PC gamers should be familiar with the word Denuvo, the latest anti-piracy tech created in 2014 in order to prevent pirates from cracking PC games on release. For a while, it seemed that hacking teams were defeated, unable to crack the software which had gained notoriety for supposedly causing high levels of CPU and hard drive usage, making games run worse than normal. Then came along Voksi, one of the first to reliably understand how Denuvo worked and be able to remove the software from pirated copies of games. He made a name for himself by cracking high profile games very shortly after launch, and gained popularity in the cracking scene. However, that streak appears to have ended today.

On July 25, Voksi went radio silent on all communication, and then had the website to his hacking group, REVOLT, removed by the Bulgarian government. Later that day, Voksi reappeared and claimed that police had raided his home, arresting him and taking away both his computers.

It finally happened, I can't say it wasn't expected, Denuvo filed a case against me to the bulgarian authorities. Police came yesterday and took the server pc and my personal PC. I had to go to the police afterwards and explain myself. Later that day I contacted Denuvo themselves and offered them a peacful resolution to this problem. They can't say anything for sure yet, but they said the final word is by the prosecutor of my case.

Sadly, I won't be able to do what I did anymore. I did what I did for you guys and of course because bloated software in our games shouldn't be allowed at all. Maybe someone else can continue my fight.

Denuvo's parent company, Irdeto, filed a suit with Bulgarian government, on the charges of "cybercrimes", and now, it appears Voksi will no longer be removing Denuvo from new game releases.

 

[grossaffe]

Was the cracker's name actually "Voksi" or was that his alias?

The preferred term is "honky".

 

[hippy dave]

The preferred term is "honky".

Actually we prefer to be referred to as "melanin-challenged".

 

[lampdemon]

No. Based on my analogy, whining about the banks cyber security that you're trying to hack, is the same as whining about DRM. At the end of the day they are there for a perceived necessity. You view it as nuisance and they view it as protection of an investment.

It's not the same because Denuvo has affected legit customers from using the product that they purchased. When has a bank stopped you from accessing your money barring something illegal?

 

[brickmii82]

It's not the same because Denuvo has affected legit customers from using the product that they purchased. When has a bank stopped you from accessing your money barring something illegal?

Those are secondary issues irrelevant to my point. If you haven't understood what I'm getting at, you just won't and I don't particularly care enough to try any more. On top of that, did you just say banks never get in the way of you getting your own money?

 

[kumikochan]

Isn't his name voksi ?

 

[Song of storms]

It's not the same because Denuvo has affected legit customers from using the product that they purchased. When has a bank stopped you from accessing your money barring something illegal?

I can't withdraw more than a certain amount of money for security reasons. If it weren't for those people, I would be able to withdraw as much as I want.

 

[Noctosphere]

I doubt he will go in jail
Good hacker like him usually get jobs

 

[Subtle Demise]

You think this person is the only one cracking Denuvo? Hah. People will continue to crack it.

If anything, this will just cause more groups to double down on Denuvo games out of spite.

 

[fate6]

1) Voksi
2) He is P2P not Scene.

 

[Hells Malice]

This thread has the level of intelligence i'd basically expect from something like this.

He did something illegal, he got caught, he got punished. It's not hard to understand why or how. There is no "They shouldn't have...", they absolutely should have. He was illegally compromising their product, what about that isn't worthy of action?
The idea that they could hire him is a bit laughable tbh. If he was actually doing this in the name of "justice", I doubt he'd want to. If he did it just goes to show how weak his convictions are.

Lastly, basically all tests point to Denuvo being a complete non-factor in how it affects game performance. When properly implemented like it is in basically every game, it affects performance to such an absolutely minimal degree I doubt you'd notice it even on a rig from 1998.
Certain games have had issues, but they're the minority and tweaked denuvo to go absolutely nuts and work way harder than it was ever intended to work.

Denuvo is fine. It's just another one of those things people bitch about because they're mostly misinformed, or just need something, anything to bitch about.

 

[lampdemon]

Those are secondary issues irrelevant to my point. If you haven't understood what I'm getting at, you just won't and I don't particularly care enough to try any more. On top of that, did you just say banks never get in the way of you getting your own money?

Vaults and DRM are completely different, what is your point again?

I can't withdraw more than a certain amount of money for security reasons. If it weren't for those people, I would be able to withdraw as much as I want.

ATMs have a limit, just go to another branch or take your money to another bank.

 

[brickmii82]

Vaults and DRM are completely different, what is your point again?



ATMs have a limit, just go to another branch or take your money to another bank.

1. The purposes of both are the same, Security. If you fail (or are pretending not to) to see this you're either trolling or extremely biased for whatever reason, and again, I'm done playing philosophical semantics with you.

2. Every bank or credit union has policies which make getting money out of the ATM or even using your debit card more situationally difficult. This is off topic relating to the thread, and again, for the last time, I'm done. Have a nice day/evening.

 

[BlastedGuy9905]

This sounds pathetic. They build a shitty DRM, it couldn't hold up. They arrest the person who cracked it. I don't know but Denuvo doesn't sounds like a really good DRM now.

 

[lampdemon]

1. The purposes of both are the same, Security. If you fail (or are pretending not to) to see this you're either trolling or extremely biased for whatever reason, and again, I'm done playing philosophical semantics with you.

