Pirates Crack FF8 3 Times Over 106
Kolin the Anonymous Coward writes "
Ign reports that the new anti-piracy protection on Final
Fantasy VIII (the most hyped game of 99) has already been
cracked three times over. Pirates wanting to copy the games
onto cdr disks or to play the imported game have already found
three solution to sony's new security featured on FF VIII
and slated to be on many more games. These methods include a
software crack applied before the game is put onto cdrs, a
new "phantom" chip which can be easilly soldiered into any
playstation and use of a hardware cheat device called gameshark. "
I obviously don't support pirating games you don't own, but
I this is interesting- it seems that the era of copy protection
is at an end. And maybe this will help eliminate that obnoxious lag
time before we get the cool games on this side of the pond.
Pirating is not cool (Score:1)
Pirating games is good (Score:1)
attempt at explanation... (Score:1)
Why don't you... (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Continual articles about piracy HOWTO's are good! (Score:1)
Ahem. That's cool let's buy music [goodnoise.com] or cool let's legally download music [mp3.com].
Hardware based security only real protection (Score:1)
Well, that's what this is - a hardware based security mechanism, and one that's obviously not too secure. It checks to see if a mod chip has been installed in the PSX, and if so, refuses to play.
OTOH, some of the systems seem pretty secure. Has anyone ever heard of someone cracking a WIBU dongle? That system encrypts the software and then decrypts it using hardware not software.
I don't know much about dongles, but it would seem possible, at least in theory. Somebody with a lot of hardware knowledge (or info on the specs) would have to reverse-engineer the dongle to determine the encryption mechanism, then write software to decrypt it in software, thus removing the need for the hardware decryption.
Era? (Score:1)
Ultimate solution against piracy (Score:1)
I'm no accountant but it seems to me that if games company would sell their games 10 to 20$ instead of a bloated 50 to 80$, a LOT more people would buy them and would rather spend a *reasonable* for a complete nice and colorful package instead of a cheapo cd burned version with photocopied instructions.
I believe that if they didn't spend any $$$ on fancy copy protections and concentrated instead on making a game worth buying. They'd make the same amount of money selling a game 20$ because more people would buy it, and piracy would practically be ubsolete.
Re: Why doesn't slashdot... (Score:1)
Start your own site, and don't put ads on. See how long you can keep it going. Watch the traffic melt your provider, and watch your accounts get terminated or billed at commercial rates.
Until you have attempted this, shut up.
Yes. Credit card number embedded in unlock key. (Score:1)
Continual articles about piracy HOWTO's are good! (Score:1)
Am I the only one who misses the old days? (+rant) (Score:1)
- Used blue/red box tones through my C64 (Phoneman, was it?)
- Ran a BBS for 2-3 years on my C64 with C-Net for a while, then ImageBBS soft., about 2-3 years on my PC w/ Synchronet BBS soft.
- Was a FidoNET coordinator for my city for about 18 months when I was 17 years old (FIDO didn't suck too too bad though coordinator politics really were shitty. )
So yep, I was there in the 'old days'.. My first modem was a 300 baud in 1988, when I was 10 years old, my 1200 baud came in 1989... blue boxing was the thing when I was 11-13 years old (before Bell busted a bunch of people in my hometown)...etc
Of course, I'm older now & realize that that stuff really "isn't" cool in the grand scheme of things - it's just playing chicken with the law & Bell's incompetency.
I do miss the old days.
It's about being able to play imports. (Score:1)
BTW, am I alone in thinking that if the CD audio format were just being released now that it would have some sort of region lock-out scheme?
WHAT?! Are you stupid!? (Score:1)
But if I knew even 3 or 4 words in Japanese, I'd GLADLY pay $100 for FF8, $70 for the mod chip (or $40 for a Game Shark), or hell even another $100+ for a Japanese Playstation, and the adaptors required (I can hook the damned thing up to my PC if all else fails. Gotta love NTSC and PAL compatibility).
