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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.'"
Well, I hope other companies dont find out about resellerratings... or the amazon.com reviews... or um just about anything lol.
He contacted the FBI?
Well, there's only one response to this nut. Laugh at him because he obviously doens't have a clue as to how to bring legal action against you.
That's right, folks. Criticism is harassment. It's no longer voicing an opinion. The press' right to inform the consumer and raise awareness about problems no longer exists. At least, that's how these guys would like it to be. What we need is a way for judges to penalize plaintiffs if they are clearly attempting to infringe on the rights of others for their own gain, as the case would appear here.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
When companies realise they are copy protecting themselves out of business, maybe others will learn from their mistakes and not treat every paying customer like a thief.
Bravo for posting information on this - the public needs more information to make educated choices.
Where's the company web site? How else can we slashdot them? C'mon! Someone dig it up! I've got an itchy mouse button.
Cory Doctorow publishes an opinion and then someone called 'Dennis Zhidkov' runs to the FBI and makes claims about harassment. WTF
In either case, here at Microsoft, we feel standards are important. And we have fun, too. Doug Mahugh, Microsoft
Sorry. That was me. My Troll Tuesday antics got a little out of hand and I started calling everyone in my address book (Lycos People Search) and threatening to sue for unspecified amounts under the DMCA just to make a point. You can disregard the call. Sometimes a joke CAN go too far, can't it? ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
This is a classic SLAPP technique http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP
One nice thing is that states like California have fairly strong anti Slapp laws and lawyers that specialize in this sort of case
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Smile, you're on Slashdot: http://icoc.freehomepage.com/contact.html
Sun and Fun
People will buy until they know. Look around amongst your peers, mention "Sony rootkit" or "DRM" and check how many blank stares you receive.
Yes, WE know it. Now. Thanks for posting. But we already knew. We already take care of our computers. We already check on CDs if they are REALLY CDs. We already make sure that our Games don't hassle us with "I don't wanna run as long as you have that CD Emu soft running".
But we don't count, folks. We are a minority. We think before we act. And most of all, we think before we buy.
We're a small minority. We don't count.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Honestly, it sounds and reads like boing boing is just reporting the facts. Nothing more.
Software is written that destabilizes a system, causes a crash and could potentially damage hardware.
What am I missing?
Threaten to involve or claim to involve the FBI (Cybercrime)? Really, I swore they had better things to do than investigate petty sites using legally protected free speech to label corporate interests as having malicious intent with their product. Like, I dunno. Child Porn? I hope so.
And then, of course, comes the OMG LAWSUIT brigade, claiming libel and slander when, again, opinions of a entities buisness practices are protected free speech...Hoping to tie up critics in a huge and costly (in the short term) legal battle to silence them. (PriceRitePhoto scandal, anyone?)
It just goes to show the sort of people behind this company that, instead of making logical arguments against their critics, they choose to take the 'dirty route' with the aforementioned threats...360, Claira, Jack Thompson, PriceRitePhoto..
I really, really, really hope someone gets up the gonads to take one of these foolish corporations, PARTICULARY so a adware/spyware corporation or someone with similar malicious intent to court when they issue a groundless Cease and Desist in a attempt to hold face and further their own intent.
Fin.
"Bill Gates" is an anagram for "libel stag". Hope that helps :)
that Boris Zhidkov didn't contact the russian mob... :)
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
This controversy is good. Games must be stopped from installing code which runs with kernel or administrator privileges. That's introducing too many security holes now, by preventing users from running as a nonprivileged user. Users can't lock down their machines and still run games. That's no longer acceptable.
"Must get moose and squirrel, Boing Boing is a moosey/squirrey sound"
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
That may explain why some people here might be puzzled to notice that geeks are among the most fervent supporters of DRM, copy-protection, spyware and other restrictive technologies. Witness the many gamers who have StarForce installed on their systems. Witness the many iTunes lovers (myself included) who've bought into the DRMed songs Apple offers.
It's sad to realize that we are heading straight into a DRM/copy-protection nightmare, and the worst part is that we're fully aware where we're going. Gamers are leading the way. They seem to be fully content to have anti-copying and anti-cheating software running in the background while they play World of Warcraft or Half-Life. It seems that these companies are using our geek tendencies (must...play...new...game!) against us. Is this the beginning of the end of our freedom on the net?
Electric Monkey Pants
NT
Boing Boing might in fact have a strong case vs Starforce here. Precedent was set by Kyle Bennett of HardOCP when he successfully defended vs Infinium Labs last year. I think what won him the case was his freedom of press rights. I wonder if Boing Boing could countersue for slander as Starforce contests his journalistic integrity.
