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Thread: Starforce DRM Another Sony Rootkit?

  1. #1
    twisterX's Avatar Poster
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    [news=http://www.neowin.net/images/news/logos/starforce.gif]After the Sony rootkit fiasco, you'd think that companies would have learned their lesson involving dangerous copy protection methods. Well according to some rather alarming news from Futuremark it appears that Starforce is following in the footsteps of the Sony’s now famous rootkit.

    According to Futuremark the anti-piracy system that Starforce is using installs a driver that runs at the highest level of access on the system. Meaning that this driver has access to basically all same things the operating system itself enjoys (hardware/drivers/processes). Further more this driver runs all the time, regardless of whether or not you are playing a game that used Starforce's DRM. If that wasn't enough to scare you, if the Starforce driver thinks it has detected suspicious activity relating to disc copying the driver will instantly reboot your computer without any notification.

    Aside from restarting your computer whenever the driver thinks it detects suspicious activity, the Starforce driver can also interfere with certain device drivers. In fact it can interfere so bad that the device drivers will run in legacy PIO mode instead of DMA, this not only slows down you computer but also slows down the data transfer to affected hardware. As with the Sony rootkit, this Starforce driver will only install under Administrator privileges.

    Read More Here: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13212

    Source: http://www.neowin.net/
    Homepage: www.star-force.com[/news]

  2. News (Archive)   -   #2
    Busyman's Avatar Use Logic Or STFU!!!
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    Yeah I had to do a buncha shit including going into my registry to remove all traces of StarForce...THIS IS AFTER YOU UNINSTALL THE SOFTWARE!

    The damn thing can eventually fuck up your burn speed on your DVDR/CDR drives.
    Last edited by Busyman; 03-21-2006 at 08:32 PM.
    Silly bitch, your weapons cannot harm me. Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, Bitchhhh!

    Flies Like An Arrow, Flies Like An Apple
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  3. News (Archive)   -   #3
    SeK612's Avatar Poster BT Rep: +10BT Rep +10
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    Must admit I'm not impressed with starforce. There seem to be ways around it which makes the software pretty pointless as all it does is cause inconvenience (for legitimate buyers of games using the protection as well by all accounts) rather than preventing piracy (the way around it involves using certain types of emulation software, using a altered version of the game, and unplugging your CD drives ).

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