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Blizzard, Bnetd Respond on Bnetd Shutdown
From: "Tim Jung"
Subject: bnetd.org shutdown
If you would like more information on this please feel free to contact me. I am
one of the developers and the hosting ISP for www.bnetd.org. I have talked at
lenght with both the Blizzard/Vivendi lawyers and with EFF lawyers about our
options both as an ISP and as a developer.
As an ISP I did not force the group to do anything, but rather presented them
with all the legal information I have recieved and asked them what they wanted
to do. As you can imagine neither my company nor any of the developers have the
money to fight the Blizzard/Vivendi lawyers at this time. So until we are able
to get some legal help to fight this we felt we had no choice but to close down
the site for now until the time at which we could fight this legal battle.
If you have any questions or suggestions let me know.
Tim Jung
System Admin
Internet Gateway Inc.
Why is Blizzard trying to shut down servers that emulate Battle.net?
Servers that emulate Battle.net facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code. Blizzard products are intellectual property, and we are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy.
How do CD keys help reduce piracy?
Blizzard uses two main methods to combat piracy: disc-based copy protection and CD keys. As part of the login process, Battle.net authenticates the user's CD key and prevents people from logging in with the same key or an invalid key.
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable these emulators to authenticate CD keys through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary CD-key algorithms secure, we cannot allow outside servers to query for the validity of CD keys.
What about software that hasn't been released yet? Wouldn't it be better to have as many people testing the beta version of Warcraft III as possible, even if they are playing on non-Battle.net servers?
The primary purposes of the Warcraft III Beta are to get play-balance feedback and to test our Battle.net servers. Our servers aren't tested if people are playing the Beta on rogue servers. Additionally, the Warcraft III Beta is not intended to be a product demo; when testing ends, we need the ability to terminate the Beta's functionality. Rogue servers eliminate our ability to expire beta versions of our products.
What about the hobbyists who are not pirating your software but just want to use these servers as an alternative to Battle.net?
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists. We are constantly working to improve Battle.net, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to Battle.net for playing Blizzard games.
Your games sell millions of copies. Why do you care if a few people pirate your software?
The sales success of a product should not exclude it from laws intended to protect intellectual property. Software piracy needs to be combated at all levels, and at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight illegal distribution of copyrighted media.
if you want to grab the files while you can, grab it from sourceforge here or here or here while they last. That should cover all the flavors.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
They wrote it.
They earned the right to sell it and protect it.
I'll still buy Blizzard games as long as they provide enough entertainment for the money.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Well you could always play one of the developer friendly games OR you could being doing what your supposed to be doing, WORK...:)
Atleast thats what my wife tells me all of the time.
BWP
Why should the on-line piracy validation be integrated with the server? It is "relatively" easy to split the actual battle.net serving with the vadidation process.
With an Open client/server protocol the client could get a ticket/.net pasport from the official site and play with the Free server...
Just my 5 EuroCents.
Notice how they cleverly shift the argument from one of "Why did Blizzard (successfully) attempt to shut down this project?" to "Are you saying you support piracy?" This is what we call a strawman, boys and girls.
All they've done is piss off a bunch of people and possibly "prevent" a couple of copies of their games from being the target of copyright violation. Let's see... a couple fewer sales, or the loss of much goodwill? The really determined copyright violators will still find a way, then they'll make their methods known, so they're back to where they were in the beginning with fewer fans.
Yeah, great choice, guys.
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
From blizzard FAQ:
"Your games sell millions of copies. Why do you care if a few people pirate your software?
The sales success of a product should not exclude it from laws intended to protect intellectual property. Software piracy needs to be combated at all levels, and at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight illegal distribution of copyrighted media. "
I think they have a good point. After all, think of all the entertainment value you will get out of a measley $50. Really it's not a bad price to pay, especially when battlenet is free.
It does not prevent praicy. It allows people to play Starcraft on the internet. Blizzard is just a regular corparation owned by Microsoft. (Not directly of course)
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
They need to keep the CD key algorithm secret in order to be secure
This sound like yet another amateur cryptography to me. If they used a proper public key algo they would have no need to keep it secret.In other words: reading crypto books helps.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Blizzard is ultimately doing the right thing in going after people cracking the Beta, IMHO.
I mean, ideally they ought to allow things like bnetd for their published games, since that reduced the load on their real battle.net servers, which I think most of us will agree is often more than they can handle.
Instead of citing security of their protection algorithms, I think they ought to be working WITH the bnetd people -- they need to find a way to allow copy protection while still allowing user-operated servers.
If they need a real example of a system that works, they need look no farther than Half-Life or Quake3 -- they can be played on LANs without authentication, but by and large, you need a licensed copy to play on the Internet.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
It would majorly suck for everyone, if a few people start steeling characters because of third party networks.
Signifigant Non-Infringing Uses....
Why don't the servers ask for a CD key? Then leave it to Blizzard to authenticate the key?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Like any other software, once it hits the hands of someone outside the company it's going to be pirated. I checked Efnet last night, and the iso for the warcraft 3 beta is all over the place. It's sad that people pirate software, but that's the nature of the beast and no reason to shutdown a legit project. Now the bnetd server has gone underground, and will be modified by 3l337 h4X0r5 from here on out, and blizzard will not be able to get any control of that.
it really depends.
there are countless advantages to alternate networks and battle.net clones elsewhere, the one that pops to mind being bandwidth.
bring out the DMCA bandwagon. there are perfectly "legit" uses for alternate servers, but blizzard has a right to take action when their EULA is violated.
the warcraft 3 beta that has been circulating however is a slightly different story. LAN play has been disabled, with battle.net being the only option for multiplayer play. i do feel, however, as a testing beta, the benefits one might gain from an alternate server, such as internet lag, would be something blizzard analysists would be collecting data on, and not something theyd require input on from the gameplayers.
If so, I would think that bnetd would be well within the bounds of the law, as AMD did this same thing with the x86 instruction set. Of course, being within the law and having the means to fight for those rights are entirely separate things, unfortunately.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
Why is Blizzard trying to shut down servers that emulate Battle.net?
Servers that emulate Battle.net facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code. Blizzard products are intellectual property, and we are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy.
We, at Blizzard couldn't figure out how to keep people from copying our software, so we decided to do authentication in the server, and hope no one figures out how to write their own server.
How do CD keys help reduce piracy?
Blizzard uses two main methods to combat piracy: disc-based copy protection and CD keys. As part of the login process, Battle.net authenticates the user's CD key and prevents people from logging in with the same key or an invalid key.
We realize that all attempts to combat piracy are futile. We put these schemes in place more to frustrate legitimate users than to stop determined people from copying our software.
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable these emulators to authenticate CD keys through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary CD-key algorithms secure, we cannot allow outside servers to query for the validity of CD keys.
We believe that keeping our CD-key algorithms secret makes our software look more secure.
What about software that hasn't been released yet? Wouldn't it be better to have as many people testing the beta version of Warcraft III as possible, even if they are playing on non-Battle.net servers?
The primary purposes of the Warcraft III Beta are to get play-balance feedback and to test our Battle.net servers. Our servers aren't tested if people are playing the Beta on rogue servers. Additionally, the Warcraft III Beta is not intended to be a product demo; when testing ends, we need the ability to terminate the Beta's functionality. Rogue servers eliminate our ability to expire beta versions of our products.
This is just the beginning. We need to be able to, on a whim, terminate your access to a game you rightfully bought. We are testing this scheme under the guise of a "time limited beta test". If we let others run servers, they could play the game they paid for whenever they want!
What about the hobbyists who are not pirating your software but just want to use these servers as an alternative to Battle.net?
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists. We are constantly working to improve Battle.net, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to Battle.net for playing Blizzard games.
We don't understand why someone else would want to use an alternative to Battle.net. Our software is close to perfect, and who cares about those strange Linux-using customers?
Your games sell millions of copies. Why do you care if a few people pirate your software?
The sales success of a product should not exclude it from laws intended to protect intellectual property. Software piracy needs to be combated at all levels, and at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight illegal distribution of copyrighted media.
Business as usual... "War on Piracy..." News at eleven...
The only legal recourse for Blizzard is to try to shut down individual game servers residing in the US (small potatoes), or to try and track down developpers individually should they also reside in the US.
If you're an american developer for this, just deny any involvement from this point on.
I use bnetd to play starcraft on linux on lan. I'm not going to put ipx just for one game.
Yes, I did buy the game, and yes I use winex to play it.
I also happen to be the geek to call for a few tens of persons when they have a technical problem or to talk about games.
I'm going to advice all those persons to never again buy a blizzard/vivendi game until this affair is settled between vivendi and bnet. There is obviouslly something better to be done for vivendi than to piss off fans with stupid useless legal moves.
Piracy is not harmed by this move, nor helped by the existence of bnet.
Read: Greed
This is what it amounts to. The games Battle.net currently supports are either years old or in beta cycle. At this point the games have been posted to usenet, morpheus, or just plain copied so many times that there is little they can do about it. But they can try to make sure that online gaming with their product takes place under their auspices. Does anyone have the EULA for Starcraft or Diablo 2? I would be interested in seeing whether it states in the EULA that online internet play may only take place on the Battle.net servers. Otherwise, it seems like they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. In the end, though, it is just another large corporation using the shield of intellectual property rights to force people to use their services. And the only thing we can do about it is not buy their products.
No big deal here, move right along .. Of *course* Bnet-emulating servers will be used to play pirated copies of the game. Back when I used to play Diablo II, BattleNet was the one deciding factor that made me buy the original game.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
As far as I can tell they actually have legitimate reasons to shut them down, Battle.net is part of their copy protection. If you bought the game are there any reasons why you would want to play on other bnet servers than the official one?
But how does this compare to the unofficial Ultima Online shards? I don't think EA has shut them down, though I haven't followed the news in the Ultima world for a long time.
READY.
#
Blizzard uses two main methods to combat piracy: disc-based copy protection and CD keys. As part of the login process, Battle.net authenticates the user's CD key and prevents people from logging in with the same key or an invalid key.
This sure doesn't tell me how CD keys reduce piracy. It tells me that CD keys are used to prevent people from using bad CD keys. Disc-based copy protection can be broken. CD keys can be generated by a program, which will likely be written by someone in the cracking community eventually.
Try again, Blizzard.
From the FAQ:
Q. What about the hobbyists who are not pirating your software but just want to use these servers as an alternative to Battle.net? A. Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists.
"Software Pirates" didn't spoil this for hobbyists. *Blizzard* spoiled it for hobbyists. In the style typical of any arrogant corporation, they don't care what their customers want; they just want to control every aspect of everyone's interaction with them. (IMO, this is typified by the horribly buggy CD copy protection on Diablo II -- ever try to play it with more than one CD-ROM drive, or the CD not in the first drive? Feh. They'd rather keep legitimate buyers from playing (hell, they already have our money) than risk letting even *one* "software pirate" slip through the cracks!)
Don't let Blizzard fool you. *They* are the ones who are causing problems here, not bnetd. What ever happened to "innocent until proven guilty?" (Yes, I know it's a legal principle, but it used to be widely practiced even by ordinary people... until the lawyers found they could make more money by pre-shafting people, so to speak.) Anyway, just my $0.02.
---Crash Windows XP with just a simple printf!
Normally I'd totally agree that Blizzard is well within their rights to shutdown the bnetd project because of piracy issues. My problem is the fact that battlenet is so incredibly laggy, even during offtimes, that extra servers would be really nice. I've purchased all my blizzard games, and will continue to do so. I think they're good games. I just hate being online and waiting 20 minutes to walk 2 steps, all the while listening to some pre-pubescent 12 year old tell me "1m a l337 pk and 1m gonna beat y0 down!" =p
Any service that can validate a CD key or not would be an invaluable service for anyone attempting to determine what that algorithm is. Thus I can see why they would not want to provide that service.
Public key encryption is a tool that solves a completely separate problem, and could not be applied to this task.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's too late, Blizzard: too many servers are all running different variations of Bnetd, some even custom-tuned. I, myself, was among one of the first people to log onto a bnetd server, which happened Thursday.
My personal curiosity was why Blizz waited so long before they started this whole legal battle against the Bnetd folks. #warcraft3 on DALnet was the channel where everyone was congregating to talk about Bnetd emulation, as well as distributing the ISO to various users so that, when some solution was created, everyone could just hop in and play. The channel's users topped 400+, and there was no doubt in our minds that someone from Blizzard was in there just gathering a log...
So Bnetd was originally released for Starcraft and Diablo2. Then the Warforge folks come along and they create a version of Bnetd (since Bnetd is GPL'd) that works with War3Beta. The Fluffnet project also worked on this. I believe that Fluffnet got finished first, and Warforge got a crack out that let everyone play. Soon people were playing everywhere...if Blizz was smar they would have stopped this whole charade long before it was near completion. But it took them too long, and they screwed themselves, legal-wise.
Long live the Warcraft 3 Beta
-Evan
Make this offer to blizzard : the bnetd supplies the server game code, but passes the authentication off to a Blizzard-run server....
Lets see how Blizzard would respond to that, if piracy really is the objection...
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I. for one, will still play Starcraft or Diablo and judge any new products as they come out on their merit. If I decide that server emulation would be a good idea at that time, then I will complain and contact Blizzard. But, for me personally? I've no issue with Blizzard cracking down on BnetD
Simple: No more Blizzard games. Even if the games are great, shutting down bnetd is something that can't be accepted.
I also don't like the concept of 'if you want to play online, you must play on battle.net'. I bought the game. I can play whereever I want. Why don't they do something similar to id? the id cd key is also quite annoying (lan parties), but at least you can play on other servers. And if I want to run a server, I can do so.
