The DRM in question involves a certificate with a hardcoded date – January 28 2009 – as its time to expire. Now that this certificate has expired the game will not load, giving the following error message.

[installpath]\Gears of War\Binaries\wargame-g4wlive.exe: You cannot run the game with modified executable code. Please reinstall the game

Of course, reinstallation does nothing, as the certificate has still expired. Of greater interest is why there is a certificate with expiration date in the game at all, especially as it’s expired just 15 months after the games release.

After this was pointed out on Epic’s forums, joeGraf, a ’super moderator’ (and presumably staff member of Epic) stated that they are now aware of this, and “are working with Microsoft to get it resolved.” Just what form that resolution will take is also not clear; be it an updated certificate with later date, an open ended certificate, or removing such certificates. If a new dated certificate is issued, then it can only be expected that we will have the same problems again when it too expires.

This may also raise a question mark over other ‘Games for Windows’ titles released since Gears of War – which include Crysis and Grand Theft Auto IV – over their inclusion of such certificates, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, those of you that wish to play can do so by setting your system date back to January 27 or earlier. Also, in between playing, remember you can drop the FTC a line and tell them about this experience with DRM.

DRM only usually punishes legitimate purchasers, so this screw up with Gears of War is quite unique. We’ve just discovered that the pirated ‘razor1911′ release is also affected, meaning that it’s taken down every copy available. Great work. It must be well hidden if the usually alert crackers didn’t spot it, begging the question “how many more games have an expiration date?”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Although the company does send out DMCA takedown requests to BitTorrent site owners, Millions of Microsoft products are being pirated on BitTorrent and other filesharing networks every year.

Of course, Microsoft is doing all it can to prevent people from installing illegally obtained copies of their products, with their ‘Windows Genuine Advantage‘ system as the flagship solution. Similar to most other anti-piracy measures, it also hurts honest customers, as it has a false positive rate of more than 20%. The pirates will get what they want one way or another.

What Microsoft does not do, however, is sue individual downloaders. Unlike the RIAA they don’t think that the people who are potential customers are the right targets in their battle against piracy. Instead, they mostly target resellers who sell illicit copies of their products. “Legitimate businesses struggle to compete against these illegal resellers who undercut their prices and contribute to the 20 percent software piracy rate in the U.S.,” the company states.

The Pirate Bay has no commercial interests, but contrary to what Microsoft would have hoped for, they are not very responsive to letters from Microsoft either. In addition, we seriously doubt that ‘Global Anti-Piracy Day’ is the success they want it to be, now Bill Gates’ is on the frontpage of the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The problems reflect the difficulty companies – even those of the size of Microsoft – are having in getting video into the online age.

Video content in high definition results in very large file sizes – which can put a strain on servers when delivering content to thousands of people at the same time.

When Microsoft released the second Beta of Windows Vista, it had a major bandwidth problem on its hands. The demand for it was so high that they had to resort to limiting bandwidth to “prevent the internet from collapsing.” This resulted in slower downloads for everyone. The genial Chris Pirillo then created Vistatorrent.com to give Microsoft a hand by easing the load on their servers. Microsoft didn’t seem to mind initially, but later sent Vistatorrent a cease and desist letter, a framed version of which was later presented to Prillio and the gang at Gnomedex.

So what’s a poor multinational to do?
Use BitTorrent, of course! Here’s how BitTorrent could help Microsoft.

First of, with the Vista Beta downloads, it only made sense for Microsoft to release an official torrent. The result of Microsoft not doing was a host of “pirated” Vista torrents being uploaded, the quality and authenticity of which Microsoft couldn’t assure. And when you’re offering a Beta version, you want people to download it and thoroughly test it for bugs, not limit enthusiastic fans (if that’s what you can call them).

Secondly, if Microsoft’s Xbox Video Service used BitTorrent to distribute content it would speed up downloads and ensure that they are not interrupted. It would also save Microsoft a lot of money on bandwidth bills, because as you probably know, files are downloaded from other people over BitTorrent and the load is spread out, not focused on a few servers. Users could even get free ‘points’ (or Microsoft Monopoly money, as Macworld likes to call it) for seeding torrents. The overall experience of purchasing content and downloading it would be a lot more streamlined and smooth.

The only possible drawback is that users won’t be able to start watching a movie after just a few minutes of downloading, since BitTorrent downloads aren’t chronological, bits are prioritised by the number of people uploading them (the less seeders sharing a bit, higher the priority it’s given), and not by the actual order in which they are in the file.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Although the demand for Microsoft’s second Vista Beta is extremely high, Microsoft refused to release a torrent for “security” reasons.

At the Gnomedex conference Chris Pirillo, one of the organizers, and the initiator of vistatorrent.com received a nice “gift” from Microsoft. It probably Microsoft’s way to let them know that they appreciate the initiative. Pretty funny…

Manager of Microsoft’s community team Aaron Coldiron said:

“Jake and Chris we obviously love, and we thought it was a great attempt. Of course, it does violate the EULA (End User License Agreement). Things do happen, and we thought this would be a lighthearted way to say, ‘Nice try.’ “

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

At least, according to a chat Chris Pirillo had with MS Mindshare Manager Aaron Coldiron. Coldiron said:

We are pumping out bits as fast as we can. If we pushed out bits any faster there would be a measurable impact for the Internet. So, we are literally saying that if we increased our bandwidth any further there’s a possibility of taking down the Internet

When Chris asked why they couldn’t just seed it as a torrent, Coldiron responded:

There are legal and privacy issues which unfortunately make that not an option for Microsoft to officially sponsor a BitTorrent. I really wish we could do it, but we can’t. If someone [seeds or downloads a torrent] we can’t guarantee that they’ve got an unaltered copy, etc.

This is obviously bullshit, Legal and Privacy issues? Sounds to me like Microsoft just isn’t capable to produce an MD5 hash, like Chris Pirillo already noted.

Update: BitTorrent.com and vistatorrent now provide clean Vista Beta torrents

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.