Starforce Posts Their objections to Toms Hardware Article

[Soulcommander]

Hello all,
Well Now Starforce thinks they need to strike back at Toms Hardware so they have posted this article: http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658

I urge you guys to read it. I am very upset. They call us begginer level hackers. I am no hacker at all! I have nothing on my computer that would even make the Starforce drivers act up. My machine is clean and legal. So are many others. Yet they want the public to believe its the hacker community that is out to get them. So far from the truth. Sure the hackers are always going to be around thats for sure...And from what I have been told have cracked the Starforce protection. SO WHAT I don't care, I buy my software. WHen I care is when Software starts to do damage on my computer.

Then they say they have had NO feedback from customers that have had to reformat their computers. Well they didn't fix my problem in the first place so why in the world would they even say that? Yes I did have to reformat, but it didnt make my problem go away. My CDRW was still not working. This article if you read it is so unprofessional in my opinion. I'm terribly upset and wrote to UBI to tell them how upset this made me feel.

For those of you who haven't gone through the Starforce fiasco you are so lucky. I am already starting to get letters from the people that have had problems and this Starforce article made them feel the same way as it made me feel.
Starforce will never be on my computer again!
If UBI acted this way the general public would never want to do business with them again either!

One other point I would like to make. Starforce wants us to come to them with problems right?
Then why when we do they lock the posts on their forum and later delete them all so they can't be read? Why? Because they don't want the public to see that their product is bad. They don't like negative feedback.

Enough said.

SC

UPDATE! Be sure to read further down to see the letter that Mr Aaron McKenna wrote to Starforce.

[wetwarev7]

Heh. Locks only keep honest people out. IMO, the copyright protection on games nowadays are no more effective than the earliest versions. Worse, they annoy/enrage us honest customers.

[sik1977]

Well the Starforce Article is certainly in bad taste. Toms Hardware is infinitely more respected online review site. I have been an avid reader of Toms for a decade now I think. I read the Article on War on Pirates, and what it said is so true. The fact that such intrusive copy protection routines only harm the legal user, who has bought the copy and thus now must suffer from the intrusive copy protection routines. The people who download the game can simply get a crack (even for version 1.4b of SH3 now) and the amazing thing is that the Crack is Starforce free and works great without any disc rotating for a minute or making the DVDRW drive redundant for the very purpose it was bought, i.e., writing discs. I am surprised that instead of trying to make a better, more efficient and less intrusive/anti-consumer copy protection, Starforce has attempted to throw dirt in the face of a respected online review site.

I wonder when they will learn from their mistakes.

[Serverdaemon]

I found it rather amusing that the Dennis's article states,
"I wouldn’t be so surprised if this article was written by a Russian and posted on some hackers’ forum.",
while Dennis's last name is Zhidkov!

:lol:

S

[kiwi_2005]

Man i would love to see Starforce come here discuss with us about the problems we have with there program. Why dont you invite them to subsim :D im sure we will treat them nice ;)

[kiwi_2005]

i just visited there forums and theres people asking for help on SF problems yet theres no replies. You would think SF would reply.

[wetwarev7]

i just visited there forums and theres people asking for help on SF problems yet theres no replies. You would think SF would reply.

If they replied they wouldn't be able to say:

And our technical support received zero feedback from people who had to totally rebuild their computers because of StarForce drivers.

[tluchem]

Did the Star Force writer even read the Tom's Hardware article or did he just pick out some quotes? His time would have been much better spent addressing the legitimate problems people face with programs like Star Force rather than lambasting an article for something it clearly did not say (i.e. piracy is good). As for Dennis' argument about the EULA is should be shorter, more direct, and list all the software to be installed at its beginning if they really expect people to read it. One could certainly argue that the current format of EULAs prevents them from being legally binding.

[Hellcat]

I actually had issues with my burner after installing sh III. So I just fired off a email to the guy who wrote the article and hope he responds with constructive comments. (gives these guys some credit I mean they are trying to make a living)

My biggest question is though...

Why can't star force uninstall itself after playing the game?

[John Channing]

Man i would love to see Starforce come here discuss with us about the problems we have with there program. Why dont you invite them to subsim :D im sure we will treat them nice ;)

Yes, as a matter of fact, we would.

JCC

[Soulcommander]

WOW Thank you gentleman for the feedback. I have wrote to UBI and will now write them again and show them this thread. They (UBISOFT) have been very concerned about this and I have been in contact with them. I appreciate your imput and I'm sure UBISOFT will too. Thank you, thank you, thank you....

God Bless all of us guys who have legally bought the game and have had nothing but trouble with the copy protection on it.

God Bless you all.

SC

[benetofski]

I read Dennis Zhidkov's (IMHO rather naive) response to Aaron McKenna's article 'The War on Game Pirates' and simply put it is 'unusually' defensive of Starforce's (apparent) continued ability to protect their customer's products, which are seemingly (according to Dennis) under a 'huge attack' by game-pirates despite what appears to be a somewhat 'selective sporty' hack-attitude within the gaming community at large! :arrgh!:

What planet does Dennis come from? - only cash-starved kids have time and motivation to do that stuff right? :doh:

He also goes on to attack Aaron McKenna elluding to his youthfull looks and concluding that he is a probably Russian hacker?- Aaron claims he is a 'games jounalist' . .. :hmm:

Consider then Dennis's article as either 'scare-mongering' or a paranoid attempt at 'marketing' the virtues of Starforce to game developers...

On the other hand, Aaron McKenna simply states the obvious - a 'status quo' regarding the 'anomalys' that StarForce appears to inflict on many user's machines - I wondered why my own CD drive sometimes plays up as does McKenna's? (coincidence with the instal - maybe?)

So who is right and who is wrong?

I guess the jury is out on that one - and will probably stay out!

Now a question, would I (for one) knowingly buy another game with StarForce encryption seeing all the threads in the forums? :rotfl: errr let me think......

Now I have thought about it for 5 seconds - NO, and that probably includes SH4! (ah well ,I guess I will just go buy something else I probably need - perhaps a good bottle of Bols Schnapps!!) :lol:

On the other hand, would I go buy a simulator game that was well supported, no StarForce and a great user-manual in the box - and be prepared to pay a premium for it -

You bet I would! :up:

I only have 2 games on my PC - SH3 and FS..... oh and card-games!
So - at my age I can afford to be both discerning and selective on my next purchase!

[Floater]

Personally, I'd welcome an opportunity to have a polite dialogue with Starforce here, since my drive still isn't burning DVDs at all - even after running the SF removal tool.

It would probably best be kept separate and heavily moderated, though, and any offensive or angry comments (of which there will be many, of course) deleted. That way, people might get problems solved through calm discussion.

This isn't to say that I'm not fed up with that article, and with SF generally, but I can easily put that aside if those of us with bad SF problems have a hope of getting them resolved.

However, I've very little hope that they'll be interested in participating.

[kiwi_2005]

I dont trust these SF people. when they start accusing people that complain about SF as pirates its showing they really dont have a grip on the real situation. Then again i remeber when one of microsoft statements to the linux threat was "linux is a virus" so i suppose when your in the bussines of such, and the heat is on just accuse the accuser of being a pirate or cracker.

[supersloth]

whats up everyone, longtime lurker, first time poster. unfortunately, i just realized that i may have a problem with starforce as well. for the past 2-3 months my burner had refused to burn cd-rs. never could figure out the what the problem was, and i never imagine that the burner the would be broken since my computer is only 4months old. but suprise, i bought sh3 about 3 months ago. before reading this article, i didnt even know starforce could damage burners.

and to all the developers/publishers out there, ill tell you know that i will NEVER buy another game that uses SF until the issues are fixed or SF is removed.

[Soulcommander]

whats up everyone, longtime lurker, first time poster. unfortunately, i just realized that i may have a problem with starforce as well. for the past 2-3 months my burner had refused to burn cd-rs. never could figure out the what the problem was, and i never imagine that the burner the would be broken since my computer is only 4months old. but suprise, i bought sh3 about 3 months ago. before reading this article, i didnt even know starforce could damage burners.

This is exactly what I have been telling UBI....No one thinks it would be a game doing it. I have instructions on what to do...Shoot me your email in a pm on here and I will send u the instructions on what to do.
As far as contacting UBI.... Its vital you write me!

[John Channing]

Well, to supply a little contect to the discussion...

In the past few years that I have been Moderating these forums I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of threads I have had to lock.

At least up until the Starforce situation arose.

Since then I bet I have had to lock or delete over a dozen threads and spend a great deal of time watching the few that survived until they came to their own natural conclusion.

And the reason is that peole... some people.... go completely off the deep end at the meer mention of the word Starforce. Ordinarilly rational people totally lose it on the subject and jump way WAY over the boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour on these forums. Name calling, conspiracy theories, threats and plain old verbal abuse.... you name it and the topic of Starforce delivers in spades.

Now, just for a second, put yourself in the position of the people who developed Starforce. Why did they do it?

(Anyone who thinks that they developed it with the intent of screwing people over please stop reading this now, because you are either pretty much a lost cause or you are too immature to get what follows.)

The only rational conclusion is that they developed it in an attempt to put out a product that the manufacturers could use to help maximize their profit (to reinvest in future developement) and to make a living for themselves. So then, on that basis, how would you feel to be the subject of the type of personal abuse you have seen on these and other forums.

I can tell you I sure as hell would be defensive. And then some.

And lastly I am always amazed that people who proclaim the loudest that they don't believe in warez always seem to know where all the best sites are and all about the latest developments. I couldn't find a real warez site with both hands, a roadmap and a flashlight, but some people always seem to have their fingers on the pulse of that particular situation.

Given that, I would be even more defensive.

JCC

[tycho102]

Because this is such a generalized Starforce thread, I think it should be in general.

Besides that, I dunno 'bout "begginer level hackers." Not the spelling, mind you, but the hacking part. This thread just reminded me to check for the....fixes, and lo and behold, there's one available for v1.4b. For months only v1.0 was available; I'd call that "beginner". Now that v1.4b has been taken care of, I'd call that intermediate. They've been promoted to intermediate level hackers.


First and formost, StarForce Technologies is a company. You will toe the company line, just like Microsoft and Wal-Mart and Target and Best Buy, or your company will fall. That stands above anything else. So StarForce had better argue it's side without hesitation or doubt, because another company will do a better job of marketing and your company will go under. Tomshardware has made ripples in the past with Ati, Intel, Nvidia, and even AMD; but Slashdot has linked them quite a few times over the years, and that's one massive aspect of marketing. Don't catch a bad Slashdot link. If you have a poor product, you don't want Slashdot linking to it. The problem now is the the majority of Slashdot readers also know about Tomshardware, because of the linkings.

Secondly, this issue is building. You can argue all you'd like, but the end result is like the gun vote in Brazil. Your investors don't mean Jack compared to your customers, and regardless of the lies for which you manage to purchase CNN airtime, your customers are the final judge and jury. You can talk all day long, but when your customers have problems because Liton drives are cheap at Newegg, your sales are going to drop. Just like the MPAA and the RIAA are having trouble with the college kids; this next generation will pinch off a loaf on the entire marketing sector, just as soon as they start hitting the voting booths in their late 20's. It's coming around with just a little bit more time, and a few more 14 year olds sued. StarForce had better address the hardware issues, today, right now, or the entire Digital-Rights-Management/Digital-Restrictions-Management-Because-You-Have-No-Rights-To-Digital-Media will become a focal topic for even the most common Joe Sixpack. The kind of people that see 400x digital zoom and now understand why that is inferior to 22x optical zoom. Or why a 10 watt LED light-group is so much more efficient than a 100 watt incandescent bulb.


The entire internet is the bane of marketing. Shut down the internet to keep your business model, or adapt. Or fail.

Failure is an option.

[Soulcommander]

EDIT


I can tell you I sure as hell would be defensive. And then some.

And lastly I am always amazed that people who proclaim the loudest that they don't believe in warez always seem to know where all the best sites are and all about the latest developments. I couldn't find a real warez site with both hands, a roadmap and a flashlight, but some people always seem to have their fingers on the pulse of that particular situation.

Given that, I would be even more defensive.

JCC

John I want you to know this has been a personal issue yes and I have personally been working with UBI on this issue. We have started the STARFORCE INVESTIGATION....Namely when UBI sees this on an email they will respond accordingly. Many people have personally wrote me asking what can I do SF or UBI isnt helping and my drive isnt working. WELL now UBI is trying and SF trys to a pont and then leaves us hanging! Thats why I was so upset with SF response to the TOMS hardware article. I guess if it hasnt happened to you you just don't have the passion as many of us do.

Never in gaming history have I had so much trouble. Im 46... Build PCS..thats my business.

But I thank you John for your comments anyway.
Also I want you to know I do NOT hack. I have no hack tools what soever on my system...I can tell you thats the first thing that SF blames you for doing and it upsets many of us who buy these games to support the developers.

[Gizzmoe]

Many people have personally wrote me asking what can I do SF or UBI isnt helping and my drive isnt working.

Have you given them the link to the Starforce driver update? IIRC they have already released three updates. Have you tried the update? Sometimes even an update of the CD burning software could help.

[Soulcommander]

Many people have personally wrote me asking what can I do SF or UBI isnt helping and my drive isnt working.

Have you given them the link to the Starforce driver update? IIRC they have already released three updates. Have you tried the update? Sometimes even an update of the CD burning software could help.

Its a bit hard to try the latest update when its been determined that the drive died because of Starforce. But you probably haven't seen my past thread to know that. I have many others who have been in touch with SF going through UBI first and again nothing has worked. Some lose all functions and some lose just part of the drives functions. Yes SF has them try the uninstall utility. Sometimes with partial success. Other times it did nothing to help. Please I appreciate you trying to help but I have done more than you will ever know! This has been an on going thing with me since about May of this year. Ihave even sent the drive in for testing and talked to the head of Plextor.

[Gizzmoe]

Its a bit hard to try the latest update when its been determined that the drive died because of Starforce.

How can you be so sure that SF killed your drive? All kind of manufacturers have all kinds of quality problems, I´ve seen a lot of hardware components die prematurely.

[Soulcommander]

Its a bit hard to try the latest update when its been determined that the drive died because of Starforce.

How can you be so sure that SF killed your drive?

That information along with others info is and has been gathered. In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up. We are still gathering info...People continue to write and almost every letter I get its almost the same scenerio. Look at the recent poster in here. It happend after the install of the game. But would the normal person ever think it was the game or part of it that would do that? Heck NO! I didnt...

But this post is not a debate over if it was SF ..IT WAS! I would like to stick to the topic.
Also...Plextor got my drive and have never seen anything like this before. Its many many documents that I have recieved from many people. There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.

[Gizzmoe]

There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.

Well, even if SF triggered it (which is bad enough and shouldn´t have happened), the real cause seems to be that the drive had a crappy firmware/OS design. A "good" drive cannot be over-revved!

[Average Joe]

I'd be happy if my SH3 (DVD) disc could be removed from the drive, for safe-keeping, regardless of the type protection it uses, although I'm betting SF must need the DVD in the drive..

[kiwi_2005]

The only rational conclusion is that they developed it in an attempt to put out a product that the manufacturers could use to help maximize their profit (to reinvest in future developement) and to make a living for themselves. So then, on that basis, how would you feel to be the subject of the type of personal abuse you have seen on these and other forums.

I can tell you I sure as hell would be defensive. And then some.

And lastly I am always amazed that people who proclaim the loudest that they don't believe in warez always seem to know where all the best sites are and all about the latest developments. I couldn't find a real warez site with both hands, a roadmap and a flashlight, but some people always seem to have their fingers on the pulse of that particular situation.

True.

From my experience, if i find a fix so i can preserve the original this does not mean i have visited a warez site to find it? i wouldn't go near a warez site with a 10 foot pole. They contain viruses, porn dialup hacks etc., total rubbish. There are good popular sites where fixes are available they dont support warez. They are clean, they have forums with rules etc., The site i visit has AMD support!
The trouble is these days is if you mention crack or fixes or talk that language then you are considered a warez downloader, or hacker or pirate. The label has stuck. I personally hate warez.

[Soulcommander]

There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.

