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JVC Announces Technology To Prevent Software Copying
An anonymous reader writes: "JVC and Hudson soft Co. of Japan have created a technology that they claim to have tested on 200 CD-ROM devices that prevents users from copying software CDs. They plan to have special encryption keys hidden in software and which are pressed onto CD-ROMs and which can not be read with ordinary procedures. They claim that the location, length and number of embedded keys can vary making it more difficult to hack."
But how does this differ from the keys on a dvd you have to circumvent when you rip them? I dont think any company can possibly safegaurd their software with a system that is up against millions of users....eventually there will be a way to get past it.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Why do people think that it is possible to make bits uncopyable? Have we not been over this before? Has this changed since the last time we went over it? I am not even going to bother reading the article for this 'technology.' A design for digital copy protection is like a design for a perpetual motion machine - It may be interesting to look at, but you know from the start it is impossible to build.
"So how long will it take to come up with "unordinary prodedures"."
You might have to wait all the way until tomorrow.
DVDs have a similar copy-protection scheme. The CSS decryption keys are located on sectors of the DVD that are unwritable in the DVD-R (or +R, or RAM, etc.) media formats. So, if you copy a CSSed DVD, you get an encrypted copy with no accompanying keys.
So, a hacker group would have to gerry-rig a CD burner that could write to these "unwritable" areas of the CD-R, so that keys could be copied along with the encrypted software. Very difficult thing to do.
Frankly, I'm surprised something like this hasn't been tried already.
This reminds me of the 3D Studio Max hardware dongle issue. To protect the software from piracy, the authors of 3DS Max had the program check for a dongle on the serial port of the computer. The dongle would return a unique key requested by the program, depending on the activity you were doing in the program at the time. The thought was with all the combinations that the dongle/software combo could possibly have, it would be impossible to emulate with software, thus keeping 3DS secure.
What happened?? 3DS was one of the fastest-cracked pieces of software I've ever seen. Instead of trying to emulate the dongle, crackers simply went through the program and removed all the calls to the dongle! 3DS was circulating around the internet in less than a week after it's official commercial release, paired with a fully-functional crack.
I expect this technology to be no different. People won't try to copy the original, they will figure out a way to get around the checking mechanism, then copy the cracked version. As the saying goes, where there is a will, there is a way.
... I'm gonna start scanning my CD's. Eventually the DPI will be enough to make it work.
"D00d, th1$ izz AMERIKA. j00 g0t n0 r1g|-|t$!! "
I think reading your post caused me to violate the DMCA.
"Derp de derp."
This is actualy a system to prevent users from BUYING CDs.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Hah! I have actually read some EULAs, and many state that you may KEEP your CD as a backup, not make a copy of your CD as a backup, unless the original media is required in order to actually use the software. Arguably, you may make a backup copy of something like Office or Windows, as they often ask for the CD to support new things (especially office now adays).
Relevant spot from W98 license:
After installation of one copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT pursuant to this EULA, you may keep the original media on which the SOFTWARE PRODUCT was provided by Microsoft solely for backup or archival purposes. If the original media is required to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on the COMPUTER, you may make one copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT solely for backup or archival purposes. Except as expressly provided in this EULA, you may not otherwise make copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or the printed materials accompanying the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
(from http://nl.linux.org/geldterug/license.html)
They claim that the location, length and number of embedded keys can vary making it more difficult to hack.
"more difficult" != copy protection.
The copy protection arms race has continued unabated for what, 20+ years now?
No matter what they build, it will be circumvented. If a human can design it, another human can dismantle it.
It's sad, really, watching these companies dump millions of dollars into useless protection schemes while watching their profits and stock values shrink day by day.
Look -- it's not the pirates that are hurting your businesses. They have always existed and will continue to exist.
It's your stubborn unwillingness to admit that you cannot recoup every single penny from every single installation of your software throughout the world.
"The Root encryption deserves to be called fourth-generation encryption. It is different from existing, so-called third-generation encryption, [in that] the encryption keys can not be located easily," said a spokesman for Hudson Soft.
Translation: "The encryption can't be beaten by current software. Consumers will have to upgrade to the next version of their CD-copying software to beat this."
what about my right to make a backup copy of my software? Nobody's ever described a CD as durable.
You have that right. They also have the right to try to PREVENT you.
This is basically a race, and I WELCOME this before I welcome litigation.
