New Copy Protection ..... Maybe?

[sammie]

Just posted by AP. Possible new scheme, note the last sentence.

Latest copyright battle: software pirates vs "subversive" programmers
44 minutes ago Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!

PARIS (AFP) - Computer games programmers have become subversive in the latest twist of their unending war against software pirates, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.

In the latest innovation, games that are illegally copied work properly at first but after a while start to fall apart.

Cars no longer steer, guns shoot off target or run out of bullets, and footballs fly away into space.

Eventually the copy becomes so degraded that the player -- in theory -- goes out and buys a legal version of the game because he is so hooked.

The new protection system, called Fade, is being introduced by a British games developer, Codemasters, and a Californian company, Santa Clara, which specialises in digital rights management.

It works by exploiting the systems for error correction that computers use to cope with CD-ROMs or DVDs that have become scratched.

Fade-protected software has fragments of "subversive" software designed to look like scratches. These are arranged in a subtle pattern on the disc, and are spotted by the game's master programme, the report says.

If the master programme finds and identifies these scratches, the game will play as usual.

But if somebody tries to copy the disc on a PC, the error-correcting routines built into the computer fix the apparent scratches.

That means a "scratch-free" copy is generated, and so will be spotted by the master programme as an unauthorised copy.

But instead of switching off the game, Fade allows it to start up but subtly degrades it over time, in the hope of enticing the gamer into buying a legit version.

The programme has been proven in a new Codemasters game called Operation Flashpoint, and the next game to have it is a snooker game.

"Copies play normally for a while, but after a predetermined number of potshots, gravity is progressively turned off so the balls start behaving oddly and end up floating over the table," New Scientist says.

Macrovision intends to introduce the technology in DVDs from next year, so that copied discs stop playing at a key point in the movie's plot.

[i am x]

Just posted by AP. Possible new scheme, note the last sentence.

Latest copyright battle: software pirates vs "subversive" programmers
44 minutes ago Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!

PARIS (AFP) - Computer games programmers have become subversive in the latest twist of their unending war against software pirates, the British weekly New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.

In the latest innovation, games that are illegally copied work properly at first but after a while start to fall apart.

Cars no longer steer, guns shoot off target or run out of bullets, and footballs fly away into space.

Eventually the copy becomes so degraded that the player -- in theory -- goes out and buys a legal version of the game because he is so hooked.

The new protection system, called Fade, is being introduced by a British games developer, Codemasters, and a Californian company, Santa Clara, which specialises in digital rights management.

It works by exploiting the systems for error correction that computers use to cope with CD-ROMs or DVDs that have become scratched.

Fade-protected software has fragments of "subversive" software designed to look like scratches. These are arranged in a subtle pattern on the disc, and are spotted by the game's master programme, the report says.

If the master programme finds and identifies these scratches, the game will play as usual.

But if somebody tries to copy the disc on a PC, the error-correcting routines built into the computer fix the apparent scratches.

That means a "scratch-free" copy is generated, and so will be spotted by the master programme as an unauthorised copy.

But instead of switching off the game, Fade allows it to start up but subtly degrades it over time, in the hope of enticing the gamer into buying a legit version.

The programme has been proven in a new Codemasters game called Operation Flashpoint, and the next game to have it is a snooker game.

"Copies play normally for a while, but after a predetermined number of potshots, gravity is progressively turned off so the balls start behaving oddly and end up floating over the table," New Scientist says.

Macrovision intends to introduce the technology in DVDs from next year, so that copied discs stop playing at a key point in the movie's plot.

It'll be cracked within a year of release.

[vtecwil]

I dont see how this would work on a DVD . The only way to change the current DVD copy protection would involve software changes in new players . This method would render all players made to this date useless . Also , I know of no DVD players that have software built into them to identify scratches .

[i am x]

I dont see how this would work on a DVD . The only way to change the current DVD copy protection would involve software changes in new players . This method would render all players made to this date useless . Also , I know of no DVD players that have software built into them to identify scratches .

Good point. That didn't cross my mind. I'm assuming that somehow, some way, they'll invent some sort of disc that has all the software needed on it to perform such a task. But even so, like you said, how will the DVD players that are out now identify the fake scratches? Well, if they DO somehow manage to pull it off, it's just going to end up getting cracked. Like someone said, "For every encryption, there's decryption...."