The Final Fantasy series to video game RPGamers is sort of like what the Quake series is to the FPShooter. It defines the genere. However, our genere is MUCH harder to produce games for, no less GOOD games. Square has this down to an art in my opinion (and the 8,000,000+ others who own FF7, the 2,000,000 who already own 8, the 5,000,000+ who own FF3 (US release, I think 5 in Japan), etc...
Again, in summary, YES, he's paying $96 for the game, $79 for a Mod Chip, $70 for the US release (yes, $70. Not $20. This game had what, a 2-3 million dollar budget?)...
Newbie Question (Score:1)
As for the popularity and "hype", it's because this type of game is so rarely done well. Many think the series sucks, but obviously many disagree (myself included). As the person above this post says, appreciation of Console RPGs is aquired (I started in on Dragon Warrior, when Nintendo Power was giving it away free with a subscription. I'm only 17, so this is ancient to me...).
Being a FPShooter player, you probably won't like the RPGames very much... The combat tends to be only a distraction to keep the game from becoming an interactive movie.
Newbie Question (Score:1)
If you follow the links around the posted story, somewhere there's a link that takes you to a site that has links to a FF8 mpeg... Looks like it may be the opening CG movie. Tells a very small tidbit about the story.
there are plenty of providers... (Score:1)
Rob colocates, his server is sitting on a T3 and his images are on a seperate (geographically seperate) server, over at www.wolfe.net. He probably pays through the nose, and ads barely cover it from what I understand ("Hand Sandwich" (Bologna on hand for lack of bread), anyone?)
I agree that the graphics on the top portion of the main body of the site need to go (the icons), since they're holding things back, but the ads absolutley must stay if this site is to last very long.
Personally I click on ads whenever I can, and actually browse through the resultant site. But there needs to be more ads in rotation, otherwise half my clicks are "not unique" (static IP).
"...it seems that the era of copy protection..." (Score:1)
The big companies will always tru new schemes, and the hackers will always work their way around it.
Ultimate solution against piracy (Score:1)
Sorry, but when the equivalent tape version of a cd costs siginificantly less, then it is obvious to me that the CD is NOT reasonably priced. You can't tell me that a static stamped CD is more expensive to produce than a tape with moving parts.
3D Studio MAX expensive? (Score:1)
Ultimate solution against piracy (Score:1)
*ducking to avoid flames...*
Am I the only one who misses the old days? (+rant) (Score:1)
for a list of telnettable trade wars games.
Am I the only one who misses the old days? (+rant) (Score:1)
Cracking was fun just because it was a challenge.
It's also a neat way to see how other people do things. Although I didn't crack games (muchI do believe in in purchasing games when possible, even if it takes a while (took me a long time to find a copy of Darklands). However, if someone can only buy a copy of a game from Japan, I don't see any problem in modifying a US machine to play it (the DVD region encoding bothers me as well). Another issue that's similar is discontinued products. This is very annoying. A firm will refuse to sell a product because it's discontinued, but at the same time they won't give you a copy because they might sell it in the future, it's frustrating. It seems to me that many companies care less and less about the people who buy their products (or who want to buy their products) and more about keeping the bean counters and lawyers happy... sigh. (sorry for wandering)
BTW, I've still got several ANSI sigs around :-)
Quick! Someone call BugTraq! (Score:1)
Copy Protection (Score:1)
Yes, piracy sucks but I think that commercial software vendors should just open their eyes and look at The Real World(tm): there is no copy protection that cannot be broken. Period. Closest thing I've seen has been Half Life's scheme with serial numbers checked vs. a central database when playing on the net; other than that, copy protection is just a waste of time that would've been better spent on development and/or (oh my gosh!) bug fixing.
how about reading the artice before you complain (Score:1)
Message to Squaresoft: We want FF8! Now! We *will* bypass your location chip to play it!