Well, even if SF triggered it (which is bad enough and shouldn´t have happened), the real cause seems to be that the drive had a crappy firmware/OS design. A "good" drive cannot be over-revved!

A good copy protection should not cause problems with the drives..How about that to chew on? I didn't ask to buy a game for my drive to malfunction. I'ts easy for you to blame someone else, many cdrw and combo drive manufacturers huh? Its not just Plextor.

[Gizzmoe]

A good copy protection should not cause problems with the drives..How about that to chew on?

Of course it shouldn´t! But can you prove that SF alone is responsible for killing drives and not a combination of chipset, a certain optical drive with a certain (faulty) firmware revision, IDE drivers and SF? I doubt you can!!! I would be very happy if you could, for that would mean that SF is in real trouble. But computer problems are not always black/white, most problems are a combination of many factors.

Plextor and other manufacturers should check their drives/firmware, something is wrong if a driver or any piece of software can cause the drive to seriously over-rev. As I said, the drive should not allow that! Maybe SF just sends some kind of standard command to the optical drive that it somehow "misinterprets", who knows... I know about 7 systems with very different chipsets and drives were SF doesn´t cause any problems at all, so it´s, as you know, not a general problem.

[stratege]

Its a bit hard to try the latest update when its been determined that the drive died because of Starforce.

How can you be so sure that SF killed your drive?

That information along with others info is and has been gathered. In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up. We are still gathering info...People continue to write and almost every letter I get its almost the same scenerio. Look at the recent poster in here. It happend after the install of the game. But would the normal person ever think it was the game or part of it that would do that? Heck NO! I didnt...

But this post is not a debate over if it was SF ..IT WAS! I would like to stick to the topic.
Also...Plextor got my drive and have never seen anything like this before. Its many many documents that I have recieved from many people. There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.




I, unfortunatly, tried sh3 on a brand new laptop ( acer travelmate 4501 WLMi ) who was working fine, including a out of the box nero 6 (not OEM). Used it to watch vd while travelling ....

- The games stared fine, then crashed.
- I decided to updated the sf drivers, gone fine.
- After restart, realized my hardware was "incomptible" (ati mobility radeon 9700/64 was not powrfull enought )
- Used he desinstalled software AND the sf tols provided online.


Since then, i can't read anymore dvd. My drives just go spinning up very very fast, and then veryvery low ... before the reading stop's

I just don't want to resintall every thing from scratch ....



After a little thinking, i have to assume thos facts:
- before sh3 test, my laptop was fine
- after sh3 test, no more dvd movies on it.

SF is the only thing who come up to me ....

Three email + one written letter to SF, i am still waiting for support.


I am thinking to rma my laptop to acer, but, does the use of SF drivers a breach to acer eula ?? and shoulda point my finger to SF when talking to acer ???

[Gizzmoe]

Since then, i can't read anymore dvd.

Reboot Windows to "Safe Mode", then use the SF removal tool. Maybe it works then. If it still doesn´t work boot "Safe Mode" again and delete sfsync02.dll and sfdrv01.dll in c:\windows\system32\drivers.

[Walsung]

I didn't want to post on this kind of subject, but after reading the article of starforce that Soulcommander puts on link, i feel forced too :

I think that the debate around Starforce protection must be handled by the community on a very mature basis.
The problem of hacking is a true problem. That Ubi tries to protect himself against people that hack, this is totally legitim. If Starforce does it well it's great. There is no discussion about it.

The true problem and debate is when Starforce says on the article :
The compatibility problems do occur with any protection system and the statistics of StarForce lie within the standard. As for Alcohol 120% and alike there are no conflicts that StarForce would cause, because the protection system is tested for compatibility with these programs. And our technical support received zero feedback from people who had to totally rebuild their computers because of StarForce drivers. According to our research those of users that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system.

I don't think it's true. When i installed for the first time my DVD of Silent Hunter, i had really very BIG problems with my computer. I spent a lot of time solving it and considered to rebuild my computer. I finally solved my problem and managed to install it again. But, i spent a lot of my free time doing it and if Silent Hunter was not a superb game i wouldn't had even tried to install it again. But the most important is that i was amazed on the number of costumers like me who had various problems with Starforce protection.
I can't believe seeing the amount of posts on forums and the pages on the client support of Ubi related to starforce problems that The compatibility problems do occur with any protection system and the statistics of StarForce lie within the standard.

I don't think also that it's a mature answer from Starforce to say According to our research those of users that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system. If asking for help because you bought a game and have problems with it qualifies you for hacking suspicions this is not a normal client support relation.

So i believe that if people of the gaming community is concerned with this problem just try to prove that the compatibilty problems are really above normal standarts. I don't think you'll have to much problem doing that, considering the amount of posts on the subject on all the gaming forums.

[Cheapskate]

I'd be happy if my SH3 (DVD) disc could be removed from the drive, for safe-keeping, regardless of the type protection it uses, although I'm betting SF must need the DVD in the drive..

I did actually try this. Removed DVD after authenticity check.
The game continued to run without any obvious problems. I
had intended to replace DVD in drive before shut down but
was so tired I forgot.

The next time I used the drive , which was to transfer some
mods from my internet computer. I found that Nero Incd
couldn't read the disk. My internet computer, on the other
hand, didn't have any problems with it!

I didn't actually try to run SH3 until I had reinstalled Windows
and Incd, so I don't know what would have happened if I had.
I don't even know whether replacing DVD in drive before shut
down would have made a difference.

All I know is, an installation of Nero Incd, which had operated
without problems for a couple of months suddenly failed after
using SH3 with DVD removed from drive.

Conclusive evidence of SF involvement? No of course not!
Just another strange drive weirdness which occurred when
running SH3 with SF protection in place.

Wouldn't have thought too much about it but I had a similar problem later
with myInternet computer installation. This was
even more bizarre - so much so - that when I read my draft
post to Soul Commander, I thought "nobody's going to believe
this ", so I didn't send it.

[Cheapskate]

True.

From my experience, if i find a fix so i can preserve the original this does not mean i have visited a warez site to find it? i wouldn't go near a warez site with a 10 foot pole. They contain viruses, porn dialup hacks etc., total rubbish. There are good popular sites where fixes are available they dont support warez. They are clean, they have forums with rules etc., The site i visit has AMD support!
The trouble is these days is if you mention crack or fixes or talk that language then you are considered a warez downloader, or hacker or pirate. The label has stuck. I personally hate warez.

Spot on Kiwi! My thoughts exactly.

[wetwarev7]

Let me tell you a story.....

Some surprising young entrepenuers wanted to get into software retail. They bought some copies of Windows from overseas, and started thier business. They soon realized that they could drastically increase thier profits if they could just buy one copy and sell it over and over and over, so they did, and they became very wealthy.

Now, it wasn't long before others in thier area had the same idea, so they would buy a copy from the two enterprising young men and sell copy after copy of that.

Eventually the two young men realized what was going on, and that it was putting a financial dent in thier ill-gotten venture, so they decided to do something about it. When the next version came out, they bought a copy, made more copies, and altered some of the files on all the copies to contain code that would render the files useless if it were ever copied again - the first virus.


Now, is this comparing Starforce to pirates? No.
Do I believe this is actually how the first virus came about? Maybe :hmm:

The moral of this story is that while the need to protect software is real, there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. It would be considered wrong in the extreme for me, in a justified effort protect my family from harm, were to enter your home and attempt to remove the firing pins from any firearms you may or may not have, then leave a representative there to disable any future firearms you may purchase.

The minute someone invades your private property and attempts to alter your personal belongings for the sake of thier security, they have stepped over this line.

End transmission.........

[Vorster]

Wow very diconcerting. I don't want to wake up in a month or so and find my expensive dual layer writer has bitten the dust because of SF.

I write alot of stuff with it mostly stuff I have downloaded, or a buddy of mine makes copies of the history channel programms for those of use less fortunate to not own a decoder so we can also enjoy the great programs and also to keep them for posterity. Almost like asking a buddy to tape a great movie on VHS for you because you are not home the weekend.

Then there is the back up of the gigs and gigs of data from my meters installed all across South Africa, which if lost will be catastropic.

Now I would like to make a copy of my disk, not to sell but as a back up. I got my disk yesterday after being ripped off by a pair of supposedly reputable dealers in Pretoria selling the game over the counter and thus being forced to buy a second , but legitimate, copy. The disk has already scratched due to dusk getting into the case, between it and the disk. It is brand new but the cellophane wasn't properly put on, and even if it was put on properly believe me African dust gets in every where. Now I would like to have a image which I can load and play away while the real copy is resting in a dust free (or as near to it as I can get) enviroment protected.

I believe this was the original idea behind programs such as Alcohol and Clone. To help you back up those precious disk you don't want to get damaged, and believe me I don't want mine damaged as SH 3 has been discontinued in SA and I bought one of the last remaining copies in the country.

Enough ranting. Please those of you in the know provide us with a step by step plan to remedy SF problems if they occur.

[Col7777]

I've read and participated in a few SF threads, I've read people go in defence of SF but they are way out-voted by people who are against it.
At first I had no problems with SF and to be honest I read of the people who were having problems and was glad I wasn't, then my DVD started to act up and like a lot of others my PC is fairly new.
Is SF the caused my DVD to act up, I am not sure, but it seems funny?

This made me wonder, has anyone who's DVD has stopped working tried it on another PC, will it work then or has SF damaged it someway to totally disable it?
Or has anyone took their DVD drive to a PC shop or sent it back to the manufacturer and got a professional opinion as to why it has stopped working?

It just seems very strange that so many of us are, or have had problems with our DVD drives since SF installed itself on our PC's.
I have flight sim also installed and I go on FS forums and I haven't read of guys there saying their DVD drive have suddenly packed in.

I would welcome a civilised thread/discussion with some civilised SF staff, first if we had a list of the problems, the amount of drives ruined or not working properly, and let them explain why.

I, like a good many on hear did buy my copy of SH3 and I can prove it, I am annoyed that a small program can foul-up a piece of my hardware on my PC and other peoples PC's as well.

Look at it like this, (IF) there was a virus going around that did this to your PC you would try to get rid of it and curse the originators of such a thing.

[Cheapskate]

[

I would welcome a civilised thread/discussion with some civilised SF staff, first if we had a list of the problems, the amount of drives ruined or not working properly, and let them explain why.

Didn't they already do something like that over at the UBI forum? Wasn't very successful from what I remember - although I didn't read the whole thread - it was about a mile long!

As John Channing, so rightly said, what can we expect them to say- they are going to defend their position in whatever way they can.
They have a ready defence insofar as whatever happens doesn't happen to everyone. They can always say " This doesn't happen to everyone - must be your system at fault"
The only thing they couldn't do in a "face to face" confrontation would be the old " I can't hear you " ploy.

Anyway, I find it difficult to understand why we are having to talk to SF at all. I didn't buy my copy of SH3 from them - I bought it from UBI. If anybody should be taking them to task for what is. without doubt, an invasive and destructive protection system, it should be UBI! Their present - and future interests - are being threatened by the application of this version of SF.

All in all, I think Soulcommander's approach is the right way to go i.e. get UBI interested in the problems some people are having and pushing to get them solved.

[Soulcommander]

A good copy protection should not cause problems with the drives..How about that to chew on?

Of course it shouldn´t! But can you prove that SF alone is responsible for killing drives and not a combination of chipset, a certain optical drive with a certain (faulty) firmware revision, IDE drivers and SF? I doubt you can!!! I would be very happy if you could, for that would mean that SF is in real trouble. But computer problems are not always black/white, most problems are a combination of many factors.

Plextor and other manufacturers should check their drives/firmware, something is wrong if a driver or any piece of software can cause the drive to seriously over-rev. As I said, the drive should not allow that! Maybe SF just sends some kind of standard command to the optical drive that it somehow "misinterprets", who knows... I know about 7 systems with very different chipsets and drives were SF doesn´t cause any problems at all, so it´s, as you know, not a general problem.

Gizzmo sir.... Starforce is in real trouble. Look at the response letter they posted in reference to Mr McKenna's article. That to me sounds like someone who is defending but not helping, accusing but not helping. They don't respond to emails when they run out of ideas to help you. Sometimes they don't respond at all.
I have to prove nothing to you sir. The proof is in the posts here.
How do I not know you arent a Starforce employee just like the ones faking their identity on the Ubisoft forums, until they finally addmitted to who they were.
I don't trust Starforce to be on my machine anymore. Thats all that matters is making sure that I stay far away from it.

I have also spoke to and and wrote to Aaron McKenna today in regards to his article: http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/the_war_on_game_pirates/

And the article from Starforce: http://www.star-force.com/protection/protection.phtml?c=256&id=658

Aaron has given me permission to post his letter that he wrote to Dennis Zhidkov
at StarForce Technologies

Believe me sir this Starforce fiasco is real. If you want to keep saying its not then you are living in a dream world. And to blame the problems on other things in the computer is totally wrong. Starforce and Ubi knew there were issues read the back of a SHIII box...Its states: "Notice: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may CONFLICT with SOME CDRW, DVDRW and Virtual drives."

Im not here to get into a debate over a forum with you...So for those of us with problems Leave us alone! We want this fixed. I am not against copy protection unless it does damage and cost me time and money in my life. THIS HAS!

Again for those of you with problems PM me! We need all your information! ANd will try to get you the help you deserve in fixing your problem!

I will be glad to post Aarons letter too for anyone who wants to read it that was addressed to Dennis Zhidkov
StarForce Technologies in response to the article that SF posted.


SC

[Soulcommander]

Let me tell you a story.....

Some surprising young entrepenuers wanted to get into software retail. They bought some copies of Windows from overseas, and started thier business. They soon realized that they could drastically increase thier profits if they could just buy one copy and sell it over and over and over, so they did, and they became very wealthy.

Now, it wasn't long before others in thier area had the same idea, so they would buy a copy from the two enterprising young men and sell copy after copy of that.

Eventually the two young men realized what was going on, and that it was putting a financial dent in thier ill-gotten venture, so they decided to do something about it. When the next version came out, they bought a copy, made more copies, and altered some of the files on all the copies to contain code that would render the files useless if it were ever copied again - the first virus.


Now, is this comparing Starforce to pirates? No.
Do I believe this is actually how the first virus came about? Maybe :hmm:

The moral of this story is that while the need to protect software is real, there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. It would be considered wrong in the extreme for me, in a justified effort protect my family from harm, were to enter your home and attempt to remove the firing pins from any firearms you may or may not have, then leave a representative there to disable any future firearms you may purchase.

The minute someone invades your private property and attempts to alter your personal belongings for the sake of thier security, they have stepped over this line.

End transmission.........

Very well put! And worth reposting! Thats exactly what the Attorney of one of the people that have wrote to me said. Well his wife is the attorney....And her husband had the Starforce problems.

BOTTOM LINE IS THIS!

Copy protection SURE!!! When it does harm to ones machine NO!

Its to late in my opinion for Starforce to fix it. They have hurt themselves by acting and reponding (or not responding to people asking for help) the way they have. Its no way to conduct oneself. So for many Starforce is a word that brings up several thing to mind.

Stay away from it!
Don't want anything to do with it!

Our opinions matter....
Our concerns are legitimate....
Our experiences are real........

Thats what matters. We paid for a product to enjoy ourselves and end up being hurt by it. Thats not right.

[Soulcommander]

Edited

Wow very diconcerting. I don't want to wake up in a month or so and find my expensive dual layer writer has bitten the dust because of SF.



Enough ranting. Please those of you in the know provide us with a step by step plan to remedy SF problems if they occur.

Sir I understand your need to make back ups too. We haven't even began to talk about that, not being possible. But I want to assure you this has been my work since about May of 2005 to try to fix these problems. And I will not stop until a solution has been reached. I by the way I was raised believe in fairness, helping others, and doing what is honest and right.
And Starforce has hurt me and many others...And that is not right.

So for those of you who are worried and those of you that are affected. Write me...thats all I can ask. Together as a community we will fix this!

We have many people affected and many people in places that can help.

The problem is the people that have installed a game with Starforce copy protection on it that have no clue why the piece of hardware is now all of a sudden not workign correctly. No one would ever think its the game. But many dont install many things on their system. (I for one) So when they do and the next time they try to use their drive and it isnt working right some of them look to Silent Hunter III as being the only thing they installed and think wait could it be related. Then they come here or to UBISOFT's forum and see our posts.

