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Ubisoft Steals ‘No-CD Crack’ to Fix Rainbox 6: Vegas 2

Ben Jones — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:48:14 PDT

“Piracy is BAD” proclaims every copyright dependent industry lobby group. “Downloading is stealing” is another popular one. How about “downloads are a lost sale”? Ubisoft clearly didn’t believe that last one, as they distributed a no-cd patch from the scene group RELOADED as a fix for one of their games.

Piracy can be a funny business at times, but the rhetoric is often extremely predictable. So when something unexpected happens it can knock you off your stride. Something like… a major game publisher distributing a Scene no-cd crack as a fix would do it, for instance. If it sounds unlikely, that’s because sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, the publisher is Ubisoft, the game ‘Rainbow Six: Vegas 2‘, and the Scene ‘no-cd’ crack – yes that’s there as well.

The situation revolves around that oddest of characters, Direct2Drive (D2D) - an online games store, owned by IGN, selling games over the Internet as protected downloads. Game code is modified to prevent the standard retail DRM from inhibiting game play (as there is no actual disc to check for) with Trymedia activation utilized instead. More importantly, since the code around the DRM has been modified and changed to a different system, regular patches from the game developers can’t be used. Instead, patches must be reworked by D2D to accommodate these changes. These changes are not always quick, a point D2D does try and defuse in its FAQ.

Thus we come to Rainbow Six: Vegas2 (R6V2) which, since its release in March, has had three patches released for it. The third, 1.03 provides a lot of changes, including new play modes, so legitimate purchasers of the game were eager to try it. The problem is, those that bought it via D2D can’t use it. This is the problem inherent in DRM. Those that buy the product are the ones affected, not those the DRM is designed to defeat.

After lots of complaining and attempts to fix things themselves, one Ubisoft employee found a solution. A zip file was uploaded to the help/support site, named “R6Vegas2_fix.zip”.

If D2D users patched to 1.02, then replaced the EXE with this one, they could then update to the new patch. However, someone ran a hex edit and it appears the fix was not Ubisoft code but actually a ‘no-cd’ crack released by the Scene group RELOADED, as shown here.

Since then, the zip file containing the fix has been pulled from the Ubisoft support site, so we’re unable to verify. The game’s community is as baffled by this as everyone else. Since the claimed origin of the fix, 10 days ago, there has been no word on it officially from Ubisoft, beyond a ‘Community Manager’ who states

We’re looking into this further as this was not the UK Support team that posted this, however if it is an executable that does not need the disc I doubt it has come from an external source. There’d be very little point doing so when we already own the original unprotected executable.

As soon as we find out more about this we’ll let you know.
_________________
Ubi.Vigil
Community Manager
Ubisoft UK

Although it is not unknown for a Scene release to be used to ‘fix’ a retail product, it’s certainly rare to have that fact promoted. That the ‘no-cd’ patch works, might have some relation to how brutal the Scene is when it comes to the quality of their work, especially in games. Whilst this is a validation that the Scene isn’t as bad as the lobby groups would have you believe (they fixed the game, and did it for free) you can bet that Ubisoft won’t be smiling at E3, and that they, and Direct2Drive, will continue to use DRM to annoy and inconvenience paying customers.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Ubisoft Steals ‘No-CD Crack’ to Fix Rainbox 6: Vegas 2

Brazilian Graffiti Art

Deadlytoiletbeetle — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:07:49 PDT

Graffiti as art.

This is my first contribution to this site.

… [visit site to read more]

Sexy Soccer

maverick — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:20:49 PDT

These hot chicks will make a fan out of anyone. Care for a game?

… [visit site to read more]

37!

(author unknown) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:22:31 PDT

Faço hoje mais uma idade parva e possivelmente a menos redonda dos últimos anos: 37. Que raio de aniversário é este? É mais um daquela espécie horrenda que fica ali encalacrada entre os 35 - um número aceitável - e os 40 - um número inaceitável mas, pelo menos, redondo e marcante. É o que eu digo: eu por mim tinha passado dos 35 logo para os 40, que 37 anos não é uma idade de jeito que se apresente. E só de pensar que ainda tenho os 38 e os 39, chiça. 39, então, é a mais deprimente de todas: no fundo é como se já fosse 40 mas como se estivéssemos a usar ainda a casa dos 30 ilegalmente, só para parecermos mais jovens. Como se fôssemos, no fundo, um homem de meia-idade a usar cuecas do Star Wars.

Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent (wk29)

Ernesto — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:46:07 PDT

TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?

