Hacking Why add anti-piracy measures to Devolution ?

[air2004]

Yeah, "legit purchasers" would normally just pop their retail disk in and play. (I know there's exceptions about broken drives and scratched disks but that subject has SOO been beaten to death in this thread that I'd rather generalize here.) This DOESN'T punish you by making you stand up and switch disks every time you want to change games like the retail disks do and it DOESN'T punish you by taking away your online multiplayer with PhantasyStar Online like the retail disk does.

This is a "backup loader" in a true sense of the term. You back it up and you play it. Usually backup loaders can double as warez players but this one, for the most part, can't.

But whats the point of this one ?
I understand what your saying , but really , whats the point ?
The games are old and u can only buy them second hand so dont give me no shit about the developer .

I'm starting to think he made it this way to prove to ninty that protection could be done ( he is looking for a job )

 

[Maxternal]

But whats the point of this one ?
I understand what your saying , but really , whats the point ?
The games are old and u can only buy them second hand so dont give me no shit about the developer .

I'm starting to think he made it this way to prove to ninty that protection could be done ( he is looking for a job )

Yeah, I see your point. As a professional programmer himself I'm sure, logical or not, he just can't bring himself to help pirate other programmer's work because he'd hate for it to happen to himself in the situations where it really matters (whether this applies as such or not).

No matter how old it is. I'm sure, technically, there's still the possibility of the games being re-released like some already have been for Wii or later on as VC ... some of them at least ...

Anyway, he's already clarified he is NOT looking for a job. He's good enough that he works freelance on his own and makes more money that way, gets to choose his own hours and rates, etc. Wouldn't want to be working under someone, getting paid less.
Along the same lines, he might also be doing this because he finds things like encryption algorithms fun and intriguing and to say "Haha, Ninty, I did what you couldn't "

 

[Elliander]

Yeah, "legit purchasers" would normally just pop their retail disk in and play. (I know there's exceptions about broken drives and scratched disks but that subject has SOO been beaten to death in this thread that I'd rather generalize here.)

I really don't understand that statement. What would be the point of a backup loader that required the disc to be inserted at all times to operate?

This is a "backup loader" in a true sense of the term. You back it up and you play it. Usually backup loaders can double as warez players but this one, for the most part, can't.

What exactly is the anti-piracy?

*Get a good copy and verify it with your disc. Very probably work since it only reads 8 bytes from the beginning of the disc.

*The AP measure is the dvv file not the clean image (unique info of Wii and HDD).
*Someone pointed to preserve the value of those discs the people have.

Oh, really? So if I have the original disc and the first 8 bytes can be read, it will just read those 8 bytes once and create a file for future reference and then just work? If that's the case I don't see any problems with it. Would that also work with my streaming audio games, or would I need to re-rip them?

Of course, what would stop people from making a repository of the game files for that verification? If it's just an 8 byte file in a folder couldn't someone get around the anti-piracy very easily? I mean, assuming that's the anti-piracy. I'm still not really clear on exactly what the DRM is supposed to be here.

He has been indulgent to leave it as is, If he wanted, could require the disc validate in each release (or worse, leave the disc inside like on the 360 XD)

Ya, it would bite if he required that. I generally avoid programs like that. Riivolution, for example, requires the disc inserted for anti-piracy so I just ended up avoiding it. Though with Gamecube games I can't get modified disc images to work in DIOS MIOS because they have the same folder name. I would imagine that Devolution would be no better at it.

How does it punish?, playing the audio streaming in games, improving the frames rate than originally, giving online support in PSO?

Streaming audio works in DIOS MIOS too (at least for me with the games I have), but I also fail to see how anyone is being punished.

 

[Elliander]

Anyway, he's already clarified he is NOT looking for a job. He's good enough that he works freelance on his own and makes more money that way, gets to choose his own hours and rates, etc. Wouldn't want to be working under someone, getting paid less. "

That makes quite a bit of sense. I know a guy in person who has been programming for so long he actually makes a descent 6 figure income. He went freelance for years because the money was just better, but eventually a company was able to offer him a big enough package to take a job working for them. Generally though if you are good enough you don't need to work for anyone else to live comfortably.

Of course, if he is a freelancer - and there are features someone wants - I suppose that person could just offer to PAY HIM to program what they want. That is how it works, right?

 

[Armadillo]

to say "Haha, Ninty, I did what you couldn't "

Has it not been cracked though?, just not released publicly. At least that is what I gather from here and elsewhere. Cracked but not released.

