Historical essay on the protection of information
For quite a long time I had the idea to tell about the history of software protection, namely, games.
The idea was born in connection with the desire to get to Habr a couple of years ago. With the advent of RO - accounts, the idea arose again and only now I decided to share this article.
About copying someone else's intellectual property has long been known: artists copied the paintings of great masters, cooks looked for recipes for other people's dishes, and singers rewrote other people's songs. In this regard, there is a need for information security.
Vinyl plates and videotapes were quite easily rewritable. With the development of technology and the advent of the digital era, the ability to save content has increased, which in turn has affected the quality of the product.
With the advent of floppy disks, software protection methods appeared, such as FMT256, FMT81TRK, and others. They did not receive sufficient distribution, computer technologies were not yet massive and did not require serious and large-scale measures to protect them.
')
After the appearance of CDs, the problem began to emerge more clearly. An increasing number of people were introduced to high technology and the copying of music began to be seriously disturbed by many record companies.
In 2002, in order to avoid copying the immortal hits of many musicians, companies came up with an interesting move: there were intentional errors in the music records produced on the discs, which caused the disc to be read on consumer devices and not played on the computer.
Such discs did not play on many drives and did not have the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo.
Subsequently, such a scheme was refused, but attempts to invent something new are still going on, starting with a deliberate reduction in sound quality on a reproducing device, ending with monstrous programs supplied with an audio CD. For example, Sony created a program that was installed on the user's computer and was in essence a rootkit.
And what happened in the software market? One time nothing. The games were sold without protection, but this did not last long, because With the development of the Internet and the capabilities of ordinary people, manufacturers have introduced measures to protect information.
Initially, it was local information protection, i.e. required to enter the serial number to use the game or program. Now it is no longer relevant and is used only in conjunction with other methods, or on products that are not in demand.
But this method did not justify itself. What came up with? That's right, come up with the fear and horror of many players.
Copy protection systems are protection drivers that, when installed in the system, prevent copying. It sounds good, but the performance is pumped up.
There are many such systems: SecuROM, SafeDisc, CD-RX Tages, etc. StarForce can be considered the most outstanding for many players.
This terrible software killer, being installed in your system, could create anything from system crash to drive failure. But some time has passed and these errors have been fixed - StarForce has become less common in protecting games, and in recent versions it has become a bit less terrible. But such protections were often treated with a simple drive emulation.
The refusal of such protection systems was due to the emergence and widespread use of broadband Internet access. Failure is certainly not ubiquitous, games with similar protection measures are still to be found.
There was a verification of the keys when connecting to the Internet, an increase in the number of games with the ability to play over the network, where the authentication took place (battle.net, etc.).
For many players, this was a good incentive to buy a licensed product. But piracy was unstoppable - pirated servers appeared, or the players were content with trimming games without the network part. The games were hacked despite all the options for protecting the disks, and then the smart guys from Ubisoft decided on an interesting step. They did not do copy protection, they did so that the game could not start without connecting to their server. That is, throughout the game, the player had to be connected to the Internet.
The game that created this precedent was Assassin's Creed II. On the day of the start of sales, the Ubisoft server was broken, the gaming community was indignant, and even after solving this problem, the stability of the game did not improve. Although it is necessary to pay tribute to this approach, the playable version on the Internet did not appear soon.
But this protection system was not justified, and soon it was abandoned.
It seems to me now that many developers and publishers of games are beginning to understand that it’s not necessary to chase after huge locks that hide their product. You need to be chased for the quality and quantity of those advantages and bonuses that a person who buys a game gets, and not downloaded it. This can be anything from the in-game social network to the table of achievements. This should be timely support for the game and the ability to run any game in demo mode.
I think money will be paid for a quality product, and then our leisure and work will not be overshadowed by many unnecessary things.
That ended a small excursion into the history of protection. I would like to highlight each method separately, but it already draws on a series of articles, perhaps in the future I will master this too.