Blizzard is 0wned by Vivendi. I mean, if huge corporations can't make more money than God, the terrorists have already won!
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
Don't get me wrong, it is well within their right to do so. Blizzard has been put into a tough spot by these server emulators, because they are forced to choose between an uncontrolled environment (which leaves the very real possibility of piracy), and high server load and an irate community that somehow feels that their rights are being violated.
You don't have to agree with their position (which I personally do) but at least understand the reasons WHY they are taking this stance.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It's funny, there's actually a pretty simple solution to all of this, which neither Blizzard or the /.-ers want to admit: Blizzard just needs to release a legitimate version of the B.Net server, with CD key checks enabled, that anybody can use to start up a B.Net server. This should solve both the complaints of those, like me, who own a legitimate copy a game, but have never been able to actually get a game up and running on B.Net with friends due to the servers being so overloaded, and Blizzard, who seems to just be worried about piracy. But, that would be giving the customer freedom of choice, now, wouldn't it, and then Blizzard couldn't start charging for access to B.Net eventually.
--to see which opensource Diablo lookalike is furthest along and offer your support towards its development.
If you want a real laugh, make it use the bnetd as its server [bnetd is GPL after all], so bnetd server can no longer be primarily regarded as a piracy tool [if it ever was]
Game development takes a long time and several years of effort, so a complete start from scratch to produce something that operates in a similar fashion to Diablo is probably not a good idea, but if you can assist on something that runs on both Linux and Windows you'll rip a lot of their profit base from under their feet. What better way to be avenged ? I suggest the bnetd developers have a look around for a suitable project!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
something like a quarter of a milion people read slashdot (or so i'm told). my suggestion for a solution is simple:
if you don't agree with the politics of this desicion, don't buy the game. tell your friends not to buy yhe game.
i'll bet they are going to lose a lot more money from that then they would ever have done due to piracy.
try protecting your intellectual property from that!
Acts@core.mailboks.com Acrux@core.mailboks.com Adam@core.mailboks.com Adar@core.mailboks.com Ada@core.mailboks.com
using Kali, a software that's been around since.. 95 at least, http://www.kali.net/ , gamers were able to play IPX game on the net under the guise of "Lan" emulated games. Eventually this evolved to encompass tcp/ip games, such as diablo, allowing users to play together without connecting to battle.net server.
Kali therefor ALSO bypasses the battle.net cd verification software, and has done so for the past 7 years.
Blizzard cracked down on bnetd, for the only reason, that it allowed ten's of thousands of players to play their closed beta unchecked.
Spite is what it really comes down too, as the piracy issue did not affect sales in any way for this beta.
another good deed for vivendi......
They wrote, develop the concept, they have the full right...so you want to steal that? so it can be free...wtf.....
Servers that emulate Battle.net facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code.
This is, of course, pure bollocks. I could as easily write that "Playing Diablo II in single-player mode facilitates software piracy by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code. What's really at issue is that they don't want any competition for their pay-for-play servers in the future, and are willing to overlook the fact that the bnetd folks aren't the ones who added WC3 support.
Here's the letter I wrote to Blizzard:
Dear Sirs,
I have been a Blizzard customer for many years now. My shelves have accumulated boxes of Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo 2,
and sundry expansion packs for those games. But I'm afraid actions your company has undertaken have persuaded me that I should stop being your
customer.
Like many others, I've been distressed recently by the damage hackers and cheaters have been doing to gameplay on Blizzard's Realms servers on the battle.net service. Duping items, hacking items, skill hacks, and various other methods of cheating have been running rampant. But until now, I've held out hope that Blizzard would take action to address these problems, and deliver on the cheat-free Realms that it has promised since before Diablo 2 was released.
Instead, I've noticed to my dismay that instead of investing its resources to improve the gaming environment for all legitimate players, Blizzard has instead chosen to squander those resources on stifling the innovation of those legitimate players. I speak, of course, of the letter threatening legal action Rod Rigole has sent to the bnetd project, hosted at http://www.bnetd.org. Mr. Rigole claims that this software violates the DMCA, and that it is Blizzard's interest that the software be suppressed.
Putting aside the fact that this is a questionable legal interpretation, given that bnetd is not a means to bypass anti-circumvention techology, does not facilitate copyright violation, and plainly lies within the DMCA's
exemption for reverse engineering done for the purposes of interoperability between privately-created software and preexisting software, and also putting aside the fact that I have never used the bnetd software, I am writing this letter to tell you that it is not within Blizzard's interest to take such action.
As evidence of that, I will offer the fact that your draconian action against a piece of software that only serves to enrich the gaming experience for thousands of your customers, has convinced me that I should not again purchase one of your products.
[signature]
The day its released... without a doubt.. I dont have the cracked beta. But I have already preordered my copy. Blizzard makes GOOD games.. the reason you pirate games is because every half ass developer out there gets an engine, changes some skins, and rolls it out the door. Im not paying for every piece of crap that comes into ebworld.. But if I get a pirated game that plays good.. I buy it. Blizzard gets the benifit of the doubt. As far as the bnetd thing, when you buy a blizzard game, it says free internet play on bnet.. not bnetd.. while I like the idea of other servers.. someone should prolly have dropped blizzard an email post production. Blizzard could have sent bnetd a ascii "the finger" at the end of the email and I would still be buying war3 (already paid for) but my point is.. when other companys were giving us crap.. they gave us diablo.. starcraft.. diabloII.. they give us good games.. we should be trying to help them or work with them... not getting butthurt because they hurt our feelings.. SUPPORT COMPANYS THAT MAKE GOOD GAMES!!
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
Blizzard made the games they make the rules. If you don't like there rules you should play a different game. The reason why, either to eliminate software piracy or to disable betas, is indifferent. It hurts them in the long run. Now the software has to be pirated and the servers will have to go underground. Sales will drop and another company that tried to get to tight will fail
Let's hear from the EFF folks.
Can Blizzard do this?
Note that I'm not asking wether or not they have a reason. Sure, you can limit piracy by controlling every possible environment in which a game is played. But do they have a right to shut down a clean reverse engineered network, just because they use their own network is an anti-piracy device?
If I sell a car, and one of my anti-theft devices is to place some sort of homing beacon under the hood, which is maintained and serviced at special approved dealers, then can I shut down independent mechanics who also service the car?
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
How canthey complain about piracy in other servers?? As long as I remember almost all the servers online of Quake 3 have CD-Key authentication. Why they can't do the same, some sort of database that can be accessed by servers to authenticate.
These guys want to charge by playing in bnet. That's what they want.
Their games are cool but technically suck!!
Quake3 has it's key authentication outside of the server, of course with quake3 there's no need for a clone server bceause they don't force you to use their servers, battlenet will be up and down constantly for the first 6 months after war3's release. bnetd was going to be the only way to play reliably. also, bnetd would never have been started if blizzard included direct tcpip support in starcraft, like they should do in war3.and that would solve any issues with their gay service
Once again this is the whole licensing crap. If I paid for my copy of Diablo, Diablo II, Starcraft and WarCraft II then I should be able to play them online, but sometimes there are problems with firewalls and what not that render a battle.net server unaccessible. This is neither my fault nor their fault, but they have esentially turned my CD's into coasters.
As for the stuff about CD keys, I think we all know that's just skirting the issue some. The real issue is about control. Blizzard is after complete control just like every other closed software company is. The fact they make kick ass games shouldn't change your view in this case.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Score: -1 (Pissed-off Rant)
I used to go to a college that had a firewall in place, making it impossible to connect to Battle.net. Furthermore, the admins had it set up so that we couldn't play over an IPX network unless all the computers were in the same building. As a result, we were completely unable to make use of Starcraft's multiplayer capabilities, which is the whole fscking point of having Starcraft. Had we had bnetd, we could have set something up.
What Blizzard is doing is absolutely ridiculous. We all had legit copies of the game, so had we run a bnetd server, we would have been totally within our moral rights.
If Blizzard doesn't back down, it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy any more of their games.
Steve
Looks like Blizzard has a pistol with a full clip, and is prepared to use every one of those bullets on its own feet.
I don't care why they want to shut down bnetd, if they can't do it without the DMCA, then I want them to suffer. I am not one to steal games that I play a lot, and I wasn't intending to play Warcraft III in the first place, but now I'm going to do everything I can to make sure anyone who wants to play this game without paying can do so. I will tell all of my game playing friends this: "Warcraft III? Oh, that game sucks, actually, but I've got a copy and a server you can run it on..."
If they are going to use rules that shouldn't exist, we have to break the rules (and them) in retaliation.
I fail to see that wanting people to pay for a service is greed. I just do.
The games Battle.net currently supports are either years old or in beta cycle. At this point the games have been posted to usenet, morpheus, or just plain copied so many times that there is little they can do about it.
Starcraft and Warcraft II BattleNet Edition are still being sold in stores at a discount, which means that Blizzard is still making money of their "years old" software. To take away the BattleNet incentive would discourage people to buy their games, old and new. Plain and simple, yes.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Each and every example Blizzard cites for their chasing down bnetd is an example of Blizzard trying to control what the consumer does with their software after the point-of-sale. Especially the "we want to expire the Warcraft 3 betas" excuse. They can go after pirates as much as they want, but if I have a legitimate copy they have no right to infringe upon my own rights.
"How in the world is blizzard going to handle complaints and support."
And we have the same, tired old excuse of "But Blizzard will have to support it!" Where the heck do you people get that idea? I answered Dell tech support calls a few years back and I only got support questions about non-Dell peripherals maybe once a day. And I never got a call asking to support hardware that the customer didn't buy through Dell (such as an HP printer).
Customers aren't quite as dense as you seem to think. And this is before you consider the amount of work they'd have to go through to set up a connection to a non-Battle.net server. I will truly be surprised if anybody went through the effort to play StarCraft on one of these servers under the assumption that the server was owned and operated by Blizzard.
At best this is an example of Blizzard using the excuse of a very small minority to infringe upon the rights of everybody.
"It would damage all the work they put into making network play secure and reasonably safe from identity theft."
Then why are they afraid to let it compete with the security of other server operators?
The Warcraft III client simply verifies it's key with an authentication server before it even is allowed to connect to battle.net or any other server. If the key isn't authenticated, no online play for you. This is how Quake 3, RTCW etc do it, it works perfectly AND allows third party servers to operate. All these suggestions about letting a bnetd server get the key from the client and then verify with Blizzard are just ludicrous and asking for someone to just develop a server that grabs the key and then disconnects the client.
Dodger_
Thanks for not just folding on this, guys. I was worried for a bit there.
If the DMCA isn't going away, we at least have to show corporations that trying to make unsubstantiated threats will cost them more than they seek to gain -- in terms of popularity of the software and in terms of legal battles. I think they've got very little to stand on here (as opposed to the DeCSS case, which I think the DMCA was basically written for), so good luck in your fight.
if blizzard wants to be an ass, i'm sure that there's more than enough talent among people who play their games to put together something similar.
in my opinion, none of their games have had amazing graphics so that shouldn't really be an issue. the sound, well you could just encourage people to use their favorite cd while testing and maybe at some later point a talented composer or two will come along.
what you need is the game engine which could be written from scratch on nothing but DX or based on SDL or some other kit.
as for voices, i'm sure RMS would love to sing and provide orc grumbles and comments relating to open source. cmdrtaco may also want to particpate in the nice voiceovers.
besides, what would be cooler than to have some network ardcade machines or people at home playing diablo and warcraft like games.
Why is Blizzard trying to shut down servers that emulate Battle.net?
Servers that emulate Battle.net facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code. Blizzard products are intellectual property, and we are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy.
Bnetd only emulates your server. The authentication code only allows someone to play games on Battle.net. Since the game isn't being played on Battle.net, this point makes no sense. Anyone can copy your games and use the same keys to play single player mode, with or without a server emulator.
How do CD keys help reduce piracy?
Blizzard uses two main methods to combat piracy: disc-based copy protection and CD keys. As part of the login process, Battle.net authenticates the user's CD key and prevents people from logging in with the same key or an invalid key.
So you're admitting that the CD key only prevents people from playing on Battle.net, and does nothing to prevent someone from violating the copyright by just playing single player modes.
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable these emulators to authenticate CD keys through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary CD-key algorithms secure, we cannot allow outside servers to query for the validity of CD keys.
Your crypto-algorithms aren't very good are they?
What about software that hasn't been released yet? Wouldn't it be better to have as many people testing the beta version of Warcraft III as possible, even if they are playing on non-Battle.net servers?
The primary purposes of the Warcraft III Beta are to get play-balance feedback and to test our Battle.net servers. Our servers aren't tested if people are playing the Beta on rogue servers. Additionally, the Warcraft III Beta is not intended to be a product demo; when testing ends, we need the ability to terminate the Beta's functionality. Rogue servers eliminate our ability to expire beta versions of our products.
This has nothing to do with bnetd. The Bnetd project did not have support for Warcraft 3 yet. Those were deviant trees being developed by underground developers, and those aren't going to be so easy to shut down.
What about the hobbyists who are not pirating your software but just want to use these servers as an alternative to Battle.net?
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists. We are constantly working to improve Battle.net, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to Battle.net for playing Blizzard games.
You're admitting that this software was not made to violate your copyright protection. I'm hoping this will be used against you if this goes to court. Unfortunately, it was your own fault Bnetd had to be developed anyway, since your Battle.net servers don't seem to be able to handle the loads.
Your games sell millions of copies. Why do you care if a few people pirate your software?
The sales success of a product should not exclude it from laws intended to protect intellectual property. Software piracy needs to be combated at all levels, and at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight illegal distribution of copyrighted media.
Bnetd does not facilitate the distribution of your media, it only allows people an alternative to Battle.net. CD burners facilitate the distribution of your media, but I don't think you're going to get very far going after them.
You should just admit you made a mistake and recant the DMCA charge. You are obviously wrong, and have shown much ill will to both the Open Source and Gaming communities. Please reconsider your actions before people start boycotting all Blizzard software.
Sincerely,
Christopher Brian Eargle
Why should I not boycott all products from your company as you appear to be just another pathetic DMCA loser?
Sigs are for people who started using the net _after_ '86.
I'm disgusted not only by what Blizzard has done, but by the fact that they feel the need to slander the bnetd project as well.
This is from the announcement on battle.net's main page:
Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
This paragraph contains at least on case of spin-doctoring, as well as one outright lie:
"Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process." Technically, this is true, but it's a gross misstatement of the bnetd project's aims. This sentence implies that circumventing copy-protection was bnetd's primary purpose, when in fact it was not.
"...they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased." Again, making it sound as though that's the primary goal of the program, and ignoring the fact that the bnetd team asked Blizzard if they could implement CD-key checking.
"Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers." This is a lie, pure and simple. Blizzard will stll be able to protect leigimate users on battle.net from malicious ones; the existence of bnetd won't change that one bit. Bnetd poses no danger to batle.net users, and claiming that it does is scurrilous. Blizzard is fabricating this to make users think it's acting in their interests. It's not.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
must be an evil pirate circumventing Blizzard's right to force everyone to try and use the truly horrid POS that battle.net has become?
/. and being exposed to all the garbage below 2...
You know what Battle.net reminds me of now that I think about it? Having to take my turn in the barrel as moderator on
We all hate the DMCA... but piracy is just as bad. If we are all about options and freedom, then we cannot press our values on others, if someones makes a good product through their own hardwork, they have EVERY RIGHT to do what they wnat to with it.. it is called freedom. I am sick and tired of people here saying piracy is Ok. Dont link piracy to DMCA and try to justify it. I fear piracy or the preception of it promotiong piracy somehow is goging to hurt the open source movemnt .. and it willbe out fault. We CANNOT force anyone to make their product free. Blizzard makes a good product, they need the money, they have every right to try to protect themselves, battlenet is one thingh they have gone to great lenghts to protect and i can understand why. I am a programmer too... if i made a prgram and decided to sell it, i would protect it to.. its called freedom people...we also have rights
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
here at the missiles pad.
Share and enjoy
0101100101101111011101010110110101110101011100110
The notion of bnetd promoting software piracy is obsured. Windows enables these people to pirate software alot more easly and readly than bnetd. This is sheer lunacy.
I've also stuck up a bnetd mirror with as many as I could get. It's based in the UK, so I don't need to worry about the DMCA, I've also mailed blizzard asking if it's ok, I assume no reply means yes.
www.adrian.moye.org.uk/bnetd/
If the load gets too high, or my bandwidth usage gets too high, I'll pull the mirror for a while.
adie
at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight illegal distribution of copyrighted media.
Show me the money!!!
IIRC, the gun lawsuits were threatened because the gun companies were pushing a LOT of guns in states that had less strict gun purchase requirements and that allowed them to trickle in to states that had more stringnent rules in order to prevent crime. Their distribution policies were undermining public safety efforts.
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
Blizzard makes arguably some of the best PC games on the market. Battle.net, while neat, is not the only selling point, though it does aid in replay value for sure.
Their products, just as with ANY other electronic medium, is certainly subject to piracy, no matter how hard they try to copy protect it.
The steps they have taken with the free battle net project are understandable, and logical. They may loose a few sales to hardcore supporters of the project, but most likely you will find a great many of the supporters never paid for a blizzard product anyway.
They may loose a bit more public support than sales as well. So what? If I was blizzard that is what I would be saying. We sell the best games at competitive prices to a broad market. If I piss off a small niche of people in an alternative OS camp, who really cares in the LONG RUN. Nobody, that's who.
Now, on the flipside, I really hope that Blizzard is not dumb enough to believe their own propaganda FAQ. Cutting this project does little to actually curb piracy, nor does registration and authentication, etc... Everyone says that games like Q3 and RTCW are protected and what not, but I can tell you from experience that they were "hacked" and distributed before they fully hit the market and still are playable online today, depending on the distro. No system is perfect, and no one can write code or protections that another can not unravel and share. Anyone remember FADE??? How long did that one last???
So the biathalon, target shooting, hunting, pest control, and self-defense aren't valid reasons for owning a gun? The anti-gunners in the US and around the world (Look what has happened in Austrailia, the UK, and Canada) pick and prod at gun owners rights until there is nothing left. I'll be the first to admit, I don't need a howitzer, mortar, tracer ammo, or a fully-automatic machine gun, but those have been banned in the US since the late 1930's. In the 60's after the assinations of MLK jr. and JFK sr., the anti-gunners yelled and screamed that we needed to take highly accurate "sniper's rifles" of the streets. Then through the 70s and 80's they wanted to get rid of the infamous "Saturday Night Specials", small cheap handguns that anyone could afford, but were not the most accurate pistols on the planet.
I don't mind the instant background checks on gun purchases, but at the same time, I don't want the Gov't to have a record of every firearm and round of ammo I have in my home, in the event of a massive policy shift that vioates the constitution, I want to insure that I have a chance to defend my rights as a citizen of the US. Bottom line:
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard starts releasing games with a monthly subscription fee soon. I also wouldn't be surprised if they would like to be able to use their existing server infrastructure. If someone knows how to emulate it, and can set up competing servers, how are they possibly going to get their monthly fee out of you? I know, oh boo hoo, they can't get more money out of me, but it is their product, their service, and I bet if you couldn't get it for free you would pay for it anyways, so it isn't that ridiculous
Bravo!
Yet another favorite from the Whizzo Chocolate company.
:)
I always find it amusing when companies go after an open source, fan-developed product. Inevitably, it leads to the source code being mirrored in a bazillion locations, and a huge spike in interest for the project.
I had personally never heard of bnetd before Blizzard started hunting them down. Of course, now I'm like "Hey, I can run my own Battle.net server? Cool! I wonder what the source code looks like?"
End result? Thousands of people that would never have thought of looking at bnetd, and were perfectly content playing on Battle.net, are going to be firing up their compilers and hosting their own bnetd servers.
I'm not going to weigh in on whether it's right or wrong. But it's becoming a recurrent theme. History, repeating, doomed, blah blah.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Much stronger arguement is that when you connect to the bnet server your CD-Key is sent to the server. So all users connecting to the bnetd server would be surrending their CD-keys. Now Blizzard can not guarantee the security of the bnetd admins, nor can they put themselves in a position to be liable if CD-keys are stolen from bnetd.
So if you look at it from the point of view of CD-keys, Blizzard is preventing essentially what can be legally called a CD-Key collection mechanism. Though that was certainly not its purpose.
Interesting to note that they dont let on to this critical fact. Are they holding it in reserve to spring in case this goes to court because the explanations Blizzard actually gave are all lame.
I am still wondering why they left FSGS alone which does the exact same thing as bnetd??
...that maybe not everyone has English as their first language, dumbass.
The real issue here seems to be that "OPENSOURCE IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!"
It's a shame that Blizzard had to be apart of the group of trolls....
//fatal
Blizzard makes high-quality games, spending years developing them. Blizzard provides an on-line forum for players to gather, chat, and play the aforementioned games. Blizzard provides this online service Free of Charge.
What's the problem?
I like free as much as the next guy. The reason I don't play Everquest or Ultima Online is because I don't want to pay the monthly fee. But when Blizzard already provides a free online forum, why do we need to provide an alternate server? Especially one which makes it easy to play pirated versions of the software, one which effectivly ruins the beta process.
I used to play Starcraft on a FSGS server a friend of mine hosted. It was a private server open only to a small select croud. It allowed us to play the game in piece and quiet on a low latency server. That's about the only valid argument for an optional server.
But if it means keeping people from ruining betas and the like, I'm more than happy to go back to using the Free server Blizzard provides for us all Free of Charge. Did I mention it was Free already?
Insert witty
I was actually gonna pay for this game, just for the convience factor. Now I gotta go root around through IRC to get a copy, Thanks Blizzard!
that 90% of their games are a direct rip off of games-workshop products. [A fact that blizzard has admitted to me personally of course. ]
.. Blizzard had approached Games-Workshop [when I was still working there] saying something to the tune of: 'We really like your games, and look .. we have been putting together a computer game like them .. do you want to give us a licence?'
.. (again .. foolish) lets take a look at some evidence:
.. only games-workshop orcs (and orks if you play 40k) are green.]
.. (prior art record of about 6-7 years)
.. GW could have sued the pants off them several times .. but the board of directors [who .. if nothing else .. are shrewd] thought 'hey .. this is only going to help us in the long run .. the more kids that like THESE games . the bigger the piece of our pie will get.'
At one point
GW said no (foolish) and had microprose do it instead
Warcraft --> Warhammer Fantasy Battle [most orcs in tolken, d&d etc are brown
Starcraft --> don't those little alien buggers look like Eldar and Tyranids ? down to the colouring ?
Diablo --> Direct rip off of the G-W game Dungeon Quest
What is my point in this rambling accusation ?
That blizzard should take a look at what their business operations are doing
Blizzard ought to consider stepping out of the small business mindset of 'I need to take all the customers in my market' and step into the fortune 500 mindset of 'I need to MAKE more customers for my market'
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
jeeze 872134th person not to get it. The beta is just ONE part of it. I use the server for starcraft.
after all there are no CD KEY checks when using LAN (IPX or the new UDP in 1.09) for starcraft, and they arent hitting them? as far as anti circumvention measures, they are a joke. rewriting the registry every time you start the game. thats really not circumvention protection and who says i have to give blizzard permission to use my registry at all? all thier games work just fine without it.
They will still distribute this on DALnet, there were 15000 accounts created and 1700 users on last night (war3.myip.org) You can blame Blizzard for running to Vivendi on this one. They have a weak SHA-1 hash that is lossy and they dont want to release it because its such a crummy job (its been reversed out for how many binary bots on the real battle.net?) You dont need a CD-KEY to play d2 on the closed realms, they dont even check cdkeys accross regions, so really its not a fullproof system. They are just picking on the little guys that cant afford to fight back and that is really irritating. for every person who actually knows what's going on, there are 100 other ones that dont care and are too ignorant to understand.
IT wouldnt surprise me a bit for blizzard to drop this if they actually get taken to court, they will lose or settle out. they would have to modify every game that plays on bnet and implement new technology that has some real circumvetion prevention in it. after all you've seen what thier anti hack policy is and there are STILL working hacks EVERYWHERE. one of the d2 skill hacks im thinking of doesnt require any third party utilities. just some fancy inventory management. how's level 300 charged bolt sound? thought it was limited at 255? so did i.
Point is, they do stuff for show and do a crappy job of doing what they say they will in reality. when is the last time they released a game within 2 years of its original release date? any other gaming company that wont fly. I love thier games, they just dont do what they say they will. only when things become so mainstream they cant help but flail thier arms and cry for help.
Blizzards objections are real, and should be appricated, however is there a solution. I remember reading in Applied Cryptography about protocols that use an untrusted third party (the bnetd server). Could Blizzard in the future design the clients (games) and the server such that the client needs to authenticate through the third party to the Blizzard server to play the game while at the same time the bnetd server authenticates that the client authenticated properly? This would allow Blizzard to do what they want and the bnetd people to do their work as well.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
I don't see what the problem is? I seen this comming sooner than later.
I think many of the "I'm never buying a bliz game again" talk is LAME. Grow up!
They have worked LONG AND HARD on this game, they merely are trying to protect their ideas because piracy IS of the result, and people who HAD the beta broke copyright.
WTF is the problem here, really? Blizzard has EVERY right! I totally support them!
I put down my copy of Applied Cryptography long enough to check slashdot, and I read this:
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable these emulators to authenticate CD keys through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary CD-key algorithms secure, we cannot allow outside servers to query for the validity of CD keys.
In the name of Bruce Schneier, I smite thee with the Great Sword, ClueBringer !
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
We want you to shut down the entire site because we think that there are some files somewhere within that may, one day -- when the moon is blue and the sun is red -- be able to be used to violate copyright of something we own
But we're not going to tell you what, where why or how -- so unless you're really good at guessing, you really are going to have to shut down the entire site.
Any law that allows free speech to be infringed on the basis of such vague complaints should, itself, be struck down on the basis of it's vagueness. If an accused can't make a reasonable response to an accusation, it should not be considered a real accusation.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Although this is not a tactic I would take if Blizzard were my company, since I strongly disagree with it, I'm not sure that I can really blame Blizzard here. Piracy is a problem, and they are just trying to protect their investment. The problem isn't so much that they're using the tool available to them, but that it is available to them. The DMCA is a bad law, and we would be much better served trying to get overturned than we would be continually pressuring companies that use it to back down. Of course, the best way right now to attempt to get the DMCA overturned may be the bnet people taking Blizzard to court and attempting to fight the law. Unfortunately, I think it may take the Supreme Court to see the illogical nature of the DMCA and overturn it (although I actually have quite a lot of faith that they will).
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
I'm wondering if they are even going to bother trying to defend this or if they have already given up. If the hobbyists consider this an important thing, then I guess it's time that we all coughed up some cash to help protect it.
Honestly I'm beginning to think that the last bastion if influence individuals can have on the system is writing checks to help pay for the legal defense of the various little guys who are getting stomped on. I mean boycotts are of fairly limited value unless you can get together a large group of people and get some media attention. Personally I would love to see them fight this because I think they've got some solid legal ground here. So if the EFF, or some other group is going to start up a defense fund for these guys, let me know, I'll chip in.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I have placed a current CVS pull as well as the latest release version at This Site.
Bnetd isn't the least of Blizzard's problems right now. If you haven't been following the Diablo saga, here's a short history.
Diablo I was quickly prone to excessive hacks because all character information was stored client-side.
Diablo II was released under the premise that character data was unhackable under a secure server. However, packet sending programs became capable of producing duplicates of godly items, and more recently hack into item properties, and bring characters up to essentially infinite skill levels. Essentially, Diablo I all over again (a big reason for this IMO is that Blizzard does not disallow the selling of game items and characters on ebay, as do the makers of Ultima Online and EverQuest).
After the most recent wave of hacks (typically a new hack is produced, and its use becomes so widespread that Blizzard has to patch it to get it's servers running again), Blizzard announced that it had deleted accounts found sending bogus packets.
Up to WarCraft III all Blizzard products have been free to play on Battle.Net. If they can't be more proactive in securing their servers, the prospects for World of WarCraft, their monthly payment MMORPG under development, does not instill one with confidence.
Battle.net didn't provide any ``technical protection measure'' against copying games from Blizzard. The CD key only controlled access to their servers. Standalone play required a copy of the CD in the drive (or a cracked version of the game). And LAN play, via lame IPX crap protocol, allowed many to play as long as ONE person had the CD. I don't know if they ever implemented a mechanism for multiple people to play over IP with only one having a key, but that is the biggest feature they were lacking for the longest time.
None of these makes Battle.net look like a TPM. Where did the DMCA come in?
"Rogue servers eliminate our ability to expire beta versions of our products."
Now why would there not be a hard kill function coded in? Even if its 2 months. You are never going to stop the hardcore people, but this would stop most casual people.
This is merely lip service. It's not worth their time to combat piracy at all levels. They are stopping the emulation servers now because they intend to start charging for the Battle.Net service. Wait for it.
Those bastards. Brood War was my favourite game.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Both are reverse-engineered implementations of a proprietary server protocol.
// TODO: fix sig
Blizzard saying that the pirates have ruined it for the hobbyists, is like saying that the Sept. 11th terrorists have ruined flight for those who travel. I think it's just a weak excuse to garner a monopoly over online games.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If any of you have played Half-Life, when you join a server, your CD-KEY is still validated by a public server. So, you can run a local server (and even use the option to turn off this foreign authentication), but still enjoy the benefits of net play on a server that may not be as crowded as battle.net. My suggestion to Blizzard, why not do something along these lines, keeping control of your key authentication, and at the same time, making the small majority of us happy that we can indeed play somewhere we feel a bit happier playing.
It's simple: If other servers were to check the CD Keys, they could log them also.
If you play with a valid key on a rogue server, the rogue server operator can use your key while you are not playing.
but battle.net has no use without a Blizzard game. If I buy Diablo II, and the x-pack for it, Blizzard gives me a free service to play the game on in a multiplayer environment. They do this as an incentive or even a -reward- to their customers.
Duplicating that is a slap in their face, IMO. I don't like their practices, and I'm no fanboy, but if battle.net isn't good enough for you, go play AOE II or something.
Bottom line: IT'S JUST A GAME. Don't lose your freedom over it.
When I wrote (and I sent to all the addresses I could find) I politely requested an email reply stating their position on the matter and their reasoning behind their actions.
I got absolutely no reply. Instead of responding to their users they hide behind an arrogant self-important "FAQ" document?
As much as I hate them, I think I would have prefered a form letter.
Wow! This must be a PERSONAL letter, just for me!
What does this posting by Blizzard mean? It means that within a day they had already recieved enough protests to put this FAQ up.
What does this mean for us? Keep up the fight! Send in more emails letting them know that their explanation still does not make up for their despicable actions! Tell them that you will continue to spread the word, and push for a total boycott of Blizzard products until they relent and learn to behave like decent members of a free society.
Feel like joining me on a FreeDiablo project? :)
You aren't a lawyer for certain, since you're trying to argue logic 8). Now, as a disclaimer, I'm playing Diablo's advocate here, and I disagree with the stance Blizzard is taking, but the Adobe case means only that you have the right to take your CD and manual and give or sell them wholesale to someone else (presuming you don't keep a copy and you uninstall the game when you transfer it). It does not mean that you have the right to play it as you please while you own it, any more than you have the right to do with a book's contents while you own the book (excluding things that fall under fair use, and playing Blizzard games on a non-Battle.Net server doesn't count as fair use in the eyes of the law).
They're using the DMCA because it's the easiest path, but even without the DMCA they could reasonably press the case the their EULA forbids the use of non-licensed servers, so such use violates the license agreement and terminates your right to use the program at all.
Virg
Despite this post on battle.net's forums: Subject: Diablo II: Realm Stability From: Battle.net Team Host: Blizzard Entertainment Date: Wed Feb 20 09:56:00 We have resolved the majority of problems that caused Diablo II realm instability and game lag. The remaining issues will be taken care of shortly. We thank you for your patience during this time. -The Battle.net Team The servers still aren't as reliable as they used to be a 3-6 months back.
It is almost as if they are forcing everyone to use their servers. [After all, how many people actually -know- about FSGS? Never mind the lack of Mac support.]
Hmmm....seems like Blizzard didn't make any move to shut down bnetd until they discovered people playing the Warcraft III beta on it. So it stands to reason that they'll happily allow continued development of bnetd after the Warcraft III beta ends.
Right? Right...
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
This is the only mirror I've found to work. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable these emulators to authenticate CD keys through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary CD-key algorithms secure, we cannot allow outside servers to query for the validity of CD keys.
Now, I don't know how many people have tried this, but in at least SEVEN seperate instances, friends of mine (and me) have used Half-Life CDKeys to authenticate Starcraft and vice-versa. In fact, we've never seen a key for one that DOESN'T work on the other. Why not slap Valve with some DMCA threats, eh? Apparently they cracked your "proprietary CD-key algorithms" years ago...
Mod Total = -1 informative
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Here are reasons why bnetd was needed:
Based on my use of the product, I can assure you that people trying to use hacked copies were in the strict minority.
This is the IP equivalent of setting fire to a village because it might contain spies. If this kind of "ends justifying the means" logic were applied to any other aspect of life it be considered Draconian, but the DMCA allows this -- companies can prosecute groups whose work may present the slightest threat.
"I just wanted to play starcraft at work... and now I'm going to jail?" *sigh*
Sueing somebody for their own technical inability is lame.
They have to spend money to send out these legal demands that the emulated Bnet servers be shut down. And if they actually take the developers to court, thats even more money spent on closing down these servers. But after they do all that, what does Blizzard gain? Are people going to suddenly go out and buy all this software after their pirated versions stop working? Most pirates wouldn't buy software if it wasn't copyable. It's not worth the money, or they don't have the money which is why they don't buy it.
So after Blizzard spends all their money on their legal department shutting down these servers the end result is:
1. Pirates stop playing Blizzards games.
2. The people who would buy Blizzards games to run them on the emulated server will no longer buy them.
3. People angered by Blizzards actions stop buying their games.
4. A small percentage of the pirates may possibly buy the game.
This means that the loss of sales from 2. plus the loss of sales from 3. plus the gain of sales from 4. have to be greater than the total legal fees Blizzard has spent. That has to be a lot of sales to make up for Blizzards actions.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Remember Netrek? The developers released source code so people could make custom clients. Great, but how did they solve client-side cheats? Simple -- release a "blessed" binary build of any specific Netrek client, and allow servers to choose what clients they allow ("cyborg" (compiled by anyone) or "blessed"). It uses a cryptographic hash/key or something similar (details here).
I think this would work for Blizzard and BNetD as well (Blizzard releases their own build of bnetd, with CD key checking, etc). Of course, this would require relicensing bnetd under a license that allows binary-only distribution (BSD, MIT, etc).
Is this likely to happen with Vivendi at the helm? Probably not...
when I could play Warcraft II via tcp/ip or plain old AppleTalk. Sob.
Pooty tweet
I'm sure there are non-piracy pundits out there
who will write off Bnetd as having a real legitimate
use and say it is just a tool designed to facilitate
piracy. This is false.
As I stated in the last article regarding this issue,
I know the original creator of Bnetd well. He did
not create it to facilitate piracy, but rather he
started the project because Battle.net at the time
was even more unreliable than it seems to be now.
Also, Bnetd enables people to have their own private ladders. I guess a third reason is that
he was bored during finals week one term.
Sure, there are people who are going to use this
for piracy purposes. On the other hand, people just log into Battle.net with stolen/barrowed/cracked CD keys keys anyway.
Additionally, people who are playing the WarCraft
3 Beta right now are most likely people who are
going to buy it when it appears in the store.
I doubt any serious player is going to really want
to play a buggy beta that won't be updated.
Also, I don't believe it is right to shut down
something if it facilitates pirates, so long as
that is NOT the purpose of the software. CD
Burners facilitate piracy more than Bnetd ever
does.
As was suggested previously, things would be much
simpler if Blizzard released their own version of
a private Battle.net server for personal use.
It could include the oh so secret CD key checker.
Hell, it could even include ad banners that somehow
send their clickthrough data to Blizzard periodically. I think this would make a large
number of people who use Bnetd right now happy.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Blizzard might have written it, but that doesn't make me buy their games:
- Their quality is of course nr 1.
- The broad support and usage is two, and bnetd
servers for intranets/lanparties, or places with
low internet connectivity is also important.
Blizzard screws up the last one: Their games just went down in value, and it should be quite cool
before I buy one again.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst
Look in his "gallery of DMCA abuses".
-John
I will be buying War3 despite this BS
... and that will cost them a tidy sum in lost revinue), it is the Bread and Circuses junkies like you, who cannot deny even the least of your petty appetites to protect your own diminishing freedoms, that are largely responsible for the decline in all of our liberties over the last two decades.
... while you still have the freedom to do so.
And that is why you will remain, all of your life, little more than a product to be harvested by corporations such as this, with your rights, priveleges, and opportunities trampled at their merest whim. In short, little more than a corporate slave.
Go on, escape into your little War3 playworld and continue giving money to the very people who wish to destroy your freedom of choice, indeed all of your freedems, in order to add a few percent to their next quarterly profits. Flee the real world, which you have helped, through this sort of mindless foolishness, to make a little worse not only for yourself, but for all of us.
Whether it is DVDs, Adobe products, or games from these jackasses (I will never purchase another Blizzard game for as long as I live
In short, this sort of attitude which you express is at least as responsible for the ever increasing number of debacles and tramplings of indivudual rights we see today as the corporate fearmongers (read: legal departments) such as this one, and you, like they, are worthy only of the deepest contempt of free thinking, pricipled people.
I would urge you to reconsider, and really think about what you are doing
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
From: Josh Emmons
To: sales@blizzard.com, support@blizzard.com
Subject: Regarding bnetd...
I have been a long time Blizzard supporter. I own (yes, that's right OWN, not pirate) every Blizzard game since Warcraft II. My friends and I played WarCraft II for a while on BattleNet, but eventually stopped way before the release of Starcraft because the server was slow, unreliable, and generally filled with rude and immature players that would constantly taunt and harass us. Thus I set up my own bnetd server NOT to circumvent copy protection (all of my friends and I had already played on BattleNet, and therefore all had legal, purchased copies of your game), but to escape the BattleNet "culture" which we found utterly dissuaded us from wanting to play your excellent game.
When bnetd worked so well for us that we were able to play with complete reliability and privacy and to keep our own custom rankings and to display those rankings on a custom web scoreboard, I decided to check if it had starcraft support. As it turned out, it had just been added. My friends and I were ecstatic. We all went out and bought starcraft (you heard me right, we BOUGHT IT. WE gave YOU money for it), and played it for many many months. We also BOUGHT BroodWar, which is still my pick for best thought out extension to any game.
Now I read that your are trying to shut down bnetd because (and I quote from your own site): "Servers that emulate Battle.net facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by circumventing Blizzard's authentication code. Blizzard products are intellectual property, and we are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy."
First, I have seen first hand how little your so called "authentication code" is worth. The one time I tried to log into BattleNet with my NEWLY PURCHASED copy of StarCraft, I was unable to, being told there was already someone who had registered my ID number. Tech support explained to me that there was a tool that allowed crackers to generate these IDs randomly and that someone must have generated my ID before I logged on. In this case it would seem that even your proprietary BattleNet is doing a poor job at preventing piracy. Maybe you should spend your efforts going after the people who make these IDs available rather than bnetd which, as I have stated above, has many many uses as a legitimate tool and, for me, justified the purchase of three Blizzard games.
Second, there is no reason what so ever that you could not "authenticate" purchased copies of blizzard games through some means other than BattleNet. You could set up a second on-line authentication service apart from BattleNet. You could require the key to install the game (I think you already do this, don't you? Maybe the fact that keys seem to be so readily available to crackers makes this a useless authentication method? Maybe you need to create better keys?) That you rely on BattleNet, an supposedly optional, take-it-or-leave-it, unnecessary "feature" of your games, to authenticate purchased blizzard games is poor design on your part and should not be used as an excuse to punish those who have made your products into something enjoyable (for me at least, for the reasons stated above).
Finally, no one is doubting that you are "well within your legal rights" to protect your intellectual property. None would argue that piracy is bad and that it hurts you as a game company. But you have NO right to prosecute a group that has spent a large amount of time and energy reverse engineering NOT your authentication code (it would be whoever made the key generator that did that), but a product that YOU DERIVE NO PROFIT FROM WHATSOEVER (BattleNet is free of charge. It says so on the box of EVERY game you sell). Not only is this kind of persecution tantamount to playground bullying (you have money for lawyers, the bnetd developers do not), and not only does it stain the name of Blizzard in the hearts of gamers around the world, making us think of you as fascist, money grubbing, double-speaking, un-fun, corporate drones, but this legal action you are taking effectively removes the one reason I had to play your games.
