StarForce vs. Boing Boing: Two Silly Names Square Off

Some advice for peeps making comments about Starforce think clearly about how you word things.

Starforce is not a virus. Do not say it is or they will sue you.

It does however act as a Trojan Gateway. As in malicious 3rd part apps can exploit its security holes to gain Ring 0 access.

Starforce does not directly trash your drives:

It does however trigger DMA step down to PIO mode,which can damage some CD/DVD roms if run in that mode for an extended period of time.

Starforce does not hack your system:

It does however make it easier for peeps to gain access (see Ring0 issue above).

Starforce does not trash your IDE controller channels:

It does mess up the filters section of the Registry, which in turn causes Windows to kick out a (Code 41) error in the device manager.


Yes I know basically we are saying the same thing, but in this manner it is factual and cannot be open to litigation. ;)

Some of you may be interested in the latest SF Article on Toms hardware

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/02/11/starforce_revisited_uk/

I hope there is a way around Starforce, cause Trackmania is one of the best games I've ever played.

You know, Stardock isn't going to protect Galactic Civilizations 2 at all. They are releasing the game and you don't even need a CD to play, or a serial. You do need the serial to get updates, or use the metaverse, but to play the game you don't. They see a pirated game as a sale that was lost anyway, and don't want to hamper the fun of the end user to mildly inconvenience pirates. I admire that.

Packaging StarForce with a demo is like the company telling me, "Let's never be friends."

"Your article violates approximately 11 international laws. Our USlawyer will contact you shortly. I have also contacted the FBI , because what you are doing is harassment."

Riiiiight... I'm sure the FBI has nothing else more important to do than find the APPROXIMATELY 11 international law violations in that little article. This is officially the stupidest thing I've heard lately.

Hi I am fully aware of the probles that Starforces IDE Protection Drivers cause.

If this is Genuine then Starforce are living in cloud cuckoo land.

1. Causes DMA step down in Win2000 to XP, XP eventually drops into PIO mode, this will render DVD video unplayable and burning disks almost impossible. (This is cured by removing SF, then in the device manager remove CD/DVD rom drives and the primary and secondary IDE channels) Continued PIO mode with some newer drives can cause them to interpret it as an overburn causing them to slam the laser housing into the casing, in turn stripping the worm gear thread.

2. (Code 41) in the device manager, this is where windows has loaded the driver and cannot find the hardware. This requires a reistry have to fix, (The howto is on NGH forums), this seems to be very common with thew versions of SF attached to DEMO's and so called free games. SF refused to give correct support on this until I post the fix on Gamespot.

Have a look here at SF's tech support attempts at curing the (Code 41)
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/heroesofmightandmagicv/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25996274&pid=927207&page=0

Basically until I notified SF they did not have a clue how to fix it.

3. Ring 0 access to Ring 3level programs, this is very common if you use the IDE subsystem to piggy back a Virtual driver, Full IDE control Ring 0 and the programs SF runs are in Ring 3. It does not take a genuis to work out how vulnerable this is. That is why nobody uses IDE as virtual drives. They use SCSI.

http://www.n-gage-help.com for the howto fix Code 41 error. and the Pro/anti Starforce sections in the forums.

I actually went a stage further, I openly challenged Starforce Technologies to come to NGH head quarters in the UK and try and disprove the claims. So far they have refused to comment.

Can't say I'm a fan of starforce (especially for the demos) but at least it does work and does make games a lot harder to copy and in a lot of cases impossible.

I believe the reasoning (flawed as it may be) for copy-protecting demos is that an unprotected demo makes it a degree easier to crack the retail version.

Several years ago, I was tired of inserting the CD every time I wanted to play a game I purchased, so I took the game's demo and used the executable in place of the retail version. Worked perfectly.

Personally, I feel the inconvenience of copy-protection, imposed on people who bought the game, hurts worse than piracy. Why anger the customers who did purchase your game in a feeble attempt to prevent people who WON'T pay for your game from playing it? These assumptions that every person who pirates a game would have bought it if piracy didn't exist are getting ridiculous.

