Pirates Crack Microsoft’s UWP Protection, Five Layers of DRM Defeated

[jagdtigger]

It seems even UWP broke under the pressure:

Quote

Video games pirates have reason to celebrate today after scene cracking group CODEX defeated Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform system on Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection. While the game it was protecting isn't exactly a fan favorite, it was reportedly protected by five layers of DRM within the UWP package, including the Denuvo-like Arxan anti-tamper technology.

Quote

CODEX says it’s important that the game isn’t allowed to communicate with the Internet so the group advises users to block the game’s executable in their firewall.

While that’s not a particularly unusual instruction, CODEX did reveal that various layers of protection had to be bypassed to make the game work. They’re listed by the group as MSStore, UWP, EAppX, XBLive, and Arxan, the latter being an anti-tamper system.

SOURCE:

https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-crack-microsofts-uwp-protection-five-layers-of-drm-defeated-180215/

 

There is not much to explain, 5 layers of DRM were busted which means on more nail in the coffin(both for DRM and UWP). The sooner DRM and UWP die the better, they are nothing more than useless annoyances.

[ItsMitch]

Been saying it for ages, DRM is useless and it never will effect game sales massively. 

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Been saying it for ages, DRM is useless and it never will effect game sales massively. 

But it's easier to treat customers like criminals and inconvenience them over giving people a reason to buy and accepting the fact that some people, no matter what, will never buy whatever product they are trying to protect.

[GoodBytes]

3 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

Been saying it for ages, DRM is useless and it never will effect game sales massively. 

DRM existed since the early days of PC games and software. Back in the days, you had prompts where you had to enter a word on some page in the game manual, or had a wheel thing that you needed to light up to get a code to enter.

 

Piracy of game was a serious issue. Now, it is hard for publisher to determine the impact if removed. Basically, imagine you are EA CEO (yes), and you are a business you want to make money, lots of it, you want to grow as well, so you get investors and shareholders, and of course you want your 7 figure job. And that is your goals as a CEO, else the board of director can vote you out the next day. And a reminder. "CEO" isn't a job position you see often in job searching sites, so unless you take your retirement, you don't want to loose it. They are few positions, and few can handle the high stress and high responsibility position, hence the big salary.

 

So given that situation, how would you look when you go in front of investors and say: Yea this big title without micro-transaction as we are done with those, and no day 1 DLC but rather actual DLC that is a real game extension where devs started to work after the game was released, that we expected to sale 6 million copies, really only sold 3 million, but we know we have 10 million users, as they are using our servers. So we have 7 million pirated copy, and we can't determine which are legit or not, as we decided to not put DRM on it.

 

You would look a little silly that day, to be nice. Yes, PROBABLY, with DRM it would have ended up the same. But at least you can't say you didn't try to your investors, shareholders, and employees that you'll need to fire and I am sure you won't get a good night sleep, even after your "good work" bonus thinking how many people you just put on the street.

[asus killer]

21 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The sooner DRM and UWP die the better, they are nothing more than useless annoyances.

it will never die, it's a cat and mouse game that will go one forever.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I'm fine with the DRM, but I'd love to see UWP die.

[Paddi01]

I guess this is the most active group when it comes to cracking games currently.

[Majestic]

39 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Been saying it for ages, DRM is useless and it never will effect game sales massively. 

Forever lost sale fallacy indeed.

[leadeater]

lol I was wondering why anyone would bother cracking UWP, wasn't at all thinking about UWP games. UWP games are dead to me, they don't exist.

[Egg-Roll]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

lol I was wondering why anyone would bother cracking UWP, wasn't at all thinking about UWP games. UWP games are dead to me, they don't exist.

Some people just want them for free

 

Tho idk why people even bother with DRM anymore... Both sides, one says uncrackable the other side proves them wrong, everyone who buys the stuff suffer... Example: Uplay.

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Some people just want them for free

When I read the thread title I wasn't even thinking games, I was like "why would you want to crack UWP Office???"

[Drak3]

54 minutes ago, leadeater said:

When I read the thread title I wasn't even thinking games, I was like "why would you want to crack UWP Office???"

You got a machine running Windows S and have no money.

[Darkman]

Anything is possible if you have a strong enough drive to do it.

[Egg-Roll]

43 minutes ago, leadeater said:

When I read the thread title I wasn't even thinking games, I was like "why would you want to crack UWP Office???"

For the use of paid software for free 

Personally I like stand alone one fee based, esp if it would cost $150, upgrade when I feel like it for what I need vs $110 per year... I'm paying $25 for each thing I would need to use per year vs 18.75 based on a every 2 year upgrade... Last time I bought Office it was about $120 (07 version), hence why I went to OpenOffice  If Office was $75 per year I would gladly pay for it, but it's not, so OO it is...

Sneaky MS hiding the cheaper versions... To buy the full version is $170.

[mr moose]

40 minutes ago, Pangea2017 said:

or make them a criminal when the cd copy protection prevent the cd from working. If you (just hypothetical) remove it you can acutly play the game you bought.

Problem with that is if you bought it legitimately you don't need to remove the cd copy protection to get it working. 

