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How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

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Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#31

Post by atVelocet »

londons_explore wrote: post #9

Did the breaking of the copy protection on the Dreamcast really play a big part in Sega's downfall? If so, it would be one of the only cases I know of where IP piracy led to financial ruin of the content creator.

It was 4 consoles fighting for attention around that time: Sega Dreamcast Nintendo 64 Microsoft Xbox Sony PlayStation 2

The sales of the Xbox and Dreamcast never catched up to those of the N64 or the PS2. I would say the market was over saturated around that time with 4 stationary consoles.

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#32

Post by wolfgke »

londons_explore wrote: post #8

The fact this was broken by stealing a developer's SDK is disappointing. Real hackers would have disassembled the machine to reverse engineer it, rather than using black market/social engineering tricks.

> The fact this was broken by stealing a developer's SDK is disappointing. Real hackers would have disassembled the machine to reverse engineer it, rather than using black market/social engineering tricks.

You cannot assume that an attacker will have an "honor code" or that you can keep information secret from an attacker. Because of the latter one, there exists Kerckhoff's principle

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kerckhoffs%27s_pr...

which on a high level states that security by obscurity will in the long run become broken (and as a corollary DRM does not work).

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#33

Post by atVelocet »

wolfgke wrote: post #30
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK at least it was more than likely due to Sony's far superior marketing of the original PlayStation. The arrival of the PS2 and the Xbox sealed the deal. That said, I've always seen the original Xbox as the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast.

> That said, I've always seen the original Xbox as the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast. In what sense? The architecture between these two consoles is IMHO quite different.

But it really was. Sega and Microsoft worked closely together or why do you think they implented the Windows CE option? Also all Sega arcades afterwards shipped with Xbox hardware.

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#34

Post by masto »

I remember those days. I was working at a small company, and a coworker and I had Dreamcasts. He also had small children and felt that the cost of games and their short attention span was a good excuse for piracy. He downloaded everything posted to a Usenet group for Dreamcast games and burned two copies. Every morning I’d come in to a pile of CDs on my desk. I only recently threw them out, several spindles full of them. Hundreds of games, many I never even tried playing. It was bizzarre.

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#35

Post by tangue »

atVelocet wrote: post #33
wolfgke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I've always seen the original Xbox as the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast. In what sense? The architecture between these two consoles is IMHO quite different.

But it really was. Sega and Microsoft worked closely together or why do you think they implented the Windows CE option? Also all Sega arcades afterwards shipped with Xbox hardware.

Windows CE was loaded from the disks and was an option for developers. The dreamcast had another os which were more close to the naomi arcade machine

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#36

Post by croo »

londons_explore wrote: post #8

The fact this was broken by stealing a developer's SDK is disappointing. Real hackers would have disassembled the machine to reverse engineer it, rather than using black market/social engineering tricks.

Excuse me, but real hackers use butterflies. [1]

1. https://xkcd.com/378/

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#37

Post by jonhohle »

atVelocet wrote: post #31
londons_explore wrote: post #9

Did the breaking of the copy protection on the Dreamcast really play a big part in Sega's downfall? If so, it would be one of the only cases I know of where IP piracy led to financial ruin of the content creator.

It was 4 consoles fighting for attention around that time: Sega Dreamcast Nintendo 64 Microsoft Xbox Sony PlayStation 2 The sales of the Xbox and Dreamcast never catched up to those of the N64 or the PS2. I would say the market was over saturated around that time with 4 stationary consoles.

The N64 was 3 years old by the time the Dreamcast came out. The Dreamcast was killed before the Xbox was released. Also, the original Xbox sold 24 million units compared to the N64’s 30 million.

The GameCube and Xbox were fighting for second place that generation.

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#38

Post by cdmckay »

londons_explore wrote: post #8

The fact this was broken by stealing a developer's SDK is disappointing. Real hackers would have disassembled the machine to reverse engineer it, rather than using black market/social engineering tricks.

I think if getting the SDK was enough to crack the copy protection, it would’ve happened eventually.

The key seemed to be the descrambler.

Why on earth did they scramble the executable in a deterministic way?

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#39

Post by tom_ »

atVelocet wrote: post #31
londons_explore wrote: post #9

Did the breaking of the copy protection on the Dreamcast really play a big part in Sega's downfall? If so, it would be one of the only cases I know of where IP piracy led to financial ruin of the content creator.

It was 4 consoles fighting for attention around that time: Sega Dreamcast Nintendo 64 Microsoft Xbox Sony PlayStation 2 The sales of the Xbox and Dreamcast never catched up to those of the N64 or the PS2. I would say the market was over saturated around that time with 4 stationary consoles.

The Xbox's more natural competitors were the PS2 (which had come out the year before) and the Gamecube (which came out about the same time).

Maybe the Dreamcast too, in theory, but I think it had long been obvious it was a goner. I think Sega might even have dropped it by the time the Xbox was released.

Re: How the Dreamcast Copy Protection Was Defeated

#40

Post by caf »

cdmckay wrote: post #38
londons_explore wrote: post #8

The fact this was broken by stealing a developer's SDK is disappointing. Real hackers would have disassembled the machine to reverse engineer it, rather than using black market/social engineering tricks.

I think if getting the SDK was enough to crack the copy protection, it would’ve happened eventually. The key seemed to be the descrambler. Why on earth did they scramble the executable in a deterministic way?

Why on earth did they scramble the executable in a deterministic way?

Because they wanted official developers to be able to create MIL-CDs that would load.

They just didn't want anyone else being able to do that.

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