Starforce

Starforce is an anti-copying program that some games covertly install when you install the game.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

The list of games infected with Starforce is long and depressing -- there are dozens of these.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

And the copy protection and similar programs only hinder the legal users, apparently Starforce can and will ruin your PC if you try burn a CD or DVD, or even if you have program that burns CDs!

EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Tonight’s ELR 2006

Since Windows 2000, the Windows line security and stability got enhanced by separating those privileges, but with the Starforce drivers, the old system holes and instabilities are back and any program (or virus) can reach the core of your system by using the Starforce drivers as a backdoor.

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The company that makes Starforce refuses to address the damage their software causes; instead, they blame the people on whom their malware has been forced: "According to our research those of users [sic] that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system."

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

Moreover, the Starforce drivers, installed on your system, grant ring 0 (system level) privileges to any code under the ring 3 (user level) privileges.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

If you're a gamer, you owe it to yourself to have a look and check to see if Starforce might have damaged your PC.

Boing Boing: January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006 Archives 2006

In fact, a lot of people found out about GalCiv2 because of a rather amusing controversy in which Starforce, a copy-protection software producer, encouraged people to pirate the game, probably trying to sink Stardock for their decision not to include said protection software.

December 18th, 2006 ghostwes 2006