A real solution to the StarF**k virus for everyone.

[SuspiciousJedi]

Originally Posted by TippeX

nope, but if the game wants you to have the cd/dvd in the drive then you have little or no choice do you, if you want to play it legally

If I bought the game why it would be illegal to play it without the CD in the drive? Do you understand how the law works? Basic principle of law and justice says that everyone is innocent until (or unless) proven otherwise.

What this whole game copy protection scam and not just Starforce does is twisting the way the law and justice usually works into completely OPPOSITE scheme -- you are guilty unless you can prove you are innocent by having the CD in the drive. That is rediculous.

Originally Posted by TippeX

debugging those drivers would infringe the 'no reversing' poilicy in the eula wouldnt it, which would be illegal, however if you were a decent developer then you would know how to hide your debugger from the detections used and then debug it if you wanted to

You got me wrong again -- I do not want to debug their drivers, I want to be able to debug apps and drivers I wrote and I can't while Starforce is installed because it prevents any kind of debugging.

Originally Posted by TippeX

i am VERY framiliar with starforce and its drivers, NONE of those drivers have inet functionality and they can NOT send stuff out without accessing the network drivers, which should in turn be linked to the firewall (software), it just cant magically make a packet and send it, it has to interface to the ndis driver layer at the very least

Maybe they don't have it YET, maybe it has to interface so what?

In my view the main problem is that Starforce has unsupervised access to whole physical memory space because it is a kernel driver running in ring0. That means it could write into firewall memory space. That means it could also patch into other drivers. That means it could snoop and/or steal sensitive data such as credit-card numbers from your RAM and disclose it to the third party. It could open so much hated popup windows and waste your bandwidth on downloading targeted ads without you having any way of stopping it.

I am not saying it is doing it right now, just that it is possible and if we allow this we can expect to see those scenarios in the near future. There are already plans to display ads in games while you play, google for it.

What we have here is a double standard -- publishers do not trust their customers treating them as thieves until proven otherwise and at the same time they expect from customers to cast aside all doubts about publisher's "honest" intentions meaning that we should treat them as honest until someone proves otherwise. Shouldn't law be equally applied to everyone?

Originally Posted by TippeX

whats worse is that the last time i checked these hooks were global and not process based which can definately lead to some 'issues',

Hooks must be global so it can hide itself. My issue list sorted by order of importance is:

- privacy
- stability
- performance

Second and third options can be tuned over time but IMO they should not be our primary concern. People give up on privacy and control over their own stuff too easily when they should fight for all they are worth for.

Originally Posted by TippeX

regarding the whql issue, i think the whql is optional and you have to pay for it, and chances are the starforce people know it will fail on some tests, so paying for the whql is pointless from their view

WHQL is optional but products using non-certified drivers cannot get "Designed for Windows" logo. Consider this scenario:

You go out and buy video card. Being a product which has passed WHQL certification it rightfully carries "Designed for Windows" logo because it comes with signed drivers. In the package you also get a bundled game or a demo protected with Starforce.

Real problem here is that by including unsigned Starforce drivers in the bundle, video card OEM does not qualify for that "Designed for Windows" logo anymore. You have based your buying decisions upon logo existance so both the OEM and you are screwed.