[The village idiot]

Ummm..... If you do a raw sector read and raw sector write with no error correction, then you will have the copy that is exactly the same as the original. Isn't there already software that will do completely raw sector copying? There, I now consider it to be broken . That is the idea, someone else can right the software for it, but I think it is already written.

And for this too work, there would have to be a place in non-volitile memory that holds the data for the number of times it is played. Just locate that data in the memory (probably some sort of flash memory), and blast it.

There now there are two ways. If they use a re-writeable disk for the game and the failure coding, you could simply find the sector where the info is kept and change it to when the disk was copied.

OK, that would be 3 from me. I think it has now failed! The first being the best way, but the other 2 would work.

[The village idiot]

Oh my, I just realised... I'm now a criminal for circumventing a protection scheme . I better get running

[The village idiot]

BTW, that Fade technique was once called bad sector copy protection. The manufacturer would introduce a bad sector or 2 so that the copy would fail when it hit the bad sector. This is just a different twist.

I used to get around the bad sector method on my RadioShack color computer with a 20 line basic program I wrote that simply copied the sectors one by one into a data string (the sectors were only 255 bytes, and the strings were only 255 bytes... a perfect fit), and then copy each sector back out to the blank disk. I could then skip sectors if they would not read, or just put hash in the string so that the disk had the correct number of sectors. It was a long process, but it worked everytime! That was a very long time ago, like when the Floppy for the CoCo came out.

[lordsmurf]

What happens if you REALLY scratch the disc... will it no longer work? Talk about BS.

[steptoe]

If you're into that sort of thing, this protection has already been got around, but I think at the moment you need a cracked .exe that has to replace the game .exe when installed

Or for extra work, whoever releases the game, just replaces the main .exe with the altered one, voila one unprotected game

This info, and how to get around game copy protection is already freely available on various game related/backup sites


If a company says 'we have a new uncrackable protection', thats an open door for people to be the first to prove them wrong, look at the X-Box, off topic I know, but just a point


Like somebody said, how the hell is that going to work for a film ???

Whats it going to do, stop before the end and say 'naughty pirate, no neding for you', or stop random chapters being played in sequence ?

[adam]

You can't do a raw sector read and write because this is a hardware limitation. The bad sectors physically cannot be written by a burner. Its identical to the scheme that sony used on its psx and ps2 games and that has yet to be broken. Yes it has been circumvented, but you still cannot make a copy of a game and preserve these bad sectors. You have to find a way to bypass the sector check on the playback hardware itself in order to get the disk to play. The backups are still distinguishable from an original.

But as far as this protection is concerned, its nothing but hype. As people have already stated, I doubt DVD player's have the capability to do this as is and I don't think we are going to see it being implemented in new players. Also, FADE never did anything on Operation Flashpoint. It didn't work. There was not one single report of anything "fading" on bootleg versions of that game.

[tweedledee]

QUOTE

gravity is progressively turned off so the balls start behaving oddly

in my case old age is the cause.

[vitualis]

You can't do a raw sector read and write because this is a hardware limitation. The bad sectors physically cannot be written by a burner. Its identical to the scheme that sony used on its psx and ps2 games and that has yet to be broken...

But adam, this is a PC game?

My impression is that the protection technique is similar to what is already out (e.g., SafeDisc) but as others have stated, with a twist. Rather than it just "not working", it basically becomes a "trial version".

It's hardly a new protection scheme but I suppose that they are trying to make the most out of it.

Regards.

[Angreal]

FADE is in effect already, with PC games. And it does work, and as far as i know has NOT been gotten around successfully. Even memory "trainers" will cause it to kick in, trust me i know.

Operation Flashpoint has FADE, and you cannot cheat, which is a shame because i swear some missions are damn near impossible, you play them 200 times in ar ow and get lucky once and complete it. ANd its not for lack of skill.

As for DVD's.. doubtful it will happen. Besides, copying a dvd isnt a direct copy of the disc anyway, youre taking the video files, and converting them into Mpeg1 Mpeg2 Mpeg4. The mpeg files wont have any issues at all.

[Jukka]

Surely if you do a direct copy (ISO?) of a CD to a CD it should be an exact copy, bad bits and all? If not I wnat my money back from CD copying software manufacturers!