What would have happened if N3V did not use DRM at all ?

martinvk said:

@ Falcus . The key gen sounds a lot like RSA SercurID. A number is generated every minute that in combination with a user supplied code has to match what an authentication server has. Used all the time in business. Perhaps a bit overkill for a game but the idea would work. Every minute might be a bit much too, a new number once a day should be enough

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I was thinking the same. I couldn't remember the name of the hardware though... it's been about a decade since I dealt with it. This would be a bit of an overkill at this frequency, but perhaps a daily code that only works for those that are logged in or can login.

This won't stop the theft of the program its self though, just content. There are other ways as well including a 4-part login requirement to even start the program which would include the COD plus the actual serial number, user ID, plus a known secret word. The problem is now we're going beyond protecting a game and getting more like logging into a banking website. It's still DRM though in another form... Essentially there is no way to get around piracy without some form of program use authentication, which has been what we've been saying all along...

John

JCitron said:

I was thinking the same. I couldn't remember the name of the hardware though... it's been about a decade since I dealt with it. This would be a bit of an overkill at this frequency, but perhaps a daily code that only works for those that are logged in or can login.

This won't stop the theft of the program its self though, just content. There are other ways as well including a 4-part login requirement to even start the program which would include the COD plus the actual serial number, user ID, plus a known secret word. The problem is now we're going beyond protecting a game and getting more like logging into a banking website. It's still DRM though in another form... Essentially there is no way to get around piracy without some form of program use authentication, which has been what we've been saying all along...

John

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Except for the fact that it doesn't take much to patch gamefiles to omit authentication all together and trick the DRM software to believe everything is authenticated.
It's been done many times for countless amounts of software. Do whatever you want to try to combat it, but it's near-impossible to conquer.

Network based authentication is unfair practice for those who buy boxed copies and do not have internet access.
Same goes with DLC, One may have internet that day but have it terminated the next day due to the inability to keep funding it.
And believe me, some people are dumb enough to make trains (generally speaking, NOT just trainz) their first priority over bills. I have a neighbor that does it, and that is why he can't get anywhere in life. He resides in his parents' house.

RSA - Secure ID had 6 years of that thank you very much............... does work well though.

RRSignal said:

I doubt N3V's system was either quick or easy for either them or us, particularly judging by the number of outages.



I'll happily provide proof:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...lp&p=1369199&highlight=registered#post1369199

I'm basing this on the fact that this and other users had nothing registered. They could have gotten their hands on "legit" keys, or could have used a program called a "keygen" that generates random keys that are supposed to work with a given algorithm. Fortunately, keygens often (if not usually) don't work, and known-pirated serials can easily be revoked via a revocation list.

John's idea is an additional layer on what would already be a pretty tough system.

I'm not sure what torrents have to do with anything: As far as torrents go, you realistically can't torrent the DLS due to its size.

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@ The first bit, about N3V vs Blizzard's outages.
You've never played a Blizzard MMO obviously. Their Battlenet in its infancy spent more time offline then on.... In more modern times, for their bigger platforms, they take all servers from a given game, offline for somewhere between 1-3 hours weekly for maintenance, with longer periods generally monthly for hotfixes and like, and up to 12+ Hours for new game patches and such.... And you think a 1-2 hour outage less then a dozen times a year is inconvenient?

As for the second bit....
So you're honestly telling me, that you're basing your profiling of all hackers that have in their hands illegal copies of TS12 off one newbie that may or may not have been telling porkies? I feel like I learned more trolling Torrent Sites and seeing what was available then off of anything posted in this thread so far.....

@Torrent as second DLS.
Who says you have to download the entire DLS? We all agree theres somewhere between 10-30% of it thats almost wasted space anyway. After that, you simply break the content up by author or category, or even just recommended Assets. This isn't hard stuff. You could even accomplish the same just picking random assets in 500MB blocks. Though I would point out, size doesn't really matter for Torrents. Torrents can be any size (I've seen 250+GB Torrents before, usually large bundles of god only knows whatever they wanted to throw in the mix), limiting the size has more to do with who the poster is trying to share with then anything else.....

@Jcitron & Neonthegriffon
I hear your points and agree with them. I would never suggest the method blizzard used for the reasons I outlined in my original post. I can't really see that working for N3V. As I stated before, I think from what I've seen so far, N3V's system actually makes some amount of sense, and I'm willing to give it a go. If N3V dies, or we reach End of Life for TANE, hopefully Tony will remember to Patch the Validation out before they go. If not, well, at that point it'll be "Thanks for the fish".

-Falcus

RRSignal said:

Proof, please? N3V had a pretty good system.

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My proof comes from Tony in another thread saying that more people had hacked copies of Trainz out there than those who bought them. That to me says the current system wasn't working very well at all. I really don't see how you can call that a pretty good system.

John, Im reading your idea and responding comments with interest. Question, would that idea require the computer to be online in order to verify the identity or is there another way.

Cheers.

Falcus said:

@Torrent as second DLS.
Who says you have to download the entire DLS? We all agree theres somewhere between 10-30% of it thats almost wasted space anyway. After that, you simply break the content up by author or category, or even just recommended Assets. This isn't hard stuff. You could even accomplish the same just picking random assets in 500MB blocks. Though I would point out, size doesn't really matter for Torrents. Torrents can be any size (I've seen 250+GB Torrents before, usually large bundles of god only knows whatever they wanted to throw in the mix), limiting the size has more to do with who the poster is trying to share with then anything else.....

@Jcitron & Neonthegriffon
I hear your points and agree with them. I would never suggest the method blizzard used for the reasons I outlined in my original post. I can't really see that working for N3V. As I stated before, I think from what I've seen so far, N3V's system actually makes some amount of sense, and I'm willing to give it a go. If N3V dies, or we reach End of Life for TANE, hopefully Tony will remember to Patch the Validation out before they go. If not, well, at that point it'll be "Thanks for the fish".

-Falcus

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Torrent...

The Russians had done this with the DLS a couple of years ago, thus the reason why the FTP downloads are now only allowed through a browser and not via an FTP client. Up until this point you could login to the FTP server via your username and password via an FTP manager. At your disposal was every KUID ready for download. Some Russian user got a hold of this and nicely downloaded it to a server somewhere. After that a more secure method was introduced, but up to that point, probably for 10 years it hadn't been the issue that it had become.

The RSA Secure ID system is too costly and complex, I agree and too much for most users. I agree the system we're using now is the least intrusive even with an occasional offline episode. Even Microsoft brings down the Azure Cloud servers on their clients. The thing to keep in mind is N3V did not sign an SLA with its users (Service Level Agreement), or provide GSLU (Guarantee of Service Level Uptime). They provide the service as is, just like the rest of their software. They go through a lot of work to ensure it is up and running, but don't guarantee it will always be running. I maybe mistaken and can be proven wrong here, but I've never seen one.

In the event of the alternative...

Sure that would be the kindness from Tony and the crew to do this, but in the event this should occur, I'm sure we would see this coming, and perhaps someone would offer to take over the DLS and login servers for future use, or until the services can be modified or turned off. In the even this can't happen, Trainz will be like most other software packages that eventually reach their end of life. It happens...

John

Falcus said:

@ The first bit, about N3V vs Blizzard's outages.
You've never played a Blizzard MMO obviously. Their Battlenet in its infancy spent more time offline then on.... In more modern times, for their bigger platforms, they take all servers from a given game, offline for somewhere between 1-3 hours weekly for maintenance, with longer periods generally monthly for hotfixes and like, and up to 12+ Hours for new game patches and such.... And you think a 1-2 hour outage less then a dozen times a year is inconvenient?

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That seems to be all the more reason not to be dependent on outside sources such as N3V's DRM server, though.

As for the second bit....
So you're honestly telling me, that you're basing your profiling of all hackers that have in their hands illegal copies of TS12 off one newbie that may or may not have been telling porkies? I feel like I learned more trolling Torrent Sites and seeing what was available then off of anything posted in this thread so far.....

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It's not the first time I've read that about unregistered users accessing the DLS, though. In any case, it's about as trustworthy as any of the data coming from N3V.

@Torrent as second DLS.
Who says you have to download the entire DLS? We all agree theres somewhere between 10-30% of it thats almost wasted space anyway. After that, you simply break the content up by author or category, or even just recommended Assets. This isn't hard stuff. You could even accomplish the same just picking random assets in 500MB blocks. Though I would point out, size doesn't really matter for Torrents. Torrents can be any size (I've seen 250+GB Torrents before, usually large bundles of god only knows whatever they wanted to throw in the mix), limiting the size has more to do with who the poster is trying to share with then anything else.....

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Ummmmmm...nooooooo...are you sure you're not talking about something else? "Torrents" generally refers to material shared via P2P network using a source file ("tracker") to locate the peers the content is on. In any case, do you really think pirates comb through the DLS (or anything else) looking for the primo stuff? Large torrents tend to be, as you said, "usually large bundles of god only knows whatever they wanted to throw in the mix".

Yes, you'd have to download pretty much the entire DLS, or close to it. To do otherwise would risk leaving users with missing dependencies. Break it up if you want, call some of it crap content or "wasted space", but you'll still have to have all those CDPs. Considering that a gig can take hours if not days to download - even with a decent swarm - a terabyte isn't very realistic. It's worth noting that NAS manufacturers like QNAP and Synology have BT clients on their media servers so that you can offload this time-consuming task onto a (usually) always-on server. They're not doing that because BT is so fast and efficient.

This is pretty much a moot point anyway - nobody is currently or has in the last several years been sharing the DLS on any torrent or via any NZB search I can find.

JCitron said:

Torrent...

The Russians had done this with the DLS a couple of years ago, thus the reason why the FTP downloads are now only allowed through a browser and not via an FTP client. Up until this point you could login to the FTP server via your username and password via an FTP manager. At your disposal was every KUID ready for download. Some Russian user got a hold of this and nicely downloaded it to a server somewhere. After that a more secure method was introduced, but up to that point, probably for 10 years it hadn't been the issue that it had become.

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I vaguely remember seeing something about that several years back. But the source file was only about 90Gb.

Sure that would be the kindness from Tony and the crew to do this, but in the event this should occur, I'm sure we would see this coming, and perhaps someone would offer to take over the DLS and login servers for future use, or until the services can be modified or turned off. In the even this can't happen, Trainz will be like most other software packages that eventually reach their end of life. It happens...

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As far as a deactivation patch goes, I've heard such promises before, but have yet to see anyone try it. There are a lot of potentially huge legal issues that come with that. I'd be interested to know if any software company HAS actually done this.

iannz said:

My proof comes from Tony in another thread saying that more people had hacked copies of Trainz out there than those who bought them. That to me says the current system wasn't working very well at all. I really don't see how you can call that a pretty good system.

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That T:ANE is already up on BT and USENET says that's no better. I don't see how you can call that a good system.

Getting back to the flamethrower analogy, billion-dollar companies using flamethrowers to combat piracy have failed. So much for that.

combined posts

There seems to be an assumption on the part of some that not having one or more versions of the game showing in the map in the banner of a post is proof that the user does not have a registered version. However, all this really means is that the particular email address through which a post is made is not associated with a registered version of the game. The two things are not the same. All of my versions of Trainz are associated with the same email address; if I posted from another email address, the banner associated with that email address would show that I don't own a version, while in fact, I own several.

ns

RRSignal said:

That T:ANE is already up on BT and USENET says that's no better. I don't see how you can call that a good system.

Getting back to the flamethrower analogy, billion-dollar companies using flamethrowers to combat piracy have failed. So much for that.

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Ok, so out of that, I think we can agree that the fly swatter doesn't work and neither does the flamethrower from what you are saying. It will be interesting to know over time how much better the flamethrower is from the flyswatter - if there is any difference at all.

So whats the answer? Im guessing from your comments, if billion-dollar companies cant come up with a solution, there is little chance of N3V coming up with one, fair enough, but they are obligated to try to save their software are they not. I don't think anyone is of the conclusion that because big companies are incapable of stopping the pirating of their products, then N3V shouldn't even bother trying.

Ahh, the good ol Intellectual Property trap. a.k.a. I.P.

What would happen?

Other companies would make competing products easier. (well they already did)

While other companies were doing drm, and stealing trainz stuff(cause its not drm) the trainz franchise would have evolved so much (along with the community, (thats you)... that other companies couldn't out run them from sheer capital availability. (hire enough programmers, and you can do it.) (like they are now doing)



DRM, ends up locking material up so tight that it cannot be innovated upon by the community.

Trainz has such a large contributing community, a.k.a. the wheat. Well, the scythe is drm, guaranteed.

I.P. slows down everything to a crawl, innovation, invention, re-design, re-pair, up-grade.

This creates massive waste, and massive consumption due to little recycling, on all scales and fronts in the human en-devour. Even software, our hard drives are filled with non-recycled, drm, i.p. encrypted, toxic waste. It can't be re-used, you have no idea how it works cause its "locked"... etc..

I.P. makes the human species get closer to extinction, because you did not innovate fast enough to keep ahead of the universe.

:mop:Mop the humans up. They done. Make way for the dolphins.


So, sell some drm, but give lots away for free too, (don't forget to keep the package open, editable and open source under M.I.T. license.)

The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[SUP][1][/SUP] As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has therefore an excellent license compatibility.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP] The MIT license permits reuse within proprietary software provided that all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms and the copyright notice. The MIT license is also compatible with many copyleft licenses, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL); MIT licensed software can be integrated into GPL software, but not the other way around.[SUP][4][/SUP]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License





In my opinion,
the sheer amount of freely modifiable material on the download station,
is why almost everyone is here.
WHERE did that material come from?
WHO MADE IT?

TINE said:

I.P. makes the human species get closer to extinction, because you did not innovate fast enough to keep ahead of the universe.

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Somehow I don't think DRM in Trainz will be the cause of an extinction-level event. :hehe: