Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
1201a of the DMCA reads: ''(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- ''(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; ''(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or ''(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
It does not take a lawyer to know that bnetd is not a "circumvention device" under the DMCA, and by saying that the "pirates" "spoiled" it for the rest of legitimate users, they are even admitting that there are substantial legal uses and bnetd is not "primarily designed" to circumvent a copy prevention mechanism.
They wouldn't stand a chance if this went to court.
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!
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
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
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.
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......
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]
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.
If I (digitally) stamp copyrighted material onto the "chewy nougut center", I can claim the crunchy chocolate coating is an "Access Control Mechanism".
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know 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
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.
You're right, they wouldn't stand a chance if they went to court, assuming you mean bnetd.
Most people are missing the key fact here of the timing of Blizzard shutting them down. Blizzard didn't do it when they first heard about it, for reasons that many have stated here already. There are many legit reasons why you'd want to run a Starcraft/Diablo server. Blizzard's problem with bnetd only started when functionality to allow Warcraft 3 to run was added. War3 is not a product. (yet) There are absolutely zero non-copyright infringing uses for bnetd to be War3 compatible right now. People who joined the beta signed up to help blizzard test the game in exchange for being able to play ahead of time (for free!). They don't have the right to be able to play on their own servers because they agreed to play on b.net, nor do they have the right to give it to anyone they want. These were conditions of being able to be in the beta in the first place.
It's only normal to assume the worst of a large corporation and in many cases I would agree, but in this case (as I understand it) I do not. How else do you explain the other projects which allow for b.net emulation (fsgs etc) that exist and have for quite some time without problems from Blizzard and are not being shut down by Blizzard.
If what I believe to be true regarding this matter is in fact true, I have no problem with Blizzard doing this, DMCA notwithstanding.
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*
Prior to this action by Blizzard, I had no reason to use bnetd servers. Now I have one.
Edith Keeler Must Die
If Blizzard phased out a product, then bnetd.org would fall under the DMCA's protection against obsolesence. That would be something we would be looking for because then when Blizzard brought suit against bnetd.org, the people responsible for bnetd could ask EFF to write up the legal documents to ask the judge to throw out the case on those grounds.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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
One, you aren't modifying the game to run it on bnet. Two, by your own admission, you do own the copy.
If you want to stick it in a microwave, you're free to. If you want to make modifications to it locally and not distribute them, you're free to do that too. Copyright law only says that you can't distribute copies publically or off to random people. It's called 'Fair Use'.
I don't care what the stupid license agreements say. They're largely unenforceable, and morally wrong anyway. If a license agreement in the front cover of a book isn't legally binding, one on the front cover of a DVD box or inside a game box isn't either.
No company's 'ownership' rights reach inside my own house to things I've bought and control. Such thinking leads the way to an invasive police state, and I will have none of it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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.
Apparently, they'll be suing everyone soon.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.