Knights of Honor game removes DAEMON Tools DLL-file?

01 Oct 04 12:06 by H3rB3i in category Uncategorized To news archive

Print this page

Womble used our news submit to inform us that the game “Knights of Honor” by Black Sea Studios/Sunflower contains a copy-protection that seems to remove the file deamon.dll from our harddisks. This file is part of the DAEMON Tools software, an application with which you can emulate certain copy-protections. Futuremore, the game requires a “burning software clean” system. So what does this mean for us? Is it legal to force customers to uninstall software? What will come next?

alt="" hspace=10 src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1354370208" align=right
vspace=5 border=0>As I started the game the following pop up appeard “Conflict, please deactivate or uninstall BlindWrite/CopyToDVD Patin-Couffin driver”. After I uninstalled Patin-Couffin 24 (I”m using BlindWrite 5.2.5.138) I had to unlock DAEMON.DLL otherwise the game won”t start. I unlocked it and was finally able to play the game. After reboot I got this error message “C:Windowsdaemon.dll error”, after checking the directories daemon.dll was gone

Thanks Womble for submitting the news. Please discuss and post your reactions over in this thread in our Copy Protection Discussion Forum.

Source: Club CD Freaks

19 Comments

Aktiv8: Posts: 23; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 13:25

I don't liek the sound of this tampering.... Also what is the legality of this since if there is nothing in for example the EULA (or whatever its called) at the start of installation, then surely they are breaching rules of some form? I suppose a way around this if it looks for the file daemon.dll is to allow the manual naming of such a file, just like we can already name the driver etc...

bcn_246: Posts: 3626; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 14:04

can somebody who owns the game scan it with a-ray, or does anybody know what it is protected with? maybe it is a custom protection.

Jim Kiler: Posts: 238; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 14:11

I am sure the EULA says they can do this with very vague wording, but someone should sue them for this, as you don't know it will happen until after you open the box, thus you cannot return it.

Rhelic: Posts: 302; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 15:32

Despite ELUA agreements I find this totally immoral, anti competitive and outright malware. BOYCOTT THIS GAME & LETS GET A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT STARTED Renaming your DLLs is not a fix for this, as it would be VERY easy for programs to instead of searching for a filename, search for the certain app DLLs in general using hashes, which will match despite what filename or date you have on a DLL or EXE.

dhc014: Posts: 4370; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 16:52

The simple solution to this is to just not buy this game as Rhelic suggests. It doesn't look that good...

roadworker: Posts: 754; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 17:45

They should be forced by court order to put a sticker or a label on it .....any lawyer amongst the cdfreaks?

gust0208: Posts: 45; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 18:35

Wait a minute, does the company actually expect me to uninstall completely legal burning software that I have paid for just to play their game? This is unbelievable. Maybe a representative from a fellow game company has infilitrated them to propose this ludicrous protection scheme in order to drive away business.

Seán: Posts: 7615; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 21:20

Well, if a game software company delibertly wants the user to remove recording software from their PC to a play their games, I would recommend the user to boycott the company by avoiding their products and persuading friends to do so also. Either that or get everyone that has the same game to demand a "bug fix" or "update" to fix the conflict issue. Enough complaints about this flooding their support lines may help.

[edited by seanbyrne on 01.10.2004 21:21]

lapinou: Posts: 950; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 21:45

just for your information, they mistake their procedure, and speak about patin couffin when the drivers they are looking for is Autoplay. the fact of PatinCouffin is used in a lot of products and for completely legal purposes is indeed annoying for customers.

heystoopid: Posts: 307; Posted on: 01 Oct 04 23:30

Sounds like this game contains a rather nasty virus or trojan, not nice!!!!! :r

dagamer667: Posts: 56; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 00:15

It's one thing to refuse to install if other burning soft is present, but it's most likely illegal to secretly corrupt other programs.

Daemonicus: Posts: 447; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 00:45

I rarely play games. I produce DVD's for friends and what not. I author up DVD's, mount the image with Daemon Tools to check the DVD for bad links, etc.... competely legitimate reason to use Daemon Tools other than playing bootleged games. This is one company I will not purchase software from.

masterbw: Posts: 83; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 01:07

Jeee, we condemn piracy. But this is totally UNACCEPTABLE! To hell with this publisher!!

chsbiking: Posts: 543; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 01:48

An operating system that doesn't let one program, delete another program's files is needed in this sort of situation.

drphobus: Posts: 47; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 02:50

i am not sure but i think this is a criminal act the "the computer misuse act" it was to stop staff doing damage to infomation on pc's ie-deleteing a file

Spitfire_x86: Posts: 99; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 05:26

It does extractly what a VIRUS may do. So this game is a f**king virus.

RoC1909: Posts: 102; Posted on: 02 Oct 04 10:04

I have a funny feeling just like everyone else here that this is bordering on being illegal. As mentioned by Daemonicus, that driver can be used for legitimate reasons as well. Something is not right here and I bet they will eventually get into a whole hell of a lot of trouble for doing crap like this. In the mean time, I'll stay away from that companies products like the plague!!

Jim Kiler: Posts: 238; Posted on: 04 Oct 04 05:16

We should send this info to CD and DVD burning App makers, let them fight the game makers, they have the money we consumers do not. Or use the US govt since this may not be legal.

Raven737: Posts: 31; Posted on: 04 Oct 04 07:31

Such copy protections are the reason honest people have to resort to pirating games! With a proper crack you can have any cd burning app installed and no other application files will be deleted. Regardless, the game is crap and not even worth pirating. I just feel sorry for the guy who bought it. Also, for those that must install this game, you should use a tool like VMware to run a virtual clean windows install and this game. Then the game can delete any files it want's and won't matter to the real OS. This game should be blacklisted as malware in virus definitions.
[edited by Raven737 on 04.10.2004 07:47]

Hello guest,: To benefit from all extra features you need to log in or sign up.; signup log in

Most popular headlines

PSGroove PS3 jailbreak hack now runs off smartphones (1)

Tue 7 Sep 00:00 by wconeybeer
Game Consoles, Mobile Phones

If you have the right smartphone, you may not need to purchase any special equipment to use the PSGroove jailbreak exploit on your Sony PS3. A rework known as PSFreedom has been created to allow homebrew enthusiasts with certain Linux-based phones to run the code necessary to unlock their console.

PSJailbreak PS3 mod ban permanent, while free solution is unveiled (4)

Fri 3 Sep 21:04 by wconeybeer
Game Consoles, Piracy

An Australian court has make a decision today to permanently uphold their temporary ban on the PS3 PS Jailbreak USB modchip dongle just as a new free solution, PS Groove, has hit the internet with instructions and step-by-step instructional videos going viral.

PSGroove released: Open Source PS3 hack, PSJailbreak competitor (1)

Wed 1 Sep 19:09 by Randomus
Game Consoles

Sony PlayStation 3 owners now have yet another jailbreak to choose from when looking to unlock their game console, as the open source PSGroove PSJailbreak has been released.

Sony blocks PS3 USB hack exploits with new firmware update (1)

Tue 7 Sep 16:00 by wconeybeer
Game Consoles

Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Sony pushed out a new firmware update to block the exploit that allowed the PSJailbreak and PSGroove hacks to function. Apparently, that time has arrived.

See all headlines