RoboCop 3 - Dongle Anti-Piracy that Failed | MVG

RoboCop 3 was published by Ocean Software , and developed by Digital Image Design in 1991. The game was the first to utilize a dongle that plugged into the joystick port which would render the game useless without it. Here is the story of how the dongle was marketed by Ocean Software as a game changer in the industry and how one cracking group - Fairlight - were able to defeat it.
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Sources/Credits/Links:
► Big thank you to Galahad/Fairlight for his information on the crack.
► Everything Amiga Robocop 3 Article - www.everythingamiga.com/2016/...
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[@p0k314COM]

Fairlight cracks were so professional that I thought for years that their logo is official distribution mark like eg. EA.

[@Flippy2k6]

I miss those old school 80s midi beats, they were the shit!

[@slitor]

Cracking groups got so into making the logos, music and intros they started releasing them without crakcs...THUS spawning "the demoscene" art scene.

[@iphikles1756]

It was the same for me with razor1911😅

[@jose5toledo]

@@Flippy2k6 I don't if it's still around, but there was a program that had all those Trainer and Crack software midi music in it. I like the one from AGES a trainer for Half Life 2

[@hydrocarbon8272]

@@jose5toledo there's YT vids with many of them kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2PVfWCJnpZpsJY

[@SparksNZeros]

'ocean boasted the dongle would take months to crack' 'cracked in 5 1/2 hours' *Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme*

[@livingcorpse5664]

At least it was hours and not minutes.

[@AcornElectron]

I mean.... technically it took us seven and a half hours as we didn’t dist the crack until just after 5pm GMT. Although to be fair we did spend time changing the bb to release it. Just saying ;)

[@livingcorpse5664]

@@AcornElectron Imagine if it had been cracked in half an hour or less.

[@historyofrockmusic-mostpow3826]

Today - "this game would take forever to crack" -"not cracked even 14 years later" .Enthusiasm is down crackwatch.com/game/steel-beasts-pro-personal-edition

[@AcornElectron]

Living Corpse the actual time into the crack was sod all. Enough said?

[@anononomous]

Top tip: Never boast about how hard your game is going to be to crack.

[@h0lx]

Remember when Ubisoft said Silent Hunter 5 is uncrackable?

[@JoLiKMC]

Once upon a time, a group of hackers supposedly found a massive, gaping security flaw in Sony's servers which would blow open the gates to PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 hacking and cracking. They told Sony about it. Sony's at-the-time representative basically said they were full of beans and laughed at the hackers. He was promptly fired when the friendly hackers gave Sony proof of their claims, first-hand. (;

[@DigitalDiabloUK]

Like the unsinkable ship, there is always a bigger iceberg.

[@daimonmau5097]

This tip didnt worked in relation to denuvo on resident evil 3, and too on red dead redemption 2

[@Lovuschka]

They exactly do that with Denuvo Anti-Tampon, err, Anti-Tamper each time. And get cracked each time.

[@MichaelOglesby]

Five and a half hours... ouch. I'll bet there was some major shouting and swearing at Ocean HQ when they saw RoboCop 3 on the bulletin boards *the* same day of release.

[@r00s.]

Technically, it was 8.5 hours, I believe

[@zimzim4750]

@@r00s. still same day

[@kenrickeason]

I can see it now! LMFAO 😂😂😂😂😂

[@batt3ryac1d]

That's what they get for boasting so much lol

[@Prizm44]

All that money and research blown on creating a dongle 😂 Dongles can suck my... dongle 👍

[@Feark]

Ah, the Fairlight logo. It was so common on the games on my brothers Amiga that I actually thought it was the company that had develop the game, so it was "wow, they have made this game too!?" Edit: And about the Robocop 3. I member it was amazing visually, but still the framerate was so slow so the game became quite tedious to play. The game Hunter was similiar graphical but was more interesting due to open world and different vehicles to use, however impossible game play.

[@RetroGameSpacko]

I signed my first C64 Basic Programs with "Cracked by..." because I thought that it meant "Made by..." since it was in virtually every game.

[@MarekWoi]

Hunter rocked. So much freedom in 3d years before GTA3

[@mcnappa828]

someone else who remembers hunter. spent days on that game on the amiga when i were a lad. rock solid is how i remember it

[@MarekWoi]

@@mcnappa828 Well, I played around with it on an emulator, years after playing it on my Amiga. By today's standards, the gameplay is... tedious :-) But back then it was amazing. All the different vehicles, great stuff...