We are here to help as best that we can. Ubi wants to help too. Trust me the lead techs know of the issues. I spoke with them.

And Aaron McKenna who wrote this article knows: http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/the_war_on_game_pirates/

We arent here yelling to waste hrs on the net of our precious lives. We are here to help. To get the issue resolved.

We want satisfaction..thats what we want. Knowing we can buy a game and not worry about our hardware or system having to be reinstalled every time we decide to buy a game for entertainment.

Sorry for the long post....

[Gizzmoe]

I have to prove nothing to you sir. The proof is in the posts here.

It´s no secret that SF can cause tons of problems, but you wrote that SF can actually destroy CD/DVD drives and that is, more or less, something new. Before I believe that I want to see a proof, something that tells me that it´s not just a coincidence and that the hardware failure would never have happened without SF. Is there such a proof? I´m just curious, nothing more...

[Soulcommander]

Edited

[

Anyway, I find it difficult to understand why we are having to talk to SF at all. I didn't buy my copy of SH3 from them - I bought it from UBI. If anybody should be taking them to task for what is. without doubt, an invasive and destructive protection system, it should be UBI! Their present - and future interests - are being threatened by the application of this version of SF.

All in all, I think Soulcommander's approach is the right way to go i.e. get UBI interested in the problems some people are having and pushing to get them solved.

I asked UBI the same question at first and the response was we can't explain what is going on. Later they said...We have NO knowledge of how the Starforce copy protection works so how can we trouble shoot it if we don't know. So we have to send you to them.
Ubi is interested in it although at times they fail to resond to me but eventually we make contact again. They realize all the work I have done and have told me so. I am your link to them and you guys are my link to helping all of us get this issue at hand resolved! Thats why I say pm me with your email if you have had a problem. Tell me what you have done to try to get it fixed or what ever has transpired and I will get you as much help as I can!

I know the feeling of being left in the cold!

[Soulcommander]

I have to prove nothing to you sir. The proof is in the posts here.

It´s no secret that SF can cause tons of problems, but you wrote that SF can actually destroy CD/DVD drives and that is, more or less, something new. Before I believe that I want to see a proof, something that tells me that it´s not just a coincidence and that the hardware failure would never have happened without SF. Is there such a proof? I´m just curious, nothing more...

Giz...It hasn't just happened to me. I have countless others it has happened to. I can not reveal to you anything about the PROOF you want. I can't say why. But I can tell you Plextor has looked over the drive and it's a complete drive failure that died prematurly for a reason that is not part of any manufacturer defect.

If you need proof then start reading all the posts and care about this issue and finding a solution to help others. Instead of causing nothing more but rebuttle and being defensive. You sound way to much like you are a Starforce employee or have profits in the company. No offense but I am here to help people.

Thank you.

[Gizzmoe]

Giz...It hasn't just happened to me. I have countless others it has happened to. I can not reveal to you anything about the PROOF you want. I can't say why. But I can tell you Plextor has looked over the drive and it a complete drive failure that died prematurly for a reason that isn not part of any manufacturer defect.

Excuse me, but you were the one who wrote "There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.". If there´s no doubt then there must be some kind of proof, otherwise it´s just assumptions.

By the way, how many people reported destroyed drives so far?

[sik1977]

@ Soulcommander

Glad to know someone has taken the time to sort out this mess, which shouldnt have been in the first place. Could you please post Aaron McKenna's letter. Thanks

@ JCC

Try Google. All you have to do is write SH3 crack, and you won't have to use a roadmap and a flashlight. Such sites aren't warez sites and have strict rules against warez or game keys etc. A lot of countries allow legal backups and the use of cracks is not considered copyright infringement under the respective copyright laws. It may be a breach of EULA, but thats a contractual issue between the company and the customer, not a criminal act under the law.

Also, in defending copy protection, which we all support, please do not show support for any and all forms of copy protection, no matter how draconian or intrusive, which is blatently anti-consumer and can cause actual damage. The sooner we can understand how this copy protection damages the hardware, if at all, the better for all the legit users of the program. Because the 'pirates' already have a Starforce free system with their cracks and hence need not care about our futile discussions.

Best regards.

[wetwarev7]

Edited



All in all, I think Soulcommander's approach is the right way to go i.e. get UBI interested in the problems some people are having and pushing to get them solved.



I agree, and I applaud Soulcommanders approach to this problem. Consumer leverage is the way to go here, and I'm glad to hear that Ubi is actually listening.

From the article:
The compatibility problems do occur with any protection system and the statistics of StarForce lie within the standard. As for Alcohol 120% and alike there are no conflicts that StarForce would cause, because the protection system is tested for compatibility

And since when did consumers tolerate ANY kind of "standard" for problems with a product? In an age where cotton swab manufacturers have to provide a written warning that jamming a stick into your ear and scratching your brain might cause some eardrum discomfort/damage so they won't get sued when joe consumer uses a swab in an attempt to dislodge the five nickels that got jammed in there on a dare, I find it hard to accept that we as consumers would tolerate any kind of "standard" at all for this sort of thing.

[sik1977]

Giz...It hasn't just happened to me. I have countless others it has happened to. I can not reveal to you anything about the PROOF you want. I can't say why. But I can tell you Plextor has looked over the drive and it a complete drive failure that died prematurly for a reason that isn not part of any manufacturer defect.

Excuse me, but you were the one who wrote "There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.". If there´s no doubt then there must be some kind of proof, otherwise it´s just assumptions.

By the way, how many people reported destroyed drives so far?

@ Gizzmoe

with all due respect, why are you trying to pick up a fight with soulcommander and get this thread locked. If he wants to collect info from those with drive issues, please allow him. If he thinks SF destroyed his drive, and you think your's is working just fine, let it be. Its unlikely either of you will change each other's mind as neither is authority on the issue. Let UBISOFT and CDROM manufacturers decide what killed their drives and whether or not its SF for sure. People do have a genuine concern, but we aren't rocket scientists and this cant be 100% sure, its our inference from our experience and what we read about others experiences. We must try and raise our concerns if we want to have any hope of getting this issue resolved one way or the other.

I hope you take my point in a positive manner. Thanks

[Gizzmoe]

with all due respect, why are you trying to pick up a fight with soulcommander and get this thread locked.

I´m not trying to pick up a fight, I only would like to have some answers. I have the feeling that SC tries to "sell" assumptions as facts, that´s what I don´t like. Maybe he can prove me wrong.

[Soulcommander]

Thank you for the post above sik1977 !



Here is the original letter that Aaron McKenna wrote to Starforce after Starforce posted the article on their web site.
This has not been published or seen by anyone other than Starforce. I post this with Aarron's complete permission that he gave me this morning OCT 25 2005.

Dear Mr. Zhidkov,

Aaron McKenna here – I was the author of the piece to which you refer, and I find some interesting points of discussion in your letter.

First off, allow me to introduce myself. I am not, as you perhaps seem to be inclined to believe, a videogame pirate. I am a journalist who, at the time of writing that, was also working for such publications as PC Format, PC Gamer (UK) and the Games Developer Magazine.

I think, Mr. Zhidkov that you have misinterpreted much of that which I have said. In the opening paragraph, referring to Doom III, I was pointing out the ineptitude of copy protection measures on the game and the impact which this can have on the videogaming industry. I would point out to you that a similar opinion piece at the time can be found in PC Gamer UK, which is a much respected videogames magazine.

In terms of "delighting" in pirates successes, I think that you again misinterpret me. The point of my article from beginning to end was to point out the damage which piracy is doing to the videogaming industry, the currently and previously ineffective methods used by videogame publishers to protect what, as you rightly say, is theirs and the increasingly militant copy-protection systems which they are, understandably to a degree, now introducing.

I would not ask for your company PR line on the reliability of StarForce (among other systems), or its interference with machines. As I say, I have worked in the videogames industry as a journalist for quite some time, dealing with videogames on a daily basis for review. Myself and my peers have come across many games with StarForce, among other systems, installed and as much as one or two problems might be considered circumstantial evidence against the system, consistent and regular problems following the same patterns I would view as concrete beyond reasonable doubt.

The problems which myself and my peers have experienced on a variety of platforms across a variety of games and over a lengthy period of time whilst using your system cannot be put down to "ghosts".

I appreciate however that as a member of the company which produces this software you won't be joining myself or my peers in condemning it any time soon.

The biggest irony with such systems that I have found is that they fail, in the most part, to do their job. You and I both know that the aim of any protection software is to delay pirates for the critical first few weeks of the games time on shelves. It would be technically unfeasible to prevent totally and permanently any "cracking" of the software, but we are content with holding the pirates at bay for a time.

The problem with systems such as the one produced by your company is that it doesn't do this – Silent Hunter III for example, from Ubisoft, came with StarForce and yet the game was cracked and available for download by pirates around the same time as the game was reaching retail outlets.

The most ironic thing of all in this is that games that are cracked come without the software which causes so many problems.

The one thing I would ask of your company and others is that you stop putting your hands over your ears and refusing to listen to those experiencing these problems, and admit that StarForce is a faulty copy protection system. Whatever you may say about the quality of your system, thousands of forum posts from average users and the experiences of professionals who deal with videogames, computers and StarForce on a regular basis cannot be totally written off as folly.

Thank you for your time and your letter,



Aaron McKenna

STARFORCE REPLIES:

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your response!
I respect your opinion.
Sincerely,
Dennis Zhidkov


Again a man concerned and is very professional both in his letter and on the phone when I talked to him from Ireland.

I am here to help you guys and in turn help the gaming community.
I promise you that this isn't over yet. I want everyone to join in and write me if you have had any problem with UBISOFT or Starforce. Or any game that has had Starforce on it. However I am in contact with Ubisoft with this matter.
I thank Aaron again for allowing me to post this letter.
He is a gentleman and a very professional person concerned as you and I about what is going on.

Soulcommander

[wetwarev7]

with all due respect, why are you trying to pick up a fight with soulcommander and get this thread locked.

I´m not trying to pick up a fight, I only would like to have some answers. I have the feeling that SC tries to "sell" assumptions as facts, that´s what I don´t like. Maybe he can prove me wrong.

I think he's just trying to get people who have had problems (suspected/actual) to email him.

[Gizzmoe]

Giz...It hasn't just happened to me. I have countless others it has happened to. I can not reveal to you anything about the PROOF you want. I can't say why. But I can tell you Plextor has looked over the drive and it a complete drive failure that died prematurly for a reason that isn not part of any manufacturer defect.

Excuse me, but you were the one who wrote "There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.". If there´s no doubt then there must be some kind of proof, otherwise it´s just assumptions.

By the way, how many people reported destroyed drives so far?

Sorry, still waiting for an answer! You wrote that countless others have reported destroyed drives. What does "countless" mean? 10? 100? 1000?

[cunnutazzo]

I'm one of those "countless" :shifty:

[Col7777]

I've already posted above, I'm not sure if it is SF that caused my drive to act up, I'll admit that.
I did also say it is very strange that all of a sudden after the purchase of SH3 we see lots of posts about drives packing in, it didn't happen when we got SH1, it didn't happen when we got SH2 or Destroyer Command but it happens now, why?

I know drives do pack in sometimes but surely a lot all at once and some on fairly new machines from different parts of the globe, and the only coincidence is they bought SH3, if it isn't SF as some think then is it something in SH3 programming, I hope not?

I will ask other future posters to keep this thread from being locked though by not mentioning where or how to get other methods of copying etc or the thread WILL get locked and some good points and comments will get buried with other locked threads.

[benetofski]

Soulcommander,

Firstly, thank you for taking up the SF baton on behalf of the gaming community. I think your thread speaks for itself!

I was however interested to read McKennas response to Zhidkov and then :rotfl: Zhidkov's 'curt' reply!

That is not the response you would have expected. Having said that, the software industry is run mostly by very young people with too few social/communication skills!

McKenna quotes..."The problems which myself and my peers have experienced on a variety of platforms across a variety of games and over a lengthy period of time whilst using your system cannot be put down to "ghosts".


Gizzmoe,

I appreciate you doing your 'moderator' thing and that's fine - you have a point and that should be to keep all things in focus!

[jumpy]

In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up


EEEK! :o
I never really thought about it before, but my dvd-r drive does this!
Normally of late I have to eject the disk after the pc has booted to make it stop whirring away.
I have 2 games with SF on them: SH3 and Sniper Elite. The latter of which I bought when it came out last month or so- I can only recall the 'spinning drive' phenomonon after installing Sniper Elite (both games are published by Ubisoft, though SE is made by Rebellion).

My drive is : PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D

I had previously believed I had remained untouched by all of the troubles described in this and other threads about SF, but now I'm not so sure. The drive still burns CD-R data disks, but I have not tried any DVD-R's for about 8 months now. Maybe I should buy some and see if it still works :x

[Soulcommander]

Edited
Soulcommander,

Firstly, thank you for taking up the SF baton on behalf of the gaming community. I think your thread speaks for itself!



Your welcome sir. I'm delighted that Aaron was so gracious to let me post the email. It speaks for itself and relates feelings I had too when I saw the SF post as well as how others feel about the comments that were made there at Starforce headquarters.

[Soulcommander]

In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up


EEEK! :o
I never really thought about it before, but my dvd-r drive does this!
Normally of late I have to eject the disk after the pc has booted to make it stop whirring away.
I have 2 games with SF on them: SH3 and Sniper Elite. The latter of which I bought when it came out last month or so- I can only recall the 'spinning drive' phenomonon after installing Sniper Elite (both games are published by Ubisoft, though SE is made by Rebellion).

My drive is : PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D

I had previously believed I had remained untouched by all of the troubles described in this and other threads about SF, but now I'm not so sure. The drive still burns CD-R data disks, but I have not tried any DVD-R's for about 8 months now. Maybe I should buy some and see if it still works :x

I didn't notice a problem besides the spinning and one other thing in event viewer a message indicating time out errors pointing to the cdrw drive...the real problem occured when I burned our 25th wedding anniversary pictures. The burn was sucessful but took an unusual long time..more than normal. I did get burn errors too which wasnt the norm. This was the 16th burn on this new drive. I don't burn that much...Anyway after the burn the drive would not close and I had 9 blinking lights, then a pause and 9 more lights. etc etc. The tray would only close by finger force. The drive had to be pulled or XP when the tray was closed would pause (Hour Glass) like it was always looking for something in the drive, and you could do nothing in the operating system.

I would pull your drive now...It is thought that the excessive spinning at high rpms could be part of the drive failure. I dont mean to scare you but no one will reimburse you for the drive.
So pull it or reformat and then see what happens or try the drive in another pc with no SF on it.

Sorry to trouble shoot here gentleman but I want otherss to be helped as much as possible for those that do not write to UBI or take the time to write to me.

SC

[NZ_Wanderer]

Well I wasn't gonna, but I can't resist....

I am another one of those who's BRAND NEW DVD drive failed under Starforce..
My drive is totally different brand than Soul Commanders, yet, I experienced more or less exactly the same type of failure that SC did, and from what SC has been telling us in E-Mails I'm not the only one that experienced this and on different drives..
I was reasonably lucky in that the shop replaced my drive, BUT at the same time they warned me if the same thing happened again they would not replace it due to Starforce NOT being covered under the warrenty. (so looks to me like shops are starting to be warned by drive companies regarding this matter as well..)
That is why up to now, I have not had Silent Hunter 3 back on my system, I do not want to run the risk of losing another dvd drive. (They not cheap to replace here in NZ)
Anyway, that to me is positive proof...

Of course it shouldn´t! But can you prove that SF alone is responsible for killing drives and not a combination of chipset, a certain optical drive with a certain (faulty) firmware revision, IDE drivers and SF?

[Gizzmoe]

In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up

EEEK! :o
I never really thought about it before, but my dvd-r drive does this!
Normally of late I have to eject the disk after the pc has booted to make it stop whirring away.

Just boot without a CD/DVD in the drive if you are really so afraid that SF kills the drive during the boot process, there is no need to pull the drive or reformat the PC. And actually it´s ok for an optical drive to run "very, very fast" for a "prolonged period of time", they were made that! Modern DVD drives spin up to 10000rpm.

