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ready.
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 441 |
uncrackable / protected game disks
Hi,
I was wondering if there is any way to protect a disk from being copied / cracked that has not yet been broken. I remember GEOS v2.0 was very hard to crack back in the '80s but somebody managed to do it. |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1080 |
No, everything out there has been cracked a long time ago.
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Hm, in the comments to Reel Fishing Preview, Jazzcat wrote:
Quote:
User Comment
Submitted by Jazzcat on 20 March 2006
I suggest protection. It was done on Rubicon and until this day no one has cracked it. :)
Check the interview with Snacky about this, imagine if this approach was taken with each new game.
At least protection filters out some people from the crowd.
Jazzcat, could you be a bit more precise? And where can I find this interview with Snacky? =) |
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Burglar
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1114 |
about rubicon, the only version that got released was cracked from a non-protected original (afaicr).
not sure if anyone has the real protected original though... |
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SECRET MAN
Account closed
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 336 |
I cracked Toki in 5 minutes.So what do you want?? haha |
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ready.
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 441 |
ok, but technically speaking... did the Rubicon protection worked? What about other kinds of protections, that later on got broken, worked? I think this is quite curious stuff since I have read very little about it. |
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Tch
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 512 |
@Steppe: You can find this interview in Recollection #1.
Excellent interview,btw!! 8D
And yes,the shop-version of Rubicon was never cracked.
Now there lies a real challenge! ;) |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Thanks Johan! I stopped reading at chapter 5 or so and didn't find a free spot to continue yet... :-/ |
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Jazzcat
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1046 |
Okay, regarding Rubicon - game producers listen up!
Extract from Snacky/Genesis*Project interview - Recollection #1
"Most copy protections at that time were quite easy to crack, they just had a check for a bad disk sector during the game-load and they then set a byte in the memory that a freezing module like the Action Replay cartridge wasnt able to recover. You just had to find the call check for disk protection routine and remove it. Very simple but effective, which is why it is still being used nowadays, like on the games on X-Box.
My type of protection was a little different. Not only did I develop a very special bad sector on the disk. It was changing the speed of the rotating floppy disk and also de-justed the binary reading of the floppy header. This combination during the read operation made it impossible for any type of copy program (do you remember Burst Nibbler?) to copy the disk. A manual re-sync with just three bytes SKY (abbreviation for Snacky) where then verified.
I also added not only countless checks for the protection at the start and in the game; just the Ending of Rubicon alone, meaning the demo you saw once you finished the game, was protected by more that 20 different routines that verified each other. This makes the Ending of Rubicon one of the best protected parts of a game ever done on a computer. Changing or removing one routine would end up in a crash later one.
The starting of Rubicon was protected by the TIMEX v3 system. But I improved the Timex v3 system slightly to close the attack points that I found when cracking this type of protection. I also did not fully depend on the starting alone, I also added small pieces of in the code of the game.
Another funny story about the Rubicon game was the Tape protection. Just for Rubicon, I developed a turbo tape like speed loader that was capable of loading files from tape in less than half a minute. A speed I never saw anywhere else on C64. The compression / loading functionality was that special, that even the oscilloscope based mass tape copy machine of 20th Century Software, a London based game company that was publishing Rubicon, was not able to copy it with their hardware. They gave me quite a few phone calls to understand my technique to write data to the tape, so theyd be able to adjust their copy machine. I believe they finally used my write to tape program after some failed attempts with their tape copy machine. Keep in mind, the first tape games on the C64 you were able to copy simply by using a good stereo with a double tape drive. I did this for example with Winter Games back in 1986
My tape protection was quite straightforward. I did use TIMEX v3 and included this with my 256 blocks file load. This means that I cleaned the complete memory of the C64 by loading a file that filled up everything. During the load, I modified the loader and also loaded the TIMEX system. I was pretty sure nobody would be able to crack that system. I thought about it for weeks and found no weak point to interfere.
The turmoil around Rubicon arose when Tyger of Genesis * Project released a crack of the game. When I heard that Tyger got the game, I was shocked. I called Antichrist and asked him about the game. He told me that he got a non-protected version of it that Tyger would release. I tried to convince him that I would be in trouble if he released a version. As you know, Genesis released a version of the non-protected Rubicon, which was easy to release obviously.
There has never been a release of the protected version of Rubicon. You now may understand why. I doubt that somebody ever spent the time and effort to crack it as it would have been a couple of weeks work. If you know of a version or somebody who cracked the protected Rubicon (disk or tape), send me an e-mail as I would like to commend him for the work." |
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Wanderer
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 478 |
P-Man's Revenge, written by a friend of mine (Chris Fielding). The game was done in P-Code, thus there was no actual assembly language to really mess with. It was actually a pretty cool game.