I was looking forward to WarCraft III. I don't know if I would have used BattleNet or bnetd to play it, but that issue is now a moot point for me. My morality will no longer let me support Blizzard unless they cease this prosecution of the bnetd team and issue a formal apology on the Blizzard and/or BattleNet website. I would call for all gamers to join me in this boycott.
I am cross-posting this letter to slashdot.org, penny-arcade.com, all of the rec.games.blizzard news group sites, and any gaming magazine or website that will print it. I grant the right and fully encourage anyone who reads this to distribute it in any way that they can.
truly,
-Josh Emmons
--
I was going to by this game after playing the demo and support blizzard... now I am just going to get it for free when it goes gold.
For example, consider I got a copy of this server. Then I would get one of likely hundreds of valid keys off the internet, and my friends would all use their pirated keys. We would all use a copy of the original disc image to install our software, but use the pirated key when installing. We could all play on the same server, but hundreds of similar servers could run all using the same pirated keys since there is no way to determine whether the servers are authenticating common keys.
If it really was so easy, they would probably do it. People should stop to consider maybe there are real issues involving re-architecting both the game and server to support/allow 3rd party servers. People who are clamoring "it's easy" obviously never setup/designed secure systems. It's not easy. Perhaps some one who knows the battle.net architecture can provide more details w/o getting into hot water.
I fear everyone here is completely missing the mark!
It's all about the ad-revenues. You see, Blizzard sells ads on and if they allow people to run their own servers, then it eats into their advertizing cash cow.
Their talk of piracy and the DMCA is all just a white-wash to pacify the good little sheeple into thinking they might be justified in their actions.
As Frank Herbert said, "Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery."
so why don't you just get an European ISP?
Technical University of Denmark
Informatics and Mathematical Modelling Dept
Computer Engineering & Technolo
Of course people who pirate a game are breaking the law.
But people who buy the game can legally use it with bnet if they want to, and if Blizzard doesn't like it, that's tough.
Now, if bnetd was designed to make piracy easier, you might have a case for contributary infringement, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
So where's the beef?
Personally I'm planning on boycotting Blizzard in the future. They've made some really good games, but using the DMCA is, in my opinion, a really immoral tactic, and one that makes me reluctant to patronize companies which wield such a fuzzy and unjust law. I don't plan on pirating WC3 either for that matter. I just will go without purchasing any products which are manufactured by companies who use the DMCA. Until we as consumers can get the funds to attack a company directly in a court of law, a war of attrition can work easily well. If everyone boycotted companies who actually used the DMCA, and made a big stink over it, the law would become much less useful to big corporations. If you can't speak with your wallet by giving money to a lawyer, speak with your wallet by not giving money to The Man.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
sorry, but games that require me to register to a server to play online is BS. This is why ID games always outsell the copycats from Activision and Blizzard. Not I dont want to use Heat.net or battle.net. and I wont... voting with my wallet.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Prior to this action by Blizzard, I had no reason to use bnetd servers. Now I have one.
Edith Keeler Must Die
It's their game, they make the rules, if you didn't read the license you are the moron, not them, so either put up or shut up and write your own freakin' game.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Software piracy? Why not have a separate CD check server that the client contacts to check for validity, then go on to connect to a bnet(d) server afterwards? The game server doesnt mean jack if the binary refuses to connect due to an invalid cd key.
They're probably trying to corall everybody into battlenet, then say "oh but you owe us a Small Fee now" if they can't sustain the servers or just want to cash in further. At least that's the only rational explanation I can see.
I sent a letter to blizzard yesterday, and I'd post it here, but Lotus Notes (ew) seems to have eaten my saved copy.
Basically, I told them that I will never buy another Blizzard game again. We have legit copies of every Blizzard game for each machine(three). I had never heard of bnetd before yesterday, I most likely never would have. I play on battle.net. But my bitch is...Blizzard is screeching that bnetd violates the DMCA. Oh the horrors. They allow people to PLAY the game without being on battle.net. But is Blizzard doing ANYTHING to combat the dupes and hacks and cheats on their supposedly SECURE servers? No. Aren't those circumventing security measures?
As far as CD Keys, does anyone REALLY think this is about piracy? Did we forget this? (iv) that, if permitted by local law, Blizzard has the right to obtain "non-personal" data from your Internet browsing software in order to make certain demographic assumptions regarding the users of Battle.net without any further notice to you.
From their ToS .
I never thought I'd say this, but, I'd rather pay monthly for DAoC than ever play another blizzard game.
They're putting a gun to my head and making me play Blizzard games while a hot chick gives me head.
Why don't the servers ask for a CD key?
Simple: because you must already have a CD key to play the damn game!
You don't need a (valid) key to play any of the other multiplayer modes. Just battle.net. Since the games are not connecting to battle.net, they can get by just fine without the (valid) key.
Note: I use the term (valid), as you need a key to install the game, but the check for valid keys is different (more restrictive) for battle.net than for a regular multi-player game.
did anybody else notice:
As you can imagine neither my company nor any of the developers have the money to fight the Blizzard/Vivendi lawyers at this time.
i wonder what the damage potential of the dmca is for cases that will never even reach a courtroom.
Once again, the inanimate tool (bnetd) is being blamed for the actions of a minority of its users (software pirates). This is as stupid as laws that banned spoons and plastic baggies because of their potential use in the drug trade.
Nothing justifies pirating software (free or commercial) -- but Blizzard's action does not do anything to stop piracy. Mirrors of bnetd will pop up world wide, on public and private systems, beyond any ability of Blizzard to control. If anything, people will feel even more justified about pirating Blizzard's games because the company has proven itself to be a nasty corporation. All Blizzard has done is upset legitimate users who don't want to use Battle.net.
What's wrong with Battle.net? Cheaters, lag, trolls, lag, spewers, lag, downtime -- did I mention "lag?" I don't use Battle.net; we play over TCP/IP on the LAN. I'm not certain bnetd was absolutely necessary for playing off-Battle.net -- but I don't see how it really hurt Blizzard. And has Blizzard ever considered that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? The bnetd guys loved Blizzard games, and have been slapped in the face for it.
I own many legitimate, registered copies of Blizzard games; I have purchaed one copies of every Blizzard game since Warcraft I -- sometimes buying multiple copies because we play over the home LAN. I have *never* used bnetd; in fact, I wasn't even aware of its existence until the controversy erupted.
Blizzard is within its rights to "protect" its intellectual property -- i.e., the law lets them do something useless and stupid. I have the right to react with my money -- and I will not be buying any copies of Warcraft III if Blizzard does not amend its poor decisions.
There are plenty of fun, interesting games coming out; I think my family can survive quite happily without Warcraft III.
All about me
Wouldn't it have made more sense for the product to contact an authentication server as a separate action to connecting to a game server ?
What about emulators such as Bleem! I do recall them having some legal difficulties with Sony but they came through it. How about virtual PC or WINE. I do not think it is illegal for them to emulate battle.net. People have been playing blizzard games over the net for years using software like Kali. I guess since this software emulates IPX over IP then they can't say anything.
And are you going to pay for their workers to code something that ties in an ALTERNATE battle.net entrance, when they already have one that works (to their satisfaction)?
The Diablo II and Diablo II Expansion Set EULA's are exactly the same as the Starcraft EULA above.
Alot of the first FSGS (bnetd) servers started up years ago because of the lag suffered by users around the globe when trying to connect to Battle.net. I know when we started up an Australian FSGS server (Which at this time shall remain anonymous because I'd hate to see it shut down also) a few years back the sole purpose was to play without lag. Never was it our ideal to be able to promote software piracy, the thought never really crossed our minds. Having just had our Official Australian Battle.net server pulled down by Blizzard because of associated costing, we were looking for a new place to play when FSGS came along. Theres now many different FSGS servers located arond the world which attract many thousands of gamers, tournaments are hosted between countries hosting FSGS servers and the like on a frequent basis. Now I trully wouldn't mind Blizzard wiping out the FSGS and bnetd servers, as long as they provide more servers around the world so the minorities can enjoy their games that they paid the same money for. Thye need to show their loyal customers that they are upgrading the Battle.net FREE service to try and retrieve all this bad publicity that this whole crusade has entailed.
> Really, though, it's not clear that crypto is even required. Choose a random ~64-bit number for each CD key, encode it using base 64 or the like and store it in a database. When a request comes in, look it up in the database. If the number is there, cool. If not, drop the connection.
This works really fine in closed source situation, but as soon as the general public gets a hold of the generation function or the cd-key database (for completely random keys) your copy protection is gone.
Just having a simple oracle where bnetd sends the cd key to a Blizzard server to have it checked won't do much good either, since this is open to abuse from malicious server operators who steal cd keys from their users.
Indeed, the only valid way to check CD keys in a secure way is through crypto.
1. Blizzard generates a database of millions of keys.
2. Those keys get encoded (with Base64 or whatever) and each CD gets one on its case.
3. Customer installs the product with the key. Since the product was shrinkwrapped until he bought it, we have a secure key path and really don't need PKI as you pointed out.
4. When the customer connects to an inofficial bnetd Server, the bnetd Server gets some random package of data from the Blizzard Server, and passes it on to the game client. The game client encrypts the data with the cd key and sends it back to the bnetd server, which sends it back to Blizzard. Blizzard then checks the result and either gives a valid or invalid signal to the bnetd server.
5. Customer either gets in (with a valid cd key) or not.
I don't know about you, but in all my Blizzard games there is this thing called the Single PLayer Campaign, and to play the equivalent of this Single Player Campaign on any other game, I would have to buy a legitimate copy and abide by the EULA I agree to. Just because Blizzard had some strange notion to include multiplayer for the majority of the 3 or 4 million people who own their games, and simply wished to regulate the online gaming themselves and at no cost to the players, does not mean the fringe 1% of people who have either hardware, software, or ethical problems with Blizzard games should cry "Slaughter of Innocents!"
Sheesh people, maybe if you all payed for the illegal copies as well, Battle.net could afford some more servers to take care of the lag problems. I don't see why the same people who would pay for a Red Hat distribution because they like it have a problem paying for a free online gaming service because they like it as well. Not everything that is Free-as-in-beer is flawless.
Someone posted .debs earlier, but here are some rpms I found on someone's site if anyone is interested.
Source RPM
and
i386 Binary RPM
They look like they're up to date.
Blizzard may win this small battle, but the course of recent history in respect to the DeCSS and RIAA case studies (and others) indicate that Blizzard will surely lose the overall war.
In the physical world, companies and corporations hold significant power simply because they have tremendous amounts of money on their side. Money is strength. In the digital world however, things are different. Users and Companies are on relatively equal footing. You can fight with a large opponent without significant amounts of money. And as an increasing amount of people come to your cause and contribute their knowledge and skills, then you begin to overwhelm a company in time. And eventually the cracks in their armor begin and grow. MS, RIAA, MPAA.... you can't use the laws of the physical world in the digital world and you'll go through much pain before you understand this.
Do you know that when StarCraft fails to authenticate to a Battle.net server it sends some registry keys containing your e-mail plus other interesting information? How come on one hand they can reveal who are you without your permission ( I bet that there is nothng writen about it in the Terms of Use ) and on the other hand they want to shut down these servers + their webpages.
I say: Blizzard you do not even deserve a single penny, when you begin to obey yourselves to the laws then pretend that something is illegal.
Oh, and if you want to reduce privacy why do not release your older games' source under GPL like ID does?
Viva ID, Blizzard go and start digging your grave I bet that many people will never buy any of your games
I don't normally reply to ACs, but in this case I have to raise a few points.
> It doesn't sound like Battlenet is free to me. It sounds like you're
> required to buy an official CD to use it. I also suspect that it requires
> an internet connection of some sort to play it. It also sounds like players
> may have limited control over opponents (I don't know, I've never played this game).
First, they advertise Battle.Net as "free for authorized users", not free in general. Second, adding in the connection to the 'Net is just dumb. You need a computer to play it as well, but you'd be a fool to consider that part of the cost of the game. Third, why should any player have control over opponents?
> If I and five friends have a LAN party and we want to play this game
> without connecting to the internet we cannot do so without bnetd (or can
> we? I assume that the game is not playable over raw ethernet without a server of some sort).
Bad assumption, at least for Diablo. You can play in local network mode, using one of the machines as the "server" for controlling the game.
> No one has proven that EULAs are binding contracts that can
> limit fair use (which most EULAs intend to do).
Um, yes, most EULAs are enforceable in court. There are parts of many of them that have been called into question, but the legal concept of an EULA is still enforceable.
> If my spouse and I both want to play this game on separate computers
> in the house, why should we have to buy two copies? We don't have to buy
> two copies of a book in order for us both to read it at the same time.
Bad analogy. You have to buy two copies to run it on two machines because that's what the license says. And you wouldn't have to buy two copies if you and your wife both wanted to use it at the same time, just if you wanted to use it independently at the same time. To extend the analogy, try reading that book sitting across the room from her, or try reading different pages at the same time, and I think you'll find it's more difficult.
> But there is already a law against this and if my friends and I are
> found we can be prosecuted or sued according to it. But the fact that this
> process is difficult or uncomfortable does not justify stifling freedom any
> more than someone expressing a negative opinion about me automatically
> entitles me to have my lawyer harrass them into shutting up by threatening
> them with libel and/or suing them for emotional distress.
