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posted by martyb on Friday July 27 2018, @11:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the cracker-crackdown dept.

PC Gamer, Engadget and Gamezone report that software vendor Denuvo has taken legal action in Bulgaria against a man known as Voksi, who cracked their video gaming DRM. His equipment has been seized by the police.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @12:48PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @12:48PM (#713643)

    > Seems the DRM massively impacts game performance and there's strong justification for disabling it on legally purchased copies?

    Modern forms of DRM (stuff like CD-keys excluded):
    - openly treat customers like criminals
    - bloat binaries*
    - degrade performance
    - randomly stop your legally purchased software from working
    - are completely indistinguishable from viruses and trojans
    - siphon off private data, so also indistinguishable from spyware

    * As an extreme(?) example, the recently released Puyo Puyo Tetris apparently takes ~130 MB on disk; ~5 MB of game and ~125 MB of Denuvo.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @01:37PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @01:37PM (#713658)

    - are completely indistinguishable from viruses and trojans
    - siphon off private data, so also indistinguishable from spyware

    That's why it's called Digital Restrictions Malware. It's also why I no longer purchase software. If you're going to treat me like a criminal even after I try to do things legally I might as well save a few bucks (or $60) and just copyright infringe your software to begin with.

    AND STOP CALLING IT PIRACY! PIRACY IS NOT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS NOT PIRACY! IT'S NOT THEFT EITHER, SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!

    Ok, I'm done screaming.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 27 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday July 27 2018, @07:44PM (#713816) Journal

      > why I no longer purchase software

      With commercial software, there's usually more problems than DRM. How about, rushed out the door with major bugs and missing features? Occasionally, I used to buy $60 blockbuster games. But when one was shipped without the multiplayer feature working, and was "fixed" 3 months later with a "bug patch", and several others put me on the expansion treadmill, so that every time an expansion came out, I had to have it or the game was for all practical purposes unplayable, I quit.

      And as for business software such as office suites, I've heard about and seen enough of M$'s crap to know I don't want any part of it. File format lock in, lack of backward compatibility, the upgrade treadmill, the possibility of them remotely disabling the app, erasing the data, declaring that you are a pirate, etc. No thanks. I really don't understand why businesses put up with that.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:45AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:45AM (#713892)

        I really don't understand why businesses put up with that.

        That has puzzled me a lot. I have seen how businesses around here gang up on people of Mexican heritage and INSIST that only English be spoken at the workplace.

        Yet those same tie-wearers and shakers of the hand accept software that phones home behind their back, and is obedient to someone else, not them.

        I have to consider this kind of stuff as "Business-Class software" or "Executive-Grade software".

        You can't trust it. It has hidden agendas. Its like someone who offers to clean your house for cheap, but once in the door, goes through your house with a fine tooth comb and tells all their friends what they found there.

        All I can figure is that people that frequent forums like this know good and well whats going on, and it does not have to be that way. Its kind obvious that other people who have concentrated on business skills are more concentrated in legal and leadership skills, neither which apply to a machine which by design is absolutely loyal only to the guy who speaks to it in the machine's native language, not some highly paid guy, dressed to impress, hocking up orders and directives.

        My only guess is that when one is that high up in an organization, it really doesn't make that much difference at that level whether or not stuff works... at that altitude, the whole thing is nothing more than a bullet point on some memo. Lay everyone off. Kill off the company. Re-organize the decision-makers under another name. Rinse. Lather. And repeat. Make another cash-cow and milk it until she croaks as well.

        • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 28 2018, @01:40AM

          by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday July 28 2018, @01:40AM (#713903) Journal

          I think the best explanation of these business decisions on this is "business philosophy". It's scary how religious they are in their professed belief in capitalism and "you get what you pay for". Even after decades of evidence showing them that they are wrong, they persist in believing that if it is free, it's no good. They've swallowed and totally embraced the propaganda that deliberately ignores the fundamental distinction between the abundant and easily duplicated world of information, and the scarce, material good world, and buy that nonsense that copying is stealing. They think their lot is with producers, and want their precious company secrets protected to the max. Fear of loss really pushes people's buttons, no matter how much the gain more than offsets the perceived loss.

          When I've tried to ask if that's why, I've gotten bull for an answer. Basically the tone of the answers is that I'm an engineer not a businessperson, and therefore unqualified and incapable of understanding the company's decisions on these matters. Now go back to your cube and work on engineering stuff, and leave business to the pros.

  • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:33AM

    by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <{axehandle} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:33AM (#713934)

    Modern forms of DRM (stuff like CD-keys excluded):
    - openly treat customers like criminals
    - bloat binaries*
    - degrade performance
    - randomly stop your legally purchased software from working
    - are completely indistinguishable from viruses and trojans
    - siphon off private data, so also indistinguishable from spyware

    So why on earth would anybody part with their money to pay for that excrement? Why not just do without for a while and starve the beast?

    --
    It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.