

Originally Posted by impic0

Wait a second, shouldn't the people who actualy make the protection know better what they do, because they have the source? It's always more difficult to reverse-engineer, because you only have the asm "source".

I know that, but DT devs are also NOT stupid. There will ALWAYS be some kind of workaround - from hakers, Virtual Drive devs, or someone else... SF3 people are NOT the smartest people on earth. I know that there are some smart talented people that know how to crack dificult SF3 games (with dificult VM, PC Codes, and other custom stuff) in quicker way, but they are keeping it for themselves. They are not part of the warez scene... By the way, ALOT of good legendary crackers got busted last year (Fairlight, Immersion, Razor 1911, Deviance). With them, SF3 would be dead already, but nevermind, there WILL ALWAYS be some kind a workaround... Just my 2 cents.

[Grumpy]

@Stevi and Impic0
C'mon guys this was supposed to be a Starforce Petition thread! Go chat to each other in the 'Chit Chat' forum please.

[impic0]

Well sorry, but this thread makes no sense since you "sign" against the (almost) only copy protection that is still hard to crack. so what do you want? that software is protected by weak copy protections that erverybody can crack with help of some "tool"? i don't think publishers will agree with you. wouldn't it make more sense to start a petition against copy protections?

[LoxHazard]

Originally Posted by impic0

Well sorry, but this thread makes no sense since you "sign" against the (almost) only copy protection that is still hard to crack. so what do you want? that software is protected by weak copy protections that erverybody can crack with help of some "tool"? i don't think publishers will agree with you. wouldn't it make more sense to start a petition against copy protections?

Wrong

The petition is for starforce and his malicious drivers (work as a virus in your PC), not for protections in general.

If you read all post in the thread you get enough information about this.

[Grumpy]

@LoxHazard
That is exactly right. Well said.

NOTE: Its a shame the 14 1/2 thousand who have viewed this thread so far didnt come on board and submit their disgust at the Starforce Protection!
Not that they all would have been a different member etc, nor would they all have neccasarily agreed with what we have to say, but yeh it would have been nice!

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hi guys,

On a sidenote, Starforce developers are developing software for the money. Dameon Tools developers, on the other hand, are developing free software for the fame. Guess who has more enthusiasm to trick the other?

Joe

[impic0]

Originally Posted by LoxHazard

Wrong

The petition is for starforce and his malicious drivers (work as a virus in your PC), not for protections in general.

If you read all post in the thread you get enough information about this.

So your opinion is, that copy protections are ok? I mean, not that they just make it hard for you to make a backup of your legally owned software. They also let your game become more expensive.

[TippeX]

twisted logic there, most of the times you dont legally own the software you own a license for it, and if the cd breaks you use the existance of that license to get a replacment from the publisher, as for protections costing more, they cost a fraction of the game price if you want to see where the real mark up is , its in the store, check retail price against the supplier price.. thats where the money is made, and with piracy simply exiting most publishers weight the cost of a few cents per cd for the protection and go with it, if you have a problem with the original cd then contact the publisher, thats how it works, the main 'issue' with starforce that most ppl have (apart from jumping on the 'waaah, no cracks exist for xxxx, i cant play it now' bandwagon) is the fact that the drivers make their system unstable and cause intermittent crashes, and that uninstalling the game does not uninstall the drivers etc.. thats the main argument of this thread

[LoxHazard]

Originally Posted by impic0

So your opinion is, that copy protections are ok? I mean, not that they just make it hard for you to make a backup of your legally owned software. They also let your game become more expensive.

No. I only say that this Thread is for starforce and his infernal drivers, I don´t say my opinion about others protections.

Protections aren´t good for legit customers, i agree with this, but Starforce not only protected backup posibilities, installed evil drivers in ours PC too. For this, is that this thread exists.

Anyway, I agree with Grumpy that this thread is for petition, not for discussion.

You can create a thread over other protections or other things.

[nerva]

Originally Posted by LoxHazard

Wrong

The petition is for starforce and his malicious drivers (work as a virus in your PC), not for protections in general.

If you read all post in the thread you get enough information about this.

LOL
Dude you scare me... But i know the truth. So stop bagging others!
Where is the proof that SF drivers is a virus??
No one antivirus software company update thier antivir bases with StarForce! NO ONE!!! No articles where wrote on it in serious antivir resoures. You just use the hearings and conjecture from the web.

Think when you drink!