Another bad analogy. By your reasoning, because there's already a law against burglary which I can enforce against you if you steal my computer, I'm not allowed to install locks on my door to make it easier to enforce my right to keep my machine. And actually, if someone says something negative about you, you do have the right to sue them for libel. The case will only proceed, however, if you can prove that what they said is untrue.
Virg
I'm surprised nobody has suggested it already: Hosting and development could just move to Freenet, which would protect the identities of the developers and make it quite impossible for Blizzard to shut the project pages down, and for US courts to prosecute any US developer.
I can see how you can be upset that Blizzard is shuting down bnetd, I am upset myself, but you can't possibly argue that they are doing so without good reasons. There is no denying that bnetd servers promote piracy, although there is a way to play warezed StarCraft on regular bnet anyway. If not for bnetd servers I would not have been able to play warcraft 3 beta, and it is Blizzard's right to decide who will play their beta.
I think many here think that use of any software is a right, while it's actually a privilage.
I don't really know what the DMCA says, maybe it's "bad", but regardless of any laws, there are definetly good reasons for what Blizzard is doing. I personally rejoice at the fact that they have no way of succeding, but i also realise that it's not completely fair towards Blizzard that they can't stop this.
bnetd and fsgs aren't about piracy, they're about having 1) servers that don't suck and 2) private servers.
Blizzard's argument that it's about piracy prevention is flawed. It's about control. If you don't play on Battle.Net then you can't see their banner adds. They can't do statistical analysis of where players are roughly located. etc...
Their claim that Battle.Net emulators need to know the key-algorithm is also incorrect. There's two ways it can be done, and one is in wide practice. The first is for an emulator to just be an 'auth' proxy. It could get the cd-key from the game client, pass it to Blizzard's servers which send back the hash (presumably a one way algorithm that only Blizzard knows) to the emulator which gives it back to the client which also hashes it's key and compares it. Of course, that would require that the client makes the check, which Blizzard games don't currently do. And even if the emulator didn't proxy the key exchange the game would never get the returned hash and would disconnect. This solution leaves the client open to cracking of course.
A central authority is still the best way to authenticate game CD keys and the FPSs out there do this wonderfully. The central Id (Quake, etc) and WON (Half-Life and CS, etc) servers validate keys and deny duplicates yet a player can play on ANY server they damn well please.
Blizzard just happens to have put alot of time and effort into Battle.Net and that's what they're trying to protect. They've done a wonder job thus far and have been very attentitive to the gamer community. I love my OSX native version of StarCraft. But they shouldn't try to fool themselves, the players, and the media with their "FAQ'. In the end, it's about control.
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
...about issues like this, they seem to either back down or at least provide more info to the community.
Here's 3 cases:
1) bnetd
2) Borland licensing thing
3) Border's wanting to install thief-detection camera systems in their stores
It's almost as though my emails actually make a difference! Hahaha! SURE they do...
Blizzard also supported KALI for a while because they didn't add TCP/IP support to the first Warcraft II edition.
tip: use PKI or some such and NOT some "may as well be rot13" hash crap at least then it will only be the the most skillful and most determined who may someday succeed, and then only maybe ;D
Personally I Do use the rip to check out a game (say Empire Earth) and if I think it's worth it or I wanna play online, I buy it when it comes out. I have heaps of games I would never have baught before I decided (was forced) to "try before you buy". The free demo system publishers are using works better for me, that is if they have one? But every now and then when I listen to too much hype I juz have to check it out.
If I dont like it I don't play it. If I play it I own it. Good programmers deserve all the riches of heaven & earth.
~
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
FSGS (Free Standard Game Server) can also play some of Blizzard's games, like StarCraft and Diablo. They do not support the WarCraft III beta however... but they did get hit by a legal letter from Blizzard. Currently their site is still up and running but you can no longer download the software.
So apparently Blizzard is really launching an all-out attack on b.net clones...
DISCLAIMER: I am not familiar with any of these blizzard games and haven`t played any of them.But i would assume the following would apply *IN GENERAL* to multiplayer networked games.
So how about those of us with slow/unstable connections, to the extent that playing on battle.net isn`t playable atall, think of a large group of students in a university in japan or somewhere, who may just want to setup a server locally to play and get the advantage of local ethernet speeds rather than 2000ms pings.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I don't understand what anybody is complaining about. Blizzard games don't run on Linux, they're made for some Microsoft OS that most geeks on here haven't seen in years. I don't see how their proprietary capitalistic practices, that mimik those of Microsoft SO well, could ever effect an open source project. Sure they can protect their IP, but its only IP. Go make your own. I bet in a few years we'll start seeing open source games that will one day rival anything ever produced by Blizzard. *sigh* Okay, okay, ya got me. I'm a Diablo II adict. :(
As with .NET, almost everyone seems to be missing the point. "I'll keep buying their games because they're good," "They have the right to protect their property," etc. etc. There are problems with looking at it this way.
First of all, Blizzard doesn't write any games. The designers, developers, and artists who work for Blizzard write the games. This may seem picky, but it is important later.
Second, this action on the part of Blizzard will reduce their sales. One can argue until the cows come home about whether the amount of illegal copies stopped is greater than or less than the increased number of copies due to "revenge" piracy. However, there is a much bigger issue: most of the market outside the United States and Canada will disappear. This is because in Europe and most of the rest of the world, there is no such thing as unlimited telephone access for a monthly fee. Subscribers must pay by the minute. Multiplayer gamers in Europe simply cannot justify the expense of spending hour after hour connecting to a central battle server.
Now, Blizzard obviously is aware of the European market, as there have been legal battles over games translated by a third party.
So, there are really only two possibilities:
You should think about these things, especially if you are a loyal fan of Blizzard. If 1 is true, you should think about whether it is of any benefit to you that good developers who produce games you like continue to work in perpetuity for a stupid company when there are less stupid companies around. If 2 is true, you should think about what the ulterior motive might be and whether it will be of any benefit to you.
Others can argue whether it is 1 or 2, or the possible motivations if it be 2. My point is that it has to be either 1 or 2 (or both).
(As a side note, all of the play by e-mail players of Diplomacy are supposed to have their own copies of the board game - as dictated by Avalon Hill, and now Hasbro, in order to not be infringing on the game's copyright. Otherwise the game is basically considered pirated. Same situation Blizzard is in, just a different medium.)
So, if I buy a car or a toaster I am not buying a copy of a car or a toaster - it is physical property that I now own. If I buy a CD, though, I have the right, under fair use, to share the music with my friends, but that is the sticking point here: Art can be shared - but not for profit. However, a game is a product that can be distributed as the maker sees fit.
There is no true need to rely on the DMCA for this argument, it comes down to a license: you bought the product, you agreed to the license. Don't buy it and don't play it if you disagree with said license.
This isn't brain surgery.
You can view the letter in its entirety here at Blizzard Takes Action to Protect.
The software, bnetd, no more promotes piracy than a crowbar promotes breaking and entering. Just as a crowbar can be misused, bnetd emulator can also be misused. A lock pick set is illegal here in California without a license because its primary purpose is to circumvent security. No license is required to own a crowbar or hacksaw just because these devices might be used in an illegal manner. I'm a legitimate consumer. I own just about everything ever made by Blizzard. Your disrupting the development of bnetd has interfered with my ability to play the game. Shutting down bnetd is a violation of my fair use of software I legally own. Please explain the logic used to derive at the conclusion that disrupting my ability to play is actually helping me. No one disputes this right, but you have not gone after the pirates any more than the police would by going after the manufacturer of crowbars. Security through obscurity is no security at all. Your algorithm with be reverse-engineered, eventually. When that happens, the inherent weakness will be public knowledge. CD key generators are already floating around the web. Obviously, the security of the CD keys has been seriously compromised. If you make the CD key verification code public, it can be implemented into bnetd and most users of the program will, no doubt, implement. In truth, the CD key verification should not be necessary. The game will not run without a valid game CD in the drive. If something is circumventing this verification, is is completely unrelated to bnetd. We are not pirates and we do not like pirates. No, Blizzard - you have. The pirates are always going to be there, regardless of what you do to legitimate owners of the games. You have? When did this happen? Diablo 2:LoD has been virtually unplayable for several months now. Why do you think we seek an alternate closed realm? Since Blizzard has obviously abandoned the game to the hackers and cheaters, we have been forced by you to come up with our own solution. If you actually made an attempt to do something about the horrid condition of the realms, we might not be setting up our own realms. We want a nice place to play the game, free of cheaters and dupers. You won't give this to us; so, like an abandoned step-child, we must try to go our own way. With the state of the realms in a perpetual state of self-destruction due to Blizzard's neglect, and with Blizzard's complete lack of interest in making existing customers happy, I have decided there is no reason to purchase another Blizzard product ever again. You have lost a customer. How many will you have to lose before you realize you must SUPPORT YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS. During the previous duping exploit a few weeks ago, a Blizzard talking head said they had "come up with a solution that should be satisfactory to most people." We're still waiting. When is this mythical solution going to be implemented? Perhaps when he said "most people" he was referring to the Blizzard marketing division and the dupers. I'm sure the the only people satisfied with Blizzard's non-solution will be the marketing people (they are hoping it will drive people to their new game) and the dupers (they are free to abuse the realms to their heart's content).-- Will program for bandwidth
because the CD-Key has to be cracked before the game will even install. The only thing bnetd is guilty of is enabling the last bit of functionality to an already cracked game.
:-). I think the bnetd guys should move the web-site out of the US. I'll be laughing my ass off at Blizzard for screwing the pooch on this one and encouraging what they wanted to prevent because they've turned into greedy bastards.
As others have said, this is a mop company suing a small-time bucket maker that happens to make a compatible bucket that could be used for nefarious purposes (maybe its a stainless steel bucket able to hold toxic waste... I don't know... no anology is perfect)
I know where the money that would have been spent to buy war III is going; its going to the EFF and the hope that the bnetd people decide to fight this one.
It will be a cold day in hell when I let some EULA dictate to me what software I can run alongside a video game, or makes me dependant on the big companies crappy servers. I wish I had known about bnetd back in the starcraft days.
Anyway, I've got my copy of the cvs root
Sure, their bottom line trumps free speech rights. Evidently under the DMCA, and in America where justice is sold to the highest bidder.
> 4. When the customer connects to an inofficial bnetd Server, the bnetd Server gets some random package of data from the Blizzard Server, and passes it on to the game client. The game client encrypts the data with the cd key and sends it back to the bnetd server, which sends it back to Blizzard. Blizzard then checks the result and either gives a valid or invalid signal to the bnetd server.
> 5. Customer either gets in (with a valid cd key) or not.
6. Hacked BnetD package starts and runs the game even if the invalid signal comes back.
But more importantly,
7. Because the user isn't logged into a Battle.Net server, Blizzard has no way of knowing whether CD key number 123456789XYZ is in use when a new request for that key comes in. Therefore, the one CD key that came off of a purchased CD and was ditributed on Usenet starts thousands of games at once, effectively nullifying the need for a CD key.
Oops.
Virg
The wared version of warcraft 3 beta is already being distributed with a modified version of bnetd that supports warcraft 3. It is highly availible on edonkey and probably also in other file distribution channels.
Also, many people have the source code of this project and also many people already have the binaries and use them to run a server.
tell me how shutting down the bnetd project could ever stop the pirating of warcraft 3 beta? The proverbial cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I don't think blizard has explained how their actions could possibly reduce piracy of this beta, nor do I know of any effort that they could make that would. Give it up blizard. Spend some time improving the final release so that people pirating have the incentive to get the real version. Change the interaction between the client and server in such a way that the battle.net server plays a greater role in the multiplayer environment that is difficult to emulate. Then, you will get your precious sales...
It seems to me that the main problem here is that Blizzard brought the DMCA into it. If they had taken some other angle, maybe even politely asked the developers to remove Warcraft III support (I realize that might not be realistic but it probably would have been better than the PR nightmare Blizzard is dealing with now). By taking the "cease & desist first, ask questions later" approach, they come off looking like a megacorp. trying to screw everybody.
-dbc
Could these out of work bnetd developers go to work on the Magic the Gathering Online server please?
Speak truth to power.
Actually, Blizzard (having a bunch of lousy coders) never even had the idea that TCP/IP might kick the shit out of IPX until the company they hired to port Warcraft II to the Mac completely kicked their ass and added all the stuff to Warcraft II that the Blizzard coders *should* have thought of, like TCP/IP networking, 3d sound, etc.
Just to nitpick..
I'm sure Blizzard will be quick to point out that WarCraft II didn't have battle.net support until WELL after Starcraft came out (recall the WCII B.net edition?).
But as an avid purchaser of Blizzard games, I'm sure you already knew that.
Can you people be honest.
The recent surge of users to the bnetd server is to allow the illegal playing of WarCraft 3 Beta (upgrades to support wc3 specificly). If you say otherwise, just stop right there because you are a liar! There is in game support for multi-player with sc, wc2, and diablo 1/2.
There simply isn't a need for bnetd unless you want to play with an illegal version.
I support Blizzard.
Justen Stepka
The parent post is supposedly "insightful", yet my direct reply to the parent post is "off-topic". Come on, think people!
Coding Blog
Why is Blizzard trying to outlaw compilers?
Compilers facilitate software piracy of Blizzard products by allowing people to make programs. Blizzard products are intellectual property, and we are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy.
How do programs help reduce piracy?
Blizzard uses one main method to combat piracy: executable programs. As part of using a computer it authenticate the user's files and prevents people from doing anything without a valid program.
Why doesn't Blizzard provide facilities that enable compilers to authenticate programs through Battle.net?
In order for us to keep our proprietary programs secure, we cannot allow outside compilers to generate valid programs.
What about when you aren't selling something?
