StarForce > Starforce Nightmare

[TippeX]

Originally Posted by hyakkii

The only thing stoping it from being cracked is its encryption and files that are encrypted (it can be every file on the game or just one) and to break the encryption depending on luck (and level) can take 1 day to 4 years of trying to brute forcing and even if they somehow crack the encryption they would have to play the game a million times to find trigger points. plus starforce has many other headaches its really not worth anyones time. also if they did manage to make a crack the file would be "very" large perhaps the size if the game

put simply, bull****.. dont believe the hype, 1 day to 4 years, where the hell did u pick that figure from cos theres quite difference, as for 'trigger' points, starforce uses virtual files and vm, securom (v5) used triggers.. get your facts right please

[hyakkii]

Originally Posted by TippeX

put simply, bull****.. dont believe the hype, 1 day to 4 years, where the hell did u pick that figure from cos theres quite difference, as for 'trigger' points, starforce uses virtual files and vm, securom (v5) used triggers.. get your facts right please

For my figures its just that 1day for very simple encryptions (like still life) to 4+ years for the harder ones (perhaps splinter cell ct). Lets give an example if you try to break a zip file of a 12 letter password it could take more then 1 year with a average pc 3.0 ghz 1 gig ram, now take a encryption key that could be huge 20+ chars it can take a very long time or forever if evey file is encrypted differnt.
Some not all starforce games have trigger points (most are online checks) but so far this is only seen in codemasters games.

Please prove me wrong if you can.

[caki]

Well,

I havent looked a lot at starforce, but I gotta ask you this:

Have you ever heard of manual unpacking?

As for the online checks, those things are implemented by the developers I think, not by starforce... I'm not sure about that...

[synchro_w]

i think starforce is a nightmare
there are those of us who will buy games
and maybe download games that we would never buy anyway [eg, cos we are not into those types of games].
but when the protection stops me playing a game that i actually bought then it is going too far
das

[TippeX]

Originally Posted by hyakkii

. Lets give an example if you try to break a zip file of a 12 letter password it could take more then 1 year with a average pc 3.0 ghz 1 gig ram, now take a encryption key that could be huge 20+ chars it can take a very long time or forever if evey file is encrypted differnt.
Some not all starforce games have trigger points (most are online checks) but so far this is only seen in codemasters games.

Please prove me wrong if you can.

depends on the method used to break the zip password (using hashing tables can sygnificantly speed things up).. 20+ chars sure, that'll take long too, all depends on your method, the time taken totally depends on the method/approach, if it took the crackers 4 years per game there'd be no gamecopyworld now would there.. and the games protections are reportedly 'very high industry standard protections' by most articles today, yet they are bypassed.. as for trigger points... codemasters are paranoid and did other things too (remember fade?.. ) so thats a particularly bad example
i would prove you wrong, but im not into pissing contests and it will detract from the thread, i wouldnt say you are totally wrong, just misinformed about some things which you cite as examples

[abcdefgqwerty]

Is there a way to stop a driver from being installed? Could you create your own driver and have it scan or blacklist the starforce driver? The whole reason starforce works is because of the privileges it gets from having low level drivers installed. There must be a way to stop drivers from installing. The driver mess is exactly why windows sucks and malware can have its way with our computers. Rootkits and underhanded crap run rampant on windows machines. If my program could be installed with driver access I could have my way with anyones computer 2.

[Joe Forster/STA]

NEVER LAUNCH the Starforce-protected game (you can find out the protection with latest version of ProtectionID and/or A-Ray Scanner), and then the damn drivers won't get installed. But you won't be able to play the game either, unless you have a no-CD/DVD patch (not a mini/maxi/full image!).

Some people on this forum already stated that they buy a game only when a confirmedly working no-CD/DVD patch is available.