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Boing Boing Threatened By Software Creator
mfh writes "StarForce has issued threats to Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow in retaliation to Cory's post about the anti-copy malware that installs itself along with many popular (and unpopular) video games." From the BoingBoing post: "Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers' freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed. Someone identifying himself as 'Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc.' contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my 'harassment.'"
Smile, you're on Slashdot: http://icoc.freehomepage.com/contact.html
Sun and Fun
List of games they fucked up:o unt=205
http://fileforums.com/showpost.php?p=299834&postc
courtesy of http://www.fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=70333
NT
Check out http://www.star-force.com/protection.phtml?c=261&i d=707 for a claim that star force makes. They say if you can prove that their software causes the noted problems with dvd drives they will give you $10,000. Not that I believe they would actually pay you, or would expect anybody to travel to Moscow to do it, but it's pretty funny.
nothing
Ever since I heard about some of the random issues caused by Starforce a few years back, I've always avoided any game title under it's protection. You can find a pretty good up-to-date list of known Starforce protected titles over here - http://www.glop.org/starforce/
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Dennis Zhidkov
PR Manager
StarForce Technologies
Altufevskoe shosse, 5/2
127106 Moscow, Russia
Tel +7 (095) 9671451
Fax +7 (095) 9671452
ICQ: 75-371-896
E-mail: denis.zhidkov@star-force.com
Http: http://www.star-force.com/
Since we want to keep everything legal...
Buy the game, then go download an ISO & use a NoCD patched/cracked exe
gamecopyworld.com is one of the many places you can find such things. GCW has been around for a long time and you don't have to worry about trojans/virii/etc.
On the other hand, if you want to make a statement, write those companies a letter telling them exactly why you're not going to buy their games.
Just laying out your options for ya.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You understand that one of the 'rules' of this competition was that it had to do permanent damage. Someone (multiple people, actually) showed them that when they installed a game with StarForce, their DVD(cd?) drive began to malfunction. However, they would not let this individual claim the prize because after completely wiping the HDD and reinstalling windows it began to work properly. They claimed this did not harm the system because it did not do permanent damage.
(I don't have a source to back this up right now, I'll find the article later.)
If I install a game on my system I don't want to have to reinstall my OS everytime I want to burn a DVD.
Perhaps your view is because you are not aware of the very extensive evidence that has previously been posted in highly respective technical forums in the past about this subject.
Read this from Tom's Hardware's Aaron McKenna:_ pirates/index.html
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/the_war_on_game
Read the follow up letter by Starforce:h tml?c=256&id=658
http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.p
Read Aaron's response letter to Dennis Zhidkov at:
http://www.glop.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=93
Ubi has received numerous emails from registered users of their games who have experienced this problem and are investigating them. Check their forums for more details on that.
Starforce regularly LOCKS and even deletes threads on their own forums whenever someone posts requesting for help with problems related to those discussed here, so they can keep up the pretense of not having any legitimate reports of problems.
I completely agree with Aaron's letter. When copy protection seeks to do modification to a person's system, regardless of what kind of "permission" they confuse the end user into giving them, then copy protection is going too far.
And making non-specific overstated threats to silence public critics is one of the must surefire signs that a company is trying to hide something.That last sentence means that you must make the software actually physically fubar you drive to the point it will not work in ANY SYSTEM without starforce protection. Everyone knows starforce isn't physically smashing drives with hammers; they are breaking drivers to the point one needs to reinstall Windows.
This contest will never be won.
As a side note, if you decide you want to try to win this contest anyway, you must foot the bill to fly to Moscow (the one on the other side of the planet) and show the folks in the office.
First, the contest was, until very recently only $1000, not really a large bounty.
if you read their rules you have to travel at YOUR expense to moscow to demonstrate the problem. You then have to demonstrate in ONE DAY a problem with the DVD/CD drive which "Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening."
The contest is a PR move with rules constructed to make winning impossible. The bashing has been on target and valid.