Starforce Posts Their objections to Toms Hardware Article
 

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...l?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.

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.

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.

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

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 ;)

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:

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.

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?

Yes, as a matter of fact, we would.

JCC

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.