I got these people that keeping telling me that the new Securom 4 on games like U2k3 and NOLF2 can easily be copied with programs like Alcohol 120%. I tried to tell them that you can get an IMAGE of the games easily, but they keep saying they have burned and image and them burned that to a CD and that it is a 1:1 burn.

Has some new revelation come about in the past few weeks? I thought this protection is impossible to burn harware-wise.

Please update me.

Maybe you have to use the SEARCH Option on this Forum

A little while ago, a username named "Blackcheck" developed a tool called "Twinpeak" which fixes the twin sectors. Seems as your friends have not told you everything they did, or both of them got lucky, since bugs in the protection on certain discs is possible.

hmmm,
in my opinion clone cd is able to do a copy that is a real 1:1...

there are weak sectors...and with the setting ignore clone cd is able to write these sectors correct with some writers...

FighterOne stop making useless replies. The SecuRom very new protection has nothing to do with the ability to write weak sectors correctly or not. As CCDKing said: some tools have been released with which it's possible to copy the latest SecuRom version. Blindwrite Suite versions can also do it since v4.2.1. CloneCD is also planned to deal with the latest SecuRom versions..

>>CloneCD is also planned to deal with the latest SecuRom versions<<

Just what I wanted to see, as I have NOLF2 sitting under the Christmas tree ready to be unleashed

If you want to no how Alcohol 120% manege to make a working copy of the Securom 4.x read the article from the support site. And find out you can only play a copy from CD if you have Alcohol installed.

http://forum.alcohol-software.com/in...ST&f=18&t=1531

That is just what i tried to tell u.
Equal if there are weak sectors or not, the new clone cd is able to make a copy of everything!!!!

PS so try to do a copy with emulate or correct weak sectors with the new copy protection
it WILL not work...

"in my opinion clone cd is able to do a copy that is a real 1:1... "

It is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. CloneCD CANNOT make 1:1 copies of SecuROM 4.8x games. It IS physically impossible.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE 1:1 COPIES OF:

- SecuROM 4.8x
- CD Cops (with rare exceptions)
- StarForce
- ProtectCD 5

NONE OF THESE PROTECTIONS USE WEAK SECTORS! - They, as GF already stated are irrelevant in considering SecuROM 4.8x

HOWEVER - there are tricks you can use to fool these protections. With Twinpeaks, the disc is NOT a 1:1 copy, but because the game's guard module cannot tell the difference (due to the way that twinpeaks affects the sector's read times) - the game runs.

Alcohol stores RMPS info on the disc and when RMPS emulation is enabled, the Alcohol driver intercepts calls to the CDROM hardware and dynamically changes the results as necessary - so the disc behaves EXACTLY like an original - read times for parts of the disk, sector data etc.

The CDR disc is therefore NOT 1:1, but it contains all the necessary information for the emualation driver (Alcohol 120%) to make the program think that it is reading a real disc.

In my opinion, an emulation-enabled backup is almost as good as the original because the only thing you have to do to make it work is install a small piece of software and tick one option. Easy. UT2003 works absolutely perfectly with RMPS emulation.

as for your friends...

the early version of the new SecuROM was very innaccurate and buggy. Hence on some CDROM drives, with some media, the backup would work. If your friends used twinpeaks then they have not made a true 1:1 copy.

Allright

but there is something that i dislike:
"the only thing you have to do to make it work is install a small piece of software and tick one option"

i don't want to istall a software before i can use another! Then I can better search a crack and put it on the original cd copied on hdd and then burn it with nero as an new session!!!

The difference is that people like Bioware can check for a cracked exe but not RMPS. Also, you don't need to download a new crack every time a game update is released.

It takes 30 seconds to install Alcohol (literally) and you don't even need to restart.

I like RMPS because it saves me all that disk space but is just as good as emulation. Why is a 1:1 backup so important? You will have alcohol installed on that PC anyway so you won't have to reinstall it. After all, it is just a backup.

agree

1:1 copy is just not possible.
i think the rmps feature works very good. you already have alcohol 120% installed to make a back-up, so what is the problem to have it run in the background while playing?
be happy that this function made you able to back-up your expensive cd's instead of wining that you need to run alcohol 120% in the background.

agree!
but still there is somthing:
i don't use alcohol... but clone cd
ok clone cd is not that good in emulating.. but i didn't need any game to be emulated with clone cd...
moreover:
my friendy or whoever has also to install alcohol...and that is a problem cause not everybody needs alcohol anyway

ok cya

uhm, thats exactly what we would call a 1:1 copy, isn't it? do you think your writer can create c2 errors when copying
safedisc ? not at all. ecc errors are just a
trick either. the difference is detectable.

the only reason why twinpeaked copys are not 1:1 is that they can't be read by all drives.

