How bnetd Developers Reverse Engineered Battle.net

battlebot writes: "O'Reilly's ONlamp.com is running an interview with the bnetd developers that goes into great detail about how exactly they reverse-engineered Battle.net. This is by the same guy who wrote the recent Salon article, though is far more technical. They talk a little bit about their legal troubles too, and even sheepishly admit that perhaps talking to a lawyer earlier in the process would have been a good idea. Has this project been successfully squashed?"

Comments

Re:It really sucks.

[jnana]

For your information, reverse engineering is not theft.

Re:The real question

[Anonymous Coward]

None, since the gem is completely client side and doesn't send any info to the server.

Re:Consulting an attorney earlier...

[markb]

If we assume for the moment that they had thought of consulting an attorney when they first embarked on this project, would it have made a difference?

Well, I did seek some legal device back in 1998, when I receive a cease and desist letter from the Software Publishers Association. The letter (well email, actually) came less than 12 hours after I published bnetd 0.1.

The lawyer was from the Student Legal Services office at my university, and didn't know much about IP law, but I did seek legal advice early on. :)

Re:The real question

[nsanders]

There is a GEM on network screen of D2. No one has any clue (does any one?) as to WTF it does. You press it, it says activated (or something. been a while since I played). You can turn it on or off. The joke is funny because we wonder what BNETD assigned it to do since no one really knows.

Wrong target

[sher0209]

It's unfortunate that Blizzard is targeting BNETD. The problem that Blizzard is facing, is leaked copies of the Warcraft III beta being played all over the internet. Every beta tester got a unique CD-Key with their copy of the beta, to play on Battle.net you needed a unique key (i.e. one that was not being used).

The people with pirated copies of the beta want to play too, and since there's no single player in the beta, they need a Battle.net server to connect to. Now, Blizzard isn't about to let 10,000 illegal copies on to their server so the people running stolen copies turned to BNET.D.

At this time, through some strange coincidence, BNET.D attracted the attention of Blizzard. BNET.D said "Ok, game pirates suck, we won't develop Warcraft III compatiblity", got sued, and pulled their code. A handful of the contributers of BNET.D wanted to keep pursuing WC3 and formed Warforge.

Granted, there is a point or two in favor of developing a BNET.D server for WC3:
[] Warcraft III doesn't allow for LAN play
[] I forgot the second one
They've been keeping up with Blizzards efforts to disallow use on non-battle.net servers very well (a patch is usually out in less than two days).

As for my opinion: People are going to find a way to play/use the latest and greatest software without paying for it. Period. The more attractive it is, the faster it will be cracked. Companies need to realize this and make software more available (public betas, lower prices, no prices (free)...) Even then, people will find ways to get products for free, but just like the music industry is starting to realize, people will take path of least resistance to the software they want.

That's my $0.03
--
dan