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Ubisoft Steals 'No-CD Crack' To Fix Rainbow 6: Vegas 2
Ariastis writes "UbiSoft has long been against No-CD patches. Referring to them on their forums would get you warned or banned. But now, they have just officially released a patch for Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, which, when opened in a hex editor, can easily be identified as coming from the RELOADED scene group, not from UbiSoft programmers. A picture of hex analysis is shown in the story. See? Piracy isn't that bad! It saves you from having to code fixes for your own games! (Watch the drama on the Ubi Forums before it gets scrubbed clean.)"
Perhaps I'm a bit silly thinking this, but I have a lot of respect for the majority of the cracking scene.
Time and time again they've always proved just how talented and resourceful they can be.
I say props to them! At the very least, Ubi should sack whatever middle-manager that decided to release this as an "official" patch or lazy programmer that decided to submit this rather than build a proper executable and give THEM a job instead. I've had more "official" patches from both Ubi and EA (And a few others) break stuff than dodgy, pirate hacks.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
No, but if you then show off said artwork claiming it to be your own then it does make you a bit of a dick.
I can already see the torrent of people coming in to call all slashdot users hypocrites for calling this stealing but defending "piracy" as not stealing and all that, so I figure I might as well clear this up as soon as possible:
Thing the first: Slashdot is not one person, it is many people, so it's not inconsistent for vocal members of the community to call this stealing but piracy not stealing.
Thing the second: "steals" is still a bad word here. "Steals credit" would be better, if anything, but I still think the wording is bad anyway.
Thing the third: most pirates at least hold to the moral ground of giving credit where credit is due, which is clearly not the case here.
Hopefully this will head off those silly comments. Eh, who am I kidding, it's Slashdot. I'll probably wake up to 50 of them. Oh well, I tried.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
It's not that they stole it, it's more that they couldn't be bothered to make an official one. .exe and checked it for irregularities or they'd have noticed the cracking group's moniker and removed it. That, plus it would have been easier to recompile a new one from the source they have.
I mean, when you think about it - what if that crack WAS dodgy? What if it had a time bomb in it that wiped out your hard drive after a certain date? I don't think for a second that Ubi disassembled the cracked
Of course, I trust the group but I know full well that if it DID have something dodgy in it, I'd be fully responsible for it and have to accept that it was my fault.
But in this case, Ubi could have been under some serious shit if such a thing had happened.
There's really no excuse, it's sheer laziness on their part.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
...Why is that, Ubisoft?
(1) You're posting an illegal crack that violates YOUR OWN RULES on piracy
(2) You stole someone else's crack. Couldn't bother making your own? Sheesh. Now THAT'S French for you!
This french surrender business and now this "whatever is retarded is french" is so obtuse!
It's like saying all americans are morons and deserve Bush.
I'll change my sig when I have the time...
Two wrongs don't make a right, dude.
What cracks me up (pun intended) is the fact that Ubisoft have been UTTER BASTARDS in the past. If you posted complaining about Starforce on their forums, their employees would accuse you of being a hacker, a pirate etc... People get banned for posting links to cracks. HAVE been banned for posting links to THIS VERY CRACK.
This priceless, and utterly UTTERLY hilarious. A major software company relying on a cracking group to fix their stupid issues that their choice of DRM caused.
The only way this could be ANY funnier is if it was Electronic Arts instead, and even that would be pushing it as Ubi's attitude toward their consumers in regards to DRM is a hundred times more offensive than I've ever seen EA be.
It's not stealing if the original programmers were not deprived of anything. Whether the good guys ("pirates") do it or the bad guys (the "content industry") do it, unauthorized copying is not stealing and never has been.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Just semantics, I know, but UBISoft didn't steal anything. They haven't deprived the originators of any use of their CD crack.
I found the article both amusing, intriguing, and irritating in that they're playing the games of the *IAA on the "theft" side.
What they have done is infringe copyright, which is just not playing fair. And for one of the "big boys" in the industry, who definitely do make money from releases, and continued patching (patches are, or should be, costed into the maintenance cycle of any computer product).