[Gizzmoe]

I was reasonably lucky in that the shop replaced my drive, BUT at the same time they warned me if the same thing happened again they would not replace it due to Starforce NOT being covered under the warrenty. (so looks to me like shops are starting to be warned by drive companies regarding this matter as well..)

Please ask them what SF does to optical drives, they should be able to tell you exactly why SF more or less invalidates the warranty. Let us know what they told you.

[Vorster]

Gizzmoe how about three roms in a row. I talked to a rather afluent buddy of mine last night who has thrown away not one but three roms after the advent of SF. He though it was just normal wear and tear. But the symptoms decribed here is was common to all three. Coincidence I think not. SC I will PM you with something I have found shortly.

By the by I cracked my game last night. I am honest about it I don't want to risk screwing up my rom or further damaging the disk. It is a totaly legal copy - believe me I should know after being had with an illegal copy (refer to this post http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/2881085392/m/9061007863) - but I will not risk my expensive equipment and valueble disk for being honest.

[Col7777]

I'm NOT defending SF here but I did hear that after the latest Windows service pack that some burners started to fail, has anybody else heard this?

A question to the people who have NOT had problems, how many of you actually do burn disks, may be you have a problem with your drive and don't know it yet?

[Gizzmoe]

Gizzmoe how about three roms in a row. I talked to a rather afluent buddy of mine last night who has thrown away not one but three roms after the advent of SF. He though it was just normal wear and tear. But the symptoms decribed here is was common to all three. Coincidence I think not.

Yeah, it´s mysterious, but the story lacks some very important details, so it´s impossible to come to a conclusion.

[Col7777]

OK, I typed in Google search 'starforce problems' I got lots of links to threads in various forums complaining about SF, it seems we are not alone.

Yes, there were links to warez sites too and ways to do illegal stuff, and yes, there are pirates we know that, but hell of a lot of ordinary folks out there have had problems through SF, way too many for my liking.
On the pirate issue, software companies do need to find a protection to stop piracy, fair enough, but if the protection system they use stops people from buying their software then what will they do?

Again please don't publish any ways of illegal copying/cracks or this thread will close, we need to keep it open.

[Vorster]

I just want to emphasize the fact that I do did not say how to do it but that I did it. No to be scally (a expresion from SA meaning crooked) but because I don't want to see my writer heading out the door soon. :(

Desperation leads to extreme measures. Ask any submarine veteran who has survived a sinking sub.

[jumpy]

In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up

EEEK! :o
I never really thought about it before, but my dvd-r drive does this!
Normally of late I have to eject the disk after the pc has booted to make it stop whirring away.

Just boot without a CD/DVD in the drive if you are really so afraid that SF kills the drive during the boot process, there is no need to pull the drive or reformat the PC. And actually it´s ok for an optical drive to run "very, very fast" for a "prolonged period of time", they were made that! Modern DVD drives spin up to 10000rpm.

Well this is what I've started to do, but I have to say the noise the drive makes when spinning in this 'SF' way is most deffinitely not the sound it used to make when reading or burning at high speed (52x). The normal sound is/was a kind of smooth humming, whereas this 'new' sound keeps cycling up and down at a much higher pitch- so much so that when it first happened I thought one of my HD's was on the way out... I could feel/hear the vibration resonate through my case quite clearly, which has never happened before during the course of normal drive opperation.

If taking the disk out of the drive when I have finnished using it is a quirk I'm going to have to get used to, then I can tollerate that to a point. But if the operation of my drive is going to be compromised to the extent that it is nolonger useable as a burner as the manufacturers spec states, then I'm going to have to consider draconian software policies like formatting my pc and throwing all products that contain SF in the bin- which will be a shame as SH3 will never come back in that case, given that it is the only game I play offline and is a great break from my usual FPS style-ings; this will be very unfortuneate.

If it is proved beyond certainty that SF is or will kill my drive, then I'm not going to stand there and bend over and spread 'em for a second helping, seeing as my drive (when I bought it new) cost about 3 times as much as any damn game, I will be a very, very angry bunny indeed :stare:
If a new game is going to cost me the servicability and price of a new DVD-RW drive because of (speculation) some companies dodgey copy protection software, then I will have to find a way to 'return' the favour and figure out the best way to cost them money and time and a trip to the shops for some new hardware and see how they like being out of pocket at my convenience- now how likely is that?! :nope:

I only hope it is not so, because if it is, then everybody will loose out in the long run- ok the individual end user will suffer more than the company at the end of the day, but this very much seems to be par for the course these days and accepted that as a consumer, you should take 'whatever is handed out to you wheather it works correctly or not, and be humbly, cap tippingly greatful damnit! that we condescend to spread our pearls before such swine as you.' :down:

There, I've said my bit, but I think I'm starting to rant a bit now, so I'm going to stop before I get any more worked up about the impending possibility of my drive being borked by SF.

[Vorster]

Okay call me irrasional call me mad. But I swear if I get another blue screen... Been trying insuccesfully to install Alchohol on a brand new lap top with a writer on which I installed SH 3.

Well lets say that it wasn't so before SH 3 and now it is so. It may be because of SF or not but the fact is it is happening. So a question to the tech guys what will cause these screens and why would alcoholhave a problem with the virtual drivers? Please I don't want to format.

[Vorster]

I had to get into safe mode and do a system restore on the lap top. I will not come near it with SH 3 or any SF game agian ever. Sorry I have work on it and will not take any chances.

[Gizzmoe]

If it is proved beyond certainty that SF is or will kill my drive, then I'm not going to stand there and bend over and spread 'em for a second helping, seeing as my drive (when I bought it new) cost about 3 times as much as any damn game, I will be a very, very angry bunny indeed :stare:

Buy the cheapest DVD drive that you can get (costs less than 20€) and use that for game CDs/DVDs instead of your expensive writer, that´s the best solution.

[jumpy]

If it is proved beyond certainty that SF is or will kill my drive, then I'm not going to stand there and bend over and spread 'em for a second helping, seeing as my drive (when I bought it new) cost about 3 times as much as any damn game, I will be a very, very angry bunny indeed :stare:

Buy the cheapest DVD drive that you can get (costs less than 20€) and use that for game CDs/DVDs instead of your expensive writer, that´s the best solution.

Does that mean then that SF drivers only interfere with the drive they are installed with or run on, or do the make 'system wide' changes to hardware regardless of being actually run on it?

[Gizzmoe]

Does that mean then that SF drivers only interfere with the drive they are installed with or run on, or do the make 'system wide' changes to hardware regardless of being actually run on it?

As far as I know it´s a system wide change. My point was that it´s much cheaper to replace a broken DVD reader than a broken writer. Use the writer only to write things.

[jumpy]

Hmmm, still not the ideal solution now is it? How would that guarantee not stuffing both drives if SF makes system wide changes? :dead:
Oh well, another one bites the dust. I'm going to finnish Sniper Elite, then consider my options for a while. And after that, well I'll probably never buy or use anything with SF on it again; assuming of course the packaging tells me it's there first. Talk about having to cut your nose off to spite your face :sigh: maybe SF can sell their own brand of compattible DVD roms with each game purchased? pffft :/\chop

[Gizzmoe]

Hmmm, still not the ideal solution now is it? How would that guarantee not stuffing both drives if SF makes system wide changes? :dead:

My suggestion would only guarantee that SF (if it can really do that) doesn´t physically damage your writer.

[Col7777]

Gizzmoe, am I wrong here or what, you say it makes a system wide change, well won't that also effect the writer too?

[jumpy]

Either ways, I appreciate the suggestions for 'work arounds'. If I have any spare time this week I might try out one of our spare drives from work and see what we can see...

[Gizzmoe]

Gizzmoe, am I wrong here or what, you say it makes a system wide change, well won't that also effect the writer too?

Yes. But you would only use the writer to write discs, and SF wouldn´t damage that drive if you don´t read from it and if you don´t leave media in during a reboot. If Soulcommander is right the biggest problem is the boot process and only then if there´s a disc in the drive.

[Cheapskate]

Gizzmoe, am I wrong here or what, you say it makes a system wide change, well won't that also effect the writer too?

Yes. But you would only use the writer to write discs, and SF wouldn´t damage that drive if you don´t read from it and if you don´t leave media in during a reboot. If Soulcommander is right the biggest problem is the boot process and only then if there´s a disc in the drive.

Am I totally " out of order" in believing that SF shouldn't damage ANY drive....EVER ?

[stratege]

Its a bit hard to try the latest update when its been determined that the drive died because of Starforce.

How can you be so sure that SF killed your drive?

That information along with others info is and has been gathered. In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up. We are still gathering info...People continue to write and almost every letter I get its almost the same scenerio. Look at the recent poster in here. It happend after the install of the game. But would the normal person ever think it was the game or part of it that would do that? Heck NO! I didnt...

But this post is not a debate over if it was SF ..IT WAS! I would like to stick to the topic.
Also...Plextor got my drive and have never seen anything like this before. Its many many documents that I have recieved from many people. There is NO doubt that it was SF that did this. NO doubt.




I, unfortunatly, tried sh3 on a brand new laptop ( acer travelmate 4501 WLMi ) who was working fine, including a out of the box nero 6 (not OEM). Used it to watch vd while travelling ....

- The games stared fine, then crashed.
- I decided to updated the sf drivers, gone fine.
- After restart, realized my hardware was "incomptible" (ati mobility radeon 9700/64 was not powrfull enought )
- Used he desinstalled software AND the sf tols provided online.


Since then, i can't read anymore dvd. My drives just go spinning up very very fast, and then veryvery low ... before the reading stop's

I just don't want to resintall every thing from scratch ....



After a little thinking, i have to assume thos facts:
- before sh3 test, my laptop was fine
- after sh3 test, no more dvd movies on it.

SF is the only thing who come up to me ....

Three email + one written letter to SF, i am still waiting for support.


I am thinking to rma my laptop to acer, but, does the use of SF drivers a breach to acer eula ?? and shoulda point my finger to SF when talking to acer ???




DEAR ALL



Following an email support request directly held to starforce people, here what i did get. Must say it only took days (4), and the "fix" did work.

Thanks to all of you who did send me PM to try to help ...


direct cut and past from email:

Hello

Try going to device manager, find the IDE controllers there and uninstall them. The try rebooting, the IDE controllers should appear back. In addition, try removing the protection drivers with the tool that you can find here: http://www.star-force.com/protection/users/

If problem remains send us your system information file. You can generate such file using Start menu: Start -> Run -> msinfo32 -> save as text file.

Best regards.
-----------------
Sergei Komissarov
Customer Support Group
StarForce Technologies

The information of this letter is confidential and must not be disclosed to third persons.

[wetwarev7]

If it is proved beyond certainty that SF is or will kill my drive, then I'm not going to stand there and bend over and spread 'em for a second helping, seeing as my drive (when I bought it new) cost about 3 times as much as any damn game, I will be a very, very angry bunny indeed :stare:

Buy the cheapest DVD drive that you can get (costs less than 20€) and use that for game CDs/DVDs instead of your expensive writer, that´s the best solution.

Gizzmoe, while I certainly respect your opinion, and can recognize most of your points as being well thought out and valid, I find this apparent attitude of "Let's change our hardware to fix/avoid/troubleshoot the software bugs" to be particularly alarming. This is the reason I no longer buy 3000ad products. I feel the consumer should dictate what hardware he/she will buy and install, not the other way around.

If I create any type of product to sell to you for use on something of yours, it is my responsibility to ensure that it works correctly, not yours, and I while I might suggest some workarounds, or ask you to do some rudimentary troubleshooting regarding the apparent bug, I certainly would not expect you to buy extra hardware in pursuit of this.

[AG124]

I've never heard of this until now - now I'm afraid that one or both of my burners has been destroyed and I don't even know about it. I only heard that certain burners would be disabled.

The computer on which I have SH3 installed has two burners - a 52x24x52x LG CD-RW and a ASUS DVD-RW (40 read x, 16 r/rw x) although I don't know the model numbers right now. I burned three music CDs a couple of months ago with the CD-RW and they turned out alright, and both drives can read alright. I also haven't noticed either drive speeding up to ultra speeds. I won't be able to test further until I go home in two days.

Has anyone reported problems with LG or ASUS drives? Does the problem affect read capability? Can I avoid damage by not rebooting with the disk in the drive, or not removing the disk during game play? Does it even effect CD/CD-RW drives?

Right now, I am considering removing SH3 - I never would have bought it in the first place if I had known about this. I will certainly never buy SH IV, or anything else that uses StarForce.

[Syxx_Killer]

Boy, I sure hope my drive is ok. I'm not sure if it is or not. I built my new computer back in March. I used the DVD-RW drive very little, because I didn't have many programs to install at the time. Shortly after, I got SHIII. My drive doesn't make a loud whizzing sound when I boot-up - even with a CD in the drive. It does make a loud whizzing sound when a CD starts or Autoplay kicks in. I've been figuring it is the nature of the beast (reads CDs at 48x). It is a Lite-On Dual Layer DVD-RW.

http://www.liteonamericas.com/us/DVDRW_1673S.htm

So far I can burn and read discs ok. If it dies I will be quite unhappy, to say the least. The only game I have with Starforce is SHIII. Chances are I will not get any other game with SF (even if that means no SHIV). :cry:

[Gizzmoe]

Guys, it isn´t even clear if SF really can destroy drives! For me it´s still some kind of urban legend. Soulcommander has unfortunately ignored my question about how many people reported destroyed drives to him and if that number is much higher than the usual failure rate of such drives. He simply thinks that SF killed his Plextor drive, but he has no proof.

[The Avon Lady]

After reading through this thread, I'm also not convinced at this point that SF can physically ruin hardware.

I've had 2 DVD burners replaced in recent machines. Neither had SF installed on them.

That being said, it's obvious that SF is agressively intrusive and certainly interferes with many a system's software/driver functionability.

[AG124]

I have had a lot of CD-ROMs wear out for no reason - they're still in a pile next to the rest of my old computer parts (I never throw anything out). But you're right, we don't know for sure what's happening.

I have also noticed my 5.25" floppy is not working properly anymore (yes, 5.25"). All disks show up as blank 1.2MB, whether or not they are actually 360Kb or have information written on them. It worked fine until about a week after I installed SH3. I also noticed that since installing the game, occasionally when accessing games on CD or DVD, the 5.25 floppy starts up as if there is a disk in it. Meanwhile, a different 5.25 floppy on another of my computers with Windows XP Pro works fine.

Weird...is this some side effect no one knows about? I doubt the floppy is destroyed though - disks still can be read even if they show up with the wrong format and without information on them. Of course, an old 5.25 floppy from a discarded 486 isn't worth as much as a new DVD-RW ($0 compared to $80-$150).

Anyway, I would really like to know if my optical drives are in any danger. Even if they are all right now, maybe they could be destroyed in the future. I might have to remove the game anyway - I can't take a chance on $300 worth of hardware.

[Gizzmoe]

Anyway, I would really like to know if my optical drives are in any danger.

No, I don´t think so. You wrote in another post that you´ve never noticed excessive drive speed, there´s no reason to believe that SF harms your hardware.

[AG124]

Well, is there anything I can do to keep it that way? For example, not rebooting with a disk in the drive?

[Gizzmoe]

Well, is there anything I can do to keep it that way? For example, not rebooting with a disk in the drive?

Yeah, remove the disk if you like.

[Soulcommander]

I'm NOT defending SF here but I did hear that after the latest Windows service pack that some burners started to fail, has anybody else heard this?

A question to the people who have NOT had problems, how many of you actually do burn disks, may be you have a problem with your drive and don't know it yet?
Very good point sir! I have SP! installed when my drive was affected. After troubleshooting (3 reformatts) I decided to take the plunge and now have sp2 installed but no SHIII or Starforce.

[Soulcommander]

Gizzmoe how about three roms in a row. I talked to a rather afluent buddy of mine last night who has thrown away not one but three roms after the advent of SF. He though it was just normal wear and tear. But the symptoms decribed here is was common to all three. Coincidence I think not.

Yeah, it´s mysterious, but the story lacks some very important details, so it´s impossible to come to a conclusion.

