Games

Zsolt Rizsanyi rizsanyi at myrealbox.com
Sun Nov 3 11:45:07 CST 2002


On Sunday 03 November 2002 15:53, Mark Hannessen wrote:
> here we are.
>
> Zsolt about Safedisc 1.x
>
> > When the patch was published, there was a discussion, and the conclusion
> > was that the code is very probably legal, and is not against DMCA
> >
> > Are you sure about the above statements? Have you checked that, or it is
> > just your opinion?
>
> Carlos words regarding copy protection:
> > You aren't giving hints to decrypt some code, simply implementing the
> > win32 API, and sometimes implementing a PC architecture, it is far away
> > of decrypt code ;).
>
> well i'am not a lawyer, so i guess i was probably wrong about
> copyprotection being illegal after all.
>
> > Zsolt also said he could provide a safedisc patch against the current
> > cvs.
>
> Zsolt, could you give us a status of your safedisc patch ?

That is not my patch. It was developed by Laurent Pinchart. I tried to help 
him, but I could not (I'm not too good in reverse engineering, driver 
programming). Alexandre was also providing some code to him (some server 
communication fixes).

All I have done is to maintain it in my cvs checkout. (I had to readd some 
code Alexandre has removed, which broke the patch).
So I have it, and it works. I use a program (a dictionary) protected by 
safedisc every day.

> does it work with all winver versions or is this one limited to nt40 ?

It runs only in nt40, win2k or winxp. That is the NT architectures. (Though I 
have only tested nt40).
The reason is that the debugger detection code used by the safedisc enabled 
program is different if you run 9x or NT architectures. On 9x architecture it 
tries to play with the debug registers, and other nasty things. On NT it 
playes more nicely, because NT is a more restricted OS.
So it may be possible to adapt it to win9x, but you will need some severe 
knowledge of the x86 architecture.

> ( most games do not run in nt40 mode )

I dont know nothing about that. But many games run on win2k :)


> is it safedisc 1.x only or safedisc 2.x as well.

It is safedisc 1.x only. Laurent had plans to implement 2.x as well, but he 
did not have a program protected with it, so that never happened.
And after some time, he dissappeared from the list. (Last I heard about him 
was when the patch was broken by Alexandre's changes. I waited for him to 
provide an updated patch, but probably he was waiting for Alexandre to fix 
the issue. After some time, I have reverted some of the Alexandre's changes 
to make the patch work.)

> anyway, any work on copyprotection is very very usefull for everbody.
> so please impent everything you have.

I dont understand the 'impent' word :) But here is the patch against the cvs 
which I have done 1-2 weeks ago. I think it should apply to current cvs 
without major problems. If not let me know, and I will make an updated 
version.

Also, there was many discussion on wine-devel about this patch. Starting with 
my mail 'debugging longman dictionary' somewhere in March of 2002.
Then there is the safedisc FAQ posted by Laurent at Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:32:29 
+0200
About the same time was the original patch posted to wine-patches.
There were some more discussion in May of 2002.
And also there was an attempt by Dustin Navea to resolve the (technical) 
issues about the patch, so it could be applied to cvs, but I could not find 
the mail in my archive, tough if I remember correctly then there is a mail 
with detailed explanation by Alexandre, of the reasons the patch is not 
applied.
Hope this is enough pointer for you to find the info you need in the mail 
archives.

Regards
Zsolt
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