StarForce, the game protection software that always seems embroiled in controversy, has gone on the offensive trying to assure the public it's drivers are safe, that they do not cause any harm to systems. Furthermore, they are even offering an exclusive tool, if you go to the right place , *wink wink* that will remove the drivers, if you decide you want to purge the protection from your system. Sometimes, game software providers will not include the necessary uninstall routine, so even if you remove the game, the pesky low level protection drivers will remain, along with any accompanying problems they might cause.
However, in their defense, StarForce makes it very clear, this is the developers responsibility, not theirs, to see to the removal of the protection. Interestingly, they do indicate below that they will include an uninstall feature in upcoming Front line version 4. Unfortunately, they are going about this latest PR campaign in a way that could do more harm than good, once the word gets around.
Here is a direct quote from the forum thread at StarForce by Root Administrator "Neva" entitled:
The Truth About StarForce Drivers, Www.onlinesecurity-on.com.
Just like to call your attention to article, which investigate StarForce drivers and compares it with another program's drivers.
- What is StarForce drivers?
- How StarForce drivers works?
- How to remove StarForce drivers?
- Does only StarForce Copy Protection uses drivers?
- Which else copy protection Shem's use drivers?
- Which else programs use drivers?
You will fined answers on all above questions in the article by OnlineSecurity ON.
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It turns out this was a thinly veiled attempt by marketing to give everyone a heads up on an unbiased study concerning their product. It took only minutes for the first angered response from forum member "mulambo" who did a domain check on the research site. The domain search this person performed, indicates the same IP address for both StarForce and OnlineSecurity. Oops! Here is what he had to say about the "study":
"What do you think you are dealing with?
This Webpage is made by Starforce. The whois record links to the same IP as STAR-FORCE.COM: 195.90.131.214
Do you really think we would believe an article of yours?
I just read a few sentences, and even that was too much.
That's propaganda of the worst kind!"
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The thread really heats up after that! Including claims of attempting to mislead the public. In this now closed thread, you can also read the reaction from StarForce themselves, (they admitted they are one and the same) quite entertaining actually. They say they were not hiding anything.
Once you read the first few lines in the quote below, you can understand why someone would be prompted to run a Whois.
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The famous protection solution developer, StarForce, has granted a sole right to distribute the StarForce Removal Tool utility to www.onlinesecurity-on.com. Thus, all users of licensed software protected by StarForce are welcome to freely download StarForce Removal Tool from www.onlinesecurity-on.com. Note though that all cases of unauthorized distribution of StarForce Removal Tool (sfdrvrem.exe) itself, be it .EXE file or the utility archive (.ZIP, .RAR, etc.), are considered as infringement of the copyright. For authorization, please contact StarForce at sales@star-force.com. As a web page owner, you are welcome to provide your visitors with a link to this page. Please, note that the StarForce Removal Tool utility (sfdrvrem.exe) is regularly updated to support the latest version of the StarForce protection drivers. You can find the latest version of the StarForce Removal Tool utility here. The truth about StarForce drivers. It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups. Our recent contest has just proven that StarForce does not damage optical drives. Now we would like to elaborate on the topic of StarForce drivers. Our support service received questions about the functionality of the drivers and whether there could be a security issue for the PC. At StarForce we care about our clients and our users. Most of all we care about your IT security and we would never use anything that could possibly question your system’s integrity. The purpose of StarForce copy protection is to resist emulation, cracking and reverse engineering. These matters are usually salved by means of disc binding. Also to face these tasks StarForce installs four drivers that remain inactive until the protected product is run. Besides StarForce software drivers at ring 0 are installed by many different programs such as emulators, anti-viruses, firewalls and etc. Here is how StarForce drivers work: Driver sfsync02 serves the purpose of CD validity check and identification of different emulators. Driver sfhlp02 + sfdrv01 – is in charge of functioning of the core, including anti-debugger tools. Driver sfvfs02 – is essential for data protection and StarForce virtual file system. The matter is that all of known emulators install ring 0 drivers. Obviously, the only way to prevent emulation is to work on the same level and that is the reason our copy protection installs drivers. Another most recent revelation about emulators is that they use rootkits. That could actually cause security problems for the OS. This discovery made by Mark Russinovich should make any user at least cautious when using emulators. To conclude, we must say that StarForce does not use rootkits, StarForce does not cause security issues and StarForce is not the only software developer that installs ring 0 drivers. We appreciate all the feedback from our clients and users and that is why StarForce drivers will be automatically uninstalled in the latest version of our copy protection system FrontLine 4.0. The official release with many other significant improvements will follow within days. We do our best to help you feel protected! If you have any questions about StarForce protected products, please contact: You are also welcome to ask questions and share your experiences at our forum. |
Arrrr! Those pesky Pirates are puttin' the wrong spin on things! That motto for Online Security website: "Be well informed" is almost amusing in this case. Kind of reminds you of government officials that knock on your door unexpectedly one day with the pledge that they are "Here to help".
Claiming "exclusive rights" to a tool that ought to be available to anyone struggling with a problem on their home computer is one thing, but when you give yourself those exclusive rights and not make it clear to the reader that both sites are one and the same is misleading and will further undermine your legitimacy in the future.
In case you are wondering if your computer may be loading StarForce drivers every time you boot up, you ought to take a trip over to the very popular Boycott StarForce website. There you can find a listing of games that are using this protection and ones that have dropped it. Fortunately for me, I looked, as I got a free version of "X-2: The Threat" with some hardware I bought. According to Boycott StarForce, It no longer uses the protection, and the editor of the game released an official patch to remove the StarForce protection, and thus fixed all the problems related to StarForce. Good deal.
Source: StarForce
