Starforce Posts Their objections to Toms Hardware Article

[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?

Originally Posted by Vorster

Maybe SF agressively attacks the firmware?

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

[Soulcommander]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by jason210

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]

Originally Posted by 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!

I have one of 2 choices:

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

[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!

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!


...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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[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/s...toryId=4989260

[silent_otto]

Very cool interview, thanks !

SONY :

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

[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.