[@BaronVonQuiply]

I played a Commodore 64 game that I thought was made by a company called RAZOR, turned out to just be the cracktro but I didn't realize it until 20 years later.

[@grongy6122]

That RoboCop 3 game had really ominous atmoshpere, with watered-down colors and pretty atmospheric soundtrack for its game.

[@rickjames3034]

I love your profile pic

[@hallucinati]

@@rickjames3034 yours is silly

[@filanfyretracker]

Honestly back when this game came out, Casual piracy was also much harder if there was even weak copy protection. Not like today where even an average level of technical skill can hop on a torrent site and grab a game with crack or even one that is already cracked. Side note, Saying your DRM cannot be busted is like Master Lock labeling a lock as "Super Maximum Security". We all know Lock Picking Lawyer will have that shit open in four minutes tops.

[@everyhandletaken]

David Kearns another LPL fan hey? Respect.

[@feamatar]

It was also more disgusting because often you had to pay to the distributor of the cracked version. You could buy a floppy, and especially early written CDs for 1/10th of retail price.

[@renakunisaki]

Where the hell did he find a Master lock that took him four whole minutes?

[@KibbloMkII]

LPL can just look at a Master Lock funny and itd open

[@BangBang-hk4rg]

Man I love LPL!

[@AndrevusWhitetail]

"It would take us months to crack the dongle" Hackers : Who said we're hacking the dongle?

[@damienhartley3222]

Andrevus Whitetail: The security Dongle would have failed even if it was never hacked because as soon as windows or Linux with internet was a thing then people can download a dongle emulator.

[@BMWe-ed2tn]

@@damienhartley3222 Yeah back in 1991 when they designed it to DELAY piracy of the game they would've probably thought an emulation years after the release would've been acceptible. Also how do you download a physical item ? Hack up a joystick cable and wire it to the serial port of the pc and run the emulation ? Thats probably outside the scope of most amateurs. Amiga emulation wasnt untill the 2000's(dont quote me on that) for emulating the game on a pc(no need for hardware that is) Basically no copy protection is meant to last forever, it's meant to delay piracy enough that the software returns the maximum profit during its lifetime.

[@damienhartley3222]

@@BMWe-ed2tn I was talking about someone creating a virtual machine for dos that has generic dongle firmware that they can select a virtual flopy they downloaded which would be Linux based like a wineq4 or Android software .

[@ubufbuef]

@@damienhartley3222 because that was _totally_ possible in 1991

[@damienhartley3222]

@@ubufbuef it was the Japanese were already experimenting with power PC and RISC arm technology but it was suppressed by Microsoft and continued to evolve in the shadows till Google hit Microsoft hard with the success of the algorithm.

[@Z64sports]

"This game has aged terribly" Me: It looks so cool and fun

[@TheShoe1990]

It's got that Out of This World charm to it

[@Z64sports]

@@TheShoe1990 Yeah kinda does. Also I always kinda like games from this era just in general

[@V1VISECT6]

Looks amazing for 91 imo.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Also, the low res graphics actually kind of work for a Robocop POV. Yeah, he had better vision in the movies, but it still makes sense in terms of a video game.

[@roughdude6575]

Then Superhot happened.

[@GMMilambar]

I have a vague memory from when I was a child, of my father taking me to some offices somewhere near Manchester Central Library, which were full of computers, being showed around, and even allowed to play on some of them, while my father attended some business there (don't ask what it was, I don't know). It was only when I was much older, that I realised that he had taken me to the original Ocean Software offices, on Central Street in Manchester.

[@ArmandoLopez-sf6vq]

Yeah champ

[@Syntax.error.]

Good old days when CEO's told hackers their software is unhackable.

[@Larry]

I loved Robocop 3 so much as a kid, I hacked up my Amiga A600 in order to fit the dongle in. Still didn't bloody work >:(

[@AzrialAlaria]

How did you play it then? *wink wink*

[@Larry]

@@AzrialAlaria Got a cracked copy off a friend :P

[@Galahadfairlight]

@@Larry Glad to have been of service......but.... ;)

[@pferreira1983]

Hello you...erm pirate.

[@jondonnelly4831]

If you own the game, but played the crack version (cause retail didn't work) are you still a pirate? Isn't it a bit like buying a CD, then downloading the MP3 from pirate bay as the MP3 was not available on your streaming service. You still own it ( as much as you can own something).

