from the i-am-the-keymaster-are-you-the-gatekeeper? dept.
There has been a fair amount of interest or news regard the Denuvo DRM/Anti-tampering software during the last few weeks -- from how hard it is to crack, the performance impact on the games protected by it and how they apparently are trying to use other peoples software on the cheap. Released a day or so ago a new way to circumvent the protection.
The latest "crack" is apparently that of Dishonored 2, which was released in the stores (or on steam) in November '16. The difference to the previous workarounds is that this time it apparently includes a keygenerator. So files remain intact and instead it validates the game as real and proper. That is one way to work around the issue of never having to remove any protection. That might still leave it with the second complaint and problem with Denuvo tho and that is that with this way it will retain all the performance issues the games appear to have while the protection is alive and active.
STEAMPUNKS are proud to bring you the first release including a real Denuvo license generator with untouched game executable. Your license will be regenerated if needed (hw change, os updates) Enjoy The Power We just gave you.
Source: xRel
Related Stories
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Over the past few years, the name Voksi has become synonymous with game cracking, in particular when it comes to anti-Denuvo activities. This week the talented Bulgarian released a 90-minute video in which he reveals how he cracked V4 of the infamous anti-tamper technology. TorrentFreak caught up with him for the lowdown.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/voksi-releases-detailed-denuvo-cracking-video-tutorial-180210/
Denuvo "is an anti-tamper technology and digital rights management (DRM) scheme developed by the Austrian company Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH".
Related: Denuvo Forgets to Secure Server, Leaks Years of Messages From Game Makers
More Powerful Denuvo DRM Cracked 10 Days After Release of PREY
'Rime' Creators Will Remove Anti-Tampering Code If It's Cracked
New "Out of Control" Denuvo Piracy Protection Cracked
Denuvo Accused of Using Unlicensed Software to Protect its Anti-Piracy Tool
Denuvo License Generator is Latest Circumvention Method
Denuvo-Free Devil May Cry 5 Reportedly Improves the Game's Performance by Up to 20FPS
It appears that Denuvo's anti-tamper tech has significant impact on Devil May Cry 5's performance, and a Denuvo-free .exe game file has now surfaced online.
The Devil May Cry 5 .exe file was actually released by Capcom following the game's release earlier today, but has now been pulled. However, the file can still be downloaded through the Steam console. Several users are reporting FPS improvements by up to 20FPS while using the Denuvo-free exe file.
Sound familiar? Devil May Cry 5 is the game AMD demoed running on a Radeon VII GPU at its CES 2019 keynote. I wonder if they were running it with DRM.
Average frame rates are only part of the story when it comes to a game's performance. Minimum frame rates, percentiles, etc. can measure frame stuttering. A significant boost in a game's performance can also increase minimum frame rates.
Related:
Denuvo Forgets to Secure Server, Leaks Years of Messages From Game Makers
More Powerful Denuvo DRM Cracked 10 Days After Release of PREY
'Rime' Creators Will Remove Anti-Tampering Code If It's Cracked
New "Out of Control" Denuvo Piracy Protection Cracked
Denuvo License Generator is Latest Circumvention Method
Voksi Releases Detailed Denuvo-Cracking Video Tutorial
DRM Software Company Takes Legal Action Against Cracker
Hitman 2's Denuvo Protection Cracked Three Days Before Launch
New 'Valeroa' Anti-Piracy System Cracked "In 20 Minutes"
Evidence Continues to Mount About How Bad Denuvo is for PC Gaming Performance
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @11:23PM (7 children)
Yaaaaaaawwwwwwn.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday June 09 2017, @11:43PM
On its own maybe not, but when they arrogantly challenge the hacking world to break it just a few weeks ago, yes, it is indeed quite newsworthy :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @11:46PM (3 children)
I want to know how loud the screaming and cussing from the board room is every time one of the Denuvo games is cracked.
I sort of feel sorry for the developers who are going to get excoriated before the masters of the universe, but on the other hand, that's what you get for working for stupid people motivated purely by avarice. At the very least, I hope every developer who is going to have the next few weeks of their life wasted with endless meetings being grilled, cussed out, and accused of insane things by clueless CxOs has other options for employment.
