Starforce Posts Their objections to Toms Hardware Article

[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]

Originally Posted by 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..

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]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

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/th..._game_pirates/

And the article from Starforce: http://www.star-force.com/protection...l?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]

Originally Posted by 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.........

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

Originally Posted by 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.



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/th..._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]

Originally Posted by 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...

[Soulcommander]

Edited

Originally Posted by Cheapskate

[

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]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

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]

Originally Posted by Soulcommander

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.