Rampar released a 'frozen' version of the game, not being able to crack it. Afterwards, the sysop of NEC's bbs (I forget his name) asked for a copy of the original. Horizon wasn't able to crack it either.
Fortunately there was no 'end game' protection which allowed for a freeze capture. He planned to implement end-game protection but left to program Sony games before finishing his next game.
Somewhere in my brother's basement lies the second game in a half-finished state.
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1160 |
Hmm, whatever that P-Code is, brought to my mind a case that I faintly remember reading about.. which game (and by which company) was it that had a nasty protection, custom disk format and a scripting language combined, which a cracker then reverse-engineered, wrote an own game using the scripting language, and sent it back to the company?
Or was I hallucinating?
Btw. sometimes overzealous protection ends up hurting the gamers most, consider Exile. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2997 |
Quote: P-Man's Revenge, written by a friend of mine (Chris Fielding). The game was done in P-Code, thus there was no actual assembly language to really mess with. It was actually a pretty cool game.
Rampar released a 'frozen' version of the game, not being able to crack it. Afterwards, the sysop of NEC's bbs (I forget his name) asked for a copy of the original. Horizon wasn't able to crack it either.
Fortunately there was no 'end game' protection which allowed for a freeze capture. He planned to implement end-game protection but left to program Sony games before finishing his next game.
Somewhere in my brother's basement lies the second game in a half-finished state.
I don't think analyzing an interpreter and changing the interpreted protection code for it is too hard. At least not today. :D |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11437 |
it probably just sucked (or was very unknown), p-code stuff never was hard to crack, just a bit messy and timeconsuming.
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Wanderer
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 478 |
Quote: it probably just sucked (or was very unknown), p-code stuff never was hard to crack, just a bit messy and timeconsuming.
It did quite well in sales in Canada as that was where the distributor was based.
Horizon couldn't do it and he was one of the better crackers.
Think of it like someone using Petspeed or Blitz but being unable to decompile it again, very difficult to work around. I may have the original somewhere still... |
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 463 |
Quote: Hi,
I was wondering if there is any way to protect a disk from being copied / cracked that has not yet been broken. I remember GEOS v2.0 was very hard to crack back in the '80s but somebody managed to do it.
Dont get any hot steam about this. Anything can and could be cracked. Protections is just a question about keeping the kids away who cant crack.
For Rubicon it's true, but its more a question of noone doing it than noone couldnt do it. Look at this - Genesis Project released their version in end of 1991 and the official release from 21st Century were in spring 1992. This means most first release groups wouldnt look at it and then you took out the most skilled crackers. You have seen it with another game - Budokan. The game is easy to crack, but noone did it because Dominators did the game a while before it got on the streets.
Since noone of the first release groups did the crack then noone spread the original to others and therefore no cracks. This way of originals that didnt got spread to others happend on several games like Rampart, Street Fighter 2, Cool World, Alien 3 and Nick Faldos Golf.
Since Im sure if you found Rubicon disk original I can find a few who can crack it. I can even think of one guy if he bothered to look at it that could crack it without changing a single byte in the game code but just replace the loader and make it work. |
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Skylab
Registered: Dec 2005
Posts: 183 |
I say I know more than one person able to crack those stuff... |
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AlexC
Registered: Jan 2008
Posts: 299 |
Sorry for resurrecting this old thread but I keep wondering what has happened to Snacky tape protection. Any tape has been mastered using it? Anyone has a tape copy of protected Rubicon? |
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Style
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 498 |
Never saw this thread before.
And I respond with my age-old "has anyone managed to crack the disk version of Gunship yet?"
All Ive ever seen are dodgy tape cracks. |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
Ah Gunship! This is what I was asking Burglar about if he did a version, but I was confusing it with Infiltrator... d'oh!
Should ask him again. :) |
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Shine
Registered: Jul 2012
Posts: 380 |
Yeah ... nice to know about Gunship(disk) ... i see the exciting C64 Cracking Competition 2016 in near future! :) |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 523 |
CSdb lists ~15 cracks of gunship. are all those from tape?
just in case u need it: I have gunship original somewhere... I remember (memories from 1987 or so...) that with fast hack'em and its own rapidlok template the copy was doable. |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1945 |
Funky sidenote: Mr. President created the protection for Soul Crystal. The first two "masters" he supplied to the copy company could not be copied on the commercial systems they had. In the end he implemented a somewhat cheaper protection they were able to copy... along with the basic boss compilation for a password protection near the end it was close to being not properly cracked.
