Sony

[Rockin Robbins]

Those of you who had trouble with Sony's SecuROM telling you what legal, non-pirating, Microsoft programs you could run on your machines prior to patch 1.3: WARNING: SecuROM is back.
Other than helping SUBSIM with a tiny part of my purchase, I've just wasted my money. I resent not being warned before I spent the money. I would just have given the $10 to SUBSIM.

Verified by a hex exam of the files.
But I haven't had any problems so far.
Sonic and WinISO work fine.
:hmm:

[Rockin Robbins]

especially Process Explorer, Sony does not allow you to run SH4 U-Boat Missions. Mark Russinovich, author of Microsoft's Sysinternals Utilities, was the man who discovered Sony's infamous virus-like rootkit, which disabled lawful CD and DVD functions on your computer when you played a Sony music CD on your computer. He cost Sony tens of millions of dollars. Now SecuROM checks running processes for Process Explorer, at least, refusing to run SH4 unless you remove the program and reboot.

Process Explorer is a harmless, Microsoft utility to give you a slightly more useful Task Manager and is about as pirate-useful as Disk Defrag. This is only a personal battle between Sony and Russinovich and we are put in the middle, being told what legal and lawful software a game will allow us to run on our machines.

I'll leave it to you to determine whether that is right.

[Major Johnson]

And your course of action is what, not install the add-on?? And miss all the improvements to the game?? Seems to me we're gonna get this securom whether it's by digital download or DVD. Although I've posted other concerns with the digital download, I played through the training missions, again, yesterday, and had thoroughly good time!!! Can't wait to start my campaign!

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by Major Johnson

And your course of action is what....

Remove it. I suspect RR will do/already has.

It is now surplus to requirements as the game no longer requires it (following NO-CD in patch 1.3 IIRC). So the question remains, why include it within the 1.5 download in the first place.

Besides, I don't think RR's problem is the fact that SecuROM is included/installed but rather that it serves no purpose, is particularly troublesome to other OS processes and is way too virulent (by design) to be accepted by genuine owners of any software,music or generally purchased content.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Remove it. I suspect RR will do/already has.

It is now surplus to requirements as the game no longer requires it (following NO-CD in patch 1.3 IIRC). So the question remains, why include it within the 1.5 download in the first place.

To keep the crackers busy?

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by Dowly

To keep the crackers busy?

I know, that you know, that I know that it doesn't make a bit of difference to the addon. Even if the addon installs SecuROM, there's nothing for the crackers to do as the protection's no longer required. So it's either lazyness or stupidity that it was left in the download.

[AkbarGulag]

Originally Posted by danlisa

is particularly troublesome to other OS processes and is way too virulent (by design) to be accepted by genuine owners of any software,music or generally purchased content.

[Q3ark]

I have found a secuROM folder on my hard drive but it is empty, what gives??

[DeepIron]

Originally Posted by danlisa

I know, that you know, that I know that it doesn't make a bit of difference to the addon. Even if the addon installs SecuROM, there's nothing for the crackers to do as the protection's no longer required. So it's either lazyness or stupidity that it was left in the download.

I was curious as to why the sh4.exe from 1.4 was only 1.94G in size while the 1.5 sh4.exe is 6.64G. Among other things, yes, it looks like the SecurROM code was added back in... The sh4.exe adds 3 new code areas, ars, est and .securom, along with 2 new data areas, artem and celare. There is also a new paul.dll file in the root directory that appears to be associated with Securom.

I'm sure there were other changes to the sh4.exe in 1.5 to account for it's increase in size as well.

[Reece]

Is there a way to install the U-boat missions without getting SecuRom? At the moment I've installed it but not launched it & my drive is clear so far, what happens if I launch SH4? Should I uninstall U-boat missions & stay with 1.4?
Not sure what I should do!

[DeepIron]

I never had any of the SecuROM junk on my box, and installing 1.5 over 1.4 has not created any processes or problems that I can detect.

[Major Johnson]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Remove it. I suspect RR will do/already has.

Remove what?? Securom or the add-on?? Since RR said he wasted his money, I assume he was removing the Add-on.

I haven't had any cd issues that I know of. In fact, I didn't have any when I first installed the game, and patched to 1.1.

[Rockin Robbins]

We really need more information before we can decide whether it is worthwhile to run the add-on. Does SecuROM just rear its ugly head on install and then leave us alone? Maybe we can ignore it then.

Does it scan your running processes list every time you start SH4UBM and refuse to let you play you if you run a program written by Microsoft's Mark Russinovich? Then we have restraint of trade and I think we have a legitimate reason to decide to regress to 1.4.

And the final question: if we use danlisa's SecuROM uninstall procedure, do we lose our ability to play SH4UBM?

If #1 is true, #2 is false and #3 is also true, it's a close call. If all 3 are true then its time to escalate our concerns.

If only #1 is true we can just start our campaign, close this thread and start swapping war stories.

The pity of the whole thing is that SecuROM is just snake oil. I'll be the first one to say that Ubi has a right to protect their copyright, so long as it does not interfere with my lawful activity. But the crackers solved SercuROM before Sony secured its first sucker I mean customer. The only people affected are honest customers who bought their software. The crooks are gleefully producing copies by the thousands and illegal downloaders are using cracked versions at will, while we pay the price. Sony's "product" damages us as it damages Ubi, who paid Sony's customary rapacious price for a product that does nothing to promote sales, nothing to hinder piracy. Why would a smart game company fall for that pig in a poke?

[maerean_m]

Let's make things clear for everyone:

• The add-on uses one part of SecuRom.
  • SecuRom has one component for online activation.
    The add-on makes use of this component and only for the download version (which seems to be the only version of the add-on that is being sold at the moment).
    When activating, SecuRom accesses a server to check if the activation is correct.
    After the activation, the SecuRom module will not access any server, ever.
  • SecuRom has one component for disk checking when starting the game. The add-on doesn't use this component.
• There is no crack protection in the add-on (like the big eyes and the 2D crewmen in the gold version).
• SecuRom is not StarForce.
• SecuRom is not evil and is only used to ensure that the download version is being used only by people who bought the game.
• SecuRom stores some keys in the Windows registry, but doesn't contain a "rootkit" or any other modules that people associate with "conspiracy theories".
• You can play SH4 without the need for the disk to be in the drive. Personally, I don't know any other company that does this. All my games either require the disk on start-up or use an online check (e.g. Steam).
• You are perfectly safe.