No, a SafeDisc copy is much closer to the original than a Twinpeaks copy is. A SafeDisc copy uses the same method (bad sectors / weak sectors) as the original. A Twinpeaks copy uses a completely different method to fool the guard module. Arguably the boundry is a little blurred. But the fact that a twinpeaks copy won't install on some drives means that it is not 1:1, as you said.

Even if twinpeaks worked perfectly on every drive, I still wouldn't call it a 1:1 copy - but many would. Anyway - debating this point is a bit stupid, so I won't any further.

my personal thought:

if a twinpeak copy is 1:1 it wont be possible to blacklist it, because you cant tell the difference between the original and the copy.
but hear from some people that with the newest securom version the twinpeak method has been blacklisted.

this is what i personal think and not related to any experience that i have with twinpeaks what so ever.

IMHO, most properly made backup CDs can be considered 1:1 copies of the data, including backups of ultranew SecuROM. However, they aren't 1:1 copies of the disc. But you can never make 1:1 copies of the disc unless you have some kind of Star Trek style replicator. The top, the reflective layer, the data layer, the track pitch, there are so many differences. However, this does not matter with most protections as they cannot detect this. But Sony have realised a way to modify the track pitch so that it is usually detectible by most reader and therefore can be and is used in their copy protections. And sadly, this is the end of the road IMHO, for making copies invisible to copy protection without anything extra. Twinpeaks methods etc may work for a while but they will easily be overiden. The only method which has a chance of working if it produces a readable disc, is the method suggested of writing slower but spinning at the normal. IMHO tho, this will never be possible and even if it is, it won't produce a disc readible in most writers.

As for special media, well I doubt this will ever happen. If I understand it correctly, it is easily possible and may already be true that the differences in each SecuROM protected this is such that a specific media will be needed for each disc. Do you really think anyone is going to start selling seperate media suitable for copying UT2003 and another for NWN (which doesn't need it now anyway since copy protection was removed) etc?

The emulate method will be the only reliable method IMHO...

" Do you really think anyone is going to start selling seperate media suitable for copying UT2003 and another for NWN (which doesn't need it now anyway since copy protection was removed) etc? "

Obviously not. But there are blessings in disguise. For example, Lite-ON updated the firmware to provide "better media compatibility", which for some strange reason allowed the drive to read protected music CDs better. Nothing blatant can be done obviously, but it is interesting how CD recorder drives have improved as new protections have become available. I guess some of their tech guys are like us

You seem to be missing my point. It is very unlikely that a recorder alone will ever be able to produce a copy which will work in most cases and continue to work with new updates. As I have said, the only feasible options IMHO is to somehow write slower awhile spinning fast which is basically similar to the idea of causing buffer underruns to produce on purposes the glitches BURN proof etc leave. The reason I don't think these will work is because they are unlikely to produce readable CDs if you do it enough to actually cause a copy which if read, should overcome SecuROM4.

If you read my the above again, you should realise I said "seperate media". I was talking about the media. This does not involved recorders, only the media. In theory, media which is similar to the SecuROM media could be made. If one media would work with all SecuROM titles, then there is a very very remote possbility that this would occur. But I doubt it. From my understanding of SecuROM 4, there is no reason why they can't design each title media diff enough so that you can't use one media for all. In fact, they may do this already. I don't think this would make much diff to the cost of producing the title. However, what this means is that there is no chance in hell that you will ever get anyone producing compatible media. If you don't get why, I don't think I can help you except to say that we are not talking about Sony/SPCA/BSA/whatever influence here.....

You are of course, correct about the media. But what I am trying to say is that special media is not the only option and if not now, there may be burning abilities of recorders in the future which could help us. Alternatively we will all use RMPS emulation, which I am quite happy to use.