Legally, I'd say UBI are in the wring distributing the patch, as it is comprised of code they have not written. However, the cracker group would have to go and press charges to have this settled. And I'm not so sure they would be so happy to drop their facade of anonymity for this (all the companies that would love to know who they are, for the sake of taking a shot at copyright protection circumvention charges etc.).
As things stand, I don't think UBI will get the full legal hot water, however, they've just taken a massive PR hit, and the whole "holier than thou" stance taken by the games industry on copy protection has also been tainted.
As to why a patch has been released that's copied.. The no-cd cracks are widely distributed, so when they're 'mature', you have a very heavily tested patch, that may just fix an issue you need fixed. You can either spend ages getting the dev to identify the bug, work out how to fix it without breaking other things in the product, get a testing department to exhaustively test it to make sure it doesn't break, pass it through QA to make sure it's not affected any other things adversely, and have it passed backwards and forwards if things don't seem quite right.. Or you can grab some existing highly tested in volume code that does the job nicely.
Efficiency says that the second is the best option. However, to do that, they'd need the ok from the crack group, which the organisation probably wouldn't want to attribute on a release document. The joys of politics getting in the way of progress.
Given that they're not willing to attribute or deal with the 'pirates', then alas, their only option should have been to go their own way.
Methinks someone was a tad lazy and thought "it's all closed, who'll know?" without thinking it through.. After all, how does anyone work out how things have altered without going through patches with the proverbial microscope? You can pretty much guarantee that someone would find out the similarities...
Of course, there's also the option that one of the UBI devs is also in the crack group and simply reused the code s/he wrote in the first place, which would be even more interesting (and from an 'unofficial' aspect, probably more useful for UBI, as they can comply with uninformed investors clamoring for DRM, and at the same time slake the appetites of the masses who don't want the damned DVD in the drive as it's a pain in the arse! Best of both worlds).
Regardless of what support the company has given its costumers, remember that the crack was made to circumvent anti-piracy schemes.
There wouldn't be any need for anti-piracy schemes if people were trustworthy and didn't steal software.
People use pirated software -> companies lose money -> companies invest in trying to avoid illegitimate usage of their software -> copy-protection schemes are put in place -> problems with copy-protection schemes arise -> people who don't give a shit about the fact that the software was a result of an investment in both equipment, marketing and man hours still keep finding ways to pirate the software.
So everyone uses cracks to go around copy protection schemes when they're not supposed to, and then when that company uses that crack to fix a problem, everyone is outraged. So it's OK if you steal from a company, but it's NOT OK if a company uses, to fix their own product and provide the support everyone cries for, something that was made specifically to target that company's product making it easier to pirate.
You know, people have worked to develop the product. Money has been invested. It's a company, it's supposed to make a profit, not to create software out of pure charity.
And no, two wrongs don't make it a right, you're right when you said it. And everyone should have thought that even if the company sucks at supporting its users (first wrong) that doesn't forgive anyone for pirating software (second wrong). I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to fully use the product you bought. But does anyone here honestly believe that only the guys that bought the product are the ones using the crack? I don't think so.
This sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Just be glad that now that there is an "official" fix for your problems.
Onda Technology Institute
Reloaded has existed for quite a while and as far as I know they've never put malware in their cracks. While it's obvious there is always a risk involved when you run an executable (no matter where it came from), I'd say you are reasonably save using their cracks. Probably more safe than running DRM'ed software, since that software tries to hook itself into all kinds of important parts of you operating system.
No, when I took the game off the shelf and gave the checkout chick the cash, the game became mine.
In Australia a contract for sale is complete when both the contractor and the contractee agree to the same terms. Both parties must be fully aware of all relevant terms before acceptance. Additional terms cannot be imposed after acceptance.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Yeah, and people wouldn't need locks and car alarms if there were no car thieves. I'd still find it more than a little funny if every time you locked your keys in the car, you had to call up a car thief to open it for you. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd be laughing my ass off, just like I am at Ubi.