 

People seem to confuse a shit product or shit product support with DRM.  Which incidentally has been around for ever.

 

The reality is for the most part people don't want to pay and they are using any excuse they can.  

[leadeater]

55 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

For the use of paid software for free 

Personally I like stand alone one fee based, esp if it would cost $150, upgrade when I feel like it for what I need vs $110 per year... I'm paying $25 for each thing I would need to use per year vs 18.75 based on a every 2 year upgrade... Last time I bought Office it was about $120 (07 version), hence why I went to OpenOffice  If Office was $75 per year I would gladly pay for it, but it's not, so OO it is...

Sneaky MS hiding the cheaper versions... To buy the full version is $170.

I'd just 'acquire' proper Office if that was the case, I mean UWP... why....

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Darkman said:

Anything is possible if you have a strong enough drive to do it.

Not gargling a glass of super glue.

[Canada EH]

What is UWP and DRM

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

What is UWP and DRM

Cancer and a grenade with the pin already pulled out so you need to handle it with extreme care.

[Canada EH]

I like free O/S and Office!

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, Pangea2017 said:

You need sometimes. I have one old game (win 98 days) where this is needed. The DRM was good for the time and was only broken by some programms which were some years later illegal to own. 

The problem with the CD was a issue between the CD drive and the technic they have used to prevent that people copy the cd. This was widely known and the support didn't care.

The Netbook age was the next time DRM sucks. Without a CD drive build in it was a pain to launch the game. Especially during travel. Thankfully Steam is now the monopolist.

 

Breaking DRM is most time about piracy but not everytime and i love if developer release DRM free version of the game in a Steelbox. The best case if they release a Steelbox with a DRM free copy and a SteamKey inside for the DLC they will launch later (Q.U.B.E have done this).

Your talking about lack of product support, not an intrinsic failure of DRM.  You can't blame DRM because you bought a computer without a cd drive and you have a game on cd.

 

The bit in bold I think we can agree on, but I highly doubt any of the guys breaking DRM for today's software are doing it for the 0.5% of users who might have a legitimate issue that the DEV's won't address.

 

[GoodBytes]

4 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

What is UWP and DRM

To put it simply, UWP is a platform with lots of APIs (pre-made functionality that devs can use) to develop a software on. Under the Windows environment you have 2 supported platform a developer can pick to make a software: Win32 and UWP.

• Win32 introduced in some simple form back in Windows 95 days, and has evolved since allowing rich customization applications that we have today.
   
• UWP which presents itself as a modern platform, that delivers to devs, if they want, interface tools for making GPU accelerated interface (and not use the CPU to draw like Win32) that are also high-DPI aware, touch and ink supported. When Win32 was made, the concept of high-DPI displays, let alone a resolution of 1080p was not even in people imaginations. CPU interface rendering was picked, because at the time, most computer didn't have a GPU, they had a video card, a card that just output an image with little processing. It might have hardware accelerated codec to play some standard definition videos smoothly, but that is pretty much it. In addition, UWP introduces sandboxing and suspended state. Sandboxing add a layer of security on a program to not be able to get out (that is the idea), to make it MUCH more difficult for a malware of any kind to infect a system by exploiting it. Firefox and Chrome uses sandboxing as well to different extent to try and block many web exploits. Of course, nothing is full proof, but you have 1 thing to worry about and tackle.
   
• DRM stands for "Digital Right Management". A security feature of sorts, that aims to protect a software form being pirated. This has a huge number of forms. Example:
  • It can check online constantly that there is only 1 user with some product key and/or some embedded digital signature at the production of the game acting as an id. If 2 or more exists than it is pirated, and can block all instance from the game running (refuse the connection, and so the game refuses the game)
  • It can be like Windows activation system which simply checks for keys and system specs matches every few days making sure that the license of windows is installed once.
  • It can be more simple as encrypting the game or program to make it more difficult to decompile it, or code injection.
  • It can be far more low key, like a chip that only the game console maker has, and delivers in limited quantities to publishers to put on approved games so that the produced game can work with the console (NES).
  • It even less so, like a piece of plastic preventing a cartridge form a different region to slide in (Super Nintendo)
  • Or in the gaming space, some sort of system where the game asks you something like: "what is the 12th word in page 32 in the manual of the game?", the user checks and enter the right word and the game starts. The idea was that pirated copies don't have the manual (which is true).
  • Also anti-cheat systems goes inside DRM world.

So yea, DRM is very broad.

 

 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Pangea2017 said:

or make them a criminal when the cd copy protection prevent the cd from working. If you (just hypothetical) remove it you can acutly play the game you bought.

Pretty sure that's actually not illegal, though country by country that could differ. You're even allowed to make 1 copy of the CD/DVD for protection here.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Pangea2017 said:

Games are fun. Good DRM is not noticeable. Bad DRM is a problem and CD were a problem. Making an ISO file and mounting it was they way to solve it (keeping the original cd). At this time every game was on CD.

Mini disk images and daemon-tools/alcohol 120% for life 

[leadeater]

Just now, Pangea2017 said:

Privat copy are allowed. Breaking/working around copy protection is illegal. Germany since 2003.

Wow that sucks.