2. Every bank or credit union has policies which make getting money out of the ATM or even using your debit card more situationally difficult. This is off topic relating to the thread, and again, for the last time, I'm done. Have a nice day/evening.

1. Yes, they are different types of security that do different things, drm is delayed until cracked, the other one doesn't get bypassed often.

2. I don't see anywhere that says there's a limit from withdrawing from branches, but you will get a report to the IRS from withdrawing more than $10k

Have a nice day.

 

[Subtle Demise]

To be honest, he put the whole group at risk, by not only having a publicly accessible website and forum, accepting donations on that website, and being too open and making himself a target.

 

[Captain_N]

a real hacker does not need to be recognized. they are fully anonymous. The ones that get raided are the ones that need their e-boner to be stroked. All that was needed was to spill the information on the web from a public connection that uploads from a phone while waking by a open connection. No one would know who it was then.

 

[MarkDarkness]

This thread has the level of intelligence i'd basically expect from something like this.

He did something illegal, he got caught, he got punished. It's not hard to understand why or how. There is no "They shouldn't have...", they absolutely should have. He was illegally compromising their product, what about that isn't worthy of action?
The idea that they could hire him is a bit laughable tbh. If he was actually doing this in the name of "justice", I doubt he'd want to. If he did it just goes to show how weak his convictions are.

Lastly, basically all tests point to Denuvo being a complete non-factor in how it affects game performance. When properly implemented like it is in basically every game, it affects performance to such an absolutely minimal degree I doubt you'd notice it even on a rig from 1998.
Certain games have had issues, but they're the minority and tweaked denuvo to go absolutely nuts and work way harder than it was ever intended to work.

Denuvo is fine. It's just another one of those things people bitch about because they're mostly misinformed, or just need something, anything to bitch about.

You approach this from a US-centric point of view. Maybe you are not US, but you still use their framework as your reference.

The idea that simple circumvention of a piece of software for personal use of multimedia is illegal, without aimimg profit, underpins a much broader debate about what intellectual property is and what it is supposed to do.

It is by no means a consensus that this is illegal or that you can allienate this right from a citizen. The US has the biggest and best funded lobby in the world to push forward and harmonize the idea that IP is supposed to protect every single unit of a piece of content, vs. allowing for frutiful gain from producing a work of art. That does not make them the only valid actor in this.

So when you make a blanket statement about how it is stupid to hold an opinion against Denuvo, it betrays your lack of undestanding of this as a global discussion and not something that is harmonized and solved.

 

[jt_1258]

he probably wouldn’t have had to gone through this if he had a decent vpn....

or distributed via torrent

 

[the_randomizer]

Pirates whining about DRM is like bank robbers whining about vaults.

Legit users complain about denuvo bullshit too, look at the reviews on many games on Steam. Sonic Mania uses this DRM, Star Ocean 3 uses this DRM, Tales of Symphonia uses this DRM? How the hell are pirates the only ones complaining about this? Surely, you're not a DRM warrior? Sad.

I'm more saddened by the sheer complacency and acceptance of DRM more than being concerned on how DRM affects legit customers. Oh and SecuROM and Starforce? Yeah, I cracked the DRM on a game after I installed it a few years ago, come at me. It's seems almost like the whole "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" level of acceptance. For all we know, DRM warriors will be okay when DRM gets so restrictive that you can't play the game if you don't have internet. That's my take anyway. Good for Denuvo being cracked

If you're gonna do this, don't be an idiot and make things public, do it anonymously.

 

[brunocar]

this comes a week after voksi proved that denuvo was making sonic mania plus run worse :/

 

[kuwanger]

Fight for everlasting peace!

I must have missed that episode of Mega Man Battle Network. Seriously, though, it would have been so much more awesome fighting in cyberspace against the evil corporations and their DRM than the nonsensical stuff that was the MMBN series.

But I don't want to support their DRM stupidity so I'm not sure what the best method is to convey my contempt for their methods.

Pirate their games? I'm not actually condoning this, but if the whole point is "we include DRM so you can't pirate it" then paying them only encourages the notion that the DRM works. Actually pirating the DRM game does the precise opposite. The only real major recourse would be to start [yet another] "boycott DRM" list and try to get as many people to sign up. The reality of that, of course, is that except for short-lived PR, basically that's entirely ignored by most everyone because it means having to actually give up playing games you want to.

I can't withdraw more than a certain amount of money for security reasons. If it weren't for those people, I would be able to withdraw as much as I want.

Honestly, that's not really security reasons. That's done for various reasons: to make bank runs harder, to allow banks to hold a lot less cash on hand to fulfill banking requirements without it being obvious most the money is out on loan, to facilitate macroeconomic controls by government to manipulate the money supply, and to allow the government to better track income for tax purposes. Banks must already report large bank transfers for "money laundering" reasons to the government so the actual money transfers shouldn't be per se a security issue.

Back to DRM, even something innocuous as Steam can be a royal pain. Running Windows games on WINE can often require a very specific setup to get working and changes may break other games. So, the best approach is to just "bottle" a WINE folder for just that game. That doesn't work well with Steam though and its need to be pervasively running for most games. Worse it might see each "bottle" as a new system and Steam only allows n many systems active at a time. Obviously, this is a very specific issue with WINE in this instance, but don't people have the same issue with games in Steam on Windows requiring specific hardware/Windows versions to work? *sigh*