How's that for a car analogy? :)
A copy-protection must never stop a legitimate customer from using the product they've bought, though.
If that sometimes happen and the company responsible doesn't come up with a fix, that legitimize the creation of 3'rd party fixes, or cracks.
So even though the copy-prevention schemes arose from piracy, today, piracy is sometimes necessary due to copy-prevention schemes.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
I use no CD cracks on all of my legally bought games. Having to put discs in and take them out is kind of cumbersome when I have them all safely stored in a metal CD binder. If I wanted to switch through game discs all day I'd play my console instead.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
No, I bought the game. If you had me sign a contract before I paid money for the game, then I signed the EULA. I can't sell you a hamster and, as soon as you get it home and put it in its cage, demand that you do *anything* else.
Copyright law states that you can't copy the disc or distribute it, but it does not tell you that you can't modify it. I realize the 9th circuit just bought into that, but I wouldn't be surprised of an appeal. And even if there is no appeal, I'd happily argue the case again in court.
You can't make me agree to a contract after the fact, and forcing me to spend money on gas (and that's no trivial matter anymore), and waste my time (which also costs me money) because I disagree with the contract you've given me after the sale occurred. The onus is on you to have me agree before the purchase is completed; once you do that, you're absolutely correct.
Maybe that's what game vendors need to do; provide an industry standard kiosk with the EULA present before the purchase transaction can be completed; that way if I find the terms too cumbersome, I just don't purchase it and don't waste the money or gas on the event.
Some people might trust RELOADED more than they trust Ubisoft or at least whoever Ubisoft outsources their DRM to.
;).
I'd personally trust many of these "scene" hackers more than I'd trust Sony to not to try to pwn my machine.
That's not to say I'd trust them that much
There wouldn't be any need for anti-piracy schemes if people were trustworthy and didn't steal software.
You crack me up. No, really, you do.
Do you know who gets hit by those anti-piracy "measures" ? Not the pirates, that much I can promise you. It's the regular customers who have to deal with this, I'm sorry to say, shit. Pirates get a pre-cracked bug-fixed ISO downloads that just work. They also get game updates working sooner than those sorry fools who bought the game at an online download store (the legitimate kind, that is).
This anti-piracy bullshit does absolutely nothing to prevent, you know, piracy. It is not necessary.
People use pirated software -> companies lose money
BS argument #1. Let me bring a BS argument of my own ! People share software -> other people like it and buy that software, having had the opportunity to test it -> company makes more money than it is allegedly "losing". This argument is just about as full of holes as yours is.
-> companies invest in trying to avoid illegitimate usage of their software
By being good corporate citizens, offering excellent support for their legitimate customers, offering a better experience than "pirates" ever could and focusing on their legitimate customers instead of wasting countless development and testing hours on stuff that provably does not work and only annoys regular customers ?
-> copy-protection schemes are put in place
And usually cracked a few days BEFORE the game hits store shelves. Excellent.
-> problems with copy-protection schemes arise
PREDICTABLE problems. KNOWN problems. You don't think the QA department knows about these problems ? CARES ?
-> people who don't give a shit about the fact that the software was a result of an investment in both equipment, marketing and man hours still keep finding ways to pirate the software.
Why do you care about these people ? They are not gonna buy your software anyway. They might if they get a better experience for a reasonable price, they might not. In the meantime you are losing gazillions of customers to DRM issues, fixes for direct2drive issues that only exist because nobody bothered to check that the protection doesn't blow up on those releases, etc. -- good going.
People are gonna copy your stuff. You cannot make them not do it. This is a known fact, a fact that has been known for over 20 years. There is no copy protection scheme that has not been utterly broken.
So everyone uses cracks to go around copy protection schemes when they're not supposed to,
And scratching their heads asking "why did I pay for this shit, again ?" And making a mental note not to buy it the next time. Or, if they really want to play it and really don't want to deal with this ... shit ... Pirate it straight away. At least you know the scene guys have quality control -- when their releases don't work, they get nuked.
