TorrentFreak Email Update

‘Skidrow’ Pirates Get Pirated After Removing Their Own ‘DRM’

Posted: 04 May 2014 03:30 AM PDT

It’s very common for the entertainment industries to get their collective undergarments in a twist over piracy, so it makes an interesting change to see the same kinds of emotions spill over onto the other side of the piracy fence.

It all began a couple of weeks ago with the release of the Redlynx / Ubisoft motorcross game Trials Fusion. Released on all the top platforms mid April, the race was immediately on for a so-called ‘Scene’ group to remove its copy protection and release a pirated version. On April 16 the group ‘MoNGoLS’ released the game on XBox 360 and eight days later a group called ‘CODEX’ released the Windows version.

Scene records show that CODEX have only been around since February this year yet they managed to beat other leading groups on this particular release. Was that due to them being clever and working hard, or was there another explanation? According to one of the most famous cracking/piracy groups on the Internet, CODEX cheated their way to the win.

Skidrow is one of the most famous groups around and is responsible for the cracking and release of hundreds of games over the years. On April 27, three days after the CODEX release of Trials Fusion, Skidrow released their own version. Then, the day after, revealed why that had been necessary.

According to Skidrow, CODEX had – shock, horror – PIRATED Skidrow’s work.

“While looking inside their emulation code, we discovered something that was about to shock us completely,” Skidrow explained in an announcement this week.

“It was OUR work, OUR emulator.”

But how could Skidrow be so sure? Apparently the group employs rudimentary watermarking.

“CODEX must be stupid to think that we don’t mark our code, but we had it clean on our screens, that CODEX are thieves of our Ubisoft emu. 99 percent of all their API calls in the code are identical with ours.”

Just to be sure, Skidrow say they also plant “several stealth API calls, that identify and tag” their work. Those were apparently found inside CODEX emulation DLLs. For those who understand it, the proof is apparently revealed in the image below.

“[The image] shows the original function written by the coder, using a global variable for another function. Basically, the way the coder wrote the API to set the flag is unique, and [this is] simply copy and paste of our code by CODEX,” Skidrow say.

But while the irony of one group complaining about the pirating (or plagiarizing) of another’s work is pretty obvious, this week Skidrow revealed something else of interest. The group said that while previously it had taken measures to protect its cracks and emulators and obfuscate their code, it had decided to stop doing so when the code got in the way of enjoying the release.

“In the past we used to protect our creations, but lately we have found out that even the most functional [encryption] tools have certain limits when it comes to preventing them from stealing CPU resources,” Skidrow revealed.

“Furthermore we have noticed that some people that use our releases, sometimes have issues with our work being notified as dangerous, when they run them on machines with certain antivirus, spam, spyware programs etc. Therefore we have decided to let our work, which is OUR work, be as clean and direct as you can get it.”

So there you have it. Even the swarthiest of game pirates get upset when people “steal” their code, and not even leading experts in consumer DRM cracking can get their own ‘DRM’ working without negatively affecting the gaming experience. Intriguing indeed…..

Note: For clarity some of Skidrow’s English translation errors have been tidied up.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Accused Pirate Slams BitTorrent Tracking Outfit in Court

Posted: 03 May 2014 11:19 AM PDT

Mass-piracy lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.

All of these cases are initiated with an IP address as the main piece of evidence. This address is usually collected by a file-sharing monitoring company using software to connect to the BitTorrent swarm where the infringing files are shared.

A common problem with this evidence is that it generally can't identify a movie pirate. In fact, some evidence gathering techniques are so sloppy that it’s not even possible to confirm whether the ISP account connected to the IP-address was actively sharing the pirated file in question.

This issue has also been brought to the attention of the court in the ongoing case between the “Elf-Man” movie studio and Ryan Lamberson. The counsel of Lamberson has been trying to get more information on how the “investigators” gathered their evidence, but thus far without result.

This week the attorney submitted a motion to compel, hoping that the court would order the movie studio to have the German-based Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek testify in Spokane, Washington, so they can answer crucial questions about evidence collection.

Among other things, the defendant would like to know how the tracking outfit can be so sure that the IP-address wasn’t spoofed, and how they know that the defendant was the one who used the IP-address to share the film. The defendant’s attorneys doubt that the tracking software is capable of doing this.

“Apparently, Mr. Patzer’s software does not account for the numerous ‘false positive’ possibilities, including the accuracy of the harvested IP addresses, even though the person in the swarm may be ‘spoofing’ his or her IP address, since certain bit torrent software allows for IP address spoofing,” defendant’s attorneys write.

“Apparently, the software has no way to verify the actual person who might be in the swarm, even if the IP address is accurate. The software does not engage the person in the swarm to inquire as to the reason for the activity, including fair use reasons for being in the swarm. Indeed, there are no corroborating witnesses at all…”

In addition, the defendant’s legal team doubts that the “investigators,” who are closely involved with numerous lawsuits in the United States, have a proper license.

“The investigators are engaged in activity which is covered by the Washington State Private Investigator statutory provisions, but there is no evidence that Messrs. Patzer or Macek are licensed or bonded [under theState's regulatory scheme governing private investigators],” they write.

The Washington State legislature defines a “private investigator agency” as an entity “engaged in the business of detecting, discovering, or revealing” “evidence to be used before a court,” which appears to be exactly what they are doing.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the PI angle has caused trouble for a file-sharing monitoring firm. Several years ago the RIAA’s technology partner MediaSentry was found to have acted illegally in several states because it operated without the appropriate and required paperwork.

It will be interesting to see how this angle is played out in the current case. Generally speaking these tracking outfits, which are often the main drivers of these types of lawsuits, are not too eager to talk.

Whether they have something to hide remains to be seen. A recent presentation from the “Anti-Piracy Management Company,” which is believed to be spinoff of the same tracking outfit Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek are connected to, is telling.

“Paragraph 2 in regards to software consultant (i.e., he can talk about software issues), & we’re hoping the judge won’t question his qualifications too much,” the leaked presentation reads, seemingly referring to Macek.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.