[@danielm2142]

"It only took cracking group Fairlight... Just five and a half hours." *J. Jonah Jameson laugh*

[@thestarglider]

Fun fact: Ocean licenced the game first, then sub-licenced it to Data East. DE then designed the game and Ocean just ported that design back to the home computers.

[@LonelySpaceDetective]

That helps explain some confusion I've seen on whether the arcade game came before the microcomputer ports.

[@meetoo594]

The computer ports were terrible. The c64 version was uncompletable due to poor coding and the Amiga version was a horrible st port that made no use of the extra power the Amiga had. Spectrum version gets a lot of praise but I thought that was pretty crap as well. The arcade version rocks though.

[@todesziege]

@@meetoo594 While I prefer the arcade version, the Spectrum version is still pretty fun IMO and quite an achievement for the platform at the time.

[@meetoo594]

@@todesziege yeah, it was a technical achievement but I didn't think it was much fun, I guess this is a game that needs the iconic music and good graphics to be any good. Another fun fact: the Gameboy versions music was used in that irritating Ariston washing machine advert back in the 90s. Ariston, and on and on......etc

[@pferreira1983]

@@meetoo594 ZX Spectrum version is seen as a classic and rightly so.

[@rougenaxela]

As someone with a bit of reverse engineering experience, "attempting to hide the protection is what gave it away" rings true to me. By the sound of it, the bit with self modifying code in particular. A self-contained chunk of self modifying code often tends to be relatively conspicuous for someone that knows what they're looking for. Could hide the self-modifying aspect much better by interleaving the self-modifying code with more other things, scattering lots of innocuous/decoy self modifying code around, among other things to make it less obvious.

[@DbugII]

Agreed, and don't make the game react on fail checks immediately, do something smart like Dungeon Master that alters some of the in game data so after a while something bad happens (like your entire team roasted in a giant fireball), or like in Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders where you can continue to play for hours until you reach the airport and get thrown to jail with the monologue about you knew it was bad, that you should not have pirated the game, etc... :)

[@azuraracon6406]

Shout out to EarthBound’s idea of letting you play the entire game with the spawn rate ramped up just to crash and wipe your save during the final boss

[@Galahadfairlight]

@@DbugII Plenty of other Amiga protections got it right, Robocop 3 got it so very wrong ;)

[@thorlancaster5641]

I'm guessing it would be somewhat easier to hide protection with modern compilers instead of having to hand-code the checks in assembly. If you're an expert at the preprocessor (I'm not), you can make it generate random, obfuscated checks littered throughout the code that fail slowly. For more, see ithare::obf library.

[@darkangel424cod]

@@azuraracon6406 the. best anti piracy ever. I just imagine they thought it was a glitch and later played the game again only to lose everything once again

[@runforitman]

I love when companies think that hackers have to get through all their layers of security, instead of the reality of them just going around it

[@williamdrum9899]

I keep finding myself having to explain this concept when people say "I thought the blockchain couldn't be hacked"

[@chrismanuel9768]

I see you have put heavy barricades on your doors, bolts, weighted chains, steel reinforced padlocks, and heavily reinforced hinges. I'm gonna use the window.

[@HappyCodingZX]

One of the earliest dongles I can remember is for the game 'Buzzard Bait' on the Dragon 32 by Microdeal. The dongle plugged into the joystick port and the game would not load without it. This was in 1983.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

As soon as you said "they thought it would take months" I knew it was going to be less than 24 hours because that's just challenging hackers to ruin your day.

[@justsomeperson5110]

LOL Moral of the story? Don't challenge puzzle solvers unless you want your puzzle solved.

[@UXXV]

Interview with FLT crew please! Would love to hear some stories about how they and others cracked games back in the day not just on the Amiga but PC and ST too. I remember doing some basic work with SoftICE back in the early 90s and looked up to these guys!

[@andycraig7734]

Til MVG does... kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2fcnICapZaXpZo

[@GadgetUK164]

Yeah, that would be cool!