Well if an apple falls from the tree that your standing under and hits you on the head you don't look at the apple and say where did you come from. And you don't look at the tree and say why are there apples on it. When countless people are having issues like this and its right after the install of SHIII with Starforce on it or soon after you don't discredit them. Ubisoft has told me there are problems related to Starforce. Please stop trying to discredit us that have problems.

[Serverdaemon]

Guys, it isn´t even clear if SF really can destroy drives! For me it´s still some kind of urban legend. Soulcommander has unfortunately ignored my question about how many people reported destroyed drives to him and if that number is much higher than the usual failure rate of such drives. He simply thinks that SF killed his Plextor drive, but he has no proof.

I agree in that it very well may not physically destroy them, but it DOES appear to make them cease to function. (At which point I think most people would consider it a matter of symantics.) If it don't work, it don't work!

In my case, it don't work (burn) ever since I installed the game. IF I have to rebuild my system, (and yes, for the benefit of the person who was confused about this in an earlier post, formatting and reinstalling software IS called rebuilding), then I may as WELL go out and buy another drive. (Assuming of course that I could install it with any potential SF registry keys left in or DLL's that is)

So, destroyed or not, functionality is impaired and that is certainly enough for me, and I think most everyone else.

S

[Soulcommander]

Well, is there anything I can do to keep it that way? For example, not rebooting with a disk in the drive?
Not everyone is being affected. But we actually don't know the numbers that have been and didn't have enough knowledge or luck to come to the forums or to even think that it could be a game that hurt my drive. The only indication that may have helped some like me is the statment on the box in the USA thats says in very very small print on the back of the box:
NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some CD-RW, DVD-RW and Virtual drives.


Some people take their machines to a repair facility to get them fixed. Some that can do it themselves throw in anotehr drive that may be affected or may not be ...We can't be sure how many have been hurt by this.
To be safe..Just don't install anything with Starforce on it at this time.

Also removing the game does NOT get rid of Starforce. The only way to be certain is a complete reformat. The tools that Starforce gives you to remove the drivers is not a complete clean uninstall. registry entrees and all. So to be sure you have to d a reformatt. Sorry, you want safe? Thats the only way to be sure.

[Col7777]

I tried using the SF removal tool and thought it had removed SF, then I looked in Device manager, clicked on View then Hidden Devices... I found SF still had some files there.
I then right clicked to uninstall them, I got a window saying I must reboot to uninstall these drivers, I did this and on the rebooted machine I looked again and they were still there.
Second attempt seemed to work, the SF drivers didn't show, looks like they are gone.

[mike-]

i had to get a new motherboard in order to use my dvd/cd drive because after starforce, i had to buy a controller that plugged into the motherboard in order for the drive to actually work. thanks starforce!

[Soulcommander]

Guys, it isn´t even clear if SF really can destroy drives! For me it´s still some kind of urban legend. Soulcommander has unfortunately ignored my question about how many people reported destroyed drives to him and if that number is much higher than the usual failure rate of such drives. He simply thinks that SF killed his Plextor drive, but he has no proof.
Sir you can't say I have no proof. You don't live in my house.
Your German right? So Am I! Do you discount that the Nazi's killed Jews? I told you Ubi has all the proof they need. I don't need to give you proof. Aaron's Article and his co workers were also affected. Donit you think the folks that come here to this forum are proof? Do you think we are all here to waste your time and ours playing games? Your just like someone else on Ubisofts forum who had to have proof .
Stop with this crap already!
Starforce wants to pay you for your time, go collect your check.

For those of you that want to carry on with getting help and find this forum to be unfriendly you can go here:
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/857101043/m/2091013073/p/1

Or write me a pm and I will do all I can to help you.

[Gizzmoe]

When countless people are having issues like this and its right after the install of SHIII with Starforce on it or soon after you don't discredit them. Ubisoft has told me there are problems related to Starforce. Please stop trying to discredit us that have problems.

I have already asked you three times about how many people you know whose drives were actually destroyed, just like yours. You always say "countless people", but never tell us some numbers. I have the feeling that you try to spread FUD and I don´t like that!

[Gizzmoe]

Sir you can't say I have no proof. You don't live in my house. Your German right? So Am I! Do you discount that the Nazi's killed Jews? I told you Ubi has all the proof they need. I don't need to give you proof. Aaron's Article and his co workers were also affected. Donit you think the folks that come here to this forum are proof? Do you think we are all here to waste your time and ours playing games? Your just like someone else on Ubisofts forum who had to have proof .
Stop with this crap already!
Starforce wants to pay you for your time, go collect your check.

That´s too much!!! Thread locked. Go somewhere else. This is a place for serious discussions, you have shown that you are not willing to have one.

[Gizzmoe]

I just had a very nice two hour chat on the phone with Soulcommander, things are more clear now. Time to unlock the thread.

[Soulcommander]

I will also say that we had a very nice long conversation. The time went by so fast too. Now I have another good friend from my beloved Germany.

Giz thank you for calling and allowing me to talk with you and also for opening up the thread again. It's good to know we are all here to help others as best as we humanly can.

[JBClark]

I'm glad to see you guys made up. We've got enough enemies in the Atlantic without turing on each other here. I for one appreciate the efforts of both of you gentlemen.

[Cheapskate]

I just had a very nice two hour chat on the phone with Soulcommander, things are more clear now. Time to unlock the thread.

Thank heavens for that!

Welcome back SC!

[Dead Mans Hand]

Two things: I'm glad none of you know much about piracy. That's good, I run a 100% legal system. However I know a few peope with global connections, trust me piracy is a serious threat to computing in many ways. Millions of dollars are lost every year, not just in video games but software designed for work and OSes

Lastly, a driver can't damage hardware, they could ruin the driver you have but and perhaps you have, but try removing the StarForce driver with their utility then removing the driver for your burner. After both are gone replace the burners driver. I seriously doubt they are physicaly damaged.

[Serverdaemon]

Lastly, a driver can't damage hardware, they could ruin the driver you have but and perhaps you have, but try removing the StarForce driver with their utility then removing the driver for your burner. After both are gone replace the burners driver. I seriously doubt they are physicaly damaged.

Oh, not true! It used to be possible (and was done in some viruses) to send command parameters to the hard drive causing the head to contact the platter, thereby crashing (permanently) the hard drive.
Now I'm NOT saying that SF does physical damage, I don't know...
But you'd be surprised what software can do to hardware!

[Dead Mans Hand]

Interesting, I was not aware that could be done, is there anyway you could site a source or virus name? I'm sure by now it's been fixed or is atleast recognized by various anti-virus utilities and is fairly impotent. Still I've never heard of such a thing and would be interested in looking into it.

[Cognito]

Lastly, a driver can't damage hardware, they could ruin the driver you have but and perhaps you have, but try removing the StarForce driver with their utility then removing the driver for your burner. After both are gone replace the burners driver. I seriously doubt they are physicaly damaged.

It is more than possible for software to damage hardware. After all, most users would be familiar with flashing hardware firmware, what do you think happens if something breaks the firmware? You get a dead drive. There have been virii that do things like with motherboards and such things.

[Mystic]

And lastly I am always amazed that people who proclaim the loudest that they don't believe in warez always seem to know where all the best sites are and all about the latest developments.

I've complained about Starforce here many times, and also have proclaimed as loudly as anyone that I won't have anything to do with pirated software. And, hey diddle diddle, whaddaya know ... I'm no more capable of finding a warez site than you are. In fact I'd have no idea where to even start looking. So perhaps you ought to rethink the sort of blanket statement you've made here ... in fact it sounds remarkably similar to the statement from the Starforce guy in this latest article that claims "anyone who has system problems with our software is obviously a would-be hacker". *cough*

[McBeck]

If it is proved beyond certainty that SF is or will kill my drive, then I'm not going to stand there and bend over and spread 'em for a second helping, seeing as my drive (when I bought it new) cost about 3 times as much as any damn game, I will be a very, very angry bunny indeed :stare:

Buy the cheapest DVD drive that you can get (costs less than 20€) and use that for game CDs/DVDs instead of your expensive writer, that´s the best solution.
OK Gizzmoe...just a friendly hint.
You say you DONT believe that SF destroys drives.
You recommend people to get a cheap DVD rom drive so their loss is not a big one if SF destroys the drive.

Theres something fundamentaly wrong with these arguments.
If you recommend people to get cheap drives, you admit that SF might cause HW errors.

You cant have both.

I have read through this thread and I see some statements to people who state that their laptops drive died after installing SH3.

Theres a huge amount of smoke, but the fire is still hard to see.
However the chain of events makes me believe that SF is the likely problem.

[stratege]

Dear all.


just to share my experience about software killing (temporally) hardware.


When Mandriva(beurk, horrible name) was still called mandrake (good all times hey;), the cooker and the community release for the 9.1 and 10.0 where cd/dvd drives "killers"

When installing those release (actually 9.1) on a Dell poweredge SC600, I and a lot of user of the SC600 mounted with a cd/dvd LG reader exprienced an unwanted firmware overwritting at boot-up, killing (temporary) the reader. After escalating to Dell, a new firmware release was issue, fixing this unwanted behaviors.

Concerning HDD killer's firmware, this is quiet easy to imagine. A simple hack on a firmware is easy to do, modifiying the numbers for the head's parking location, or by modifying the physical mapping ....


Now, could it be possible that a cd/dvd firmware being "overwritte" in a way it prevent some "illegal" actions .... This coud be a way to explore ....

[Gizzmoe]

exprienced an unwanted firmware overwritting at boot-up, killing (temporary) the reader. After escalating to Dell, a new firmware release was issue, fixing this unwanted behaviors.

Are you saying that Mandrake had nothing to do with the problem and that it was just a firmware bug? Or was the new firmware a workaround for the Mandrake bug and the Mandrake devs later fixed the part that has caused this behaviour? Or was it a combination of both?

SC, we haven´t talked about that special detail yesterday, what exactly did Plextor find? Was it an actual hardware failure, were some parts broken, like loose parts inside the drive? If not, do you know if they have tried to reflash the firmware to see if that fixed the problem?

[Soulcommander]

Gizzmoe wrote:

SC, we haven´t talked about that special detail yesterday, what exactly did Plextor find? Was it an actual hardware failure, were some parts broken, like loose parts inside the drive? If not, do you know if they have tried to reflash the firmware to see if that fixed the problem?

All that was told to me and I guess I didn't pump them for any more information than what was said to me...was the drive had gone through a complete drive failure. And the drive had shown no abuse and was as clean as a whistle and they could not understand what caused it. I assume there were no loose parts or he surely would have told me. The drive again was a Plextor 40x 12x 40x CDRW.

[Gizzmoe]

Ok. I think this firmware thing is a very important detail. Please be so kind and contact them again.

[andy_311]

I have been reading this topic with great intrest,and I have 2 DVDs on my pc 1 a DVD ROM THE SECOND A dvd rw +/- and until recently found out I got 5 games installed on my pc with starforce installed inc sh3 and had no real problems with my drive unless I try and burn something with sh3 still in my dvd rom then i will get a message unknown error but once it's removed my roms work great.

I also read on somewhere on these forums if you use the SF removal tool as soon as you insert a game with SF it will re-insal itself correct me if am wrong.

I too don't beleave in piracy and all my games are legally bought in game stores for around £35-£40 so if I did come across a no cd .exe for a game I would install it just to protect my investments and hardware.

[stratege]

exprienced an unwanted firmware overwritting at boot-up, killing (temporary) the reader. After escalating to Dell, a new firmware release was issue, fixing this unwanted behaviors.

Are you saying that Mandrake had nothing to do with the problem and that it was just a firmware bug? Or was the new firmware a workaround for the Mandrake bug and the Mandrake devs later fixed the part that has caused this behaviour? Or was it a combination of both?




Sorry,

it was a combinations of the two.

Mandriva (mandrake) has reacted pretty quickly trought the cookers release. The official release was fully fix. Also, all upcoming release have now a security check. For deeper info, all kernel above 2.4.22-21mdk have been cured from this desease ....

Dell escalated the problem to LG, who did provided the fix .

The answer i did get by that time was:
- Mandriva coding were a little bit agresive in order to provide a larger compatibility footprint.
- LG readers at that time were not fully compliant to atapi commands.

Mandriva process to determine the type of the reader (cd-r, dvd-r or rw type) was to send an atapi command FLUSH_CACHE

Theory behind atapi command express that a simple reader decline this command answering with a fixe and stated error code, while writters did accepts this commands (flushing their cache memory).

But theory is one thing, and reality another. The LG readers firmware were badly code, and the fix order command for atapi UPLOAD_FIRMWARE was misleaded link to the FLUSH_CACHE command.

The results were pretty ugly: cache was not accesible, but the command was process to its end, so main memory was flush, and the drive end-up waiting for UPLOAD_FIRMWARE, witch never occurs ... leaving the drive in a unfinish and endless process. Reboot did not fix it, of course ...


Here was a list of the faulty models and drivers. Now, Just imagine that the SF drivers are issuing atapi commands, and that such misleading link are deeper than expected .... you can imagine now why some people may start to complain about having SF killing their cd-dvd readers .....

* COMPAQ CRD-8322B(CP1) (same model, but marked as LG; IBM Aptiva 2158-125)
* CRD-8400B (Dell Optiplex gx1)
* CRD-8400B (IBM PC 300 PL)
* CRD-8400B(mi)/CRD-8400C (COMPAQ)
* CRD-8402B/LG CRD-8480C (Dell XPS T650r)
* GCR-8481B (Dell Optiplex gx270; rom 1.06; date: Jun 2003)
* CRD-8482B (Dell Optiplex GX1)
* GOLDSTAR CDR-8482B (HP Vectra VL400; firmware 1.01)
* CRD-8482B (Dell Precision 220; rom 1.05)
* GCR-8523B (OEM in custom-built computer)
* GCC 4480B DVD/CD-R/RW/ROM (firmware 1.00; upgrading to 1.01 seems to workaround the problem)
* COMPAQ DRN8040B DVD/CD-ROM (Compaq M700 laptop)
* CRD-8481B (Compaq Deskpro EN P866)

CD-ROM LG identified to have the firmware mislead:

* GRC-8521B
* CRD-8522B
* CRD-8521B
* CRD-8520B
* CRD-8483B
* CRD-8480C
* CRD-8480B
* CRD-8400C
* CRD-8400B
* CRD-8322B
* CRD-8320B
* CRD-8240B
* CRD-8241B
* CRD-8160B
* CRD-8161B
* CRN-8240E
* GCD-R580B
* GCD-R560B
* GCD-R542B
* GCD-R540C
* GCD-R540B
* GCD-R520B
* GCD-R420B
* GCD-R400B
* GCD-R320B
* GCD-R300B
* GCD-R200B

Liste for CD-ROM LG not having the mislead:

* LG GMA-4020B DVD-RW
* LG GCC-4120B CD-RW/DVD
* LG CED-8080B DVD/CD-R/RW/ROM
* LG CED-8120B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCC-4480B CD-RW/DVD (firmware 1.01 only)
* HL-DT-ST GDR8186B DVD-ROM
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8240B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8481B CD-RW
* HL-DT-ST GCR-8520B CD-ROM
* HL-DT-ST GCE-8520B
* CRD-8400C
* CRD-8402B
* CRD-8480C
* GCR-8481B
* CRD-8482B
* GCC-4480B


This list is an internal HP list for safe drives


o GCR-8080B firmware 1.03
o GCR-8082B firmware 1.03
o GDR-8161B firmware 0037
o GCR-8482B firmware 1.03
o GDR-8162B firmware 0018
o CED-8120B firmware 1.09
o GCC-4480B firmware 1.12
o GCR-8520B firmware 1.05
o GCR-8480B firmware 1.03
o GCE-8483B firmware 1.01


Now, if some people having their drives "killed" by SF protections can report if their model were from the list, this would give us some clues ....

Whohaa, seem we diverts a little bit from eels and subs ...
.... and forgive me for my "little niger" english, my mother tongue is french ...

Source in english: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/LgCdrom note that readers list is uncomplete
Source in french: http://www.presence-pc.com/actualite/majlecteurs-cd-rom-lg---mandrake-9-2-probleme-resolu-1991/
Atapi commands : http://www.t10.org/ and http://www.t13.org/

[wetwarev7]

command for atapi UPLOAD_FIRMWARE was misleaded link to the FLUSH_CACHE command.


