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[Maximum Spin]

Anyway the topic is dead by now, but I think physical digital rights management could exist, it is convoluted and not exactly convenient. The method of using the install medium as proof of purchase is truely obsolete, even if cloning the install medium isn't trivial, all you have to do is to convince the programm its there which as far as I understand ranges somewhere between extremly easy and really not that difficult. But I just wanted to say that I can imagine something that basically checks off both side's points (even if its kind of meh):

-When you acquire a new game you have your usual online installer except they serve you a somewhat unique installer.
-While it's installing it asks you who you are and where you live so they can send you your disk.
-The disk is filled with crypto shenanigans, basically a bunch of seeds.
-While you play your unique client,  it constantly checks a bunch of stuff on the disk that is too intensive to calculate i  real time while the game plays.

They get to charge per user computer by charging per dvd (and making the client dependant on the OS license), people can make backups as they desire (of the installer and the disk), no more online requirements after initial acquisition, leakers have a hard time acquiring copies without leaving a trace, if someone does crack the software it will only work for that unique client. If they want to be extra dicks they use the noise of the crypto shenanigans for the rng, that way if someone amputates the DRM part, the loot and stuff is bugging out.

This won't work because it fails the first fundamental test of copy protection: You control your own computer. When your computer is the one doing the checking, you can just have all those checks succeed. This is why copy protection schemes like SecuROM used rootkits - because then you don't control your own computer, they do. But for skilled users, this is still bypassable by just being first again. Copy protection on "enemy territory" - that is, on the user's own personally controlled computer - is fundamentally impossible. All you can do is make it too difficult for people who don't know how to get around it, and then try to keep them from finding out.
You're thinking about using "crypto shenanigans" (as a general protip: if you don't know enough to be specific, you don't know enough) to force the program to already know something that would be difficult to calculate on the fly, but you're not realizing that I can just stub out the *check* to return "yep, that's right" without having to bother calculating at all. In an offline single-player environment, everything that happens happens entirely in controlled territory, which means you can't trust anything.

[dragdeler]

No I don't truely understand but I think proof of work is the buzzword, which yes you could "calculate your way back" but not easily (this will basically be an exercise in creative writing).

Basically all of that is precooked on the disk. Then they riddle the client with as many checks as you can fit "seeds" on that disk, but those checks are disseminated all throughout the codebase in a very chaotic way. Basically asinine stuff that slows the programm artificially, client x5dsg854 can in this specific instance, predetermined by a bunch of extremly noisy factors, not complete the calculation of this ragdoll, because that tiny, utterly specific, subroutine of the ragdoll function switched into an alternate mode where without the arbitrary crypto seed, it returns a buggy mess.

Of all the clients approximately 7% have their code relating to ragdoll affected, the thing is that is one check for one seed, meaning that is about the only "indentation into the codebase" those 7% of clients share, leaving thousands or even millions of other unique "self-fixing bugs" in each client. To scrub the codebase of these, during the reverse engineering process you would need not one, but a shitload of copies of the game to compare, to be able to tell what is the genuine code of the game, and what added in distribution, which parts of which client are "self-fixing bug" free.

Now I hear you saying, yes but a clever reverse engineer would find a way to identify those "indentations in the codebase", but the disk is filled with seeds, with the finished answer so to say, what changes is how each client relates to each answer, so what needs to be "proven of worked... -> what you would need to understand in detail to trace back what the computer did ->... is how this individual client relates this seed, or rather, a seed to that check, I presume different methods can be employed, that make use of different CPU instructions, which in turns makes it rather difficult to search the code.

So the aformentioned client x5dsg854 might search sectors 881, 1179 and 2006 depending on ingame time. But client d5hte874 who is also among those 7% would search sectors 212, 784 and 1574 according to how much HP the player has. For one the buggy subroutine would trigger after speaking to an NPC with an R in it's name, for another when you open the inventory 5 consecutive times on an ingame tuesday.

Each client would be it's own mess, it's a QC (and possibly safety) horror (fire hazard worst case ), cracking it would only crack that unique client... BUUT, as long as the disk reads quick enough and doesn't do any real reading errors (scratches or aged disks or whatever), everything runs allmost as smooth as it should. (also yes you could just mount an iso of the disk, but if they're really clever about their "voluntary errors"//copyright protection, plenty of people will fail even at that).


Does this make any sense?.. whatever you have been warned. 

[Maximum Spin]

Does this make any sense?

No.

Basically, you have to trust me that this system doesn't work. In a way, it's just an elaboration of the old "enter the secret password from the manual" copy protection, and it's just as vulnerable as that is. Giving each client unique checks, besides being a huge added expense in programmer time, actually makes it easier to crack - all I need to do is buy two different copies, and now with a very high likelihood I have complete coverage of the game's fully cracked code. I just look at where the two versions differ, and patch accordingly.

Also, for the record, unless the entire set of on-disk garbage is copied into memory at loading time, performance *will* suck, because disks are slow.

[McTraveller]

The above is correct: If code is running on a computer to which someone has physical access, you can't stop anyone (physically) from running any piece of software.  There's no way to prevent a determined debugger from accessing un-encrypted executable code.

This is why the law includes that broad "no reverse engineering" clause - they have /emperor voice/made it illegal/emperor voice/ to do physically possible things.


The best copy protection is to make it so obvious you were the creator of the product, and if you don't get paid then the world will never see another of that similar thing.  EDIT: that is - you get paid enough even if people make copies.

The problem people fall into is they feel obligated to get paid large sums of money after they have released something into the world.  The only way to guarantee you get paid for something, is to get paid up-front, or do a thing such that the action of performing it is its own pay (such as growing your own food).

[Kagus]

Didn't Stardock develop one of the most effective anti-piracy measures on the market for Sins of a Solar Empire? Specifically in the form of a message on their website saying "We're not including DRM, please don't pirate our games"?

[Eric Blank]

Don't forget Enslaved from the early 2000s; it had an early game boss that became unbeatable if the game wasn't authenticated. Probably easy to get past today, you can decompile and recompile files and change contents to mod things now, so you just mod out the game-breaking DRM.

[Frumple]

Gods, I can't remember what it was, but I'm pretty sure I ran into something similar to that at one point, and got past it by cheating hard enough to beat whatever inflated numbers got slapped on the enemy in question anyway. That kind of thing can honestly be kinda' fun, heh.

[ChairmanPoo]

Ultima VII part 2had all the characters spout gibberish if you failrd the copy protection questions

[BlackFlyme]

Our customer service representative apparently asked that the other office employees start opening junk emails to make sure customers aren't accidentally getting filtered.

In what I'm sure is completely unrelated news, two computers have been bricked.

[Frumple]

That... that's definitely something. I get the feeling the CS rep did not consult IT before making that request.

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

That sounds rather concerning, especially since "junk" section seems to be the new word for "spam" section, and what often ends up in that section may, in fact, legitimately be some form of danger.
I get why the representative could be concerned - for instance, I've had Outlook claim something is junk email when it is clearly not junk email and in fact might be something I want to see - but that seems a bit much to just suddenly do that...

[nenjin]

Our customer service representative apparently asked that the other office employees start opening junk emails to make sure customers aren't accidentally getting filtered.

In what I'm sure is completely unrelated news, two computers have been bricked.

Impressive. And here I was feeling bad because after years of fake emails paid for by my company to continually keep us on our toes, I finally clicked a phishing link because it said one of our customers had rated us. (We just moved to a new software system, and I was pretty sure it had a rating system, so.)

[Mathel]

I don't think DRMs for singleplayer games should require online access. The problem with such is, that if the online service fails, nobody will be able to use your software legitimately. Which will hurt your credibility.

As for how to use DRM, I'd say do this:
Hide the DRM reasonably well in the code. You can't do it perfectly, but make it so they need a decompiler to find it and it will take a few weeks.
But don't make the game unplayable if it is pirated. Make it somewhat annoying, perhaps make it call them out, but that's all.

That way, people will be incentivized to buy your game rather than getting it illegaly, but those that would insist on getting it illegaly will not go through all the trouble of cracking your code to make it playable. And then they will not have a crack of your game to publish for others.

[Lord Shonus]

It is increasingly clear that DRM doesn't help that much, to the point where a surprising number of companies will strip it out in the first few patches.


Most people will actually pay for their games, particularly with the rise of Steam/GOG making the sale so easy and having regular sales. For any kind of big company, piracy isn't close to parasitic enough to really hurt sales.


Smaller companies, on the other hand, are often niche enough that they don't get a ton of piracy. But if they do, their sales figures are low enough that it can actually hurt.

[nenjin]

Veterans Affairs has been spending millions on cat experiments since at least 2015.

So many layers of outrage and surprise to process here. Firstly that the VA, for taking care of veterans, has a multi-million dollar research wing. Second, that they have so much money they can devote three facilities to testing just on cats. Thirdly, it beggars belief that the amount of research torture they're performing on these cats actually has benefits for veterans. The VA is a pioneer in amputation, constipation and sleep research? What?

At least there's some small sliver lining with an adorable name.

As for Congress, a bill called the CATS Act has been introduced. It would permanently ban unnecessary taxpayer-funded experiments on cats conducted by the VA. The act builds on other legislative efforts, including the PUPPERS Act, to permanently ban all unnecessary animal testing at the VA.

Seriously, if this is what the VA does with their money, what other kind of super villain-esqe research are they performing with resources that should be directly supporting veterans and VA facilities for veterans?

This hits a little close to home for me since I love cats and one of my favorite ones themselves was a research cat that was rescued from euthanasia after the experiment ran its course. I get the need for animal testing, but this seems spurious at best from a government department that doesn't seem to have any business doing research like this.