Lets try to REDUCE piracy of Darwinia...

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Lets try to REDUCE piracy of Darwinia...

Postby edd8990 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:16 am

You may remeber a few months ago, I proposed the ill named Anti Uplink Piracy Organisation to prevent piracy of Uplink by creating fake files. However, Uplink had been out for too long and the volume of real uplink files to great.

So why don't we try to reuce Darwinia piracy now, by setting up fake files? We have around 4 months until the March release date, so there is plenty of time, and then on release day, P2P networks etc. can be flooded with fake files, hopefully reducing the amount of piracy, and the amount of Warez monkies saying what ever the darwinia equvilant of "I lost my code card" is.

To prove its not to difficult, I spent the last hour knocking this up in pascal. OK, its shit. What do you expect? its pascal? But Its a basis for an idea that could be worked on by better coders than me.

http://www.irishrenegades.co.uk/Darwinia.exe

It pretends to format your hardrive. After it has finished running it will not exit until the correct phrase is typed in (current release keyphrase is 'bob' (without quotes, case sensitive). This is only version 0.1, and I will spend the next 4 months attempting to add the following features:

Fullscreen
Disable auto minimize error when running MSN in the background
Attempt to disable ctrl,Alt+delete functionality.

Now with all the coders on here, Im sure you can all produce better code than this. So then hopefully, IV can make more money.

Or do You think this is a sh*t idea?
Last edited by edd8990 on Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby AgentX 24 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:48 am

Um...

It's not fullscreen... it ran in a command window, so I was able to exit it by pressing the little known windows button - the x in the top right hand corner. You also have a typo - "YOU HDD".

*waits for 0.2*
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Postby Andcarne » Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:48 am

I really doubt it'll make that much of an impact, especially for the amount of work it will take to set up. If people are going to pirate games, they're going to find a way to do it. Something like this probably won't change the piracy levels much, if at all.

It's an interesting thought though. Good luck with it, if you decide to continue working on it.
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:05 am

Although I got AIMed the other day by someone who wanted to pirate Uplink and I had the pleasure of watching them keep downloading the fake versions of Uplink. It was pretty funny actually. :)
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Postby elDiablo » Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:12 am

An easier way would be to just make a fake zip file around the size of Darwinia, and stick that up there. Um, maybe a zip containing the demo for Uplink and Darwinia, and a note saying "Pirating is bad. Bad boy, bad."?
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Postby edd8990 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:55 am

AgentX 24 wrote:Um...

It's not fullscreen... it ran in a command window, so I was able to exit it by pressing the little known windows button - the x in the top right hand corner. You also have a typo - "YOU HDD".

*waits for 0.2*


Ahm a working on it. But I don't know if its possible in pascal :| Im still looking though, if anyone knows how to, please tell me!

elDiablo wrote:An easier way would be to just make a fake zip file around the size of Darwinia, and stick that up there. Um, maybe a zip containing the demo for Uplink and Darwinia, and a note saying "Pirating is bad. Bad boy, bad."?


Yes, but this might just make them think twice about piracy, if they think there may be REAL virus that wipes your HDD. It probably wont, but meh.
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Postby elDiablo » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:09 am

edd8990 wrote:Yes, but this might just make them think twice about piracy, if they think there may be REAL virus that wipes your HDD. It probably wont, but meh.


As long as you make it look like 20Meg, not 20K ;) Then yes, its a nice idea!
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Postby Hektik sniper » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:11 am

I Really doubt this would stop most people warezing it, Becuase once warez groups get a hold of it they all make their own releases which people know are safe to download.
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Postby Bruce42 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:42 am

I am in favour of fake copies that just delete the partition table. Why fake it?
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Postby false » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:56 am

That is the equivilent of fighting fire with fire.
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Postby Bruce42 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:16 pm

Not at all, it is responding offensively yes, but a very different type of offense.

I don't see how this would damage anyone who does not engage in piracy, and I have little sympathy for those who do.
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Postby edd8990 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:37 pm

Because its illigal. Thats why. The most effective way of stopping piracy is putting fake, non destructive files.

No, this method will not stop many people warezing it, but at leaset it will anooy people who are dumb, like the ones who come on the official forums and ask for illegal copies. Anything that annoys them is good.
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Postby edd8990 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:51 pm

VERSION 0.2 RELEASED! IN FULL SCREEN! GET IT HERE!

http://www.irishrenegades.co.uk/Darwinia.rar

Exrtract the rar, and run. type "bob" <enter> <enter> once program has ended to exit. Or use ctrl,alt,del

Additions:
Fullscreen
Boosted File size



Still to add:
Disable ctrl-alt-del, alt-tab, etc.
Prevernt other programs running in the background from minimising program
Make file size, and file names realistic (requires a copy of darwinia)
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Postby Hektik sniper » Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:54 pm

surely something like we did for the soldat beta would be more effective. When you ran the program. It would look up your details and upload them along with your ip to a web page, that certain people would view. This would be far more beneficial than a program that people would just delete and then download a real warez verison.
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Postby edd8990 » Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:11 pm

Yeah, but I can't code that, like I said, its in pascal... I do not have the skills to do that. If someone else wants to they can, but I shall carry on with my project. Many different projects would be advantagous so people download many different ones, and still not get a real one.

And I still need to fix the typos... problems, problems, problems. Oh well...

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