:o :o :o :o

Whoops! That's a big goof......

I'm glad y'all were able to work things out and unlock this thread. Gives me hope for the human race. :up:

[Gizzmoe]

stratege, thanks for the very interesting informations! Earlier in this thread I´ve already speculated about bad firmware design and a "misinterpretation" of standard commands as the main cause for drive failures in connection with SF. Yes, it´s just a speculation, but it´s not too far-fetched.

SC, I think now you have a very good reason to contact Plextor again to find out if it maybe was a firmware problem.

[ICBM]

Just to be on the safe side here, a.t.m I'm using a DVD reader to play SH3 but I'm planning to buy a NEC or dual layer DVD writer.

Will the resulted hardware change render SH3 useless or will Starforce destroy the drive or anyting?

[stratege]

Just to be on hte safe side here, a.t.m I'm using a DVD reader to play SH3 but I'm planning to buy a dual layer DVD writer.

Will the resulted hardware change render SH3 useless or will Starforce destroy the drive or anyting?


Well, this is actually the big questions.

No-one, unless Starforce people, may answer you.

You may ask the builder company, you may ask SF, you may search forums .... but, also, you may keept open your desktop and switching between your old/new drive in conjonction of using the removal tools.

[stratege]

stratege, thanks for the very interesting informations! Earlier in this thread I´ve already speculated about bad firmware design and a "misinterpretation" of standard commands as the main cause for drive failures in connection with SF. Yes, it´s just a speculation, but it´s not too far-fetched.

Thanks, Just trying to be helpfull instead of debating in a never ending thread.

But, the problem here, is SF denaying they send ATAPI commands to readers ....



SC, I think now you have a very good reason to contact Plextor again to find out if it maybe was a firmware problem.

You may also add any strange activity, link sounds, blinking lights ....

On my Plextor PX-704-A,:
when no disk are inserted, if the eject button is press and hold for more than 30 secondes, it start blinking. These is a max-reading-spedd bypass.
It is also a good way to test if the firmware is still ok.

[Gizzmoe]

will Starforce destroy the drive or anyting?

That´s very unlikely. SC wrote "In alot of these cases the drive in question would spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time when the computer is first booted up."

Well, to prevent that simply remove the disk from the drive before you boot or reboot your PC.

[Gizzmoe]

On my Plextor PX-704-A,:
when no disk are inserted, if the eject button is press and hold for more than 30 secondes, it start blinking. These is a max-reading-spedd bypass.
It is also a good way to test if the firmware is still ok.

Max-reading-speed bypass??? What does it do exactly?

[stratege]

On my Plextor PX-704-A,:
when no disk are inserted, if the eject button is press and hold for more than 30 secondes, it start blinking. These is a max-reading-spedd bypass.
It is also a good way to test if the firmware is still ok.

Max-reading-speed bypass??? What does it do exactly?

Actually, it permit to put reading capability at max.

48x for reading a cd is sometimes reach. By doing this bypass, you enable this speed to be the "normal" speed. the reader goes at max speed, always....taking not care of the read errors ....


Now that you ask me this, this is looking very familiar to that "spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time" problem.

[stratege]

must say:

- no disk inserted
- push eject and hold it until the diodes blinks three times
- release button
- tray eject
- insert disk, bypass-speed enable
- bypass-speed deseable by
* no disc inserted.
* eject button press one time.

NOW, THIS IS TO BE USED CAREFULLY. this is know to work only for this plextor model.

[stratege]

More valuable informations:

Knowed harware to fail creting/reading starforce protected disk:

# EAC CD-W552E (firmware T016) - this latest drive from TEAC reads data on a very high quality level, but it refused to record any data on the disc. The recorder can't identify the disc as suitable for recording.
# DVD-ROM LG GCC-4120B Combo (firmware 2.02) - it identifies blank StarForce CD-R media only every two times; its reading is unstable and slow.
# CD-ROM CyberDrive CD486D (firmware 150J) - it reads StarForce CD-R discs quite slow, the speed doesn't make operation comfortable.


source: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/starforcecdr/

[Col7777]

Firstly thanks for opening this thread again.

We have had a lot of good points mentioned, I removed SF from my system including the hidden files, I was having problems with both my DVD-RW and DVD-Rom.
I may be one of the lucky ones but now they both seem to be working fine.
I was having problems writing disk, getting errors I never had before and on the DVD-Rom I kept getting the no disk in drive message when there was.
I watch a lot of my WW1/2 DVD's on the PC and a lot of time it wouldn't play even after numerous re-boots, now they do.

I did mention in one of my earlier posts, go to Google search and type in "starforce problems" I will ask you just to look on some of the other forums in the links, guys just like us having problems since they installed games that included SF.
Obviously the odd link takes you to a pirate site but a lot are genuine forums.

[Gizzmoe]

I was having problems writing disk, getting errors I never had before and on the DVD-Rom I kept getting the no disk in drive message when there was.

Have you ever tried the SF driver update?

[Col7777]

@Gizzmoe,

To be honest no, I didn't want to risk it, I think I know what your reply will be, it's like having a game and complaining about the bugs when there is an update to fix them.
It's just that I've read so much about this SF I would rather not.

[Soulcommander]

Stratege
Wanted to let you know that your info has been forwarded to Aaron and we hope that Toms will study this theory too. No promises. But I wanted to let you know.

Soulcommander

[Soulcommander]

stratege, thanks for the very interesting informations! Earlier in this thread I´ve already speculated about bad firmware design and a "misinterpretation" of standard commands as the main cause for drive failures in connection with SF. Yes, it´s just a speculation, but it´s not too far-fetched.

SC, I think now you have a very good reason to contact Plextor again to find out if it maybe was a firmware problem.

Actually when I spoke to Mr Resovich with Plextor I did mention this as my Toshiba drive has no flashable firmware and was not affected. Of course the toshiba drive can not burn either...So we talked about the goal of Starforce in general and of course we all know that SF will not allow you to make a backup copy of the game which contains its protection so indeed it focuses on the writers.

The conclusion of that conversation...And I have to think way back...was something like this::: It;s possible for any drive with flashable firmware to be flashed but any program that could accomplish that would be a very intrusive piece of software.

Thats how it was left with me....I had this same talk with a Plextor tech too although he lacked knowledge in that dept.

SC

[Soulcommander]

On my Plextor PX-704-A,:
when no disk are inserted, if the eject button is press and hold for more than 30 secondes, it start blinking. These is a max-reading-spedd bypass.
It is also a good way to test if the firmware is still ok.

Max-reading-speed bypass??? What does it do exactly?

Actually, it permit to put reading capability at max.

48x for reading a cd is sometimes reach. By doing this bypass, you enable this speed to be the "normal" speed. the reader goes at max speed, always....taking not care of the read errors ....


Now that you ask me this, this is looking very familiar to that "spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time" problem.

GIZ this is exactly what we talked about on the phone. I do beleive its possible to reach an overated rpm as I never heard my plextor drive operate like that before SF was installed.

THIS is like a high pitched,cd shattering speed! Its not the norm is what Im trying to get accross here.

[Soulcommander]

@Gizzmoe,


To be honest no, I didn't want to risk it, I think I know what your reply will be, it's like having a game and complaining about the bugs when there is an update to fix them.
It's just that I've read so much about this SF I would rather not.I did try it though and it didn;t make a difference. I did this when I was conducting tests and reformats as instructed by ubi.

[Gizzmoe]

The conclusion of that conversation...And I have to think way back...was something like this::: It;s possible for any drive with flashable firmware to be flashed but any program that could accomplish that would be a very intrusive piece of software.

Yes, but the Mandrake example has shown that in this case a standard ATAPI command plus a faulty firmware was enough to cause such a problem.

Now that you ask me this, this is looking very familiar to that "spin up very very fast and for a prolonged period of time" problem.

GIZ this is exactly what we talked about on the phone. I do beleive its possible to reach an overated rpm as I never heard my plextor drive operate like that before SF was installed.

THIS is like a high pitched,cd shattering speed! Its not the norm is what Im trying to get accross here.

Call the Plextor guys, they should be able to tell you if it´s possible to over-rev their drives. If it´s possible then they can probably also tell you why it´s possible. As I said, please also ask them to reflash your drive (if they still have it), then we would know if a killed firmware was the reason why your drive has stopped working. All this is very important information.

[Immacolata]

[edit]I will reserve final jugdement on SF t ill I hear more about this.

[Serverdaemon]

Interesting, I was not aware that could be done, is there anyway you could site a source or virus name? I'm sure by now it's been fixed or is atleast recognized by various anti-virus utilities and is fairly impotent. Still I've never heard of such a thing and would be interested in looking into it.

Oh it was years ago!
I have NO idea what it was called... I can ask my bud's though...

S

[LtHavoc]

@Serverdaemon

I think it was the old CIH virus from 1998 that over-wrote your harddrive and then tried to zap the bios.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html



For more info about what SF does in the hidden driver department and how this could potentially let a virus like the above harm your computer, do a google on StarForce and ring-0. If the information found is correct, is however open for discussion.

[Serverdaemon]

@Serverdaemon

I think it was the old CIH virus from 1998 that over-wrote your harddrive and then tried to zap the bios.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html



For more info about what SF does in the hidden driver department and how this could potentially let a virus like the above harm your computer, do a google on StarForce and ring-0. If the information found is correct, is however open for discussion.

Could be!...

S

[Gizzmoe]

For more info about what SF does in the hidden driver department and how this could potentially let a virus like the above harm your computer, do a google on StarForce and ring-0. If the information found is correct, is however open for discussion.

IIRC that problem no longer exists. But even if it still would, it´s irrelevant, because the vast majority of gamers logs into Windows with admin rights. Viruses and other harmful pieces of software don´t need Starforce to kill a Windows installation or to delete other important files.

Don´t open email attachments from unknown senders, keep Windows updated, use antivirus/anti-spyware software, a firewall, a decent browser and email client and make regular backups, then there is not much that can happen to your system.

[Captain Wreckless]

i just visited there forums and theres people asking for help on SF problems yet theres no replies. You would think SF would reply.

They've answered a few questions. The default answer seems to be "this is not a SF problem." :down:

Cpt W. :ahoy:

[Soulcommander]

i just visited there forums and theres people asking for help on SF problems yet theres no replies. You would think SF would reply.

They've answered a few questions. The default answer seems to be "this is not a SF problem." :down:

Cpt W. :ahoy:

Of course they say that if they say anything different then they become liable.

[AG124]

I've tested both of my burners - both are working with music CDs.

[FesterShinetop]

Never had a problem with Starforce, in fact I burned an audio CD last week with no problems...
Wanted to burn an audio CD again this evening and it didn't work? Same settings... same kind of CD. I started thinking what had changed in the past week and the only thing was that I installed the King Kong demo which also installed (new) SF drivers (the idea of installing bloody SF with a demo is beyond me anyway), so I did the SF removal tool and voila! Works again...

This really p'ed me off though, those idiots install something with a bloody DEMO that renders some of your hardware useless!!! I almost threw away one of my CD's because I thought it was broken!!! This is really going TOO FAR. I don't just blame SF for this, but I also blame UBI for putting this in their software... go on like this and they loose another customer...

[Col7777]

@ FesterShinetop,

That is one of my points I mentioned earlier, ok it may stop or deter pirates but soon it will deter the customers.
Again I said earlier, read the posts on other forums, lots are or have had problems since SF was on their machines.
I know some up to now haven't had any, but a lot have, it's like a shop selling a bad product, people will start using a different shop.

If a person gets ill on your street with a disease, then others get it, just because you haven't got it yet doesn't mean the disease isn't there.
I just can't understand why so many are having these problems yet still people can't or won't accept it till it happens to them.

[Soulcommander]

Never had a problem with Starforce, in fact I burned an audio CD last week with no problems...
Wanted to burn an audio CD again this evening and it didn't work? Same settings... same kind of CD. I started thinking what had changed in the past week and the only thing was that I installed the King Kong demo which also installed (new) SF drivers (the idea of installing bloody SF with a demo is beyond me anyway), so I did the SF removal tool and voila! Works again...

This really p'ed me off though, those idiots install something with a bloody DEMO that renders some of your hardware useless!!! I almost threw away one of my CD's because I thought it was broken!!! This is really going TOO FAR. I don't just blame SF for this, but I also blame UBI for putting this in their software... go on like this and they loose another customer...

Ranting al calling SF idiots will not get you anywhere ..PM me sir.
As far as the demo having it. I read that SF feels thay have to potect the game code no matter if its a demo. I feel your pain but no gain unless you pm me and we talk.

SC

[Wulfmann]

Just so I am not confused.
I bought SH3 legally as I do all my games.
If I use a no-cd crack and remove the Starforce drivers is that a violation of any sort?
Since I paid for this game how would doing this to protect my PC be illegal????
Not that I have done this you understand but for argument say I did and the game runs fine without Starforce drivers what would I have done wrong?
Is Starforce legally allowed to damage my PC and stopping them illegal?

Wulfmann

[jason210]

IMHO, Starforce is history anyway. The way things are going I think the future's going to be about online authentication now. You have an online account, and you register the product key with that account. Then only you can use the software product. This is what Valve have done with their all their games - they run on a seperate platform called Steam that carries out automatic updates and user authentification via a remote server. Before you can play the game you need to go online and get authenticated.

Of course, this very controlling and invades one's privacy, and is 100% dependent on the Internet. It also paves the way for Pay-to-play, unfortunately, since the developer has full control over the account holder's access. Makes Starforce look harmless by comparison! One advantage to this, however, is that you don't need to have the CD in to play the game, and the CD/DVD is easy to make a back-up copy of. You can also install the CD /DVD on different PCs, no problem - but of course you can only ever play on one of those PCs at any one time. But this is just like replacing one bad thing with another.

All these kinds of protection systems effectively put an artificial limit on a games lifespan, and change the way we think about ownership. Whenever I've bought a game on a CD or DVD, I've always thought of it as I would a book. I've bought it and it's mine. Not so anymore. All I've bought now is the right to use the product for a time that's limited either by the product's physical lifespan (CDS/DVDS will eventually deteriorate) or by the length of time developers stay around to support it (as with server authentification).

J

[Soulcommander]

All these kinds of protection systems effectively put an artificial limit on a games lifespan, and change the way we think about ownership. Whenever I've bought a game on a CD or DVD, I've always thought of it as I would a book. I've bought it and it's mine. Not so anymore. All I've bought now is the right to use the product for a time that's limited either by the product's physical lifespan (CDS/DVDS will eventually deteriorate) or by the length of time developers stay around to support it (as with server authentification).


I feel exactly the same way as the type in bold states.

And of course some of the other things he said too!

[Col7777]

I read about this kind of protection a while ago, it will be a shame for the people who can't afford or get internet, but it will make a lot of internet providers a bit richer.

[kanderstag]

Valve works better than you give it credit for. Go into your firewall and block Steam and HL2. You can still play HL2 without a connection to the internet. But really, looking at the overall picture I'd venture the percentage of those who buy HL2 without internet access is pretty darned small. Forget dialup, what is the broadband saturation rate for whichever country you live in? I can still burn, rip, do whatever.

Ubisoft should be taken to task for whatever copy protection scheme it employs. SF is just doing their bidding. This type of protection is nothing new at Ubi, I recall them using a less invasive scheme with Far Cry.

[jason210]

Valve works better than you give it credit for. Go into your firewall and block Steam and HL2. You can still play HL2 without a connection to the internet.

Yes, but you can't install it and run it for the first time without authenticating it via the Internet. Then you can pull the cable out or whatever, but if you ever need to reformat, you're back to the Internet again.

[Soulcommander]

Valve works better than you give it credit for. Go into your firewall and block Steam and HL2. You can still play HL2 without a connection to the internet. But really, looking at the overall picture I'd venture the percentage of those who buy HL2 without internet access is pretty darned small. Forget dialup, what is the broadband saturation rate for whichever country you live in? I can still burn, rip, do whatever.

Ubisoft should be taken to task for whatever copy protection scheme it employs. SF is just doing their bidding. This type of protection is nothing new at Ubi, I recall them using a less invasive scheme with Far Cry.


