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Starforce Can Reboot Your Computer If You Do Something It Doesn't Like

cdfreaks.com — cdfreaks.com has reported that Futuremark have uncoverd that Starforce "...installs a driver that runs at the highest level of access on the system… This driver runs regardless of whether the game runs;... If something suspicious is detected, it forces the PC to make an immediate reboot..." Read cdfreaks.com for more information.

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 21, 2006

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  • ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -9/+91"Another reason to boycott starforce protected games."

    If you ask me - its another reason to pirate it!
  • FogDogg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+60Another reason to boycott starforce protected games.

    I really don't know how game publishers can ignore how ***** starforce is just to save a few dollars in piracy. Hopefully informed customers will have a bigger impact on these publishers then a few lost sales and pretty much force them into something more consumer-friendly.
  • coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+52Starforce: "Hey something fishy is going on here"
    Computer: "WTF Dude I'm defragging"
    Starforce: "REBOOT!"
    Me: "OH *****!"
    Computer: "I'm dead"
  • dacompmandan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36Before you know it, they'll just have an option to start your computer on fire. That'll show us "Fair-Users" out there.
  • konrad8ha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28How far will they go? I guess it really is time to boycott Starforce now.

    You can find a surprisingly long list of Starforce-Protected games here:
    http://www.glop.org/starforce/
  • gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24http://www.glop.org/starforce/detect.php
  • LatvianHedgehog, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27any protection can be cracked, sooner or later
  • smithco, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28As a consumer, I've gotten fed up with all the copy-protection/screwed-up drivers/patches crap with PC games. I'm now entirely a console gamer (entirely DS these days). Console games don't have these problems.

    I can't think of any good reason to ever go back to PC gaming.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Most developers are moving away from Starforce because of pressure not just from users, but the game industry press as well! Reviewers don't like their work machines being trashed by Starforce.

    I am sure rebooting machines isn't the only thing it can do. What's to stop Starforce from trashing installs completely? How would you know what did it? Software with such capabilities as Starforce is simply too dangerous and unstable to use.
  • Drood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I had a CD burning problem after Starforce had infected my system. Removed the drivers with the official tool, but still had problems. (Disks I burnt were fine on other systems, but couldn't be read on the one it was burned on. This was with two different burners.)

    Finally fixed it the other day. If you've been infected, I would recommend doing it just in case. You go into the device manager, and uninstall any CD or DVD drives you have. Then you uninstall the primary and secondary IDE channels. No, I'm not making this up. When you reboot, it forces Windows to reload the drivers etc... And basically resets the damage Starforce has done. I tested this myself, and after almost 18 months of being unable to burn a CD on my Dell that it could then read, I can finally burn CD's properly again.
  • konrad8ha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Exactly, my PC is just too important for my work to pollute it with Starforce or similar crap.
  • Drood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15If the protection has to be decrypted to actually run, then someone is going to figure out how to crack it. May take a while, but once it's done, it's over with. One person cracks it and posts online how they did it, your DRM system is worthless. Once it's cracked, it's finished.

    I mean Starforce, back when it first appeared, did slow some releases down. Toca Race Driver 2 took a hell of a long time to appear. Now we've got Toca Race Driver 3, also Starforce protected. It was cracked and online a week before it hit store shelves.

    DRM DOES NOT WORK. When are these idiots going to learn this?
  • TheWriteGuy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16But how do we know which games are protected by Starforce? It would indeed be helpful if publishers would list what brand of copy protection they are using on the game boxes.
  • lbft, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Not everyone has the cash to do that.
  • kamisama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Just don't buy the games that come with starforce or any protection. Buying them gives them the wrong sign.

    I have gotten DTM2 as a present when it came out. It's been installed one time. Not that i don't like the game, it just slows down my computer too much. Now i come to think of it, i might put it up on eBay because it's only collecting dust.

    I can honestly say i will never ever buy a game with copy protection again. I rely on my PC to get my job done, if installing games on it becomes dangerous i simply won't install them anymore.
  • Greg-J, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15@drood,

    Uhmmmm, No. You don't. Cracked games don't EVER come with starforce. You been using kazaa lately?
  • Smoov, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Since I installed a Starforce game last month my machine has had numerous bizarre crashes and slowdowns, all involving my DVD drive. I do NOT pirate anything at all (I have enough money to afford to buy want I want).