[@blakegriplingph]

I'm sure Strider wanted nothing to do with it tho. He sold himself out by dabbling into politics in the US. :P

[@johnsimon8457]

Andy Craig oh wow, the episodes from 2016 are like a greatest hits of the euro side of the 8 and 16 bit gaming scene. Thanks for this

[@FairLight1337]

You could always try our interviews section on the KZbin channel : kzbin.info/aero/PLRMzA1Sx__fnZN2_u1C_Mrbbxh5gQ4KDu

[@sheldonpetrie3706]

Ah Dongles. In high school tech class in the mid to late 90s I used a program called MasterCAD/CAM and it has a required dongle to use, as I think each user license was $20,000 CAD

[@philmacdonald2087]

Some Cad/cam software still uses dongles, although all usb now, but there are still lots of older machines out there running with the serial port dongles as many industries can be slow to upgrade unless forced to. Many software companies have moved to a "soft dongle" though like wibukey or sentinal

[@armyofninjas9055]

If these were at my high school, the dongles would have been stolen lol.

[@TheTekknician]

Wouldn't it be nice to have a few stories from groups like FLT, CPY, HLM, CDX, PDX, RZR and Skidrow - as to what their greatest challenges actually were?

[@KrotowX]

Probably not now because we want to see another great releases without group being locked up.

[@huldu]

Starforce was apparently something special and let's not forget about Denuvo these days. I don't mind copy protection but when they start becoming a problem for the owner of the game that's what really annoys me. Starforce was a pain in the back for so many reasons and even denuvo today is something I avoid to not support publishers/developers who use it.

[@andyphillips3518]

I bought Robocop 3 for the Amiga. But as mine was the new at the time Amiga 600. The casing stopped the dongle from fitting in the port. So even though I’d bought the original game I had to get hold of the pirate 🏴‍☠️ version before I could actually play it. 😢

[@humankerbal3623]

good

[@JackBandicootsBunker]

I laugh at stories like these; companies don't care about anything but their money, screw the consumer...

[@anononomous]

That was what immediately sprung to mind seeing 3:56

[@userPrehistoricman]

Who designed this dongle anyway? It looks mechanically weak.

[@MmntechCa]

That's the long and short of home computer DRM. Punishing legit consumers while the pirates get to enjoy a better experience.

[@AcornElectron]

I remember my mate getting the original and going ah you’re never going to be able to play this unless you buy it.... Hahahahahha

[@mcnappa828]

my mate said the same.....then i popped round the local pirates house and picked up a copy literally 5 mins later, my friend was pissed off lol

[@ZaHandle]

diamond is unbreakable! **get smashed like plastics**

[@izek402]

@@ZaHandle jojo reference????

[@ZaHandle]

@@izek402 yes

[@craigh5236]

Back in my Amiga days about every three or four months our little local group of Amiga owners would have a Sunday afternoon copy party. It was common to show up with a box of 100 blank discs and leave with all of them filled.

[@brandonbajc2084]

I love how much thought and research you put into your videos, they are honestly at an equal level to actual documentaries on TV! Its amazing you do this all on your own!!

[@farhanyousaf5616]

MVG should have a proper feature length show on a streaming service! Heck, I'd buy each of the episodes.

[@etansivad]

Fairlight, holy shit, I haven't seen that name in ages. Honestly, Robocop 3 still looks impressive to me, but part of me still thinks of the PS2 era consoles as "next gen" and anything above 320x200 "HD" I'm old.

[@calanon534]

Gee, I can't wait for the new releases on the Atari 2600. *_Also old._*

[@etansivad]

@@calanon534 You should look up the new Atari VCS console. Seriously.

[@sentientricecake3125]

Yes! I love your anti-piracy videos! Best way to start any morning!

[@everyhandletaken]

Hell yeah! I could listen to him talk about copy protection all day long 😀

[@Lady_Lilith666]

I also love stories about pirates who can crack any protection

[@Bitbatgaming]

They make great mealtime videos

[@NathanChisholm041]

Or to go to bed to!

[@armedready1]

I like the music aswell. He sounds like overlord gaming

[@eurocrusader1724]

Fairlight is still around , doing gods work.... 🤣

[@TheB0FH]

My first IT job was as a tech in a secondary school, they had some music software (interfaced with instruments) that had a parallel port dongle for anti piracy/license control. Worked great until the teacher added a scanner to their pc (with a parallel pssthrough port) and he ended up breaking the dongle in frustration

[@Cuzjudd]

Epico

[@goldkirby]

Their absolute confidence in their copy protection and all the lead up to the reveal that it took Fairlight just 5 hours to crack it. Actually laughed out loud

[@FinlayDaG33k]

I love that the sticker says: "For your security, this game is protected with an electronic key" :^) It literally says: "For your security, this game has DRM"

[@StatusQuo209]

It should say, "For OUR security, this game has DRM" lol

[@FinlayDaG33k]

@@StatusQuo209 Exactly.

