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Mysteries Of The CDRW and Backups Revealed
Talinom writes "Tom's Hardware has a story that details information regarding some of the new (and old) copy protection schemes out there, as well as results from several different CDRW drives. There are a lot of sites devoted to this topic, but Tom's is usually rather thorough."
There are so many different copy protection schemes out there. Some are really simple, like throwing some file in an obscure directory on the user's hard disk. Others are really complicated, involving the detection of various debuggers that might be present and working around them in such ways that the software can't be broken.
When it comes down to it, copy protection is just like system security. In system security, as we all know, the programmers have to find security holes before the 1337z h4x0rz do, and close those holes. (Remembering to enjoy a Negra Modelo after each security hole is closed.) Similarly, copy protection is a war between the implementer and the hacker. The only difference between copy protection and security is that the roles are reversed: In security, the implementer is the good guy and the h4x0r is the bad guy. In copy protection, the implementer is the evil force and the h4x0r who breaks it is the good guy. That's a fact, and breaking of copy protection should be rewarded with large sums of money by the implementer. Call it a sort of fine on copy protection that doesn't work. In other words, anybody who implements copy protection will eventually go bankrupt because it will get broken eventually.
Yes, I still remember with horror the "good old" copy protections some amiga games compaines made. Non-dos disks that made the entire amiga shake as the disk drive desperately tried to read the crypted disk. The sound resembled snoring and could be heard miles away.
I had a friend who couldn't play some games late at night because the drive woke up his parents! Some games could not even be loaded on older drives because of the "shaking". In addition the disks also came with a nonstandard bootblock making all anti-virus software go mad and easy for viruses to destroy the game.
My drive finally gave up the ghost after a few years playing with them copyprotected games. The same fate happened to all my amiga friends at one point. Some were lucky to still have the commodore warranty still valid. Others had to fork out a fair amount.I was one of the lucky.
I myself, being a flightsim nut, used to play Falcon. Unfortunately it came with such a nifty copy protection that not even X-copy could make a backup. As a result I lost the game one day when the disk, despite good care, became corrupted. Unable to find a pirate copy I was (and still am) without a good game I paid honest money for. Sadly, I also bought F16 Combat pilot and the same thing happend to that one. Backup could not be made. The disk became corrupted....
Fortunately a friend of mine had a cracked version... I have yet to see a pirate suffer from a protection that is impossible to crack. The only suffering has been done by the owners of originals ( I am refering strictly to the owners of amiga non-dos copy protected games that were so common in those days).
These problems persist into today. Another friend of mine lost a hard drive and blames SafeDisc copy protection on a recent game for it.
So, can anyone here, with hand on heart, really say those copy protections did more good than harm?
Scientists are baffled by the seemingly improbable disappearance of Tom's Hardware from reality.
The RIAA is quoted as saying:"There is no spoon"
crazy dynamite monkey
keep copies protected is to not give them out.
Maybe these companies should stop selling the programs entirely. That would stop the piracy.
Linux is dead.
LU
"Tom's is usually rather thorough."
:)
Yes, Tom's Hardware is usually thorough, but it is also usually thoroughly wrong--at least, the reviews written by other than Tom. Read through them. Look at the numbers shown on, say, the CPU articles and see if they have anything to do with the conclusion. I'm serious--not trolling (at least, not intentionally
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
99% of the people who want copies of software don't have to worry about copy protection- someone else has broken it for them.
They merely need to use their P2P client of choice to download a cracked image of the CDs.
Remember last April when Andreessen said "If a computer can see it, display it and play it -- it can copy it,..."
Article found here.
As Dan Briklin says "With ever changing technology, in order to preserve many works we will need to constantly move them ahead, copying them to each new media form before the previous one becomes obsolete. Also, as we create new media, we need to preserve the knowledge of the methods of converting from one media to another, so we can still access the old works that have not yet been moved ahead. This is crucial. Without this information, even preserved works could be unreadable.
The most famous example of that type of translation information was an inscribed slab of rock from 196 BC found in 1799. It contained a decree written in Greek that was also written in two forms of Egyptian. It's called the Rosetta Stone. It let scholars finally read ancient works in hieroglyphics that they had physical possession of but whose language had been a mystery for 1,400 years (despite being common for the 3,500 years before being superseded). Cuneiform, a form of writing used by many ancient civilizations, was similarly opaque to scholars until they found a text in multiple languages carved into a cliff -- the Behistun inscription."
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
So you say, but I certainly haven't seen any evidence of this, not in the last 3 years.
Before then, THG was one of the better sites on the web (that I knew about at least). Now I will only go there if I'm really bored or looking for a laugh. www.tech-report.com, www.aceshardware.com or www.realworldtech.com are SO much more informed.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
In tom's review, clonecd was not able to handle the safedisk 2.51 (the disk2 cd) copy protection. If you check the clone cd compatibility page ( http://elby.ch/english/products/clone_cd/writers/ L.html ), you'll notice a "correct efm encoding" heading. Any burner that has two stars (well actually sheep) under this heading can handle safedisk 2.51 with no problems WITHOUT the use of clonecd's amplify weak sector feature, as the burner itself handles this at a hardware level. I have personally tested this on my computer, backing up Medal of Honor, using a liteon 163-dvd drive as the source drive and a liteon 24102b as the writer. I used Clone Cd 4.013. Tom's also used a liteon 24102b and was unable to copy safedisk 2.51 . I am not sure what they did wrong, but i suspect the source drive might of been the problem.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
The other difference is that once a hole is found in a system, it can be patched.