    Who here would be interested in a class-action lawsuit against Starforce and/or game publishers? If we can get enough people we can chip in on a lawyer and at least throw a scare into them.
  • Drood, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18Thinkbox: You still get the drivers on your system though, so pirating is useless.

    Smithco: Yep, I'm with you. I've given up on PC gaming. Every time you buy a PC game these days, you're playing russian roulette with your computer. I buy indie titles, and stuff like Galactic Civilizations II that I know for SURE won't do anything, but mass market releases like EA, Ubi etc... I won't touch them with a ten foot cattle prod.

    90% of my gaming is PS2 based now.
  • kindrobot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Wow! That security worked so well, I'll never even buy their product.

    Now that is secure.
  • GooBoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Because of this whole DRM issue around Movies, Music, Games etc. I have decided on a course of action. Buy nothing, steal nothing. I don't want to have to worry about what the Entertainment industry's latest tricks are anymore. So... I will no longer buy Cd's/MP3s/DVDs/Games etc. They are luxury items to me, and I don't need them to enjoy a happy productive life. So screw em, if they are going to assume I'm a potential criminal even though I'm legally buying their product, then I'm not going to buy their products. I know it's unfair to lump all companies together as part of the evil DRM empire, but why do I care? It's my money, my time, my life and until they smarten up, they aren't getting another friggin cent from me. They don't realize it yet, but that's their worst nightmare. If I don't even steal their stuff, it's showing I'm living my life without them. They are irrelevant.
  • Drood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Dude, you have EVERY choice. If you hand over money knowingly for a Starforce protected game, then sorry to say, you're part of the problem.

    I expect one of the games is either GTR or GT Legends... I'd love both of them, but can't in good conscience buy them.
  • ConceptJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10>what are my rights as a consumer?

    According to the software and media companies, your rights end as soon as the money leaves your pocket.

  • silenceHR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10i wont even pirate Starforce games, let alone buy them. that crap wont be installed on my comp ever (except if some group manages to create clean copy without SF and release it).
  • regedit2D, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I've always wondered what driver kept causing errors, I guess I now know.
  • thetwix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Are you a moron?

    Have you not read what people are saying about this broken, amateur software causing hardware issues with optical drives and rebooting people's machines?

    Boycott any game publisher/manufacturer that chooses to use Starforce, let your wallet speak since we live in a capitalist society.

    Start with UBISoft, since they have Starforce infecting almost every game they publish these days (and they choose not to label the box, saying there is DRM involved).

    Let your friends know, so they dont buy a damaged piece of software.

  • ziffel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@weiran and Drood: since you like driving sims, allow me to STRONGLY recommend rFactor! this is a KICK ASS sim, with a huge modding community, and great driving physics. Right now, it's got mods for F3, go-karts, Nascar, Porsche Cup, and more, and lots of great tracks. Best of all, rFactor is an indie title and is DRM free

    http://www.rfactor.net/
  • kordless, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9"This latest identified threat by Futuremark is one that relates to a driver being installed on your computer that gains RING0 access (the highest level of access to your computer)."

    Wait a minute... I thought that the J0HN access was the highest level of access, followed by P@U7 and G03RG3.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Soooo.. lemme get this straight..... People that PAY for the game, get screwed... while pirates get a better cleaner version for free?

    I see they have been in bed with the *ia again...
  • jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Wow, so how much does the Starforce bunch pay you to whore out forums?
  • beoswulf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It has been reported that Starforce destroys your optical drives. A sideeffect of the protection is the software slows down the write speed in small increments until the user finally notices the problem (which likely wouldn't be until long after the starforce protected game was uninstalled [except for the subtle drivers which remain]. Once the damage is done it can't be reversed.


    For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at). Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down. Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening.
    It has been reported by many users that the slowdown caused by StarForce on some recent multiformat DVD writers can cause irreversible hardware failures on those drives (they aren't recognized anymore), as they aren't supposed to write at slow speeds.

    "Here's what Greg Vederman, PC Gamer editor-in-chief, experienced:

    I'm okay with that in theory, but some of these anti-piracy software programs are so potent that they cause issues for legitimate game buyers. One of the leading brands, StarForce, is notorious for not only making it difficult for a small percentage of legitimate users to load up StarForce-protected games, but also for leaving potentially problem-causing StarForce software behind on your PC, even after you've deleted the game it was protecting. And this isn't just some story that I've read about online or in emails from readers. No, it happened to me.
    http://www.glop.org/starforce/

    Last year, my work PC suddenly began blue-screening (crashing) any time I popped an audio CD into either of my two optical drives. I went online and learned that other people were having this problem and that it appeared to be StarForce-related. Deleting my StarForce-protected games did nothing. I had to run a StarForce-removal utility before my system - filled only with legal, licensed software - could play audio CDs again. "
  • silenceHR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6like everybody can afford separate machine just cause those bloodsucking publishers use this Starforce POS....
  • MrSpontaneous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6When I put Prince of Persia 3 in my dvd drive, it blue screened the second it tried to read anything from the disc.

