Remember the hooha about the Sony DRM software rootkit that got installed surreptitiously and was doing bad things?
Well it seems that now, StarForce is the bad guy, and in a much more troubling way. If you don’t know what StarForce is, or does, they basically provide copy-protection on gaming software. They are apparently quite good at this. But their latest reincarnation goes much further in the fight against piracy.
Their software used to prevent the game from being played without the disc. I think (although correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not a “pirate”) it might also stop the disc from being copied, or, prevents that copy from being used in lieu of the original.
Fast-forward to now. I will quote what cdfreaks.com posted:
This copy protection system installs a driver that runs at the highest level of access on the system, which gives it low level access to the PCs hardware and any drivers and processes. This driver runs regardless of whether the game runs; keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity such as attempting to copy a protected disc. If something suspicious is detected, it forces the PC to make an immediate reboot, regardless of any other applications running and whether or not the user has any unsaved work.
So now, buying a game with this software on it, potentially ruins your computer. Not only does their software run when you run the game, it runs when you don’t! That’s pretty low, even for copy-protection people.
I wonder if deleting/uninstalling the game also deletes/uninstalls the StarForce?
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