StarForce threatens to sue Boing Boing – contacts FBI

Wow such a poorly typed letter which seems like a template (in his updates he says Cnet has got one as well) screams prank. I think someone is having a little fun with these people.

I don't know of course. But, StarForce has gotten tired of the complaints as they have posted a challenge on their website to anyone that can back up negative claims. It is now up to 10,000 dollars. However, it is a pain in the ass to collect as you must visit Moscow in person to take the test! Also, I read but cannot substantiate yet, that in order to win the prize, you must prove permanent damage. i.e. if you have failures on an drive, then you wipe the HDD and the drive functions again, you lose. http://www.star-force.com/protection.phtml?c=261&id=707 It's "signed" by Dennis Zhidkov- the same guy that supposedly has sent the threat to Boing Boing. With 50,000 hits and no legit takers, they are getting increasingly cocky in their stance.
[edited by Crabbyappleton on 31.01.2006 23:25]

There 'protection' installes drivers that I do not want on my PC. It should list that does in a big window BEFORE set up so people know whats going on.

Unless Cory Doctorow has signed a NDA or something, he has NOT broken any laws, he has the right of free speech. I think this more about bad publicity then legal threats...

In Soviet Russia, copy protection runs you!

Let's face it here. The only people who have trouble with Starforce are those who try and run copies of the games. I have never had a problem with any Starforce protected game. As for the other accusations, that it damages hardware, I have yet to see a first hand claim from someone that it has damaged their system. All the claims are always second hand and therefore heresay. Once again I believe this to be just sour grapes by those who have failed to get their pirated copies to work. Rootkit? Starforce has been investigated by the people who discovered the Sony one, their report on Starforce gave it the all clear. Now don't get me wrong, I would rather run from a copy too rather than the original, BUT the fact that Starforce is such a good protection doesn't give anyone cause to make wild accusations about it. The truth is always preferable over falsehoods.

This is a first hand claim that StarForce damaged my PC. I had a LiteOn SOHC-5232k combo drive that became read only after I installed Silent Hunter 3. A LEGIT copy.

i had problems burning DVDs on my laptop after installing UFO: Aftershock, even after uninstalling it still gave problems so i reformatted and the problem was fixed, until i reinstalled UFO: Aftershock. so i unistalled it, used the starforce cleaner and it was fixed. i'd try and claim the award but it is only for permanent damage. this is the sort of crap a lot of my less pc literate friends cannot sort out for themselves. unless they fix this issue i won't buy another starforce protected game and advise all my friends to do the same.

Well this explains lots of burner problems people experience: For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at).

it's actions like this (as well as the "delayed write failed" error messages and blue screens I got when installing a Starforce DEMO years ago) that make it so much easier to totally ignore all anti-consumer Starforce-protected content. Let the games sit on the shelf and collect dust. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will make me install anything protected with StarForce. It doesn't even come into consideration. Sue me Starforce. Please.

I am with cynicalbastard on this as who in there right mind would install starforce games if they knew that there was going to be problems. I do not have the money to replace the machine I have, so it is better not to take any chances.