Let them make schemes to keep us from copying their work. As long as we're allowed legally to reverse engineer these schemes so that we can either provider ourselves with working backups OR make the software compatible with our systems (suppose the copy protection breaks the software on my system?) then I'm not at all against them attempted to stop copies from being made. It won't do any good -- but far be it from me to try and take away a software developers right to protect their investments.
Now where I have the biggest problem is that with the DMCA it --IS-- illegal to try and circumvent this sort of scheme, and that is one law that should have never been allowed to come about.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
My friend is coming over with Mario Bros., Spare Change, Pinball Contruction Set, and Archon II. I'm going to trade him Appleworks, and Leather Goddess of Phobos for those.
Oh, wait. That was twenty years ago.
This is not Copy Protection, because it doesn't protect your "copy" at all, and in fact they're trying to mislead you into believing that making a copy is forbidden. There is nothing at all wrong with copying a music CD. Your purchase price INCLUDES the right to make a copy.
Please begin to call this by it's proper term.. Copy Prevention .
Companies like Sony, JVC, and others who are implementing these technologies want to take back the right you've paid for at the register, to make a legal copy of the music you've bought. These companies are taking your rights away, not giving you more rights.
If you want to retain the rights to the music you've already purchased, don't support companies who support or develop technologies like this. This includes going to see movies in the theaters that are sponsored by Sony Pictures and other companies who back or support these restrictive technologies. This is not a joke. Let them realize that their "decrease in revenue" is not because of piracy, but because people are getting annoyed with this stuff, and are boycotting the company's products (not to mention this economy thing these companies seem to ignore in their marketing reports on how piracy has quintupled in the past year).
Once people start using the right terms en-masse, awareness is sure to increase along with it.
Copy Prevention , not Copy Protection . Just remember that.
I've seen lots of posts that start with "sigh -- data is data and if i can read it, i can copy it".
These people assume that the busses will always be interceptable, which is not true. MS and other hardware vendores are hard at work at their secure OS which would effectively halt any attempts to read anything but encrypted bits. From what I've read, I feel the secure platform is a reality and will very easily stop cracking/hacking dead in it's tracks.
However, maybe when pirating is 100% eliminated, microsoft windows XP will cost $30 and not $300.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
- I pay for your flight to my city.
- You come equipped with lots of cash, which you show me before we begin for verification.
- I show you to a workstation equipped with VB6 as well as VB.NET for your convenience. You are not allowed to use any materials you brought with you - this is a "from scratch" project.
- You sit down and I then start the timer.
- If in 5 minutes you have produced a close approximation of WinZip, including create/update capabilities for all archive types that it supports, Explorer right-click menu integration for easy extraction, ability to span disks, UUEncode support, and ability to view files and zip comments, I will give you $2000. If you've failed, you give me $4000.
- Since I know you will fail, I will make it more interesting. Depending on your confidence level at the end of 5 minutes, I will let you extend the timer to 10 minutes. If you win, you get $4000, but fail again, and owe me $8000.
- With some begging, I may extend the contest to 11 minutes, but you'd need to agree to tattoo "I will not badmouth quality shareware" somewhere on your body in an at least 12pt font.
Let me know your thoughts please.Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
I think it will go the other way: without the threat of people being able to get Windows for free, the price will go UP, because without warez it's either pay for it or do without. But so long as it's possible to warez a software title, major retail publishers have to consider the price point at which the average consumer will buy, vs. a point beyond which they see the item's pricing as a ripoff and would rather steal it.
And this growing presumption that the consumer is the ENEMY is self-defeating. Look what happened with the price of WinXP (with its activation sca^Hheme) -- it retails for roughly double the price of previous versions. And an awful lot of people who'd bought legit copies of all versions before XP, said "if that's the way they're going to treat us, I'll just warez the damned thing and serves 'em right."
If software publishers want this to become the prevailing attitude, hey, go ahead, protect away!
Not to mention that the risk of breakage in some situations (LAN parties, technicians' use such as someone mentioned above, etc.) and the unwillingness of some publishers to provide replacement media, are now incentives to break the protection if only so you can make a legit backup.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ghandi & King weere advocates of civil disobedance, that is of publicaly violating a law as a protest against it's unfairness. They were not scoffalaws that refused to obey laws because they saw a financal advantage in ignoring them. (Something I can't say about many of the posters to this forum)
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est