Anti-ISO measures in games (DJMax Black Square)

[LocutusEstBorg]

It seems new games like DJMax Portable Black Square have some Anti-ISO protection. It detects when being run from an ISO.

I played it for a couple of days from the UMD and had a leveled up saved game.

When I ripped it to my memory stick, the game launched, one song worked, then the screen started flickering. When I exited the game it had deleted itself, along with some other ISOs on the memory stick!

It also corrupted my save game and my save games from previous DJMax games!

Thank god I actually tried out Sony Media Manager recently and it backed up my save games.

 

[mohaas05]

I don't know if that's so much protection or if it just corrupted your memory stick.

But one game that I do know has protection is Jackass. If you rip it or compress it into a cso, it only lets you play the first chapter and disables multiplayer. but playing it as an unmodified iso is fine.

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

Its consistent. I just found a replacement eboot.bin patch for the ISO that fixes the protection. Seems that Clazziquai edition also has the same protection.

 

[-chw42-]

You might have just screwed up the rip...

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

No, google it. Its pretty widespread. Mostly people who are downloading untouched ISOs, and not a scene rip thats already patched. Mine would be untouched since its from the UMD.

 

[Hellcat]

It's about time.... I was always wondering why the devs didn't put in some own/additional protection already....

 

[mohaas05]

I wonder how games detect if they are in iso format?

 

[Sullivan]

Im sure it would be quite easy to detect if it is being loaded from a different source then they want it to be.

I remember when I downloaded the jackass game, they had some protection on it where if it was ripped, it would only let you play level 1 games, level 2 and up you couldn't access.

 

[Slasher]

I remember when I downloaded the jackass game, they had some protection on it where if it was ripped, it would only let you play level 1 games, level 2 and up you couldn't access.

mohaas already mentioned that earlier

 

[Hellcat]

I wonder how games detect if they are in iso format?

I don't think that's too hard.... and don't forget "The Sony is with them", providing them with even more info on how to do it....

 

[Sullivan]

mohaas already mentioned that earlier

ehh, damn, i didn't see his post.

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

I don't think its possible to determine programatically from user mode. Since Sony has their own NP9660 driver for PSN ISOs, it should be transparent to games.

I noticed that the protection doesn't kick in when you only have CSOs. But the DJMax games lag in CSO with any compression level even at 333, so you're forced to use ISO.

They must be just reading the files in the ISO folder and reading the game data from the ISO (such as the game code ULUS-xxxxx etc) to determine if you have an ISO of the game. Thats probably how it also exactly deletes ISOs of all other DJ Max games on your memory stick.

That also means that even if you run it from the UMD, but you have blacklisted ISOs on the memory stick, the protection will kick in. I'll have to test that now.

 

[Sullivan]

I always wondered when sony would kick in and do something to delete the magnificent ISO folder.

 

[twelve]

Does it happen with every different loading method? No-umd, M33 driver etc?

I guess the Jackass one is quite good if it lets you play the start of the game, makes it a proper "try before you buy" ISO.

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

Confirmed: DJ Max ISOs, save games are deleted even from running from UMD, with normal umd-required mode.

 

[Sullivan]

So if you have the iso on your ms, and you run the umd it gets deleted?

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

So if you have the iso on your ms, and you run the umd it gets deleted?

Only the ones that are blacklisted (the DJ Max ISOs and save games).

 

[Sullivan]

Wow, this is going to be interesting. Having to back up save data every time before placing iso on ms. lol

 

[Slasher]

Well lets just hope other ISOs don't implement this
It really doesn't surprise me though, if coders cared about their shit getting pirated they should have done this looooong ago. Sony should make a function in their SDK, 'sceProtectDeleteIso(ID)' that any game could easily call lol

 

[twelve]

Wouldn't it be easy enough to have a UMD ripper that detects this protection and patches it when the game is ripped? Or is the patching process different for every game?