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EA Recommends Hilarious Work-Around For RA3 CD-Key

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.

sunderbear noted that EAs Command & Conquer 3 shipped missing the last digit of the CD Key. He writes "EA's brightest minds have put their synapses into overdrive in order to whip up a comical work-around. 'There is currently a work-around that may allow you to bypass this issue. Since you have the first 19 characters of the code already, you can basically try guessing the last character,' said a note on EA's customer support site. Yes, they're serious. 'To do this, simply enter your existing code, and then for the last character, try the letters A-Z, and then the numbers 0-9. You should eventually get the right combination, and be able to play the game.'" It appears that the helpful hint has been purged.

7 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Circumvention? by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Certainly they didn't just post details of how to circumvent a copy protection measure, right?

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    1. Re:Circumvention? by impus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If they're using a standard CD key format then no guessing is needed. The final digit is a checksum of the others.

  2. Re:No longer true by poetmatt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't worry, I think RA3 uses securom as well.

    They'll learn, someday, but remember! they'll use less DRM just like the last DRM they used! /sarcasm

  3. Re:Electronic Asshats by theaveng · · Score: 2, Interesting

    >>>you get more points from actually smelling and withstanding more and more disgusting customers.

    I used to be a shoe salesman in college. Contrary to the post above, you actually get to meet lots of young high-school or college-aged women who are often very beautiful (being young), and often dress with low necklines. When they bend over, they expose all their "charms" to the salesman's eye.

    Best. Damn. Job. Ever.

    For a college student anyway. ;-) The pay was decent too because I averaged $15 an hour commission; getting paid to flirt with the opposite sex is not a bad deal at all! It's almost as much fun as running for president & flirting with the cute volunteers.

    Back to topic:

    Guessing 36 combinations doesn't seem like a big hassle to me? And you have a 50-50 chance of getting the right combination in just 18 tries.

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  4. RA3 Doesn't Require the DVD to Play by HeXetic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, Red Alert 3 is one of the first EA games that installs fully to the hard drive *and* subsequently does not require the disc to play -- not for the campaign (all the vids are on your HDD), not for skirmish, not for multiplayer.

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  5. Re:Another helpful hint by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Statistically you should be able to guess the right letter/number in half the keyspace.

    What if there is more than one right character and the one you chose matches someone else's code that wasn't cut off? You'll have stolen someone else's key. A fair brute-force search would start with the widest characters first (more likely to be missing due to (I assume) non-monospaced string length).

    That could be a reason why they pulled the brute-force solution from their site.

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  6. Re:HOT sexy women by Mr.+Beatdown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You, sir, win the Internets.

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