StarForce going down?

Originally Posted by tr1stan

Maviee: you can get a complete dump of those crypted game files if you open those files and completly read them into the memory (in the context of the protected app of course)...SF will decrypt the complete file for you and you can make a good dump

That's right. the *real* problem is finding what those filenames are. This isn't a problem as big as the p-code stuff though.

Originally Posted by Maviee

I think Starforce is by now the most secure cd protection. It's as good as impossible to write "one click and go" tools to remove starfoce from an executable (like it is possible with safedisc or securom). One of the main problems are really the VM's. The can hold a huge amount of files which are used in realtime. A I had a nice example here, where Starforce had some level files in it's VM, making it impossible to play it (even if you had a perfect dump)

The dark side of the protection really is its compatibility. I've never seen a protection which behaves that different on nearly every computer. I really hope that they fix this issue with SF4 (which is already in development).

As time will go on, nearly every protection will implement VM's making it nearly impossible to put cracked copies out beofre the games hit the stores.

Greetings
Mav

Hello,

I have never tried to work on Star Force.

Just have a couple questions about this VM.

What does the SF VM really handles ?

Does it take parts of the application code, ie: rip chunks of code and convert
them to bytecode, that will get emulated by the VM at runtime ?

ie the real code is destroyed for good, and only bytecode remains, that does
the same as old code, but in a VM ?

Also when you say, some levels are in the VM, what do you mean ?

how were the levels translated ? do you mean parts of code is in the VM or whole level code is decrypted / moved into VM memory, and there, the VM emulates it ?

Do the imports get redirected / handled by the VM too ?

Sorry for so much questions, but i have never seen a SF binary yet

Cheers.