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
Wow, can you say "astroturf comment"? Either that or troll, not sure which. Anyway, I'll bite:
If there have been documented cases of it causing problems, then it doesn't really matter if there have been other cases where it was fine. Even if only 10% of end users see problems, don't you think everyone still would like to know about it, so they can make informed decisions?
Or, to put in another, more emotionally charged frame: If there was a baby-food that worked fine most of the time, but in 10% of cases caused the baby to explode violently, don't you think people (particularly potential customers) should be told that there were risks? Just because someone could say "well, MY baby didn't explode" would not somehow absolve the company of responsability of the 10% that did.
There are some games on that list I might have wanted to buy... Not now. This copy protection scheme is an anti feature to me. AKA it makes the game not worth buying.
You want to stop it? Flood the publisher of these games with email telling them that you will not buy games with this use this DRM.
They have the right to put it on and we have the right not to buy.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
How does one violate _approximately_ 11 international laws?
Jeez, if you're going to bully people with legal threats at least make them long, with intimidating legal letterhead and scary pronouncements like, "you are in violation of statute 3 subsection q9 of the corndogian legal code, punishable by forced ingestion of flaming crickets."
The quality of legal threats really has gone downhill in the last few years.
What about shipping software into the US that deliberately opens security holes? Doesn't that constitute some sort of cyberterrorism?
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?
Apparently Starforce only protects games that really, really suck! I feel much better now.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
I wonder if MS will let companies like StarForce create signed drivers for Windows Vista. This is interesting since if not, many games will not work in Windows Vista and we will have almost the same scenario as when games were DOS based and NT first came out. But if MS let them, you'll end up defeating the measures taken to create a much more stable operating system.
This is absolutely perfect. StarForce is accusing Doctorow of slander and/or libel (probably libel, as his remarks were published). Now, if he wants to press that case, Doctorow will have the opportunity to validate his claims in court. If he fails, he'll be found liable (of libel), and punished accordingly--as it should be. If he succeeds, plaintiff (StarForce) will lose, and will get the additional bonus of having their software be demonstrated in court as malware.
As an additional bonus, if StarForce loses, Doctorow can countersue, also for slander and/or libel--if you accuse me of lying, and I'm not, it damages my reputation.
As long as Doctorow is confident in his claims, his only thought should be "bring it on."
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Below: Their side of the story
So what if it reads more like a press release... but of particular interest is this: There is no legal concern because before a user loads a game, he or she has agreed to accept the conditions of the end-user licensing agreement, typically known as a EULA. These are also known as click and go, or click and accept agreements. When you accept, you are saying I will load this game or application at my own risk, and have read and understood the terms. Or there will be a disclaimer that protects the publisher from damages of any kind due to their products' use. Our product is licensed to our customers, and becomes part of their product, so the user by accepting the terms, is giving approval.
It seems to me that one could read that to say that they are knowingly installing software that can damage a computer, and that the manufacturer is not liable. But anyway, I'm curious about the wording on that license -- since this is third party software, I wonder if it's still covered.
An opinion might read like "It seems to me that my system became unstable after I installed some software. or I don't like the food at McDonald's.
...so if Mr BoingBoing can't prove his statements he might be in for a rough ride...
A statement of fact should be presented with backing documentation, something like After installing on a clean machine, using SomeMonitoringSoftware and SomeSoftwareToBeTested, it was noted that there were packets lost and the silent step-down was initiated by WinXP.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
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/
There, I fixed it for you.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Er, why? Because he said he hadn't experienced those problems, and pointed out that there are two sides to every story?
OK, so I have some karma to burn. Here is the other side from somebody you may trust more, an UbiSoft developer posting in the forums in response to people who claimed StarForce was riddled with problems and would cause huge issues when they started using it.
Some relevant quotes may help:
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.They don't have to post facts. The law doesn't require them to. It only requires them to be RIGHT. There is sufficient evidence in the public purview of the issues he raised that he is not required to cite them. There is a vast amount of information out there that there are in fact problems, and even the game publishers are starting to recognize it.
Not exactly the sort of thing that the silent 99% of the user-base is going to connect with game software, which is sort of the point of the noise that is being generated.
You did. Read the EULA.
These games should be carrying a warning similar to cigarettes in that case.
They do. Read the EULA. No one reads the EULA.
They do. Read the EULA. No one reads the EULA.
I have heard others say that some games using StarForce do not mention it on the exterior of the box. Every place I have shopped at will not let me return a game once I rip the plastic off the box. I don't recall any games slapping the whole EULA on the box.
...as not informative. As the above AC noted, his name is a none-too-bizarre Russian last name.
$META_SIG_JOKE