UltraHLE (cool, an exercise in reverse-engineering) MP3 (Cool, lets store all our music on the computer instead of spending all day shuffling CDs) now this (Cool, no waiting until October for FF8)
It's not stealing if you *have the CDs* ! (that goes for PSX or MP3)
The Solution (Score:1)
I'm already tired of typing this. For more of my unresearched nonsensical rambling on the subject, go read my comment back on one of the N64 emulation articles.
Am I the only one who misses the old days? (+rant) (Score:1)
Excellent rant, BTW.
Era? (Score:1)
on a serial/adb port to which the program
can communicate. Normally they have a sn built
into the hardware. The program can query the
dongle at any moment in a variety of fashions
for authenticity information.
A while is about 1.5 years to write a dongle
emulator (the only feasable way to crack a hardware dongle if the program queries it alot
and EIAS does alot of queries). Hardware dongles make very very very good copy protection as it takes an extremly high level of sophistication and time to crack one. Im surprised more vendors of
high end ($500+) software dont use them as
they only add perhaps $20 to the pricetag. (not
sure about the actual number but it is small
compared to the total price)
Era? (Score:1)
Era? (Score:1)
~Conor
Era? (Score:1)
actually i hope (Score:1)
all i can say is YAY!! another attempt at holding back a highly antacipated title has been defeated if companies want to do something about pirating why not instead of spending money on elaborate copy protection schemes just include intresting tid bits of gaming novelty in with the package so as to make the software really worth more than just a cd maybe a possible collectors item pirates cant copy high quality trinkets that may enhance the games overall value in a gamers collection....
The purpose of copy protection (Score:1)
I'm not even a gamer and I think the whole thing is ludicrous. I thought we cured the PC industry of this scourge in 1983. I *still* have a clear copy of Lotus 1-2-3 version 1.1. When they later unprotected it, they turned me into a lifetime supporter of 1-2-3. I still use it (though I have Excel for those unfortunate people who are stuck sending me Excel 97 things). The world of software did not end -- nay, Lotus did not even become smaller -- when they unprotected 1-2-3.
--------
No, he's right (Score:1)
Where has my FF gone? (Score:1)
Where has my FF gone? (Score:1)
Hai yoku wakatte iru kedo ne.
How many of these people can read Japanese? (Score:1)
Maybe they are doing it so the Connectix emulator would be cirumventing a piracy feature if they made those games emulatable. That is just an interesting thought though. I don't think that it will really hurt Sony in the long run. Unless the people who bought it request a refund because it doesn't work on their emulator...
Also, what is the deal with the people saying I'm first? We aren't in Kindergarden, and the -I called it first- syndrome doesn't really matter here.
Am I the only one who misses the old days? (+rant) (Score:1)
I miss drawing up ansi graphics for the people with the highspeed 14.4 modems, and chatting with friends who lived down the street, or around the block but whom I'd never met face to face...
Of course the fun part was when you did meet them face to face. Try organizing a party for an IRC chat room
I miss Global War (Risk) tournaments and flame wars with the regulars on the bbs everyone told you to stay away from.
The net has it's flashy graphics and it's easier to find all that free software, but there is a serious lack of community. I remeber times when I would log in after going on vacation for a week (having forgot to mention that on the public discussion rooms) and having 3 or 4 people ask me what happened and why I hadn't been online. Now even in IRC rooms where I show up regularly no one notices.
Copy Protection Doesn't work (Score:1)
For instance, I have purchased the game 'Thief'. Unfortunately the protection takes advantages of undocumented features and incorrect data that they have planted in the file-system of the CD. Basically what gets returned to the game is undefined in any specs. My CD-ROM drive does not return what their copy-protection is expecting.
Eidos tech support have been zero help as they "are only aware of a few users with this problem" and "we have to have copy protection to protect us against pirates". How many users have to have a problem before it becomes 'worthwhile' to look at it? I know that Thief has been cracked and, from Eidos' attitude, my only option is to get a pirate version. That is what copy 'protection' does.
