rec.autos.simulators

  Hehe, yeah, I know.   Can't wait for the next crusade in a month or so
though.

As a program, it is completely harmless and does the job it was designed to
do very well.

You are missing the big picture, though. One must fight for consumer rights
and protection, before it is too late. That is not crying for warez! We
could well have Microsoft Palladium right now, and who would like that? [
"Palladium is a system that combines software and hardware controls to
create a "trusted" computing platform. In doing so, it would establish an
unprecedented level of control over users and their computers."
http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/palladium.html  or google for
microsoft palladium ]

*Why does Starforce3 install without any notice to the user? as if it is
trying to hide something?
 -> a consumer believes he is only installing a game, not a device driver
unless he is told so in the packaging of the game BEFORE making the
purchase. Basically a starforce logo on the game box would be enough.

*Why does it install itself as hidden (at least in device manager) driver ?
as if it is trying to hide something?
 -> it could have been installed as a driver with a standard visibility in
device manager

*Why does it not uninstall with the game? as if it is trying to remain
hidden on users system?
 -> when we do not have the source code, and it is trying to be and remain
hidden forever, how can we be sure that is not any kind of spyware solution?
For all we know, every piece of software could be spyware if this argument
was to be carefully examined, but usual software do not act suspiciously and
try to remain hidden... those are usually the characteristics for a spying
software or a trojan. A design bug in the sofware can also be that if there
are more than one protected games installed, the uninstallation of the game
would not have any way to know if there is anything needing the driver
anymore - but that would be compensated for a clear warning screen that the
driver has been left installed. We see no such thing with Starforce3.

*(Applies at least here in Finland, check your local law for confirmation)
When consumer buys a game from a retailer, he basicly buys a license to use
that software on x number of computers; usually x=1. Therefore consumer can,
by law, make a backup copy for his own use, if he only uses the software on
x number of computers. If consumer now breaks his original copy, he still
has the right to use the software, and if the game has unbreakable copy
protection (starforce3 seems to be one of the first succesfull ones in that,
humble congratulations for the inventors! :) ), he can't use the software.
So the consumer has to acquire a second working copy of the game. If he had
a backup, he would already have that. Consumer should not need to buy a
second original copy, because he already has a license.

In any way the consumer gets the broken media replaced, he is going to have
to pay for it, both in time (missed league races come in to my mind) AND in
costs of transportation of the consumer himself to a retailer and back, or
phoning the retailer, or contacting the distributor, or in worst case,
sending the broken media to somewhere with own expense via snail mail and
waiting at least some days to get new media back. Consider if the mailing
has damaged the new media as well? How is consumer compensated for all this
lost of time and money? oh.. by current standards, he is not compensated.
How fair is that? Keep in mind the price of a single cd-r or dvd-r disk
which amounts to ~ 0.

Do you know see the bigger picture?

I repeat:
As a program, it is completely harmless and does the job it was designed to
do very well.

--
Mika Takala
^still not a warez kiddie

I'm not sure I agree, maybe it's harmless(*) and only active when the game
is running in X2's case. On my system it got installed along with the CMR4.0
demo and it did load services whether I played the demo or not.

Even when inactive these things consume resources on my PC, if only to move
them from memory to the swapfile when windows needs more free memory. I
never got any indication I was also installing this copy protection scheme
with the demo and, what's more, it didn't get removed when I uninstalled the
demo either.

It may actually be harmless, but I'm really jumpy about orphaned programs
running on my PC. Especially ones that can communicate with hardware without
Windows knowing about it.

If that's not actually illegal because of the "disclaimer for anything that
might possibly result from using our badly coded crap" (read EULA), it
should be. Nobody bothers to read a EULA on a game they bought, let alone on
a flipping demo off a magazine cover.

Jan.
=---
(*) Rem.: actually, nothing that circumvents the way XP handles hardware can
be considered harmless, IMO, as it can take the system down with it.

No point in getting rid of them if you plan to play any game that put
them there. It will just put them back next time you run the game. The
game won't run with them removed. So I read anyway.

That's just A-C and they are all listed on gamecopyworld.

_____

Steve

"Military intelligence, two words combined that can't make sense."

Does your conclusion have any reasons? Device driver is always more
dangerous than user-mode application, because it can bring down the system
with it if it has a bug. And where have you seen software without bugs?
User-mode can't bring OS down (at least not supposed to do, but of course
there're bugs in OS itself, so it's possible, but much less probable).

Alex.

I wonder what he means by 'INACTIVE'? Is it loaded in the memory or not?
Easy way to check is try to delete the driver from the disk (on Windows, OS
will forbid deleting the file if it's in use)
Unless due to bug. Including bug in burning software (which is not
uncommon).
'guaranteed' - that's a bit optimistic.

Dialing home is something relatively easy to verify. Just check logs on
your router (hardware or another PC). Or firewall logs on the same PC
(though it is less certain method)
I wonder if the requirements for those game mention administrator
privileges? I don't think one will be able to install such a game without
administrator access.
Technically, the driver is the most appropriate method for that kind of
protection. I don't know about legally, but in legal area it's usually safe
guess to say it depends on the county and time ;)

Alex.

   because some demos, like those belonging the ISI F1 series, can be
mildly tweeked to also run the full sim's tracks.
and because some copy protection companies are just plain A$$$$$$$$!!!

dave henrie

As I've said in another post, the drivers are WHQL certified.  The GTR betas
(with Starforce 3) have been under testing for a long time now and none of
the beta testers have reported any system issues with Starforce 3.

Microsoft were consulted in its development.  In fact, the drivers are WHQL
certified.

--
Achim
http://users.skynet.be/AchimT

Cheers,
uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint:  2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F  67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

That is completely a SF programmers software design decision. The driver is
just designed that way and the publisher doesn't have any saying in how the
driver installs after the protection is applied as the driver is 100%
Starforce code. A publisher usually just cares that the protection actually
works, in which SF3 is very good.

--
Mika Takala