[LoxHazard]

Originally Posted by nerva

LOL
Dude you scare me... But i know the truth. So stop bagging others!
Where is the proof that SF drivers is a virus??
No one antivirus software company update thier antivir bases with StarForce! NO ONE!!! No articles where wrote on it in serious antivir resoures. You just use the hearings and conjecture from the web.

Think when you drink!

I don´t drink.

First, i don´t say that starforce is a virus, i said that works similar as a virus, because attack other software like alcohol 120%, and other bad things. There are a lot of writer drivers broken for starforce drivers, is true.

Anyway you are totaly partial, how you are starforce admin forum and works for starforce:
http://star-force.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38

Your opinion is not valid in this case.

[Evil Homer]

Originally Posted by impic0

Well sorry, but this thread makes no sense since you "sign" against the (almost) only copy protection that is still hard to crack. so what do you want? that software is protected by weak copy protections that erverybody can crack with help of some "tool"? i don't think publishers will agree with you. wouldn't it make more sense to start a petition against copy protections?

Guys, you both miss the point, it's not the fact that the game is protected that is the problem, it's what StarForce does when installed.
So it doesn't matter if later someone finds a fix for it (eg:daemon v4) and you can copy the game, you are still installing starforce when you install the game and that will still mess with most computers at some stage or other.
From what I hear and read when U finally go 64bit you'll be lucky if your machine runs at all if you've installed a starforce infected game.
So I also am joining the boycott, I do have quiet a few of the infected games but I will never buy another and hopefully nor will most of U.
I also think this should be a sticky, very important and very relavent issue for todays gamers.

[thebluegr]

Just to clear some confusion here: almost ALL protections (Starforce, Safedisk, Securom) load device drivers (SecuRom installs drivers from v7 onwards). For example, safedisc installs a driver called "secdrv.sys" in windows\system32\drivers - there is an update for it here:
http://www.macrovision.com/products/...ownloads.shtml

However, these drivers are not obtrusive (I have the Safedisk driver installed in all my PCs) and cause no issues (apart from an error with older Safedisc drivers, fixed from the page above). Each well-known protection apart from StarForce loads ONE driver (e.g. secdrv). On the other hand, StarForce installs a LOT of drivers (about 6 or so) that mess with the normal operation of the PC and they tamper with things they are not supposed to (e.g. the PC's IDE channels). That's what's causing the BSODs and system instabilities. The issue is not that StarForce uses device drivers, it's about the damage these drivers cause to the systems they are installed, as well as the things they do behind the back of the user. Note that StarForce is the ONLY protection that has an uninstall program for their drivers - they "silently" aknowledge that their own program is causing problems to PCs it's installed on. No other protection offers uninstall programs, because no user has had issues with these drivers.

I'm mentioning this because StarForce authors claim that all protections use device drivers and that user eggagerate when they talk about the SF drivers. This is not the case, as their drivers are far more complex and affect many things in a system they are installed on.

To sum up, the issue here is that StarForce drivers are complex, they are many (not one, as most protections), they tamper with things they are not supposed to and they do a lot of nasty things "under the hood". This causes system instabilities, BSODs and a lot of unnecessary grievance just to protect some games. Finally, SF protected games do NOT work on Windows 64-bit without a vendor patch, and very few vendors have supplied such patches

Like others do, I too recommend all my friends not to install SF protected games for the sole reason that SF drivers are a major pain in the ass

Wikipedia has a nice article about StarForce here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starforce

There is also an article with the response of Starforce to many user's comments here:
http://www.simhq.com/_technology/technology_061a.html
and a discussion thread about it here:
http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boa...;f=37;t=007110

There is also a very good page dedicated to boycotting StarForce here:
http://www.glop.org/starforce/

Note that StarForce itself has a page containing their latest drivers, an uninstall program and some answers to common questions here:
http://www.star-force.com/protection/users/

[crc953]

Originally Posted by thebluegr

they tamper with things they are not supposed to (e.g. the PC's IDE channels)

You are very far from the truth.
A short analysis of sfcure demonstrate that SF hook two Microsoft drivers:
1= classpnp.sys: all Read/Write operation
2= netbt.sys; all operation (except load/unload)

1) means that SF spy everything that is read/write, from optical discs or hard discs
2) netbt is netbios over tcpip. It means that they can send to anyone what the spyed at stage 1)

Many thanks to eip.
You unplug your CD readers? Unplug your internet connexion!!!