Once you've shipped some physical object and the security on it has been breached, you are up a creek!
One of the best scheme's I've heard of is one where there was a way of spoofing certain keys. The implementer knew this and when one of these hacked keys were entered it turned on the "RANDOM BUG" boolean, which would drop things mid process, panic your machine, etc. etc. He was quite smug when he thought of this.
I don't think he could get a patent on it. I think the BSOD is an example of prior art!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Disk 1 is one of the NHL series from Electronic Arts. Probably NHL 2002. If you look closely, you can see the NHLPA logo.
The only known Tages-protected game is "Moto Racer 3". Does anyone have one to compare the artwork to Disk 3?
Consider:
Wellcome
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to Toms Harware where we
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Discuss the new anti copying
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schemes that affect your CD-R
VS
Spock I never (pause) wanted (pause) you to dress (pause) like a (pause) tribble (pause) and tracktor beam (pause) me from behind (pause) you burning hulk (pause) of Vulcan (pause) man meat
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Remember "CIA", "Disk Assassin" and even "Copy II+".....wow, that cool new color copy program on Tom's sure takes me back....all those cool things...like modified TOC's....Half tracks....Modified sector headers....having to use the nibble editor.....
[salty sea pirate mode]
....there beeeen pirates in these waters since there was waters.....
[/salty sea pirate mode]
Possibly, but it should be my choice. As an example, if I want to play a game on a laptop on a plane, my only choice is to pack my CD drive with me to do it, even if all the program does is periodically ping the CD drive to make sure the CD is in the drive. Well, that may not seem like a problem, except that it wastes battery life, and more importantly keeps me from plugging in the second battery, so I have to play complete games to get multiple batteries of life going (usually by exiting and restarting the program, which seems okay until you're in the middle of an AoE II game and don't want to exit!
Also, I always play with the game sound turned off. I hate the music that comes with the games. Why can't I then use my CD drive for other things simultaneously on a game that doesn't have a real requirement for that kind of disk space?
I guess the bigger thing is that really, I want it to be my choice, because there are situations like this where I really just don't want to have to deal with having the CD in the drive.
Using an Apple. Since Apple will not allow copy restricting software into their machines. Good or bad, you can at least make legit copies of your software with zero issues.
I purchased a product called the Opcode Sequencer (some early MIDI fans might recognize this). It had one of the most obnoxious schemes I've seen. First, it limited you to two installs. After that, either the master floppy had to be in the drive, or you weren't going to be using the software. I think Performer used something similar for a while (and it still may). I was never one for actively trying to circumvent copy protection for the purpose of using software without paying for it, but it really ticked me off that companies made it overly difficult to use the software that you HAD paid for. In this light, I was glad to see that someone had hacked thorugh this particular scheme. Legitimate owners should not have to worry about this kind of nonsense.
I personally call it copy prevention since it describes the technology in question and has the same acronym. Every time I read the term "copy protection", I cringe. Just count the number of times it's been used in the article...
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
With regard to the review, it was ok, but really did little except sell the cheap sleeper drive over the more expensive ones....
:)
I think we need copy prevention for games. Not so much with online ones though because you can do things at the server that discourage casual copies. (Flame suit on
However, I also demand the ability to make backups, or take advantage of the hardware I own. (Putting several games onto DVD, or HardDisk really should be possible.)
So given the cost reductions in media production today, why not offer people a choice?
If you purchase the game through your standard shrink wrap vendor, then you get to live with the copy prevention methods. Same battle different day.
If you purchase from the publishing house directly, or better yet the game developers, you get unencumbered media with a catch:
Your name and address becomes part of the game as they burn a copy for you on demand. You get to make any copies you want, and they get to know if you start distributing them irresponsibly.
I did this long ago with a utility program I wrote for CADKEY. (Ez-Shapes BTW.) I did put a lot of time into the program and wanted my return, but also did not want to invest a lot more into something that had very little to do with my program just to get that return. Why? Lets just say that copy prevention schemes have caused me enough grief in the past that I did not want to be associated with them.
Each copy went out with the buyers name on it. I figured that the incentive to keep ones name clean was as good as any to prevent copies without undue restrictions on the buyer. I never did encounter how I was going to handle transfers because it never came up, but that could be a concern.
Maybe a worthy tradeoff though. What if your media was damaged? Since they *know* you are supposed to have it, maybe they can just make another for a small fee.
Something to think about anyway.
Blogging because I can...
Mine worked with everything I threw at it, even Gigastore (the cheapest I could find that still had a name) at their rated speed, and usually at 24x, until I found some really cheap ones...
The cardboard packaging said Verbatim, but when I popped the top off they were unbranded white ones, with no identifying marks. The manufacturer data (as reported by the drive) says "CMC Magnetics" and they burn just fine, but nobody else can read them properly. (My wife's new DVD drive will, but it's very slow, nobody else can actually read them at all.)
I haven't found a brand that works better than anything else, but I certainly won't buy the extra-cheap ones anymore.
One spindle I bought unmarked turned out to be CDs branded as IBM. I dunno if that's the real IBM, or some clone company, but they worked really well and were dirt cheap. Anyone else ever run into this "brand"?