Slashdot Mirror
Atari Founder Proclaims the End of Gaming Piracy
OMGZombies writes "Speaking on a conference held yesterday in New York, the Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said that a new stealth encryption chip called TPM will 'absolutely stop piracy of gameplay'. The chip is apparently being embedded on most of the new computer motherboards and is said to be 'uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords' though it won't stop movie or music piracy, since 'if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it.'"
Exactly! People don't seem to want to learn nowadays.
:D
Defeating copying schemes has always been an educational past-time of mine. I learned to write my 8's almost perfectly when I copied out, number by number, the Quarantine chart mass/velocity chart because I couldn't photocopy the black text on dark brown glossy paper.
I even improved my memory when I memorized both the X-Wing and Tie Fighter manual keywords... that was a lot of manuals for a 12 y/o - I actually think it helped. I wouldn't be where I am today if I wasn't capable of picking up a software manual
So, TPM is a way for me to spice up on my logic probing eh?
Matt
One particularly annoying part is that the paying customers must foot the bill for the copy protection. This applies to both motherboard components and licensing the protection scheme itself. Software developers/publishers won't just eat these costs out of the kindness of their hearts. It's usually a triple-hit for the consumer, who not only have to cover hardware and licensing costs, but generally have to endure the burden of intrusive copy-protection schemes. Whether it's entering a long and complex serial key, fumbling for a game disk that's not needed for anything more than verifying authenticity, or some other method -- it all tends to put an undue burden on a customer who has already paid for a product.
In my opinion, this actually encourages some people (who would otherwise pay for a product) to violate the terms of the EULA in one way or another. No matter the copy protection scheme, most cracks allow a user with average technical knowledge are able to easily circumvent a scheme.
Perhaps I'm missing something - but it sure would be nice to abandon these copy protection schemes. I seriously doubt that the practice prevents anything but the most cavalier copying/sharing - and I doubt that this copying is what developers/publishers are targeting.
-Turkey
you don't get it.
tpm works the same way SSL works.
namely there's a PKI.
i.e. each chip has its own key which the user cant get to, which is verified by a certificate chain (ala SSL).
if the software can't verify the chain, it will refuse.
so attacking the TPM chip isn't how you attack it.
you attack is by simply getting the software to verify with a trojaned certificate. We can do that today w/ web browsers by inserting our own "top level" certificate. You think it be difficult w/ games?
Uh, there is another option:
(4) Decrypt and then remove the TPM checking code from the game.
In other words, run it legally on a TPM-equipped machine and then crack the hell out of it and create a new unencrypted executable minus the DRM shit.
Or give it a legit TPM chip and just capture the output of whatever it is verifying. I'm guessing its the equiv of a cdkey check that returns some kind of hash needed to play.
Theres no way any large number of actual operations go through this chip as it would kill performance, which is the bread and butter of selling new pc games. All you need to do is replace, skip, or duplicate the pieces of code that depend on this chip.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx