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I work on anti-DRM techniques for a living. The experience has shifted my views of DRM. Originally, I saw DRM as highly anti-consumer, and a waste of time and
by drmcometru 6y ago
I work on anti-DRM techniques for a living.
The experience has shifted my views of DRM. Originally, I saw DRM as highly anti-consumer, and a waste of time and clock cycles. Arguably I do still believe that - but now I have great respect for the technical side of good DRM implementations, and I acknowledge that they provide a time buffer to protect against the first wave of piracy.
I've stripped Arxran's protections from software in the past, and I might just have a look at breaking RDR2 now it's been brought to my attention...
- renewiltord 6y agoWait, how do you make a living from that? Like publishers need you to break their stuff out so they can resell it long after the developer is gone or something?
- ineedasername 6y agoYes, I'm curious about what kind of (legal) paying job needs that sort of skill set.
- drmcometru 6y agoOrganizations that apply 3rd party DRM to their products often want independent verification that the DRM functions as intended (there's a lot of snake-oil), and a quantification of how much time/effort it takes to break the DRM.
- barbs 6y agoWow. Kind of like red-team hackers testing the security of their website or whatever. Sounds like a dream job for the right person...a "drmcometru" if you will ;)
- renewiltord 6y agoVery cool, very cool. Thank you!
- Deimorz 6y agoThe user who answered you isn't the one you were asking (it's still a possible answer).
- sahruum9 6y ago... Yes it is
- renewiltord 6y agoDid you get mixed up? I see - drmcometru - me - drmcometru - me By the way, aren't you the AutoModerator guy on Reddit and also, the /r/Games moderator or something. Cool beans, dude! You made some god-tier product there.
- Deimorz 6y agoWhoops, that's embarrassing. I quit working at Reddit a few years ago and don't do much there any more, but yes, that's me. Thanks!
- ryanmerket 6y agoDream job. If I thought I could get paid doing that I would have been set at 17 years old. Now I'm 38 and still dream of my reversing days. :)
- userbinator 6y agoAnother answer is that some companies need the DRM broken on software where the original developer's company may no longer even exist, yet they rely on the (often extremely old) software for their critical production line equipment, whose replacement costs would far exceed that of breaking the DRM and sometimes "porting" the software to new hardware (i.e. breaking the DRM may be a first step.) This is often the realm of hardware dongles and such.
- the_af 6y agoIt's definitely anticonsumer. I've no doubt that from a technical point of view, both DRM and the efforts to crack it are fascinating and interesting. What I don't understand is this: consumers don't crack DRM; crackers and warez groups do. Once cracked, DRM is as good as nothing and it's low effort for an everyday gamer to get and play pirated games. So this antipiracy "buffer" is only for crackers. For gamers it's just as if the game had a delayed release date. For legit customers, the DRM is often intrusive and, because it's so complex and fiddly, often breaks in bizarre ways, giving rise to the paradoxical situation that the legit game is harder to use than the pirated game! Only legitimate buyers lose.
- fxtentacle 6y agoI believe the cracked games are on sufficiently obscure websites to be a deterrent to regular users. So maybe 10% of those people that would otherwise not have paid will just buy a DRM game instead of cracking it. One could even argue that it is pro consumer by making sure the revenue will go back to paying consumers in the form of additional content, instead of paying for players who didn't buy it.
- the_af 6y agoCracked games websites are as obscure as The Pirate Bay, i.e. not very. Plus everyone who downloads a pirated game points his/her friends to the site, or directly shares the downloaded files. Even if you weren't aware of where to get warez, your friends will be. > One could even argue that it is pro consumer One really couldn't. It punishes buyers with encumbered software while merely delaying pirates a short while. Pirates end up with the better experience, so...
- Camas 6y ago>as obscure as The Pirate Bay, i.e. not very Blocked in Europe, China, Australia, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_blocking_access_to_The_Pirate_Bay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_blocking_access_to_T...
- branon 6y agoGenuinely interested -- what type of job/career involves breaking DRM for a living?
- mojuba 6y agoWhite hat I presume.
- pabs3 6y agoHave you ever encountered any DRM using M/o/Vfuscator (compiler that only produces mov instructions) or REpsych (psychological warfare against reverse engineers)? The DEF CON talk about REpsych is pretty hilarious and worth watching. https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/movfuscator https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/movfuscator https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/REpsych https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/REpsych
- drmcometru 6y agoUnfortunately I have encountered neither in the real world, although I have defeated both in CTFs before.
- pabs3 6y agoThe defeats sound interesting, have you documented those anywhere?
- drmcometru 6y agoI haven't personally, but you will find multiple writeups googling for "movfuscator ctf writeup" etc.
- moonchild 6y agoYou may be interested in the demovfuscator - https://github.com/kirschju/demovfuscator https://github.com/kirschju/demovfuscator
- cyberdrunk 6y ago> I work on anti-DRM techniques for a living. Who's paying for anti-DRM work?
- topoyiyo 6y agoIs your company hiring?
- leRusty 6y agoDo you think there's any hope? Because I've lost all of it.
- ChildOfChaos 6y agoYou should try strip away the current Denevuo, that is the big challenge, current versions nobody seems able to crack for some time.