(Also given the nature of the game - german text/gfx adventure with near 170kb of unpacked text.)
AFAIR there are two version which have to be copied with the sector ID intact to work. Only checked the SPIRIT version though and cannot find back the 3-step-shortcut-to-the-end-cheat for easy checking :(
Anyone on that? |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2334 |
Know minimum 2 people who (without knowing of the other) started yet never finished cracking Gunship in the last decade :) |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1945 |
IRC-wise we just figured that the game "LOGO" by "Starbyte" which was handed out at a G*P copy party around 1991 or 1992 in a special version was never really "cracked". Note: that "special" version of the game only differed by its protection. The game itself was nothing new. Currently we think it was timex v3 or a somewhat extended version.
Anybody remember more details or even got some image of that special version? |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2334 |
Count Zero: You must be kidding. I've got an original LOGO/Starbyte including ori package and manual here, right in front of me, which I planned to get rid of by giving it to $someone_who_cares at BCC, unfortunately it's the PC 5,25" version :/
Anyway, if you wanna have it, it's yours, can either pass it to you at X party or send it (just PM me some address/PLK hehe). Maybe you can at least do sth with the manual (which seems to be for various systems) |
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Moloch
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2935 |
Memories of non-working versions of LOGO from all groups years ago. That discussion comes up every few years and nobody ever seems to release a proper crack.
Also, would love to see a proper version of Soul Crystal but I know that is just a fantasy. |
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 463 |
Quote: IRC-wise we just figured that the game "LOGO" by "Starbyte" which was handed out at a G*P copy party around 1991 or 1992 in a special version was never really "cracked". Note: that "special" version of the game only differed by its protection. The game itself was nothing new. Currently we think it was timex v3 or a somewhat extended version.
Anybody remember more details or even got some image of that special version?
My guess would be that it was the extended Timex V3 where Snacky closed the easy-to-crack holes. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11437 |
moloch: Logo +2 doesnt work? somehow hard to believe :) not that i am willing to even check it, the games sucks donkey dicks in the first place =)
that said, at last X2012 some aquired a disk labelled "STARBYTE LOGO TESTMUSTER", which contains a non protected version of it, from my take-what-you-want diskbox..... (image exists, if anyone gives a damn. which i doubt =p) |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1945 |
Ryk: You read my post, did you? "special version" etc. ? :)
Mason is right here - according to Benson who visited the party and told me of the compo (long time ago) the disks were of course no "original LOGO disks" but special "masters" for that party and "compo".
The aim was to extract some kind of "key" - as in "encryption key" (?) from the drive ram AFAIR.
However - first challenge would be to find this version of the game again. :) |
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AlexC
Registered: Jan 2008
Posts: 299 |
Quote: Ryk: You read my post, did you? "special version" etc. ? :)
Mason is right here - according to Benson who visited the party and told me of the compo (long time ago) the disks were of course no "original LOGO disks" but special "masters" for that party and "compo".
The aim was to extract some kind of "key" - as in "encryption key" (?) from the drive ram AFAIR.
However - first challenge would be to find this version of the game again. :)
The first challenge may be a lot harder today than the actual one. |
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Comos
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 73 |
Interesting to mention Gunship.My Gunship orie doesn't even want to run on my C64C & 1541-II.I had to make a copy throught the Kracker Jax template tools to make it run.Seems the Rapidlok v6 is really a tender bitch :) |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
There are TONS of uncracked games, but not one wants to bother with Text/Graphical adventures. I haven't seen working cracks of most of the tellarium games, or the windham hill classics games. There's no cracks of most of the early games that would get the points in the later release rules, Skyfox for instance (would make an excellent game for compo). A lot of the Accolade games too, and Datasoft. The problem is testing these games when they are quite complicated.
No working crack exists for Beyond Dark Castle iirc, it only appears to work, but you can't actually complete the game. |
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Hok
Registered: Sep 2009
Posts: 8 |
CZ, I seem to remember that special version of Logo you refer to was protected by Tyger and Crisp back then. I haven't got it, I never did, Crisp might still have it though, dunno... |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
hey HOK! WB :) |
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Style
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 498 |
Quote: Ah Gunship! This is what I was asking Burglar about if he did a version, but I was confusing it with Infiltrator... d'oh!
Should ask him again. :)
I have a vague recollection of you and I discussing Gunship back in the 90s? :) |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 435 |
So, any suggestions for the next cracking compo?