The data is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

At the end of the year we will publish a list of most downloaded TV-shows for the entire year, like we did last December.

TV-shows such as “Lost” and “Heroes” can get up to 10 million downloads per episode, in only a week.

Top Downloads June 13 - July 20

Ranking	(last week)	TV-show
1	(1)	Top Gear
2	(2)	Weeds
3	(3)	Stargate Atlantis
4	(new)	Generation Kill
5	(back)	The Daily Show
6	(new)	Psych
7	(7)	So You Think You Can Dance
8	(9)	In Plain Sight
9	(back)	The Colbert Report
10	(4)	Burn Notice

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent (wk29)

Concurso para novo operador móvel aprovado (Actualizada)

Sapo — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:44:00 PDT

Internet soma 14 milhões de novos domínios no 1º trimestre

Sapo — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:00 PDT

Region Applet

Manuel Silva — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:33:38 PDT

Mais uma proeza, Ubuntu instalado numa bike!

RedTuxer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:36:00 PDT

Qual será o próximo dispositivo onde será instalado este GNU/Linux? :)

Patch your DNS NOW!!!!!

ibriones — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:21:00 PDT

The exploit is here. Metasploit has developed a module to trigger the last DNS vulnerability (announced by Dan Kaminsky two weeks ago). The DNS system translates names to numbers the Internet can use (www.pandasecurity.com -> 88.221.26.28). This threat allows malicious people to redirect any website or domain to a system controlled by the attacker. The full vulnerability description would be described at BlackHat, however it was published (by mistake) in a very known blog. Although It was removed, nevertheless it was already accessible with Google cache or Google Reader.

The vulnerability uses two well-known issues with DNS Protocol:

Prediction of Source Port and transaction ID: DNS uses UDP packets to send and receive queries. Most DNS servers use the same source port to connect to the same DNS server within a short period of time. This way, an attacker could predict the destination port in a very short time. Transactions ID are randomized but this randomization is not enough, and malicious people could spoof packets to send answer packets to the target DNS server before the real DNS server sends its response. The image below shows this scenario:

The attacker (trigger machine) sends DNS packets, to the target DNS, with queries for a website of a domain controlled by them (www.mytestdomain.com). The target DNS will send the queries to the DNS server controlled by the attacker, so this way they could predict the source port used by the target DNS and predict some patterns in the transaction ID. After that the attacker sends spoofed DNS packets, to the target DNS, pretending to be the DNS server, redirecting the client to the website owned by the attacker.

Additional Resource Records: DNS servers can include additional information in their answer to avoid future questions and improve the efficiency of the process. For example, the nameservers' IP of the target domain. Combining these two issues, an attacker could control the entire traffic directed to the target domain.

We have developed a tool to verify if your DNS is vulnerable (DnsTester). It basically executes the following query, suggested by Sans Diary:

nslookup -type=txt -timeout=30 porttest.dns-oarc.net

If your DNS is vulnerable, you should inform your ISP or network administrator about it. However a better and faster approach is to change your DNS to OpenDNS.

There are also some websites to verify if your DNS is vulnerable (http://www.doxpara.com/ or you could follow the SANS suggestions on Sans Diary).

(Thanks to Iker Perez for the image)

Funny T-Shirts Galore

maverick — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:02:30 PDT

Nice collection of people caught wearing various funny t-shirts. Check out the one that says: “Not everything is flat in Florida”

… [visit site to read more]

Daily Funny Pictures

maverick — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:17:14 PDT

Just so you don’t go into withdrawal syndrome …

… [visit site to read more]

Sony com Ecrã Misterioso de 200"

Carlos Martins — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:34:00 PDT

A Sony instalou um misterioso ecrã de 200" na sua sede em Tokyo, mostrando filmagens subaquáticas de peixes, em 3D.

Nada se sabe sobre a tecnologia do painel, se será um LCD, Plasma, ou um sistema de projecção (ou algo ainda mais esotérico, como OLEDs, Lasers, etc.)

Qualquer que seja a tecnologia... o ecrã é enorme! Nem eu pedia uma coisa destas para ter em casa... ou melhor... esperem aí, deixem-me ir tirar medidas... ;)

via [gizmodo]

Eee PC duplica quota de mercado da Asus na Europa

Sapo — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:53:00 PDT

Sony com Ecrã Misterioso de 200"

(author unknown) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:58:28 PDT

Shared by (``-_-´´)
eu deitei um desses fora... era pekeno de mais!
ROFL