    This error is replicable. Since I bought a copy of the game fair and square, what are my rights as a consumer?
  • jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yah. I knew there were alot of crappy games out there, but jeez, Starforce seems to basically give it the ***** stamp. Out of that entire list, Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory, was okay.
  • Arkitan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I don't think it does, from what I understand once Starfoce is on a system the only way to get rid of it is with the .exe you can download from Starforce's site
  • ,,|,_, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6smithco - Try SpinRite, you would be surprised what that lovely little utility can recover
  • MadChicken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Demos have it too. Trackmania Nations - a "Free" game has it. GTR-FIA demo has it.

    Insanity!
  • foreplay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The scene releases are just iso's of the game. All of starforce has to be left intact otherwise the image would be unusable.

    @greg-j
    sorry to break it to you but if you want to play any starforce protected game you need to install starforce and probably unplug ide devices no matter where you download the games from.
  • Iriel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Just out of curiosity, shouldn't Starforce count as a rootkit? It certainly sounds as if it goes to the kernel to me, but even if I'm wrong, there should be at least one virus/malware program that should be able to destroy it. I know it isn't actually a virus because it's not self-replicating, but any PC security program would do well to roast Starforce on an open flame.

    As much as the retailers would love you to buy new computers all the time, they know this just isn't realistic for most of us: hence it's bad business to let Starforce turn their customers' PCs into monolithic paper weights due to crashes/restarts/hellish portals/ and so on.
  • gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6no it does not
  • Unicron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@Seenbymany:

    You might already know this, but I think one of the reasons no one has claimed the $1000 is that you have to buy a ticket to Russia yourself, then demo this to the SF people and hope that they agree with you.

    Doesn't really seem worth it...
  • organic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8"You can find a surprisingly long list of Starforce-Protected games here"
    I was expecting at least one worthwhile game; now it seems like I'm going to be joining this boycott by default. Talk about a bunch of corporate tie-in synergistic bullcrap.
  • spate, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7greg-j, most starforce games haven't been cracked. (ex; X3 Reunion) Pirate groups instead provide a disc image for daemon tools and a piece of software that disables IDE channels. So Drood is correct; install a pirate copy and you're still bringing starforce along for the ride.
  • EiderDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@SeenByMany: Nobody claimed the prize because (1) it was announced in an obscure section of the companies website (if that) and only publicized after it expired, (2) the initial prize was much smaller than the publicized $10,000, (3) you had to go to the the Moscow office of the company, and (4) the likelihood of Starforce actually paying up is somewhere between -10% and 0.
  • fani, on 10/12/2007, -0/+42 things -

    1. which games have starforce on them so I can boycott them ?
    2. Why don't we continously keep doing a digg effect on the Starforce's main website and flood their webmaster's email box and so forth...
  • OropheR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5If you uninstall a game countaining Starforce's *****, does it uninstall the starforce's ***** drivers as well?
  • DIGGBLOWS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Riiiiiigggghhhht the problem doesnt exist JUST because you've never seen it happen on YOUR computer, yet there are thousands who have had it happen and continue to.

    No problem here chief, none at all.
  • coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Yeah I was really disappointed to find out Worms 4 was protected. It's not TOO incredible of a game, but I bought it and I'm forced to have this crap on my system. Over the weekend I didn't have the CD so I couldn't play the friggin thing because the No-CD crack is ridiculously glitchy.
  • Brilhasti, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yet ANOTHER reason to continue my boycott of Starforce-protected games. I really wanted to play HOMM IV but I absolutely refuse. It's assinine to think publishers would allow something that screws people who've actually paid for the game in an attempt to thwart pirates - which ALWAYS fails. Every. Single. Time. They still crack it.
  • theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Senator Hollings is now gone from the Senate. Let's contact our congressmen and senators and get that worthless DMCA repealed. I'm calling today.
  • coheedcollapse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yeah, you can get it on the starforce site or scattered elsewhere on the internet, but obviously it renders the software/game associated to it totally useless.
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