[@SprocketWatchclock]

That should have permanently harmed their brand. If it had, we'd probably be in a different situation today with companies being afraid to implement DRM or suffer the same fate. But instead complacency won out and here we are, constantly dealing with that ugly monster breaking things on a fairly regular basis.

[@FinlayDaG33k]

@@SprocketWatchclock building and implementing DRM is literally trying to fight an uphill battle...

[@superrayman3]

One of the only pieces of software to be considered truly "uncrackable" for the longest time to the best of my knowledge were the 3 official Bleem boot discs (Gran Turismo 2, Metal Gear Solid, and Tekken 3) for Dreamcast which took 8 years to crack. Now granted the protection was eventually defeated but, the fact that it took 8 years to do, especially since the software was for a system that had a known reputation for having weak anti-piracy measures no less is an example of copy protection actually done right and the whole Bleem development team should be proud of that accomplishment. Say the Bleemcast copy protection would make for an interesting video.

[@NesNyt]

Has any truly unhackable software comment ever not been achieved.....I swear if they write hackable version on the box they wouldn't buy it

[@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819]

​@@NesNytTheoretically, Darkspore had a 100% success rate as far as copy protection went but that was probably due to it being always online. And it no longer being playable.

[@OmegaGamer04]

@@NesNyt I think the xbox one hasn't been cracked as of today.

[@misham6547]

​@@NesNytwell you can have a game that requires official servers, which would require the "crackers" to completely rewrite the backend

[@erikkonstas]

​@@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819So, in short, the game isn't in your hands for you to crack it, and they can see their bank statements very well before allowing you to log in...

[@RatzaChewy]

9:20 "Nobody cracks games like GASTON!"

[@ChadWSmith]

No one's slick as Gaston No one's quick as Gaston No one's glasses's incredibly thick as Gaston's For there's no man online half as manly Perfect, a pure paragon You can ask any Tom, Dick, or Stanley And they'll tell you whose crack they prefer to play on ... Who plays games like Gaston? Who cracks code like Gaston? Who's much more than the sum of his bits like Gaston? As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating My, what a guy, that Gaston! ... No one codes like Gaston Breaks the mold like Gaston In a hacking match, nobody hacks like Gaston I'm especially good at encryption breaking Ten points for Gaston Who has brains like Gaston Entertains like Gaston! Who can make up these endless refrains like Gaston

[@sonidheer4356]

you know it's a good day when MVG uploads

[@whuzzzup]

> for your security Also: > boasting about your copy protection ...

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

If anything, that motivates pirates to crack it as fast as possible.

[@r3cycledPl4stic]

@@youuuuuuuuuuutube and yet somehow publishers still haven't learnt that

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

Game companies: let's put as much intrusive and game-boggling drm to secure sales, who cares if the game doesn't work well for the customer Pirates: ahah game go smooth and brrr

[@TerminatedAccount.]

"KZbin" "Green texts as if the text would appear in green like in Reddit" You need to go back

[@renakunisaki]

@@TerminatedAccount. > Reddit

[@cormoran2303]

They should have gone with the Magnavolt dongle. It's the final word in vigeogame piracy security.

[@Chad_Thundercock]

Maganvolt Lethal. Response.

[@Draliseth]

And it won't even run down your power supply!

[@revoltman-needsmoreclickba7917]

they must have forgot the ancient wisdom "talk shit get hit"

[@smackdownfletch]

I always love watching videos like this. It's fascinating to see the evolution of copy protection versus crackers dismantling it. Thanks for making it!

[@jaredloveless]

So the fact that they had obfuscated the joystick port, gave them the key to cracking it? Fascinating!

[@awdrifter3394]

I hope in the future, there will be videos made about Denuvo and how various groups cracked it.

[@stuart777RX]

Imagine if Skidrow cracked it , How many crackfixs there would be ;)

[@Cuzjudd]

Ah Skidrow, I didn't even know what they were when I was a kid playing pirated Amiga games

[@ModernVintageGamer]

savage

[@wizardlyTKO]

Razor1911 would have done it right the first time.