Beyond the Dark Castle and Skyfox seems like obvious candidates. It'd be quite interesting to find that "special" Logo and try that out. Or why not take any of the Interplay titles which used ProDos-emulation where you explicitly should be forbidden to maintain the original disk-structure? |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
Portal was mentioned in the lemon thread, but we'd need a copy of it where no one ever played it at all, another one which alters the original if you do. :(
I'm up for a 3rd party not involved in the compo directly to pick the game to keep it fair and everyone goes in blind.
We were talking on IRC and Takedown was also mentioned, but count me out of that one... I've already looked at it before and it's a nightmare I don't want to get into. ESI is the only group to ever release it, and I suspect they either had an unprotected version or Mitch/The Dude/Eaglesoft really is the best cracker there ever was. However Antitrack might even want to get in on that one. |
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Smasher
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 523 |
**reverse cracking compo 2016**
you take an unprotected lousy game and you build all the hardest protections around it. when the game is so damnübercybersecured you take a lobotomy so you can't reveal your secrets. then you challenge the scene: "marry Jaffar or die within the hour"! uhm, no that's something else... ok: "crack my game within 2 weeks or I win the compo!"
:) |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
somewhat not doable with vice around. :)
But interesting idea... often times protections had better coding that the games they protected. So that wouldn't be anything new...
Uncrackable Piccolo Mouso anyone? :D |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 679 |
Afaik no one really cracked Jars' Revenge properly yet.
I dont mean the tape loader :) |
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AlexC
Registered: Jan 2008
Posts: 299 |
Quote: somewhat not doable with vice around. :)
But interesting idea... often times protections had better coding that the games they protected. So that wouldn't be anything new...
Uncrackable Piccolo Mouso anyone? :D
If you look at Exile protection or consider some hardware protections Vice can't help solve the problem if we introduce time limit. On the other hand if you consider that fact that you can hook Vice code to make memory snapshots and trace execution it makes some analysis a lot more realistic. But I agree that some protection code has been written way better than the game protected... Some others had strange imho weak points. For example original Turbo Assembler does not erase itself from memory if dongle is missing.
I wonder if we ever find unopened Portal original. Maybe someone has a clean master copy still around? |
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 463 |
Quote: Afaik no one really cracked Jars' Revenge properly yet.
I dont mean the tape loader :)
Actually considered to do it, but the price was only a beer |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
enthusi: what is not proper about the cracks? |
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Benson
Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 1 |
Count: I remember the party, even it was quite a while ago. I spent half the evening of doing a proper crack, when L.A. Style set next to me, took a look and pointed out, that the intention of that "cracking compo" was not to crack the game, but to find a special signature in the floppy ram. "You will know, when you see it" , he mentioned. In retrospective, i guess it would have been the "SKY", which Snacky has talked about in his interview. But on that evening i skipped everything and had some beers and partiing instead. I don't know if we ware allowed to take the disks with us, so i have to dig my attic and see if i can find the disks or even a copy. |
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Jazzcat
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1046 |
After a long journey, Onslaught presents, the translated version of Soul Crystal, enjoy this great game! Also, the crack intro features exclusive music by the original game musician, Oliver Klaewer and features code by Conjuror and pixels by Ax!s.
Disk - Soul Crystal +TFDS
EasyFlash Soul Crystal +TFDS [easyflash] |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
While were updating this topic.
Exile was done by Ksubi Exile +7DF
Alternate Reality was done by Bacchus Alternate Reality - The Dungeon +MDF
Rubicon was done by Flavioweb Rubicon +4DGHF
Portal was done by Lord Crass Portal |
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Didi
Registered: Nov 2011
Posts: 488 |
A comment to Exile +7DF mentions that "Knight Tyme" would be another valuable target for a 100% crack. Anyone knows about bugs or unrecognized protections in the existing versions? |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 697 |
There's quite a few games with tamper protection.
Try training some older Accolade games for ex. |
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ws
Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 251 |
We're approaching Xmas 2023 and i'd like to express my deepest appreciation to each and everyone of those who took the time and excertion of cracking the most sophisticated copy protections, to give way to experiences beyond the targeted audience acess to the desired warez while adding a scene flave.
Only through your effort and persiscence, many of my dearest childhood memories were formed. That special first experience i had back in the day, these intense moments, thank you, craxors, for the bold arrogance, the hyperbole, inventions and the spearheading in design, although it probably was mostly unintended.
Also to content creators and retailer industry, thank you for putting them and us up to this challenge. It was a great time. So nice.
[ Just to make that clear, i bought quite a few (mostly non working) C64 originals back in the day, i paid my share. But the cracks on disks in the schoolyard just were the real thing. ] |