I keep getting more and more messages from legitimate owners and purchasers of software stating they are now going to go the internet route of getting their software...To clarify further. Not pay for a thing anymore. This will hurt sales for many publishers if the public goes that route. I for one want to own my copy of a piece of software. So all I can say is I can't blame them. I don't endorse it but I can't say I would hold it against someone either. A very touchy situation indeed.

[wetwarev7]

All these kinds of protection systems effectively put an artificial limit on a games lifespan, and change the way we think about ownership. Whenever I've bought a game on a CD or DVD, I've always thought of it as I would a book. I've bought it and it's mine. Not so anymore. All I've bought now is the right to use the product for a time that's limited either by the product's physical lifespan (CDS/DVDS will eventually deteriorate) or by the length of time developers stay around to support it (as with server authentification).


I feel exactly the same way as the type in bold states.

And of course some of the other things he said too!

Same here. I pay for it, it's mine. I'm not wanting to lease the darn thing.

[kanderstag]

Yes, but you can't install it and run it for the first time without authenticating it via the Internet. Then you can pull the cable out or whatever, but if you ever need to reformat, you're back to the Internet again.

So really it just boils down to Steam's online authentication then? This seems trivial to me, given that the consumer likely to buy the game already has internet access.

[Vorster]

Guys thinking about the firmware thing. A buddy of mine who plays alot of starforce protected games have thrown away 2 writers because the started acting up. He was about to throw away a third. I told him of the possible problems and after updating his firmware voila it works again.

Thinking about this I remembered the same thing a while back playing soldiers: heroes of WW2. Same problem with writer once again I updated the firmware and viola it works.

Maybe SF agressively attacks the firmware?

[Gizzmoe]

Good to know! Can you please post the exact drive types?

Maybe SF agressively attacks the firmware?

Very unlikely, I still guess that it´s some kind of firmware bug.

[Soulcommander]

Guys thinking about the firmware thing. A buddy of mine who plays alot of starforce protected games have thrown away 2 writers because the started acting up. He was about to throw away a third. I told him of the possible problems and after updating his firmware voila it works again.

Thinking about this I remembered the same thing a while back playing soldiers: heroes of WW2. Same problem with writer once again I updated the firmware and viola it works.

Maybe SF agressively attacks the firmware?

Its a very good point to make. My firmware was updated to the very latest when my drive got affected. Some that have wrote to me said they tried to update their firmware and it wasn't successful...Others had the latest for the drive.
I'm very glad your friend had success with that!

[Vorster]

He actually downgraded his firmware. My writer is a Benq 1600 (cheap I know but damn we can't afford plextors as they cost about halve my salary) I will find out which ones he was using and still uses.

[Immacolata]

Valve works better than you give it credit for. Go into your firewall and block Steam and HL2. You can still play HL2 without a connection to the internet.

Yes, but you can't install it and run it for the first time without authenticating it via the Internet. Then you can pull the cable out or whatever, but if you ever need to reformat, you're back to the Internet again.


And? Where is the problem?

1) Don't reformat.
or
2) Have internet access when you do

[Soulcommander]

Hey all...Not totally related to SF or UBI but worth a read to all who buy media like you and I. I felt it important to post this as it seems a bit to familiar :hmm:

Read this first:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6376177.html
(be sure to check out the links in the story too)

Then read this:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123454,00.asp


All I can say is YIKES!

[The Avon Lady]

Hey all...Not totally related to SF or UBI but worth a read to all who buy media like you and I. I felt it important to post this as it seems a bit to familiar :hmm:

Read this first:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6376177.html
(be sure to check out the links in the story too)

Then read this:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123454,00.asp


All I can say is YIKES!
I have one of 2 choices:

1. Permanantly glue down my left SHIFT key. :nope:
2. Not buy a Sony CD again until I'm 200% certain it does not contain such technologies. :yep:

[benetofski]

Wow!


Thanks 'Soulcommander' for flagging this one!

I 100% concur with the author of the original article:

DRM/ Rootkit is malware - no doubt about that and I'm sure even Microsoft would agree that it can have disasterous effects if it is naively coded! :doh:

Did you see the number of octets calling open pipes?

SONY could very well get sued over this one unless their EULA distinctly references user acceptance upon purchase of the CD that Protection Software will be installed if the music is used with a PC....

The upside (I suppose) is that DRM's are probably less harmful to the actual hardware, but, of course, the downside is the apparent 'open gate' to Trojan attacks!

It seems like going/gone are the days that you could pop a CD into your PC and play music, so better stick to the Home Theatre's CD Player! :up:


...better still - break out the vinyls - we never had this problem with HMV! :rotfl:

[kiwi_2005]

These words from "PCPowerplay" gaming magazine on the review of a firstperson shooter thats came out:

The reviewer gives the reader a warning about STARFORCE.
He says:
"Also worth mentioning, the staforce copyright protection software caused massive load times and strange crashes on my system. Five minutes of waiting for the game to kick-in on a beefy system is inexcusable.

Ok we all have heard that before, but it's good to hear the same words coming from Professional Game reviewers.

[Herr Karl]

My drives won`t auto-load since installing SH3...I didn`t know about

Starforce until after the install of SH3. I can live with that.

[Soulcommander]

These words from "PCPowerplay" gaming magazine on the review of a firstperson shooter thats came out:

The reviewer gives the reader a warning about STARFORCE.
He says:
"Also worth mentioning, the staforce copyright protection software caused massive load times and strange crashes on my system. Five minutes of waiting for the game to kick-in on a beefy system is inexcusable.

Ok we all have heard that before, but it's good to hear the same words coming from Professional Game reviewers.

Your right it is good to see this.
Thanks kiwi_2005 for this post. I hate to be the one always posting these reviews and warnings. I can tell you that you will be seeing more and more of these types of reviews in the future. :know:

[Soulcommander]

Just wanted to post a NPR radio report on Sony. Give a listen and make sure you listen carefully to the last few sentences of the report where it mentions gaming!


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989260

[silent_otto]

Very cool interview, thanks ! :yep:

SONY : :down:

This is starting to look like Orwell's 1984... :o

[SOFBear]

I have sporadically experienced the same problem as Herr Karl. Got it with SHIII and also with Brother's in Arms Earned in Blood. I have the problem when inserting the cd. If it's already in the drive and I hit the game icon it works.

[kiwi_2005]

I only read that paragraph.

Is that Sony problem about the uninstall method they brought out?

I read somewhere on another forum that sony required the user to login to there site and require a activation from them if you want to uninstall one of there programs. It then activates the files needed to uninstall. Unless you do this theres no way of uninstalling the program!!!

The user put up screenshots on the forum of what he had to do.

Pathetic at what lengths some will go too.

[Col7777]

OK so we all understand that a software company needs to protect his goods from piracy and he needs to try and stop it somehow, fair enough...
I said this in an earlier post, he may put some kind of protection in there but if it fouls up some peoples PC's then eventually the honest buyer won't be buying for fear of something happening to his PC, the only people who will be interested will be the pirates.

We have read on other forums not just this one of these issues so it is widespread, people are having problems through these protection methods, some are PC literate and can resolve the problems, but a lot are not and wonder what has happened to their PC then probably pay a small fortune to get it fixed, all because they bought a game.

Another point I think worth mentioning, some packages say they put a warning on the label about what might happen, not many read it because it is in small print in the bottom corner or not even on the label at all.
If it was printed in BIG BOLD LETTERS how many would buy, I know I wouldn't?

[The Avon Lady]

Another point I think worth mentioning, some packages say they put a warning on the label about what might happen, not many read it because it is in small print in the bottom corner or not even on the label at all.
If it was printed in BIG BOLD LETTERS how many would buy, I know I wouldn't?
It should say COPY PROTECTION MAY KILL YOUR PC, in big letters, as is prominently displayed in the UK on tobacco prooducts.

http://static.flickr.com/21/24330325_4727a5bcce_m.jpg

Just watch their market share drop to nill.

[Herr Karl]

I have sporadically experienced the same problem as Herr Karl. Got it with SHIII and also with Brother's in Arms Earned in Blood. I have the problem when inserting the cd. If it's already in the drive and I hit the game icon it works.

Yes, same here SOFBear...any new software and I have to go to "my computer' and initiate the drive. Not a big deal, but really, thats
unacceptable that the Starforce driver creates this issue in the first
place. Developers and crackers are at war. The PC platform is suffering because of it and developers do not want to put their hard work out there just to have it ripped off. It`s not that there isn`t a market for the PC platform, it`s that developers do not have to deal with the possiblity of being ripped off as readily by users of the console platform...

[U-214]

I haven't noticed any problem with this copy protection on my computer,but since i saw about SONY,i received this Kaspersky newsletter today at work:

1. New backdoor program uses Sony rootkit

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management
solutions that protect against viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, hacker
attacks and spam announces that a new backdoor program has been
detected. This is the first malicious program to use Sony rootkit
technology to hide its presence in the system.

The media has already written extensively about how Sony BMG applied
rootkit technology to hide and protect DRM components used to prevent
disks from being copied. One highly unfortunate effect of Sony's
decision to use this rootkit was the possibility that malicious programs
might implement the same technology. Kaspersky Lab virus analysts can
confirm that this has now happened.

Today a backdoor program which utilizes the rootkit technology was
detected. Kaspersky Lab classifies the program as
Backdoor.Win32.Breplibot.b. The backdoor was mass mailed using spamming
technologies, and attached to a message which uses classic social
engineering techniques to entice the recipient into launching the
attachment. The attachment allegedly contains a photograph. Once the
user launches the attached file, the backdoor code will penetrate the
victim machine.

Breplibot.b is a file 10240 bytes in size, packed using UPX. When
launching, the backdoor copies itself to the Windows system directory as
$SYS$DRV.EXE. Using this name makes it possible for the Sony rootkit
technology to be used to hide the activity of the malicious program. Of
course, the backdoor's activity will only be hidden if DRM protection,
as used on some Sony Audio CDs, functions on the victim machine.

As usual, Kaspersky Lab warns users to be careful, and not to open email
from unknown senders, or open attachments to suspicious messages.

----------------------------------------

They have gone too far with copy protections.Now one has to worry about this rootkit thing on daily basis because Sony wanted to play hacker. :down:

[Soulcommander]

U-214 thanks for that post! I just want to say to Gizmo, Sorry the thread is going a bit off topic....But I think we can all agree here that the Sony deal has some very closely related things that seemed relavant to the Starforce issues.

Thanks for letting us drift a bit, I felt it was important to all the gang here to know.

I just had one of the guys in the Starforce Investigation write me and wanted me to see a post at the Starforce forum. He wrote them seeking help one last time and then wrote me very upset.

Before SF deletes the post you guys should really go look at it quick!

Here it is.
I have a copy I can post too if it does get deleted by them.

http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=198&st=20


Another update related to Sony
Symantec Anti virus software will now Detect Sony's rootkit:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5942265.html?tag=zdnn.alert

[Serverdaemon]

U-214 thanks for that post! I just want to say to Gizmo, Sorry the thread is going a bit off topic....But I think we can all agree here that the Sony deal has some very closely related things that seemed relavant to the Starforce issues.

Thanks for letting us drift a bit, I felt it was important to all the gang here to know.

I just had one of the guys in the Starforce Investigation write me and wanted me to see a post at the Starforce forum. He wrote them seeking help one last time and then wrote me very upset.

Before SF deletes the post you guys should really go look at it quick!

Here it is.
I have a copy I can post too if it does get deleted by them.

http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=198&st=20


Another update related to Sony
Symantec Anti virus software will now Detect Sony's rootkit:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5942265.html?tag=zdnn.alert

So, I posted on the site and will paste it here, (Since they apparently didn't like it and DELETED it!):

======================

Well I too have had problems...
I've been in contact with UBIsoft numerous times and they tell me to contact SF, which says on it's site that UBI should be contacting them,... etc.. etc... I've sent DXDiag reports, error reports from NERO, etc...

After installing SH3 by burner stopped working. Installed updated SF drivers. Uninstalled SF using removal tool. Bought Brothers in Arms. Drive would not SEE ANY disk but SH3. Litterally would not read any other disk!
Bought NEW ($90.00) multi-layer drive. Installed Brothers in Arms. Drive does not recognize any blank media.
Hmmm, begining to see a pattern here...
The drive (no matter WHAT media and I've tried a few) no longer sees any blank disk. This was a DAY OLD drive.

Now, is it possible that there is something on my system that's conflicting with SF? Sure. But WHAT?!?

And just for the record SF folks, I'm a 15 year system administrator with 9 internal Microsoft certifications so I THINK I have some handle on what I'm doing...

Serverdaemon

=================================

I'd also like to say that I really don't care for SF's rather cavalier "superior" attitude!
This whole "It seems now it is too late for you." crap might fly in the Ukraine my friend, but here in America that kind of attitude will just get you broke. (as in I won't buy your product anymore, you treat me THAT way!)

Serverdaemon

=================================

Note, some posts were removed.
Obvious ANTI SF attitude will be not tolerated here.

If you want to flame or spread false claims, please choose another forum.


kind regards alex // sf, cyberware, ucf.
=================================

Alex, I did neither yet you removed my posts. Interesting. Perhaps you thought my descriptions of problems I was having were, as you put it "false claims"?
Is THIS how you handle problems then? By simply deleting honest posts that people with problems make?

Fascinating...

Your credibility is down around the 0 mark my friend...

Serverdaemon

[Serverdaemon]

And of course.... Alex imeadiately removed my last post and sends me this private message:

=================
if you have specific protection related question, ask here
we do not want to start flame wars
=================

To which I replied:

=================
From the looks of things, I'd say you have one whether you want it or not!

But that's not the issue and flaming was not my intent. My message was tame indeed compared to some of the others you chose not to delete...

I seriously doubt that it's the "flame" part that you object to. I think it's the posting of my problem that you wanted off the site and I'm about to prove it. I'm going to repost my first post and see if you deltete THAT one. (It certainly could not be construed as flaming!)

Let's see what your real motives are then, shall we?

Serverdaemon
===============

He left it up and is finally dialoging about the issue.
Geeesh! What you have to go through to get support on some stuff!!!
:roll:

S

[Herr Karl]

Yeah, I`ve watched the SF rep over at the SHIII forum also. Something isn`t right with those guys. It seems they are trying to deflect the "real" concerns and issues with their product.

Good Luck Server Daemon...

[Soulcommander]

Gentleman.. I have taken note of your posts and fowarded them to Ubisoft.

Please PM me if you have any more concerns.
I too will not tolerate this. I don't blame you one bit. It happened to me too.

You can be as civil as possible and then they pull this crap. Not professional at all. We have legit complaints and they ignor them.

SC

[benetofski]

Dont think SF is just an SH3 user issue!


http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/63110913/m/3311061963/p/3

;)

[Gizzmoe]

Dont think SF is just an SH3 user issue!

There are about 80 SF-protected games!

Here´s a list of games with their copy protections:
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/gamedb.php?letter=all

[Col7777]

Can I jump back a few posts where the guy posted on that forum saying his drive didn't recognise blank disks?
I recently put a disk in my PC wondering if it had been written on, the PC came back saying there was no disk in the drive, is this what he means, I thought I had written to the disk but wasn't sure if the program had carried out the function as I had to leave the room?

[Gizzmoe]

I recently put a disk in my PC wondering if it had been written on, the PC came back saying there was no disk in the drive, is this what he means

Probably yes. Try a few things. First use a different blank CD/DVD. If that doesn´t work update the CD burning software. Then try it again. Still not working? Install the SF driver update. Still not working? Use the SF removal tool. If that also doesn´t help update the firmware of your drive. And just in case that this also doesn´t solve the problem remove the DVD drive from the Device Manager and let Windows redetect it.

[Serverdaemon]

Can I jump back a few posts where the guy posted on that forum saying his drive didn't recognise blank disks?
I recently put a disk in my PC wondering if it had been written on, the PC came back saying there was no disk in the drive, is this what he means, I thought I had written to the disk but wasn't sure if the program had carried out the function as I had to leave the room?

That's exactly what mine says. "There is no disk...".
I've tried 4 different media, from cheap to expensive and it simply will not recognize it.
NOW, the drive I had before, would not read ANY disk (commercial or blank media) at ALL except for the SH3 disk. THAT was fun!!
;O(

S

[Serverdaemon]

I recently put a disk in my PC wondering if it had been written on, the PC came back saying there was no disk in the drive, is this what he means

Probably yes. Try a few things. First use a different blank CD/DVD. If that doesn´t work update the CD burning software. Then try it again. Still not working? Install the SF driver update. Still not working? Use the SF removal tool. If that also doesn´t help update the firmware of your drive. And just in case that this also doesn´t solve the problem remove the DVD drive from the Device Manager and let Windows redetect it.

And if you've tried all those things like I have (sans the firmware update as it is only a week old) then do what I do which is... Err... complain loudly, but for the most part uselessly, to UBI and SF!

S

[Serverdaemon]

Gentleman.. I have taken note of your posts and fowarded them to Ubisoft.

Please PM me if you have any more concerns.
I too will not tolerate this. I don't blame you one bit. It happened to me too.

You can be as civil as possible and then they pull this crap. Not professional at all. We have legit complaints and they ignor them.

SC

Thank you Sir! It is much appreciated!!!!

You may also tell them if you'd like, that I do not plan on purchasing ANY more games that use SF until I am COMPLETELY satisfied that ALL issues are resolved. That may only be $50.00 worth per game to them, but I'm reasonably sure that I'm not the only one, nor doubt that there'll be others who feel the same.

S

[Wulfmann]

I made a list of English versions. Please note, there are German Russian etc versions of some games that were not Starforce but are in other countries. I am also not aware which version of Starforce does what. But, in principle, I will avoid any thing with Starforce until the get back from their trip up that River in Egypt!

Wulfmann

7 sins
AceSaga Korean
American Conquest Russian
Anstoss 4 German
Area 51
Army Men
Bandits: Phoenix Rising
Bet on Soldier
Beyond Divinity
Black Mirror: Der Dunkle Spiegel der Seele
Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder
Breed
Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon
Brothers In Arms Earned in Blood
Chaos League
Codename: Outbreak
Codename: Panzers (all versions)
Colin McRae Rally 2005
Cossacks II
Cossacks: European Wars
Cross Racing Championship 2005
Curse: The Eye of Isis
Cycling Manager 3
D-Day
Dead to Rights
Demonic Speedway
Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps
DTM Race Driver 2
Emergency Fire Response
Enigma: Rising Tide
Etherlords II
Fire Department
Gangland
Garfield
Gooka - The Mystery of Janatris
GT Legends
GTR
Horse Race Manager
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter
Kicker Manager 2004
Kill Switch
Korea: Forgotten Conflict
LMA Manager 2005
Lock On: Modern Air Combat
Medievil Lords
Nibiru (Ni.Bi.Ru)
Obscure
Pax Romana
Pferdehof - Pferd und Pony
Pro Rugby Manager
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Rally Championship Xtreme
Revolution
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Scrapland
Silent Hunter III
Silent Storm
Silkolene Honda Motocross GP
Singles
Singles 2: Triple Trouble
Soldiers - Heroes of World War II
Sommerspiele 2004
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Steel Saviour
Syberia II
The Black Mirror
The Fall: Last Days of Gaia
The Westerner
TOCA Race Driver 2
Trackmania
Trackmania Sunrise
V8 Supercars 2
Wildlife Park
Worms 4 Mayhem World War II: Frontline Command
X2: The Threat
Xpand Rally
Xuan-Yuan Sword 4

[Soulcommander]

Just an update:

See what happens when you threaten a company with an investigation and possible lawsuite. See what happens when a company knows they stepped on the wrong toes!

Sony news here:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20051111/D8DQELK0E.html

[benetofski]

Soulcommander wrote:

Sony news here:


Dammit! now just watch as Sony starts using 'StarFarce' :damn:

[Herr Karl]

Just an update:

See what happens when you threaten a company with an investigation and possible lawsuite. See what happens when a company knows they stepped on the wrong toes!

Sony news here:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20051111/D8DQELK0E.html

Excellent grab SC....this is the war...these lame copy protectors are not getting the job done...they just don`t recogonize all the drivers and pathways that will have to be implemented to protect "our" software providers...they neeed to take their time and initiate a solid of pro`s and not a bunch of hack/crackers to make something substantial....

I want the major game makers on the same page as the rest of us...something has to work for everyone....improvision willl not work...it has to be solid and researched...IMO..

[martes86]

Just an update:

See what happens when you threaten a company with an investigation and possible lawsuite. See what happens when a company knows they stepped on the wrong toes!

Sony news here:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20051111/D8DQELK0E.html

Hmmm, Norton considered a "legal" copy protection as a risk. :lol:
They should do the same with StarForce. :hmm:

[Soulcommander]

I agree with the above 2 post's!

More news guys on the Sony issue. Microsoft takes a step against SONY!!!
So I would say to the fellows at Microsoft a big thank you this time around!!!

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5949041.html?tag=zdnn.alert

[martes86]

If Microsoft does such thing, then Sony should go back and delete that protection system.

[kiwi_2005]

Well there is a way around SF, i have discovered it from another player he told me to instal ******** sorry can't mention it cos last time i did the post misteriously disappear. But since using it, SH3 loads up in 3, YES THREE seconds & yes i did time it. SH3 editor loads up in 2 seconds. I get no weird noises coming from my dvd writer, SF protection is deleted, yet the program i installed fools SF in thinking its still installed.

I dont even need to insert the dvd to play :)

This program will probably solve 99% of SF issues but the stupid thing is in some countries New Zealand not included, its illegal? :hmm:

[The Avon Lady]

Kiwi, myself and others have found bugs introduced by the latest no-CD crack.

Some of us consistantly have our subs destroyed when diving or surfacing to/from reasonable depths. No enemies around, etc.

Use at your own risk.

[kiwi_2005]

Kiwi, myself and others have found bugs introduced by the latest no-CD crack

Been using them at my won risk for 15 or so yrs now. I trust them more than the cd itself :|\

[The Avon Lady]

Kiwi, myself and others have found bugs introduced by the latest no-CD crack

Been using them at my won risk for 15 or so yrs now. I trust them more than the cd itself :|\
I'm referring to SH3's, for v1.4b, in particular.

[kiwi_2005]

I did find one problem, after using it, SH3 with RUB1.45 refused to load. I deleted RUB and she was ok.... Hmm maybe RUB1.45 has SF protection,

:rotfl: :rotfl:

[Soulcommander]

Update on the Sony issue!

First here is the list of Sony Music cds affected: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/titles.html

Also read this story on what Sony is going to do for the public:

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051118/D8DV3QHG3.html

[Soulcommander]

Update, I have also been talking with some very important people about Starforce.
Stay tuned to this forum for future updates!

[dize]

hmmm ok
i read through most of this thread, and i have to admit that i kinda changed my mind about the sf thing.

i would never have thought that the problems i am experiencing with my current dvd drive would be related to sf.
the inability of my drive to autostart anything, wasnt realy worrying me, but for quite some time now, i cant watch any dvd movies anymore. after inserting a dvd movie, it just starts spinning up, without recognising the disc. i have to use the dvd drive of my flatm8 to watch movies.

installing and playing games does work tho.

[Gizzmoe]

i cant watch any dvd movies anymore. after inserting a dvd movie, it just starts spinning up, without recognising the disc.

Maybe the SF driver update solves the problem:
http://www.star-force.com/support/sfdrvup.zip

It´s a new version, archive date is November 3th.

[Verrukt]

Sigh... fools.

[CB..]

was browse-ing my local supermarket's game section yesterday and saw the new game "King Kong" (based on the film) gave in to a impulse buy not noticing that it was a UBI game --

on arriving home i read more closly the info on the back of the game box and lo and behold found this warning--
///////
NOTICE;

this game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some CD-RW, DVD-RW, and virtual drives

//////


it allso comes with it's own starforce removal option on uninstalling the game (which i very quickly took advantage of) i will wait for an ummentionable to become available

so there you go; the debate surrounding wether or not SF does or does not negatively effect some drives is officialy over

[kiwi_2005]

Yipeee!


:/\rlz: :()1:

[CB..]

:up:

yup now i know they're posting a warning on the game boxes i can check before buying in future--

the next issue is wether or not the drive manufacturers will continue to replace hard drives under warranty if the user has previuosly installed a game containing this "technology"

after all from this moment on it is no longer the hard drive manufacturers responsibility if their product is damaged by external end user use off potentaily damaging software---

so why should they continue replacing hard drives under warranty if it is demonstrately not their fault that the driive has developed faults or died altogether?

and if the hard drive manufactures view this as a voiding of any garantue they may have provided for their hard ware -then will the game manufacturers or Starforce them selves be responsible for compensating repairing or replacing drives thus damaged? they have shown little interest in doing this so far--

i give it three months before the whole thing goes tits up

[Col7777]

Hi CB,

Did you read one of my earlier posts where I said type in Google "Starforce problems" and you will see lots of forums/articles related to this, it seems there are a lot of games where the users are having problems as mentioned above.

[The Avon Lady]

I said a long time ago that if all these gripes about SF turn out to be true, expect a massive class action suit in the US.

You just cannot distribute harmful and damaging software to people who only want to play some games on their computer and then get away with any damages done because of a small print disclaimer that the software might be hazzardous to your PC's health.

Sick 'em, attorneys at law! :rock:

[CB..]

Yup Col the whole thing smacks of "middle management" guys getting out of their depth-- badly thought through, badly executed and utterly stupid--

as Avon Lady says-- now they have in fact admitted responsibility via the warning given on the latest game box- they haven't got a leg to stand on--

the fact that they HAVE issued the warning shows just how idiotic the whole concept was to begin with-- just what sort of world do they live in--did they seriously imagine that no one would complain?

mind bogglingly short sighted

[martes86]

I said a long time ago that if all these gripes about SF turn out to be true, expect a massive class action suit in the US.

You just cannot distribute harmful and damaging software to people who only want to play some games on their computer and then get away with any damages done because of a small print disclaimer that the software might be hazzardous to your PC's health.

Sick 'em, attorneys at law! :rock:

Let's form our own J.A.G.! :D :D :D

[Soulcommander]

I said a long time ago that if all these gripes about SF turn out to be true, expect a massive class action suit in the US.

You just cannot distribute harmful and damaging software to people who only want to play some games on their computer and then get away with any damages done because of a small print disclaimer that the software might be hazzardous to your PC's health.

Sick 'em, attorneys at law! :rock:

Relating to this post..
Texas Sues SONYBMG!!!

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051121/D8E14D480.html


Also if you click on the above link you will see the man that is HELPING US! OK I let the cat out of the bag...I have been bombarded with emails....
SO yes Mark has agreed to do some testing. He is the man that found out about what SONY was doing!!!!



He said he is going to purchase SHIII to find out what he can.

STAY TUNED!
As we all know not everyone seems affected. So my hope is that he is!

Also Aaron McKenna said he has not heard from Toms Hardware on future testing yet. I will keep all of you posted as normal.

If you want to get on my email list since I get so many emails
Shoot me your email in a pm ok?



SC

[Zachstar]

Anything new?

[CB..]

more and more games are now carry-ing the printed warning about drive incompatibility

[Soulcommander]

Anything new?

Hi All hope you all had a Great Thanksgiving .... For those of you in other coutries hope you had a good (whatever you have) too! :up:

I wrote Mark yesterday. Have npt heard back but hey its a Holiday so....I will keep you all posted ASAP when I hear anything!

;)

[Soulcommander]

Hello all...Some breaking info!!!!!




Wanted you to see this post this guy seems to know whats going on........and is the latest post that really sheds some light on things!
Be sure to check out his webpage too. I can't share what he told me in a personal email but I know this gentleman is on the up and up! PLEASE do READ THESE!!!!!


http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/561108232/m/2871061083/p/5

Scroll down slowly to 13thhr !!!!

Also the forum moderator comments on SHIII forum BE SURE TO CHECK THIS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/857101043/m/4001086693

I will keep you all updated as normal.

SC

[Marhkimov]

OLD THREAD... if necessary, I recommend burning it and making a new one...

[Soulcommander]

Dont burn it...There are stil people that come here and have no clue until they read these posts why their system is having problems. But sure I could post a new thread.

[Marhkimov]

Hmm, good point... I stand corrected. :yep:

[Iceman]

I thank you for this thread being brung up...I had installed Sh III on my system for about a week ..I did not care for it and have since sold it and did not realize until this thread there was a Starforce Removal Tool I found by googling it....Havent had a chance to burn any cds..havent had the need but Ill be peed if it dont work cause of something like this...but not surprised.

Again I thank you because I work in computer field and work on "Alot" of customers machines and see "All" kinds of crap and this is just one more to be aware of possible related problems....


sometimes I think we would have been better off with no technology....hum. :hmm:

One thing I teach customers is...Don't be shocked when out of the blue they fail and ya lose all info on ur computer.

I guarentee it will happen. :)

If it is made by us humans it will fail.

[Marhkimov]

sometimes I think we would have been better off with no technology....hum. :hmm:
Agreed.

[Wim Libaers]

Disagreed. :D Technology can help or hurt, it depends on intent and realizing what it is and isn't capable of.

[Marhkimov]

Well, for one... I could be out getting some excercise if I wasn't typing this message in response to another post.

Or I could be studying for school... Who knows?

But with technology, I am tempted to sit here and idle my life away.... :D

[Torplexed]

Hmmmm. I've become too dependent on the computer technology to go back. Especially with the art and rendering programs available now days. Used to be such a messy and somewhat toxic chore putting layouts together and creating illustrations. With a computer it's a lot quicker and cleaner and you can edit the art to your heart's content.

I do miss getting high on the rubber cement fumes tho....JUST KIDDING!!!!! :lol:

[pseudonym]

I have been reading up on this issue with StarForce with great interest ever since I first read about it. It is obvious to me that this kind of software is malware and has very little value to the consumer who has paid good money for the product. Consumers are forced not only to put up with the inconvenience but in fact, to PAY for the privilege! Now despite playing some of the games on the StarForce list of infected products I have NEVER encountered a problem with it. Why? Well that is simple, I don't put bought CD's into my computer, period. When I see a game I want to buy, I buy it, but before I head to the store I head over to my favorite BitTorrent site and I DOWNLOAD IT FIRST! That copy I buy never even leaves shrink wrap unless there is a CD key I need for online play. More than once I have wished that I could just buy the damn Key and let the company keep the media and the stupid box that just takes up space on my shelves, after all, with Valve software I don't even need my key! I just type in my email address and my password into Steam and my games download easily and cleanly. Now THAT is the way to do it!

The fact is that due to companies like StarForce, it is now more convenient and far less problematic to just pirate the game. How many times have you waited an hour in line at FilePlanet just to download some update needed for online play? How many times have you used the "in-game" update and gotten speeds of 1 or 2 kps or worse, dead links? Cracked patches download fast off of Bit torrent, there is no wait and speeds are fantastic! I have in a few minutes what would take me hours to receive by the "approved" channels and I don't have to worry about destroying my game media because A) it is a ISO image on my hard drive, and B) there is no cd required in the drive for play.

Basically what I am trying to say here is that StarForce has already lost the battle. Store bought games are already far more inconvenient to play than pirated games (Even went over to a LAN party with disk TWO of BF2 instead of disk one?) and technology like StarForces just make it that much more problematic. As long as pirating games is easier and safer in comparison to buying them, the game companies are bound to loose out.

pseudonym

P.S. I never thought I would consider WAREZ safer than buying software, but while with warez you may get the odd virus or spyware programs, virus checkers and spyware scanners remove these quite handedly, while leaving malware like StarForce's product alone.

[Soulcommander]

Your post sounds more and more of the emails and pm's I get. It's sad as I myself like owning the manual, box and cd. I guess they call people like me collectors. But now my collecting days are going to be much more selective.

Do I blame you for doing this? No. But I for one still want to get my game the old fashioned way without copy protection that interferes with my computer.

[kiwi_2005]

pseudonym: Totally agree with you, although i dont do what you do, only cos i run dialup, but my friend is bittorent mad and all his games are this way - even DL SH3 of bittorent and it RUNS! although he can't play online matches. Still so much for SF.