[@littlekeefy]

SHiTROW

[@Mikey-zj8bn]

It's funny seeing some of these old warez crack groups that are still around to this day I miss bbs's

[@mrdaym]

Back in the day when scene groups had fucking P.O boxes. Insane.

[@ariss3304]

As always, quality video. I always appreciate videos made by people who have grounded knowledge of what they’re sharing, since you get a level of quality no amateur could produce.

[@karate-ka]

As soon as the notification comes in for MVG I have to interrupt whatever I'm watching to jump on to this. Never disappointed. Thank you.

[@ninjapwnsatlyfe]

These videos get me through such long boring days at work. I just toss them on and listen from a far, such easy listening and educational

[@freemonk3]

Please do more of these ole classic pirate related stories. Love these and really interesting.

[@coolie4u]

Fairlight - Legends Never Die!

[@pilifx]

when somebody tells me about things happening "for your protection", I always know, it's for their protection. never mine. (referencing that label on the box at around 3:10)

[@Superboologan1]

The comedic timing at 4:11 is impeccable

[@neddreadmaynard]

As always, a pinpoint piece of content delivered with style and knowledge. In a sea of mere game reviewers (who I love to watch too) you are an island of rock hard experience. Good job mate.

[@miaouew]

I think we can all agree Fairlight has the coolest and classiest splash screen of all time

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

the art form of splash screens developed from this

[@ReigningSemtex]

Thanks for giving me a little nostalgia trip, as a kid I thought Fairlight was the developer 😂

[@apu_apustaja]

Fairlight *wasn't* the developer!?!? :O

[@ReigningSemtex]

@@apu_apustaja the cracking team I believe but I was just a kid so I thought they were the dev, I used to love the music they used

[@apu_apustaja]

@@ReigningSemtex Yes, I was joking too, and yes, the music rocked. :)

[@ReigningSemtex]

@@apu_apustaja haha sorry it totally went over my head despite the bold 'wasn't' lol amiga could produce some banging tunes for sure I would often leave them playing for a while before pressing anything to enter the game. Good times.

[@apu_apustaja]

@@ReigningSemtex Absolutely. I recorded a tape of some of my fave Amiga tunes back in the day. When other kids were listening to chart music, I was nerding out to that. :D

[@Hqbwheicjebw]

You look exhausted dude. Absolutely love all your content. I am not a gamer but a programmer and love the in depth explanations etc to see another side of coding etc

[@RobUttley]

Great video MVG, more like this please! Love these stories & explanations.

[@MarkoMiettinen-DARKKi-NZTi]

This brought back memories and when that Fairlight intro flashed into my retina and soundwaves reached my cochlea, i was in nostalgia nirvana right away! :] Could you do more Amiga/AtariST content btw? I really like all the content you produce, keep up the good work!

[@SodomyHussein]

Damn dude I love your content. The coding sections are a little above my head but it makes me motivated to learn code even more. Keep it up dood! Edit can’t spell

[@lawbag1]

The RetroHour podcast had a half hour interview with Galahad if you wanted to hear more about his methods and background in cracking.

[@thenodfather]

Fairlight, absolute genius. In 5.5 hours they had it cracked. It's not good to boast, it can come back to bite you.

[@estrayk]

I like this video so much! Good work! And thx to Galahad too for give you information about the crack

[@galahadscxscoopex5190]

May your music continue for decades ;)

[@estrayk]

GalahadSCX Scoopex :)

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

Well, it eventually turned out that self-modifying code was the key to implementing a decent DRM, not dongles. In this case, they didn't implement it properly though. Modern day DRMs, like Denuvo (which isn't really a DRM but an executable protector) hide real software code under several layers of virtual machines, sometimes expanding original code 3-4 times as a result. The protected software runs slower and wastes a ton of extra CPU cycles because of this. But publishers don't care as long as it stops piracy.

[@H0ttabych]

Except that it doesn't stops piracy at all. People are just buying offline activations of the games at the release day for $5 and for $1-2 after a week.

[@lightning2605]

That fairlight title screen gave me goosebumps and a huge smirk on my face lol

[@azure1259]

Thanks for all the great videos, always smooth presentation, interesting content and I always learn something from watching them. Cheers.

[@Norweeg]

Fairlight... that name brings back a lot of memories.