The primary purposes of the Warcraft III Beta are to get play-balance feedback and to test our Battle.net servers. Our servers aren't tested if even one person plays the Beta on a rogue server, or wastes their time runnings any other program such as Tetris. Additionally, the Warcraft III Beta is not intended to be make us money; when testing ends, we need the ability to prevent people from wasting their time running a Beta. Compilers eliminate our ability to prevent pirates from doing anything except playing Blizzard retail games.
What about the people who are not pirating your software but just want to make programs alternative to playing your games?
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation everyone. Pirates are evil. You don't want to be part of the Axis-Of-Evil, do you? We are constantly working to improve our games, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to playing Blizzard games.
Your games sell millions of copies. Why do you care if a few people make other programs?
The sales success of a product should not exclude it from laws intended to protect intellectual property. Software piracy needs to be combated at all levels, and at Blizzard we intend to do our part to fight all other programs.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I don't get it, Blizzard is supposed to worry about being boycotted by people who, likely, weren't paying for their products in the first place? I've gotten a big kick out of reading the circular logic of the whiners, trying to justify the shadow net. Be honest, you had something "On the Left" going, it got shut down, say "nutz," move on. It's one thing to crack and all that, but to complain to the company when the cracking get shut down is riotus. God is Love, Love is Blind, Ray Charles is Blind, Therefore Ray Charles is God.
Actually, this helps ADD to the impact of the letter, I think. It helps drive home the point that it's not JUST about "battle.net" (i.e. whether the games used battle.net or not were not motivating factors in their purchase) but about liking the games - and NOT liking the thuggery and insult to their players that Blizzard has just shown. That way the letter can't be interpreted to just mean he's upset because he has to use battle.net.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
It's not about having a non-BattleNet server out there, it's about advertising dollars. Blizzard/Vivendi will not make any advertising dollars if they don't control the interfaces on which the games are played. It is nothing more or less. Certainly not about piracy. Since technically copying and giving it to a friend is theft, not piracy.
What I purchased was the WarCraft II Battle Chest. It came with the expansion ("beyond the black portal"??) and some stratagy guides. Perhaps it also included the WCII B.net edition you speak of? I don't remember installing anything special, but I may be mistaken.
--
Does anybody try to stop actual copyright infringment anymore? Blizzard is upset that the bnetd server facilitates piracy. They have not, nor could they, claim that bnetd directly pirates any proctected material owned by Blizzard. I am starting to see this kind of reasoning all over the place and it's making me batty.
Ok. Take your argument. Now apply it in reverse.
We wrote bnetd. We have every right to use it how we want. That's called freedom. We can not be forced to make our product nonexistant. We need money, we have every right to protect ourselves. bnetd is one thing we went to great lengths to protect and we know why. We are programmers too, if we made a program and decided to sell it, we would protect it too... it's called freedom people... we also have rights.
So thanks for supporting our rights to freedom and using bnetd how we want to!
It may interest you to note that Blizzard, during the time of warcraft 2 and kali actively supported kali, by releasing a build of warcraft that was optimized for kali...
anyone remember war2kali.exe ?
In other words, consider the difference between bnetd and kali: why was kali never considered a threat to blizzard?
It was considered even an ally.
I have registered save-bnetd.org, and enlisted the help of a PHP coder, and a non-us host to host a cvs or at least a file repository outside the reach of the WIPO and the DMCA.
:) )
This is wrong, so is piracy, but useing piracy to excuse blatant attacks on small groups trying to develop new software is wrong.
Blizzard has one point, that this allows the circumvention of the cd keys because blizzard CHOOSES not to allow bnetd to tie into the cd key auth server. security by obscurity has never and will never work.
I enlist the support of the bnetd group, and hail their work. they have done nothing wrong and I (and those that back me intend to use everything within our resources to bring bnetd back.)
save-bnetd.org fully supports the rights of copyright holders, includeing those that prevent piracy, and we do not advocate piracy, it is wrong, and as I stated in a letter I sent to blizzard software I have never stolen any of their software and was given a disc with a possibly illegal copy of starcraft on it. this is wrong, I destroyed the disk and bought my own copy to support a company that's now screwed me and everyone else who's supported blizzard and opensource.
(the domain should by the way should activate either today or tomorrow, and per the regualtions of the WIPO/DMCA no software is being stored on a site located in a WIPO/DMCA signing country). Also featured will be (we hope) a petition to blizzard to reverse their actions, and a fund to provide legal defense against another encroachment on our rights by those that would hide behind the DMCA.
I post under anonymous because I am frankly too busy to sign up and trelane was taken anway. my e-mail address is trelaneNOSPAM@NOSPAMmagenet.net (not that you could spam it if you tried
PS: I personally and ardently condemn anyone... _ANYONE_ who pirates software. YOU ARE WRONG. if you want software for free, use linux (or FreeBSD, it has applications that are counterpart to almost EVERY closed source application. there is no excuse, there is no reason why software piracy will ever be right. EVER. If you intend to contact me about how to use bnetd to screw blizzard back, save my inbox space, I don't wish to hear from you.
cheat sites. I mean you think about it... some :).
people do reverse engineer games to find the cheats.
So when are they going to say that cheat sites and
such are bad because people are reversing their
games. If you ask me... this is just a bunch of
crap. Everyone says that they are going to boycott
this game and that. But I say.... I'll play games
that are gifts to me for different occasions, and
other than that... I'll find something else to do.
Man you game companies have just ruined the fun of
everything. To me the best part about having a
games it the fact of figuring out how it works,
protocals an all. I guess we need more open
source games out there
L8rs
...that's why I said the DMCA route is easier. It requires fewer PR hoops to get to the same conclusion.
Virg
I think (?) computer games are produced and burned to CD en masse... Don't forget you need the license key to install the game, in addition to accessing battle.net. If you wanted to use a random license key for each copy, you would have to burn that key into the license key checker-thingerdoodle program on that particular copy. So instead of burning 30,000,000 copies of the same CD, they would have to burn 30,000,000 different CDs and then make sure the correct license key was packaged with each one...
Of course, you should always ship one CD with each game that contained only encrypted license keys, but it seems wasteful to me.
Blizzard PR hyped it, now they reap the benefits. Seems logical to me.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
So how does this affect Kahn and Kali, multiplayer services that work by emulating an IPX connection over a TCP/IP connection? Basically, they allow almost any game that works over a LAN to work over the Internet, including Starcraft, Diablo 2, et al. Will Blizzard go after these for aiding software pirates?
Can't think they would; the most recent Starcraft patch allows LAN play over UDP, so it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt this for play over the Internet all on its own. Or maybe not; anyone care to comment on that?
For more info, the Kahn website is here.
A few pirates spoiled Napster for those of us who legally trade MP3's.
That's got to be the funniest thing I've read this year.
> 7. is easy to take care of though. Just have the bnetd server send a message to the central Blizzard server when a user logs off, and implement some time-out stuff in case a server crashes etc.
No dice. What if my hacked BnetD server authenticates, then tells Blizzard I logged off immediately? Then logged back on. Then off. Then on. And so on until all ten of my local users are on. Sweet, no? Also, add in a number 8, that Blizzard's authentication server would die a DDOS death when every punk who runs a random key generator bombards it until one of those keys comes back valid (and can then be used for 7 above). Since this makes keys fairly worthless, and allowing legitimate, legal servers is impossible without exposing the keys to this sort of tampering, the obvious solution is the one they've taken.
Virg
I find it interesting that they concede it may have been developed for purposes other than piracy. I think that could hurt them legally.
From: "Rob Beatie"
To: aexia@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: One less copy of Warcraft 3 sold
Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.shtml if you have any questions or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy. {WR655}
-----Original Message-----
From: aexia@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 10:31 AM
To: sales@blizzard.com
Subject: One less copy of Warcraft 3 sold
Thanks to your ill-considered invocation of the DMCA, you have one less customer now. I've used alternative server software(bnetd) to play over the Internet because battle.net is laggy and full of cheaters, hackers and other assorted morons. It's simply not a fun place to play.
Creating my own server allows me to play in peace, without lag, with my friends. It's not to promote piracy; it's to play the *game*, not a "license", I paid money to buy. It's mine and I'll play it however the hell I want to.
I'm sure you'll sell plenty of copies of Warcraft 3 anyways, but you won't sell one to me until you catch a clue.
this is not blizzard it is their parent company, they are simply protecting their right to screw the legitimate users over by switching to a pay to play model. Why else would they refuse to work on an authentication system for external servers. It would cost them less money in the end. If someone doesn't move development to a non-DMCA country then I'll continue development on my own in Canada
People had made comments like "What about FSGS?"
FSGS has also been sent notice to cease and desist, however there notice seemed to be more related to Warcraft III Beta.
Why can't Blizzard change the CD-Key check route so that is always checks the key from Battle.net servers and not from the server you might use to play. This should be fairly easy to implement and would catch some pirates (but not the ones with key generator). You could ofcourse fake DNS entries or forward packets to your own server, but this would be too hard for "normal" people and anyways you can play directly with your friends without Battle.net and CD-Key check.
Best think would be if Blizzard starts to sell official Battle.net servers (or it could come with the game). That would be great and also would fix many problems due to over populated Battle.net servers. And people still would use to official Battle.net server because there you can collect fame, score, be number one in ladder etc..
- Raynet --> .
Now, bnetd was (A) not primarily designed for the purposes of being a circumvention device, is (B) useful for more things than just circumvention, and (C) was never marketed by the bnetd people as a circumvention device.
I'm not a lawyer, but looking at that part of the DMCA, it's clear to me that Blizzard are just trying to scare the little guys into submission.
I looked up Vivendi's quote today on the NYSE, and here's the link: http://www.nyse.com/marketinfo/marketinfo.html?sym =V
For those who just want a quick reference, here's the 52-week spread:
HIGH
69.23
(4/27/01)
LOW
35.65
(TODAY)
And it's still going down.
Good move, Vivendi. No wonder you're trying to get as much cash as possible.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
I suffer from brief periods of blackout amnesia. I suddenly find I can't see the screen and my hand twitches automatically on the mouse.
Strangely, these episodes always seem to happen when I install Windows software.
Let me get this straight - you think voluntary authentication by bnetd servers is not a major compromise to security?
If the Battlenet authentication servers go down, bnetd could let in anyone, so pirates could only play when Battlenet goes down.
Hey, you know what's a even better idea? How about I modify bnetd to let anyone in, regardless of whether the Battlenet authentication servers are down or not? Then 100% of the pirates can play on my bnetd server 100% of the time!
Honestly, what you're suggesting is akin to liquor stores not checking IDs, and trusting the customers to buy beer only if they're 21. Phft, that's an idea..
I think they have a good point.
No they don't. They want reverse engineering/clean-room implementation prohibited. The legality of that led to the explosive growth of the home computer market. I'm not willing to give those rights up, no matter how nice their games are.
This is just Blizzard having been lazy about protecting their betas from being copied, and thus throwing lawyers at the problem even though the law isn't on their side, but the money is.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I sent an email to Blizzard this morning suggesting that using the DMCA in this case was counter-productive to the company's interests. I received this response (from a bot, I think) a few minutes ago:
On 2/22/02 2:14 PM, "Sales" wrote:
Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.shtml if you have any questions or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy.
{WR655}
This response seems to me (IANAL), to render any action they might want to take under the DMCA utterly futile. They themselves seem to admit that BnetD does not even clear the first hurdle for infringement. And its a pretty low hurdle.
I sincerly hope that the BnetD people can pony up the money to fight this, as it appears they stand an excellent chance of winning.
of course, the way I heard it, the bnetd people did NOT put warcraft3 support in the game, it was put in by a warez group or somesuch.
just repeating the rumours I heard yesterday
Yet another bunch of knee-jerk "if it's not free it sucks" responses from Slashdot.
Blizzard released WC3 beta. Bunch of folks take bnetd and modify it to work with WC3 beta. Now anyone can play it. Piracy of the beta goes through the roof. Blizzard takes the (very reasonable) step of shutting down the project, as in the span of a few days it has gone from being a few guys hacking on something neat for a trivial user base, to a tool which has allowed tens of thousands of people to pirate their software.
There's no evil empire here; they are doing their best to ensure that they can still make money off the products that they spend (excessive amounts of) time and money to make. They left bnetd alone until it turned into a problem; if they were so damn evil they would have shut it down before it was an actual problem.
Although they are justified in shutting the project down, they could have just asked and explained their reasons rather than coming straight out with legal threats (at least that's what it looks like).
How do CD keys help reduce piracy?
Blizzard uses two main methods to combat piracy: disc-based copy protection and CD keys. As part of the login process, Battle.net authenticates the user's CD key and prevents people from logging in with the same key or an invalid key.
If this is about an authentication method for the login process of their servers, wouldn't bnetd have to give users access to battle.net to be circumventing their "authentication code"? They state here that the authentication is used to prevent people from logging in. bnetd users _dont_ log in. They do not even attempt to log in. Isn't this a little like saying that if you give someone a shell account on your BSD machine, you're bypassing the authentication methods of my linux box? After all, I gave them a big, long, hard-to-guess password to prevent them from getting into my machine without paying for a shell account and now you're just letting them in to your machine!
Your network setup sounds to be nearly identical to mine. I made this custom script here based upon an earlier Starcraft NAT iptables script that allows me to play Starcraft on Battle.net with full capabilities between my Wireless and Wired NAT segments.
Edit that script to match your own network setup and run it after your iptables firewall script. I personally use MonMotha's iptables script. I wrote this little guide here in setting it up. http://www.mplug.org/phpwiki/index.php?BasicFirewa llRouter
I'm not going to comment on how right or wrong I think Blizzard's or the Bnetd people's actions are, but for those who are bothered by the situation, there's one solution to all the fuss that's legal and benefits everyone, and that is to develop an open source Diablo or (insert your favorite style of game here) game that makes use of BNetd's efforts.