If that's the case, then it's not a case of doing what they couldn't, just a case of people willing to crack and release stuff from a corporation, but not from a homebrew dev.

 

[Maxternal]

I really don't understand that statement. What would be the point of a backup loader that required the disc to be inserted at all times to operate?
What exactly is the anti-piracy?

It DOESN'T need you to leave the disk in at all times. You just put the disk image on your drive and then you "install" that disk image for use with Devolution. To "install" it you just need to prove that you have a retail disk (The anti-piracy). Once installed it will stay installed an you can even throw away your retail disk (not recommended) and it will still let you play the installed game straight from the USB drive or SD card as many times as you like.

Of course, if he is a freelancer - and there are features someone wants - I suppose that person could just offer to PAY HIM to program what they want. That is how it works, right?

You'd just have to figure out his REAL NAME first

 

[tmv_josue]

Oh, really? So if I have the original disc and the first 8 bytes can be read, it will just read those 8 bytes once and create a file for future reference and then just work? If that's the case I don't see any problems with it. Would that also work with my streaming audio games, or would I need to re-rip them?

Of course, what would stop people from making a repository of the game files for that verification? If it's just an 8 byte file in a folder couldn't someone get around the anti-piracy very easily? I mean, assuming that's the anti-piracy. I'm still not really clear on exactly what the DRM is supposed to be here.

Well, not the first 8, but they are at the begining (mostly within the first ~1.5MB). At least if your game starts, then it will be verified, and no matter if they have audio streaming or not, should only be a clean image (aka 1:1, "1.4GB"), still a few games work shrunken...

As I said the AP are the encrypted dvv files (a 256 bytes file), they can not be shared because they are married to the Wii and the HDD where the verification was made...

If you have questions I suggest you read the thread:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/devolution-public-release.330554/

 

[Elliander]

As I said the AP are the encrypted dvv files (a 256 bytes file), they can not be shared because they are married to the Wii and the HDD where the verification was made...

I see. That makes more sense. So it probably takes the serial number of the hdd, and the serial number of the Wii, and does something like that.

hmm. I don't like that. I always maintain multiple hard drive backups of all files and hard drives can and do inevitably fail. Of course, I could probably change the serial number of a hard drive with a partition manager, but it's not certain that it would be enough. In the event of failure I would have to re-rip all the discs again and again. That in and of itself would probably motivate me to reverse engineer it myself (if I didn't already have DIOS MIOS working) so I think I am starting to see where the fuss is coming from. I wouldn't mind having to create a fresh rip once, but this inability to properly produce backups is pretty messed up in my opinion. I doubt I will ever use Devolution and just keep my discs safe in storage where they belong. (I keep all the manuals out though so if anyone doubts I actually own games I could easily take a picture of a pile of game manuals.)

On the bright side at least, even without file compression, a 1:1 copy isn't as bad these with hard drive capacities so maybe if it was ever changed to just marry it to the console itself and not ALSO the hdd I might take another look at it.

 

[bobmcjr]

In the event of failure I would have to re-rip all the discs again and again. That in and of itself would probably motivate me to reverse engineer it myself (if I didn't already have DIOS MIOS working)

The discs themselves don't have to be ripped again, just the key. Still a pain though. But if this was reverse engineered, open sourced, and non DRMed I would gladly donate some money to the project (of course, 4K hard drive support would be a must, and NTFS support would be preferable).

 

[WiiUBricker]

I see only talk talk talk. The same things repeated over and over in this thread.

 

[tmv_josue]

My only regret with Devo is that it is closed source but I understand and accept because if it were OS the first thing that would happen is that people would take out the AP to load their "backups" and that is what the author does not want.
This for example:

...open sourced, and non DRMed...

 

[WiiUBricker]

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite (perhaps I am?), my regret with Devo is that the author is not enough praised for coding such piece of awesomeness.

 

[tmv_josue]

Unfortunately the people are blinded by the AP and that prevents them from seeing how great is this piece of software, a pity.

 

[the_randomizer]

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite (perhaps I am?), my regret with Devo is that the author is not enough praised for coding such piece of awesomeness.

People do praise him for what he did, to be able to run Gamecube games without actually leaving Wii mode is impressive in and of itself, people (myself included) are blinded and don't look past the AP measures. I don't deny it, I won't even try to, but I admit I never gave myself the chance to use it, and woefully so. Streaming audio is very appealing, and thus far is the only backup loader that has it.

 

[WiiUBricker]

I just ordered a copy of F-Zero GX from ebay. I facepalmed myself for selling my original copy

 

[Elliander]

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite (perhaps I am?), my regret with Devo is that the author is not enough praised for coding such piece of awesomeness.

Unfortunately the people are blinded by the AP and that prevents them from seeing how great is this piece of software, a pity.

To be fair, this program isn't really all that novel. It isn't the only program that can play GC games, and although it is the only program that can run on the Wii-U it can't really play games on the Wii-U because it still can't load any kind of controllers. (the thread about it only says it's a planned feature which means he hasn't figured it out yet.)

That's not to say I think this is a "bad program", but I just don't really think it deserves that level of praise. Still, he must be good if he is good at source code obfuscation. My programs get reverse engineered way too easily.

My only regret with Devo is that it is closed source but I understand and accept because if it were OS the first thing that would happen is that people would take out the AP to load their "backups" and that is what the author does not want.

The main problem with closed source is that, with only one person working on it, there won't be anyone working to improve it in ways that the original programmer did not intend. Improving doesn't have to mean supporting piracy.

The discs themselves don't have to be ripped again, just the key.

I really have to wonder about that. Wouldn't he need to have access to every game ever made to have made a check like that? I mean, if it just creates a key based on the inserted disc it would have no way of knowing if the disc is original or not.

 

[WiiUBricker]

The main problem with closed source is that, with only one person working on it, there won't be anyone working to improve it in ways that the original programmer did not intend. Improving doesn't have to mean supporting piracy.

That's easy to say. Originally crediar planned to release DM as closed source app, but he faced issues and decided to open source it to get help. To what avail? He still is the only one who codes on DM. At least I'm not aware of any DM mods. Devolution is (just an assumption) more complex than DM, so there is a good chance that the source would be useless to people. At least I don't think an open source Devolution would result in Devolution mods other than no-AV mods. It's a shame that people like the fail0verflow guys have no interest in working on a "legal" game loader.

 

[kupo3000]

To be fair, this program isn't really all that novel. It isn't the only program that can play GC games, and although it is the only program that can run on the Wii-U it can't really play games on the Wii-U because it still can't load any kind of controllers. (the thread about it only says it's a planned feature which means he hasn't figured it out yet.)

More like tueidj is still figuring out on how to apply his AP activation process on non-GC Wii's and Wii U since they both spit GC discs right out.

 

[Elliander]

That's easy to say. Originally crediar planned to release DM as closed source app, but he faced issues and decided to open source it to get help. To what avail? He still is the only one who codes on DM. At least I'm not aware of any DM mods. Devolution is (just an assumption) more complex than DM, so there is a good chance that the source would be useless to people. At least I don't think an open source Devolution would result in DM mods other than no-AV mods. It's a shame that people like the fail0verflow guys have no interest in working on a "legal" game loader.

That is of course a really good point, but open source doesn't just mean additions. It also means working with other programs. DIOS MIOS works with USB Loader GX and with virtual memory cards. If his program was closed source it would likely be too difficult to properly integrate into other loaders. I would be really surprised if Devolution ever found it's way integrated into a USB Loader. It would have to use it's own loader. He could create his own support for other programs that are open source, but not the other way around.

More like tueidj is still figuring out on how to apply his AP activation process on non-GC Wii's and Wii U since they both spit GC discs right out.

Really? hmm. Then why does it say here that it's on the list of future improvement? Or did he exclude it entirely until it's working with everything? If he did manage to get it to work on even older consoles that in and of itself deserves quite a bit more praise.

 

[bobmcjr]

That's easy to say. Originally crediar planned to release DM as closed source app, but he faced issues and decided to open source it to get help. To what avail? He still is the only one who codes on DM. At least I'm not aware of any DM mods. Devolution is (just an assumption) more complex than DM, so there is a good chance that the source would be useless to people. At least I don't think an open source Devolution would result in DM mods other than no-AV mods. It's a shame that people like the fail0verflow guys have no interest in working on a "legal" game loader.

Currently I'm trying to recompile it with wiiflow's usbloader.c and related files as wiiflow's usbloader.c supports 4K hard drives. I'm worried that if I do get it compiled, the new usbloader code might reach outside the 96K ram limit. If the source to devolution was released, features like video mode patching could be added. For whatever reason tueidj doesn't seem to want to add that.

I really have to wonder about that. Wouldn't he need to have access to every game ever made to have made a check like that? I mean, if it just creates a key based on the inserted disc it would have no way of knowing if the disc is original or not.

The ripping process is separate from the key creating process. Cleanrip is used for copying the disk (tueidj even helped fix some bugs with it), and then devolution compares the disc image to the disk just enough to create the key.