[@thespectator2976]

Lovley to see that one of the BBS was located in my city, Sweden, :) God i miss Fairlight. :)

[@oz_jones]

Svergie är en rik ;) Just kidding

[@RosaMannen]

Great video. very very interesting. thank you so much for covering the cracking scene on the Amiga

[@AllemandInstable]

this channel is among the few that make me hyped and instantly click when I see a new video is released

[@computer_toucher]

Dongles are fun, and the most famous dongled software and crack ever surely must be 3D Studio? I remember having 3D Studio 3 on my 486, and making some short animations with that, but 3DS Max must be in the top tier of value for money if you got a cracked version of it... List price was between $1500 and $3000 if I remember correctly. Where would game mods like Counter-Strike and their like be without a cracked copy of 3DS Max or Lightwave...

[@Warbandit100]

Oh I totally agree on this, I remember raiding every store to find those sweet magazines with program licenses included, to use 3DSMax again and again, just to mod my CS, HF and Tomb Raider Level Creator!

[@wohlhabendermanager]

Fairlight sure was one of the best cracking groups out there. I always laugh when I see other, mediocre groups write things like "Faglight sucks" in their intros. On cracks that didn't even work correctly.

[@retropuffer2986]

The March 1987 Compute! Magazine featured the upcoming Amiga 2000 model. The photos they showed of the computer had an orange dongle on it. Even the sketch on the cover showed the dongle.

[@gvbavel]

Love your videos! Really interesting stuff, and they bring on the nostalgia for me ;-)

[@daveandlouise123]

That dongle also broke in half really easily, making the purchased game useless. Trust me, I felt the pain, then bought copied discs down the boot market

[@breakpointukgaming3516]

Shout out to my man Galahad, a true legend of the Amiga scene. He's also responsible for the 2013 legit release of the System 3's previously unreleased Putty Squad.

[@Galahadfairlight]

You appear well informed :)

[@breakpointukgaming3516]

@@Galahadfairlight Djay from EAB signing in ;)

[@Vanessaira-Retro]

I always love hearing about the Amiga cracking scene, Thanks MVG!

[@BrokenEmpire08]

love all the videos about the modding scene from back in the day!

[@ProjectPenguinNetwork]

"I know a guy who knows a guy..." MVG in the scene world ...

[@Galahadfairlight]

He really does!

[@ProjectGeek1]

I've got a "dongle" for a C64. It's homemade, and I'm convinced it was for a game or software that is unknown to me. It's nothing but a few resistors on an edge connector that goes into the userport.

[@firstsurname9893]

That sounds like the dongle for Access Software's Leaderboard.

[@ProjectGeek1]

@@firstsurname9893 Just looked up the dongle. Yep that's it.

[@slavo_mir]

Amazing how MvG always comes up with such great topics. Very valuable YT channel indeed

[@gareth1971]

Buzzard Bait (Joust clone) for the Dragon 32 released in 1983 by Microdeal had a joystick port dongle.

[@daneast]

Gary was covering his butt in that quote, saying that the dongle was only to prevent casual disk copying. There were already multiple methods of preventing disks from being copied by using non-standard methods of writing the data onto the disk. Think about it for a moment... if anyone could copy Amiga commercial game disks, then there wouldn't be a cracking scene in the first place, because it wouldn't have been necessary until Ocean released this dongle protection. Thus most high profile games already had various kinds of disk copy protection that prevented casual copying. Ocean thought this would prevent the game from being cracked, period. Which is why they said it would take a programmer weeks to just break one "level" of their dongle protection.

[@CraneStyleNJ]

"It would take months and months to crack it" SpongeBob narrator: 5 AND A HALF HOURS LATER *Mistakes were made*

[@wraithcadmus]

TFX... that's a blast, there was an Amiga version worked on but abandoned, ended up released on a coverdisk.

[@katenunyabizness9221]

Maybe it was the first game to use a dongle but not the first bit of software to use a dongle. Back in 1983 a dongle was required to use Paperclip on the C64. Inside the dongle was just a resistor IIRC that went from one joystick plug to another to form a feedback loop.

[@stephanemignot100]

GOG is the way, drm free games, I buy games I'll never play to support them! ^^

[@Walter_]

yes drm-free games is good

[@SomeOrangeCat]

GOG spoils us all with their goodness.