Someone needs to develop Starforce immunity software. The driver remover tool is alright I guess, but I'd rather nip the problem in the bud and have Windows throw up an error message saying "You can't install this software because some jackass attached Starforce to it." -- I'd totally pay cash money for that. Especially now that Starforce is showing up in demos and whatnot.

Starforce killed my Plextor burners ability to read or burn CD's.

Hopefully this will all blow up like the sony rootkit fun. Its a similar technology to a rootkit and installs without any warning.

yep, i can burn just fine.
Its a strange thing for sure.

I've Gotta whole box(5) of trashed cd/dvd drives,and a Pioneer dvd/writer rarely writes, and never reads the disk it Has written,have to put the disk in another optical drive that has never been in contact with starfarce to check em wont install or buy any game or demo!
using the protection
never realised what starfarce was till all the hassle with GTR
since stopped using itCompletly
built a new pc just need a new dvd writer
after i uninstalled StarFarce from my old oc'd AMDxp2500/ati9800
it felt like a brand new machine
have had starforce on my pc's since the release of toca race driver 2
it was the only constant that i unwittinglly, repeatedly installed
on my pc
anyway sign up to http://www.glop.org/starforce/
won't be buying X2,X3,TRD3,GTR2,GTlegends,silenthunter3 or installing GTR or TRD2 or any starfarce protected games but if they release em without SF i'll be down the shop in the morning
eventually users will wake up and publishers might even make some dosh by bringing out New versions of old games without starfarce protection
because i know lots of ppl would rather have a SF free pc the and would buy another copy

Good thread. I agree when their are game developers that don't need to implant root kits and copy protection why not all. First of all if a game developer wants to install a file that has nothing to do with the game a notice of that should come up giving you a chance to stop the install. Punkbuster and Gamespy already do it.
It seems to me that the Laws of the land are protecting the industry more then the consumer, we the consumer have to get that power back and the only way is with our wallets, as long as we know that their doing it. Its already been pointed out to us that the government is not here to protect us anymore. Look what happened to Sony, so far a lot of talk but nothing major to keep them from doing it again. Just a reminder to all the folks here any judgement or fine is a cost of doing bussiness and is a TAX writeoff.
The little person that has been forced to pay money to the RIAA doesn't get to write that money off or their lawyer fees. Tell me it's not becoming more and more one sided for the Industry.

For reference, within my knowledge:

Starforce wraps around an executable, and runs it in it's own virtual machine.
Instead of compiling the exe, it is compiled for the virual machine so that it looks nothing like a traditional executable, making it nearly impossible to crack. The Starforce VM then interprets this when you run it.

Combined with other forms of copy protection it would be very difficult to make an illicit copy of a game using Starforce.

Utilities such as Deamon Tools or Alchohol 120%'s virtual drive are able to emulate Starforce and other copy protection completely. However to do so, they emulate a SCSI CD-ROM drive. Under these circumstances Starforce checks to see if the computer has an IDE CD-ROM drive, and if so, asks the user to place the cd in that drive instead. Being an image this would not be possible so the would-be pirate cannot play their game.

If the machine only has SCSI CD-ROM drives, or if the user has disconnected his IDE drives, Starforce is unable to detect if it is a real drive or a virtual one and the game will load.

starforce fucks my comp a bunch, i just got king kong and i had to uninstall it cause my comp became so unstable when i wasn't even playing the game, and the game always crashed too.

athlon xp 3000
GF ti4600
1gig ram
500 gig HD

One of my 200g hd's started failing, either that or Win xp was crashing with fatal errors and failed to boot hours after I installed a demo with Starforce in it. Had to format to fix everything.

Luckily I've seemed to avoid purchasing any games that have this. Do the titles that have this generally note so on the packaging in anyway so it can be avoided?

I am not sure what i think of starforce. i dont like things being put on my computer without my direct knowledge and approval, i dont like that it doesnt say anything about it on the game box. I really dont like the fact that after i installed Breed my burner didnt work again, not in another computer, not after a firmware flash, and not after a total windows reinstall. maybe it didnt kill my burner but other people seem to have had similar problems, so who knows.

You called their name "silly". Soooo sued.

dude, shacknews is totally gonna get shut down

Title is HILARIOUS.

Might I inquire as to what inquiries have been made?