Game Piracy: The end is allegedly neigh
Mikey 7 comments
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell is claiming that a new stealth encryption chip will "absolutely stop piracy of PC gameplay."
"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now"
Bold words, which he will likely have to eat one day. Not that I don't wish them good luck on the endeavour, but if I had to put money on them actually succeeding then I'd be an idiot. If history has taught the games industry anything, it's that no matter how many millions they throw at engineering a copy protection solution, some geek will reverse engineer it for the cost of a pizza and a slab of coke and have it online in time for corn flakes.
Every method of copy protection that has ever existed for games, music, movies etc has at some stage been pimped as the 'piracy killer' by some middle level company executive while completely forgetting the embarrassment of those who came before him with the same announcement.
"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."
I will concede this method is more robust than others, but I have absolutely no faith in it being un-crackable.
Nate >.>
Sunday 25th May 2008 | 04:47 PMSo true Mikey, it'll only be a matter of time once it comes out.
p.s. I love the pic of cap'n jack with crysis :-D
Kim OJ
Sunday 25th May 2008 | 05:55 PMBesides, I am pretty sure this kind of chip would be illegal, at least in Europe, due to consumer protection and antitrust laws.
Tony
Monday 26th May 2008 | 06:00 AM"some geek will reverse engineer it for the cost of a pizza and a slab of coke and have it online in time for corn flakes"
that's the best description of 'working through the night' I've read.
Rodney
Monday 26th May 2008 | 09:29 AMI'd bet the design is already leaked and being analysed for flaws. I'll also bet it is not only a) completely crackable but b) causes unintended instabilities and performance issues. Vista will be blamed by the chip manufacturer and the chip will be blamed by Microsoft.
It will then be pulled from motherboards by popular demand.
(Then in an further ironic twist: some games will still require the chip to be on board, so you'll be able to download a hacked software-version of the chip, which makes games think it's present).
Ecko
Tuesday 27th May 2008 | 09:50 AMBig mistake. If they wanted their 'piracy-killer' chip to be somewhat effective, they should have kept things quiet. You know, not letting the pirates know before hand.
Sometimes I think they are playing games with us. Its really hard to take this stuff seriously.
Friendo
Sunday 25th May 2008 | 01:56 PMSince the first time I saw Jonny Dep I thought eh was cool. Talk about multitallenter... I have always preferred his more serious stuff, and have wanted him to do more.