That is a very sad state of affairs. Pragmatically, you are better off using a pirated version.
and then when that company uses that crack to fix a problem, everyone is outraged.
Not so much that they are using the crack, moreso that they are banning people who previously talked about that same crack, should not actually be NEEDING that crack if they had ANY developers left (you see, disabling this "copy protection" is as easy as, you know, not applying the copy protection installer to the executable you get out of the compiler), etc.
So it's OK if you steal from a company,
Who said that ?
but it's NOT OK if a company uses, to fix their own product and provide the support everyone cries for,
Credit where credit is due, huh ?
When the price is zero the demand is infinite.
The price is never zero. My time has value. Figuring out that the tools I use for work are what is causing the game to ungracefully exit is a cost. Cleaning up the parts of the system that the game modified is a cost.
On the other side, finding a crack that works is a cost. Cleaning up the spyware from the websites that host cracks is a cost. Troubleshooting the buggy game with a boggy crack and no support because you have a no-cd crack is a big cost.
Oh, so all piracy is of stuff by big media corporations? Really? How about small game developers whose games are regularly pirated? I guess they suck too, 'cause they aren't giving it to you for free.
Piracy isn't a "mass advertising campaign." A few pirating gamers might say something about a game to a friend or two. But the idea that that's more beneficial than getting paid for their fucking work is astonishingly retarded. (Especially given that said pirating gamer would probably just say to his friend "here, I'll burn you a copy.")
Rationalize it all you want: you're still fucking people over.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
There is no copy protection scheme that has not been utterly broken.
I don't think this is true.
I do :)
Some high-priced software (e.g. CAD toolkits) ship with a USB dongle containing a CPU and part of the executable in encrypted form. In the course of the program's normal execution, some data is sent to the dongle, processed, and sent back. The dongle is designed to self-destruct when cracked open. This scheme is highly resistant to cracks, provided the part of the executable is well-chosen to not be recreatable, and typical attackers cannot obtain a large supply of dongles.
It is resistant and resilient, yes. I would not call it impossible, having seen what has been cracked in the past and what a decent financial incentive will do for the motivation to crack.
I have seen some of these systems first-hand over the years, always getting more and more intricate. Without fail, they have also gotten more and more burdensome on the regular users of the software. Want that "old" (2 years) dongle supported ? Forget it. Want that parallel port dongle working on your shiny new laptop ? Forget it. Want to exchange a broken one for a new one a month after the "service contract" that was tacked onto the "purchase price" expires ? Tough noogies.
Architects and engineers put up with it in large part because there are few or no alternatives that do not do the exact same thing.
Yet, you usually find a cracked version of AutoCAD in certain circles, anyway. In the above scenario, it really just takes ONE cracked dongle to get at the executable code. As for crackers not obtaining a ready supply thereof ... Why would that be ? These companies usually outsource to companies dedicated to making those dongles. Those companies, in turn, want to sell their dongles to other companies to secure their products. Naturally, those companies would like some samples, and possibly some development samples. If the stakes are high enough (a $20k software component that you can sell on the black market for $1k-$2k a piece if you crack it properly), why not set up a front company, get some of those samples, and work on those. You don't need to work on a "real" dongle until you have perfected your method, and you can get more than one "real" dongle by getting another one from the originating software company for the legitimately-purchased license (I assume these crackers will have access to a company with a service contract like that). They won't just say "no" when you say you lost your dongle on a trainride.
Not that I'm saying it's necessarily reasonable for consumer videogames to use such an elaborate scheme
It'll come. Right now Blizzard is marketing electronic devices designed to improve the security of their World of Warcraft logins by augmenting the regular username/password tuple with one-time-passwords generated by an electronic device. People are eating it up because they want to protect their accounts. I don't think it'll stay confined to securing online accounts ... 3-4 years down the road, you'll see some high-priced games sporting activation smartcards (or something equivalent). I think. It's madness.
It is crackable. The more user-friendly something is, the easier it is to crack.