For assistance in writing this article, I thank Wikipedia.
The idea was born in connection with the desire to get to Habr a couple of years ago. With the advent of RO - accounts, the idea arose again and only now I decided to share this article.
About copying someone else's intellectual property has long been known: artists copied the paintings of great masters, cooks looked for recipes for other people's dishes, and singers rewrote other people's songs. In this regard, there is a need for information security.
Vinyl plates and videotapes were quite easily rewritable. With the development of technology and the advent of the digital era, the ability to save content has increased, which in turn has affected the quality of the product.
With the advent of floppy disks, software protection methods appeared, such as FMT256, FMT81TRK, and others. They did not receive sufficient distribution, computer technologies were not yet massive and did not require serious and large-scale measures to protect them.
')
After the appearance of CDs, the problem began to emerge more clearly. An increasing number of people were introduced to high technology and the copying of music began to be seriously disturbed by many record companies.
In 2002, in order to avoid copying the immortal hits of many musicians, companies came up with an interesting move: there were intentional errors in the music records produced on the discs, which caused the disc to be read on consumer devices and not played on the computer.
Such discs did not play on many drives and did not have the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo.
Subsequently, such a scheme was refused, but attempts to invent something new are still going on, starting with a deliberate reduction in sound quality on a reproducing device, ending with monstrous programs supplied with an audio CD. For example, Sony created a program that was installed on the user's computer and was in essence a rootkit.
And what happened in the software market? One time nothing. The games were sold without protection, but this did not last long, because With the development of the Internet and the capabilities of ordinary people, manufacturers have introduced measures to protect information.
Initially, it was local information protection, i.e. required to enter the serial number to use the game or program. Now it is no longer relevant and is used only in conjunction with other methods, or on products that are not in demand.
But this method did not justify itself. What came up with? That's right, come up with the fear and horror of many players.
Copy protection systems are protection drivers that, when installed in the system, prevent copying. It sounds good, but the performance is pumped up.
There are many such systems: SecuROM, SafeDisc, CD-RX Tages, etc. StarForce can be considered the most outstanding for many players.
This terrible software killer, being installed in your system, could create anything from system crash to drive failure. But some time has passed and these errors have been fixed - StarForce has become less common in protecting games, and in recent versions it has become a bit less terrible. But such protections were often treated with a simple drive emulation.
The refusal of such protection systems was due to the emergence and widespread use of broadband Internet access. Failure is certainly not ubiquitous, games with similar protection measures are still to be found.
There was a verification of the keys when connecting to the Internet, an increase in the number of games with the ability to play over the network, where the authentication took place (battle.net, etc.).
For many players, this was a good incentive to buy a licensed product. But piracy was unstoppable - pirated servers appeared, or the players were content with trimming games without the network part. The games were hacked despite all the options for protecting the disks, and then the smart guys from Ubisoft decided on an interesting step. They did not do copy protection, they did so that the game could not start without connecting to their server. That is, throughout the game, the player had to be connected to the Internet.
The game that created this precedent was Assassin's Creed II. On the day of the start of sales, the Ubisoft server was broken, the gaming community was indignant, and even after solving this problem, the stability of the game did not improve. Although it is necessary to pay tribute to this approach, the playable version on the Internet did not appear soon.
But this protection system was not justified, and soon it was abandoned.
It seems to me now that many developers and publishers of games are beginning to understand that it’s not necessary to chase after huge locks that hide their product. You need to be chased for the quality and quantity of those advantages and bonuses that a person who buys a game gets, and not downloaded it. This can be anything from the in-game social network to the table of achievements. This should be timely support for the game and the ability to run any game in demo mode.
I think money will be paid for a quality product, and then our leisure and work will not be overshadowed by many unnecessary things.
That ended a small excursion into the history of protection. I would like to highlight each method separately, but it already draws on a series of articles, perhaps in the future I will master this too.
For assistance in writing this article, I thank Wikipedia.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/137076/
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