It has also had another effect. I can no longer be certain that their games will not use undocomented features that my not work on my machine, so I can't take the risk to buy them.
Yes it is! (Score:1)
This protection is intended to keep non-sanctioned countries from stealing/copying millions of dollars worth of games. In Thailand you can buy these things in open air carts on the sidewalks and freeways!
While it is regretable that it makes imports awkward, I don't think that is it's most important goal. For you, perhaps, it is a freedom of choice/import issue. For many others it isn't and involves a fair degree of piracy.
AS
No! No! No! No! (Score:1)
I understand fully not wanting to waste money on games you won't keep/play/enjoy. I really think rental of PC games should be somehow available, and feasible, without further feeding the largely negative pirate circle. Yes, rent a game, have fun, relax, but contribute to the life cycle of the game by paying four 4 or 5 dollars for it at a local Blockbusters!
Please!
If startup game companies starve because of pirating, you'll only get Microsofts and Suns making games; you need the small, nimble, innovative, and risky small groups to drive the market!
AS
Holograms? (Score:1)
Seriously!
So, instead of PSX's barcode thingy on the inside ring, you have a hologram. The PSX would have a matching hologram on a lens; a laser would shine through the CD, modulating the beam, and through the lens, modulating it again, producing an encryption key. Shining the laser through the CD hologram produces meaningless nonsense, and through the lens would also create meaningless nonsense.
Thus the convolution(Is this correct? I'm a little weak on the math) of the 2 holograms produces a encryption key, that when applied to the content of the disk as it is streamed of the CD, would become a form of encrypted data. The PSX itself would have a private key that would decrypt the data. Thus each PSX has a unique decrypt key; each game would have a unique half of an encrypt key, with the other half provided by the PSX. The PSX's encrypt and decrypt would be matched, so encrypt/decrypt is possible, but switching lenses with another PSX would render them useless.
One obvious way around that is to copy the holographic media. I'm not sure how one would copy hologram, however. Any experts?
So each game would have its own encoding, with different games (and regions) with their own key. If you had access to the PSX lens, through disassembly, one could try to just crack the key until header data for the CD appeared, but if the key is 128 bit, it should be sufficiently encrypted that it would take longer than the game was worth to crack it. And even so, once you crack it, you would need a modchip that could be updated with cracks, depending on which game was being played. One would also need to do this for each PSX, since each has a unique identity. Thus for every game release, you would need to get an illegal copy without the hologram after someone cracked a 128 bit encryption key with a copy of your holographic lens, maybe a year or so if you are really optimistic and had tremendous amounts of computing power(Is this possible?), and somehow download into your modchip the encryption key. It also assumes that you have already modded the console to ignore the holographic scan, and instead hardcode the decrypt.
If you can copy holograms easily, then the design is moot. If you disassembled a PSX to get at both holograms, then you would have the encryption pattern, but only for one PSX.
Any comments?
Pointless waste of computing resources?
A decent attempt and method to prevent piracy in Asian countries?
AS
Unfortunate reality... (Score:1)
Why do they pirate so much? Maybe because they can't get a translated copy. So where does the cycle end? If Sony could get a decent profit out of translating for the market, they would, I'm sure. But in the current system, piracy is too prevalent, encouraged, accepted, condoned, and practiced for Sony to even consider spending the money translating. They hope that keeping it in a foreign(Japanese) language, and with some minimal copy protection, they won't get bitten too hard.
There are real reasons for country lockouts; the question I wonder is how/why Thailand even gets PSXs in the first place?
AS
Omigosh! I had forgotten! Thank you! (Score:1)
Ah, that was real fun. I do get some sense of that community in
I wonder if we could have a poll?
I wonder if there could be a
I'm continually suprised by how cordial(despite disagreeing =) people are when I email them from
Sigh. I think I prefer my old 286/386 BBS days to the P2 10bT I have today, for all the community and entertainment it had.
