Software authentication (was RE: Gibson (was Crack Office XP))

[jts28 () cornell edu]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Kayne Ian (Softlab) wrote:

> This method of warez'ing is rapidly going to become extinct. Evidence
> Halflife & the WON (World Opponent Network). You can crack the game and
> download a billion generated serial numbers, but to play the game on the net
> you require a registered and tracked serial number on your system. I know
> plenty of people who grab warez of & crack everything, but actually had to
> buy a copy of this game simply because the protection was so well done.

I had been thinking a little about this when HL came out, glad it came 
up. Do games like Halflife that don't require a central server really 
*need* to be authenticated by a central server? In other words,  
instead of generating bogus or stealing legit serialz, you just disable 
the client-side registration code and/or spoof the confirmation of 
authentication from the central server.  That would tend to break systems
like Ultima Online, where a user merely runs a client, he doesn't host 
games, but in the Quake/HL model, would anything break? I've noticed that 
HL runs just fine without authenticating over a LAN-- no central server 
needed there.  This technique might keep you off the WON, but not the net. 

And... why not pirate servers that perform whatever game administration 
is required? Can't be that tough to set up a server that listens to 
broadcasts and requests; I don't think WON has the market cornered there. 
And legitimate users could also set up proxies that re-serve the game 
listings coming off the WON. My guess is that folks join the game through 
direct connection anyway,  so it really would be fairly trivial.

I think it's premature to declare the warez scene dead.

> Ofcoz, the follow-through is that if this can be done for a game that is
> played on the net, it's less than a simple step to do it for an application
> staged on, for eg, the MS .net model.

Without actually looking at current implementations of this method in 
various games, my guess is that it's probably done badly.

--schlach