Just among Slashdot readers, I'm sure there are plenty of programmers ready and willing to put together a good game engine. For game art, you can find plenty of models and textures available on mod sites for Quake 3, Unreal, and Halflife, as well as people willing to create new art and levels (even if it's 3D, it can still be used for a 2D game).
After all, Diablo is really just a descendent of Hack or Rogue--classic examples of Open Source gaming.
Jim Dosé
Please feel free to try and squash any other cool projects I might not already be interested in / known it exists.
Kinda like "bzzzzzzt", I think. Then again, isn't that how any level charged bolt sounds? :-)
While we're on the subject of Blizz bugs, you know that lightning mastery boosts the damage of bone spells? My L80 sorc has a Slvl 5 wand of Bone Spear for dealing with those pesky immunes. :-)
Blizzard produces some damn good games, and they are willing to slip a release indefinitely to make the game playable out of the box, which is more than I can say for a lot of game companies. I bought licenses for D1, SC, BW, D2 and D2X, but almost never play on battle.net due to the combination of b.net lamers and local firewall problems. I just find it aggravating that they are so protective of their code; I wrote an aiscript.bin disassembler in perl a while back, but I never saw anything come of the AI script hacking projects. Amusingly, the Insane AI's fork off a thread that executes a "give myself 2000 free ore and gas" instruction at startup and every couple minutes thereafter.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
So far I think every has missed the most ovbious reason Blizzard is doing this. Cash! As everyone has pointed out Battle.Net is overloaded, this means there are a lot of people using the service. Now Blizzard can go to advertisers and say "Look we have a zillion people on Battle.Net, mostly male, average age 25 - 35 years old. Give us money and we will post your banner add while people are chatting"
Now if BentD is successfull that means less people on Battle.Net and less money in their pockets.
Sometimes the simple answer is the least ovbious one.
As an analogy, let me say that here in Michigan, it is illegal to drive a car that has spiked tires on any public road. This is justified because the cost of repairing the damage done to the roads is tremendous in comparison to the few accidents the extra traction would prevent.
There's nothing preventing me from tearing up my own personal racetrack with spikes.
Likewise, Blizzard can and should prevent unauthorized play on their servers. They should also prevent unauthorized copies of their clients from running... but they should not have a problem with legitimate clients (who have to pass the cd copy-protection check -- good luck if your cdrom drive is not 100% aligned) talking to a local server. It should be no different to them than those same clients playing in single-player mode.
So, not that anyone at Blizzard will read this, I will ask Blizzard to encourage the development of alternative servers AND clients for their products.... if they are indeed open source, Blizzard could glean some useful improvements to their own products from our work, at the cost of a URL being included in their documentation. Seems like a good deal to me.
Maybe they're aware. First Universal buys mp3.com after being a part of suing them, and then the suit STILL CONTINUES. They're still defending against that suit. Then they go after Blockbuster, the largest video rental chain, who could, out of the blue, just go to DVD rentals, which there is no payola back to movie studios per rental as there were for VHS, and lower release-date prices. Now they're saying that people who use alternative methods to play their games with each other are probably pirates and are trying to paint this as "protecting" these users and their rights.
I think the stockholders are really seeing Vivendi for who they are: Full of $hit.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
You don't blame sendmail for Outlook viruses.
You don't blame bnetd for StarCraft shortcomings.
Blizard Entertainment has no right to interfere with an independent free software project.
I know quite a few people who pirated Starcraft in the early days when Blizzard allowed up to 5 or so instances of the same CD key to be in use at the same time (to avoid problems with ghosting). When Blizzard reduced this to two or so, they went out and bought the game so they could keep playing online. If bnetd had been available at that time, you can be sure that they would never have bought the game.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
While I do give Blizzard *some* slack regarding their actions leading to bnetd being killed, this will be a costly mistake for them in the long run.
First off, Blizzard needs to realize that not everyone who uses their software is pirating it. By assuming the legitimate users are potential pirates, their actions will probably increase the likelyhood of piracy. (If you're going to be assumed guilty, you may as well commit the crime.)
Next, Blizzard should try to focus more on offering an alternative to bnetd servers for its legitimate users. There is no reason Blizzard can't set up a "pay-to-play" service that would provide access to an uncluttered, high-bandwidth server for a small monthly fee. Blizzard would have no problem getting $9.95/month out of it's more dedicated users in exchange for much-improved online gaming experience. By simply cutting off access to alternate servers without providing legitimate users with an alternative, they are making their games much less desireable.
Finally, Blizzard should be asking its users for input on how battlenet should be improved. If you can give your customers what they want, they'll have no reason to look elsewhere.
Blizzard *does* produce some of the greatest games out there. I, for one, would like to see that continue. But, without the support of it's users, Blizzard will not last long.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Both Halflife and Quake 3 has cracks for that mechanism that effiectivly remove the client's need to authenticate.
Dear Sirs,
For the past 5 years, I have been a customer of your company. I have bought and enjoyed many of your games, from Warcraft 1 to Diablo II. I have always been amazed at the new and inovative ideas and technology that goes into every one of your products. Warcraft III is no exception to this rule. Even without playing it, I can already tell that this game will be one of the greatest RTS games in history. I have been telling all my friends about it and have even gone so far as to upgrade two of my PC's for the sole purpose of running Warcraft III. I thought that it was money well spent....I was wrong.
What right do you have to tell legitimate,PAYING customers how they should use their software?! Have we not already supported you in many ways? Not the least of these being the spending of thousands of dollars world-wide in an effort to show our love and support for your company! To take measures to protect your "Intellectual Property" is all well and good. But to emulate Microsoft corporation by limiting your customers ability to innovate and expand their computers capabilities,I just cannot find a logical excuse for a tactic like this.
When Battle.net was created, I was overjoyed at the thought of being able to play with my cousin that lives in another state. Just the thought of being able,with minimum effort and a few mouse clicks,to play a game with someone over 500 miles away without expensive phone charges was almost too good to be true. Too bad that it was. Within a few weeks of using it, I witnessed persons misusing the Battle.net service,cheating,hacking,spamming, and various other offences. I complained and noticed that some minor steps were taken, but soon after,I witnessed the same *illegal I might add* actions being committed over and over again. So finally,fed up with a service that no longer was putting the customer over it's own profit-needs, I searched for another way to play games like Warcraft II-BNE and Starcraft-BroodWar with my friends. Bnetd was the answer to my prayers. It gave my friends and I a way to create servers that were free of cheaters,hackers,and spammers. My friends and I were overjoyed that a group of average "Joe Smith" kinda guys would donate their time FREELY to create a better gaming environment for all gamers to enjoy. They even went so far as to offer linux versions of their open-sourse software so that linux users were no longer left out in the cold by your company.
But in the end...the almighty dollar beckoned...and YOU ANSWERED THE CALL. Immediately you tooks steps to "protect our Intellectual Property"
and said that you "are well within our legal rights to protect our products from software piracy." In this fact,I do agree with you. However, I do not agree with the manner in which you dealt with the situation. I am sure that if you had even tried to work out an agreement with the creators/maintainers of Bnetd, that they would have been happy to have done all they could to accomodate any changes in their software that you thought would be nessessary to facilitate the full protection of your "Intellectual Property". But instead you , ONCE AGAIN, decided to follow in the footsteps of the power hungry Bill Gates and crush a small group of open-sourse programmers who were truly trying to inovate the sorely-lacking gaming industry by FREELY giving THEIR TIME in the hopes that one day you would finally clean up Battle.net and restore the honor and respect that many users once had in you...but this was not to be.
My (ex) friends, today the gaming industry has lost something....something precious. It has lost compassion for the very core of what keeps games selling and companies like you alive....The Gamers Themselves! You have revealed your true intentions to the world and I will no longer support you in the path that you have chosen to take. I will no longer purchase any software your company has to offer. I will no longer speak kindly about your company to anyone I meet.
I'm sure that others will have compassion for the roots of the gaming industry again someday, and I pray that someone is YOU.
This concludes my feelings on this matter. Thank you for your attention.
Does anyone have a specification for the battle.net protocol? I'd like to see them try to squash that.
No Free Speech for you Mr!
Anyone?
My email addy? should be easy enough.
I'm amazed at how many ways the lawyers and big corporations have found to abuse the DMCA. The list seems to grow on a weekly basis. You can read more about this at the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
I understand the idea of piracy and all that but wasn't Bnetd actually taking some of the workload off of B-net's servers??? I mean what does Blizzard Entertainment have to loose if they let someone else serve their games??? I think if Bnetd was willing to implement ways to check piracy, the same ways Blizzard does,(which don't work....I know this for a fact.) then they should allow the site to continue. Ok, do the guys at Bnetd think that even if they had to money to fight Blizzard that they would win. Come on guys wake up!!! The Guru P.S. Hello everyone at Slashdot...
(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under
paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be
made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1)
or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means
solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an
independently created computer program with other programs, and to
the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under
this title or violate applicable law other than this section.
Which basically says, as long as you are trying to make one program inter-operate with another, it is perfectly legal to circumvent a copy protection system if doing so does not violate any other part of title 17 (the copyright code) other than this section (the anti-circumvention section).
Even if bnetd did support Warcraft III, it is still legal to do so. It is not their fault that Blizzard was too stupid to make the beta expire by its self. With your line of thinking, any company could deliberately release non-expiring betas to prohibit competing services.
The first thought I had when I read about Blizzard hitting bnetd was not how they twisted bnetd's purpose (ok perhaps it was a parellel thought), but that Blizzard's behavior is anti-competitive.
Come on, people, with M$'s major loss on the legal side regarding "bundling" why has no one mentioned Blizzard actually is selling two products in each game box: the game and the "free Battle.net service" which they could charge for at any time.
The fact is that Battle.net does not in any way keep a pirate from playing a Blizzard game; it keeps a pirate from using the Battle.net service (duh) which happens to be bundled with said game. Battle.net does *not* authenticate the game; the CD key algorithm in the software does. A pirate is able play the game; single-player and multi-player (via IPX, and IPX over TCP/IP). Should it be illegal to write or distribute a server to be an IPX gateway over TCP/IP, and therefore provide the same functionality as Battle.net? People really need to take a stance on this. The ramifications of this case are quite impressive. It disgusts me how large companies muscle the open source developers around to keep tighter control of their market.
I am particularly appalled at this exerpt from Blizzards official announcement on their front page, "Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers." If I didn't see it for myself, I simply would not have believed they would claim bnetd could allow malicious users to disrupt Battle.net's functioning.
Bnetd allows access to bnetd servers without a CD key. Great, so what? Malicious users are held unaccountable? Malicious users on Battle.net? Obviously not! Malicious users of said game? When a comsumer runs the game they are automatically out of Blizzard's realm of protection because of all of the other components in a system! What if you are behaind a firewall? You're SOL! What if you run wine instead of M$ Windows? What if you connect to bnetd instead of Battle.net? SO WHAT?
What you are witnessing, my friends, is F.U.D. from yet another anti-competitive corporation.
Now is the time, not five years from now when the fricking dmca outlaws using your computer.
Subject: www.bnetd.org
and
Subject: Site UPDATE
The short version:
They had and have nothing to do with the WC3 Beta, the EFF is taking thier case with the ISP and they need donations.
Be sure to check back to the site for when the donations link becomes active.
Wax on, wax off baby!
It sounds to me like bnetd.org complied with the DMCA. They specifically avoided reverse engineering the copy protection mechanism. They only reverse engineered the game playing protocol (which they are allowed to do). -- Oh could a room full or lawyers have fun with this one -- my head is spinning, now...
This sounds like a really good one for EFF to pick as a test case: They could have hundreds of paying customers testifying in court that they used bnetd servers because the Battle.net server was inaccessible, or too slow, or incompatible with firewalls, or whatever (essentially a breach of contract, BTW).
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I love Starcraft. I've loved it since it came out, and I love it still. I showed it to the people at work, and they loved it too. We tried to set up a game in the office, but due to the firewall, we couldn't get on to Battle.net. furthermore, when we play from home,we often find the battle.net servers too slow due to overcrowding. I found FSGS, and when I showed them we could play, they each went out and bought a copy. At least a Dozen sales due to FSGS. Perhaps instead of trying to beat them, they should join them. First run games usually run for about $50. Within 6 months, they generally drop to $30(PC Games, not console games.) Each new game generally requires a bnet server update. If Blizzard simply released this update 6 months to a year after the fact, this would probably be good enough for me. If they offered some limited peer to peer, that would also do it. My guess, however, is that they eventually want to start charging for battle.net access. They already have a fairly large repitoire of quality games on Battle.net. Before long, $10 a month might not seem so bad for a dozen quality games. I'll continue to purchase their first run games, but if there is a free server available. I'll continue to use it.
A lot of people here seem to be missing the point. A public/private key system is useless if you try to have each client sending a different key. Also, the blizzard clients are anything BUT static, as any battle.net play requires them to be updated to the latest version. This could simply be implemented in the latest version of the client. For a public/private key system, all that is needed is for the client to send an encrypted version of the key/challenge to an authorized server to get the yes or no. Then, the server sends back the encrypted response. The client confirms that the server matches, and problem solved. Nobody will miss that 512 bytes of hard disk space that the key would take up, or the small amount of space for the crypto libraries either. If the response is a no, the client disconnects from the server. In such a manner, nothing to do with the crypotgraphy ever needs to be in the hands of the bnetd server operators. Or, an even better short-term solution is to use this same key system to allow the bnetd server operators to optionally patch the connect through to blizzard for verification (requiring NO client modifications). In fact, such a service has been requested for some time now.