Sigh
AS
Holograms? (Score:1)
Each CD has a hologram integral to decrypting the data to a certain phase. Each PSX also has a hologram. When a laser shines through both holograms, a bit pattern(128 bit encryption key) is used to encrypt the data. Without the encryption, the data is meaningless. This also makes the data read into each PSX unique.
Now, taking this data stream, the PSX decrypts it using an internal private key. Something like PGP, I guess.
So to pirate a game on PSX, you could copy the CD and hologram; but you would be limited to playing withing the same region. However, I don't think its a simple thing to copy a hologram.
Each playstation has a unique matched hologram and decrypt key; To actually mod a playstation, you would need to copy the encrypt hologram, match it with the CD(Each game would have a different holographic key, but not necessarily each CD. 10 copies of FFVIII would have the same hologram, but FFVIII and FFVI would not). Then you would have some way to encrypt the data for the PSX to decrypt; however, that would only work for that PSX, and for that game. Each new PSX would need to be done individually, for any game a person wanted to play. Thus each game's key would need to be stored in a modchip on each individual PSX; not 2 would have the same data. The kicker would be that PSXs could be identified, regionally, by their holographic key, so that you would need the internal decrypt key for the PSX, the encrypt key from the PSX, and the encrypt key from the game before you could play an illegal copy. Thus the PSX would be the dongle, and it would need to be modified for every single game that came out, and for every single PSX as well.
It would be relatively simple to disassemble the PSX to get at the unique encryption key. However, once applied, the data is encrypted, and would require some amount of computing power to decrypt, if a 128bit key were used, and that would only get you the decrypt key for that 1 psx. The only way I can think around that would be to copy and replace holographic keys on the PSXs with copies of legitamite ones, and then mod the machines to decrypt them, bypassing the default decrypt inside the PSX.
AS
Holograms? (Score:1)
If you brute force decrypt the CD, it would take years!
Of course, this is very dependent upon the processing power to decrypt and encrypt on the fly.
I'm modeling this on PGP, in which the CD has something like a public key, and the PSX has a private key and a public key. The combination of the PSX's public key and the CD's public key is then used to encrypt the CD, and the PSX's private key decrypts it.
Without any encryption or decryption, the data files are unreadable; they just look like garbage. The CD format itself would remain unchanged I think, otherwise crackers could just crack it looking for standard file header stuff.
AS
Holograms? (Score:1)
Just curious
AS
Why does Sony bother? (Score:1)
Games that should have been bought and paid for are found for 6$ a pop on highways, where traffic can crawl at 3mph, or sidewalk vendors, along with a good teryaki stick, or in malls, stores, and shops.
The real loss occurs if/when these things get exported out to other countries. Sony tries to control when and where the CDs go via country codes to prevent the spread of these 'imports'
I know that Japense music is imported in pirate form here. Go to any Asian marketplace, video store, music store, or shopping center, and look out for 'import' CDs with the SM label. They are not original, nor are they legitimate, but they sell 30$ CDs for 15$, and they look, feel, sound quite good. I'm sure games get imported here the same way(heck, a larger profit margin for the same CD! 15$ music or 20$ game on a CD!)
I've never looked for pirate games, because I want to be legit, but I'm sure they exist. Go see Thailand, and then come back here, and tell me how bad it gets...
AS
heh heh heh.... (Score:1)
neon phoenix
What the market will bear. (Score:1)
Warez are bad for Open Source (Score:1)
My point is? I dunno.. just sharing, cause I've never seen this brought up
well duh... (Score:1)
english hacks (Score:1)
I agree (Score:1)
very hard on games like FF8 and its dirt cheap. I agree with the whole anti-copyright movement, but game developers are simply a different genre.
Pirating is not cool (Score:1)
Nonetheless. Games are entertainment. Pay the people who write these things. It's not as easy as it looks.