Professional software developers should simply refused to work for DRM companies. If we had a professional association, this could be a collective bargaining position.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 09 2017, @11:59PM (1 child)
I think it's groundbreaking only because its ballsy for SN to post it and hope they don't get a cease-and-decist -- though there is often a fine line between reporting on and condoning something, and they probably have decent latitude to say, "Fuck you, we're just reporting on it."
The DRM cancer is not only limited to games. Legitimate paid users of software such as Steinberg's Cubase have been bitching and moaning about the negative effects from the complicated DRM for years -- DRM becomes such a priority to such companies that it's no longer a "enter a key from a generator to quiet down our insurance companies," it's baked into the DNA of the code itself and frequently rears its ugly head during the most inopportune moments.
So then you see such bizarre phenomena as users buying licenses and then using the cracked versions so their shit Just Works™ when they need it to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @10:28AM
TorrentFreak posts about torrents and stuff all the time and is still up and running. Does not mean shady companies didn't try DMCA it from Google search results, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @01:49PM
The developers who actually wrote the DRM work for the company that Denuvo got the software from [soylentnews.org] but didn't want to pay for the appropriate licenses.
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Saturday June 10 2017, @12:53AM (1 child)
Under normal circumstances I would agree, I think an exception could be made for Denuvo. For the hardness of the protection and the infamy of the product. Normally I don't give two bits of interest anymore for the scene but with all the news and talk of Denuvo I at least find it moderately interesting. A keygen is really the death of a protection -- you have figured out how a valid license is created and you can just spew out valid licenses until the cows come home. This was a few days ago and they have already created another keygen for another "old" Denuvo protected game -- Adr1ft (released March'16) so I would say this is quite a serious nail in the protection scheme since they now then prove that this was not some one hit wonder. The version of the DRM used for '16 releases that are probably not going to be updated protection wise either, so there could be a slew of patches to remove the protection now -- the DRM served it's purpose, it's defeated, might as well be removed with the next bugfix. Question for Denuvo might be how much difference is there between the 2016 version of it and the 2017 version, they might be in deep shit -- which is probably why these guys in return obscured and protected their keygen -- which caused a lot of discussion of the keygen was malware or not etc etc.
I don't think there will be a cease and desist since this is at best a very meta discussion about it -- possibly more gloating and mild curiosity then anything else and we are not even talking about any actual technical aspects, we are not linking to the actual piece of software -- at most we talked about it and we linked to a text file that said something about it happening. I seem to recall similar discussions, not here, when StarForce and SecuROM was the "protection scheme" of choice back in the day.
I think someone else reported this to since it appeared twice in the submission list but there wasn't a merger of submissions and it was deleted, so I wasn't the only one that at least found it moderately interesting.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/denuvo-key-generator-tekken-7-crack [pcgamesn.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/6fgvx0/dishonored2steampunks/ [reddit.com]
https://segmentnext.com/2017/06/06/cpy-steampunk-gunning-denuvo-working-keygen-released/ [segmentnext.com]
https://www.xrel.to/game-nfo/1347298/ADR1FT-STEAMPUNKS.html [www.xrel.to]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday June 10 2017, @04:44AM
I might, actually, pay the two bits. At a bitrate of 1bpc(entury), though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Saturday June 10 2017, @01:23AM (2 children)
Will people ever stop buying copy protected software?
People have known how STUPID copy protection is since at least the early 1980s. Bring home the brand spanking new copy of dBase III or such and such, try and load it up and oh "unauthorized copy?", yea the copy protection doesn't even work on that new AT 286, or the oddball clones your office uses. Sure, look around and someone has already written an unprotect that will actually let you USE your software. But you really want to risk your business on using a product like that?
Back then magazine journalists openly complained about the copy protection, with little fear of repercussion. Because everyone knew they were right. And there was enough competition that clone products without copy protection stood to make big bucks filling the voids.
I only wish copy protection had died off like the dodo bird. But here it is alive and kicking. I've seen "modern" business software that will give you the finger if you even have a part in your computer repaired and replaced.
But people still put up with this shit. At least this is just some dumb game. Nobody needs games. And there is no shortage of games anyway. Go buy a pack of playing cards or something that is not copy protected/DRMed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:53AM
Kill DRM! [defectivebydesign.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:10PM
It's actually worse than that, there's industrial control software that has to be permanently hooked up to the internet because of always-online DRM which is the unspoken reason as to why those things are "on the internet" in the first place.