[@DFX2KX]

I mean, I get why DRM existed, *especially* in the era of having to print manuals and master thousands of floppies. The initial investment to make a game was stupidly high regardless of how well it sold. So I can't blame a company for at least wanting to get their money back. The other situation where DRM is justified is in competitive multiplayer: As a player of such a game, you should have a reasonable expectation that you're playing against people who haven't tampered with their clients to give themselves an edge. Fighting botters isn't usually fun. Any game I might whip up in Unity or Godot or Game Maker is made with the assumption that I'll sell exactly two copies-one pity copy from my brother, and the dude who seeds it on TPB. When you look at it that way, it's really hard to be particularly motivated to spend money on hiring good assets... That's part of why big companies dominate the industry despite all of the tools making it accessible. CDPR (who own GOG) at least support Devs enough that I know I'd make a decent earning off of something on there. And Valve has ubiquitous low-impact DRM that people accept for the convenience, so there is that.

[@jonasdatlas4668]

@@DFX2KX honestly I’m not the biggest fan of Valve‘s DRM... it’s hugely concerning that the majority of games is just forcibly linked to one company’s servers now. Sure, it has outlasted most per-game online DRM, but as soon as you try to use an older platform no longer supported by Steam you’re out of luck, and who’s to say Valve will be around forever? If Steam ever dies all those games die with it.

[@Nowbie]

@@jonasdatlas4668 not really, steam's protection is so simple...

[@Noxedwin]

Come on, man. You can't just say "They tried to hide it, and that's what gave it away" and *not* elaborate on that. You and your majestic eyebrows have left a very interesting story just hanging there.

[@Craig1967]

Great video, and I love the code examples! Keep it coming!

[@samuelxander]

Man what a GOOD video, also it felt more like a tv show or something, not so much like a standar youtube video, nicee work mate!

[@technodrone313]

not as good as when sony music's cd protection was defeated by a sharpie.

[@ElselchoGaming]

Please do a "How PSVita security was defeated"

[@grimmftw8044]

I dont subscribe to a lot of channels, and most of your content goes way over my head but man I just wanted to let you know you explain things in such great detail and you do so in such an entertaining way that it keeps my focus. I have no interest in robocop 3 for a computer based system i've never heard of in the US and yet here I am. You do such a good job I just wanted to say you get my like/sub for providing awesome content. Also the music you use amazing!

[@death-disco]

Every video you make is fascinating. Thank you!

[@FireTripperJeff]

As a kid I borrowed it off a mate and just used the action replay to save the machine state to a disk after the check. Don't know if it would play to the end, game was pretty rubbish.

[@korbenbutterworth3479]

JCT yeah I think this guy is on about a different game

[@FireTripperJeff]

​@JCT I imagine there were, shows how much I played it :). From memory, it ran really slowly on an A500, the video of it here seems a lot faster than I remember. A lot of the 3D games on the Amiga ran too slowly to be any fun, remember the space game Epic also being really slow. Actually bought that one as it could be played in 3D with glasses. Best thing was the poster that came with the game :D. Amiga 500 was best as a 2D machine. 68000@7MHz was just too slow to do 3D well.

[@FireTripperJeff]

@@korbenbutterworth3479 Pretty sure it was the same game. A logical place to put one of the 21 checks is right at the start of the game and the action replay on the Amiga could save the machine state to disk with a loader. I didn't say I cracked it, I was 12 at the time. I remember using XCopy to copy the 3 disks and used the loader disk to get past the first check. Not that it matters much, it's a vague memory from almost 30 years ago.

[@korbenbutterworth3479]

FireTripperJeff in the video it shows if the dongle is removed it will fail during gameplay

[@FireTripperJeff]

@@korbenbutterworth3479 super :)

[@whuzzzup]

> That by attempting to hide the protection is what gave it away Can you please elaborate on that.

[@teddyrogersau]

It uses the same disk loader routine throughout the game and was left totally unprotected. This allowed Gaston to avoid tampering directly with the dongle, trace vector decoder, checksums, etc. The code for detecting and checking for the dongle was very similar and repetitive throughout the game so was easy to spot and search for. After the loader loaded each section of the game with the dongle check Gaston simply bypassed (patched) the dongle check.

[@notraven__]

Hey, been watching for some time and always though it was cool how you got in touch with the people who originally cracked these forms of security. Are you considering publishing/doing full interviews of this type in future?

[@rajivghundoo5904]

Excellent video, please keep making more as your channel is like therapy for coders

[@user85790]

Can you make a video about the ps4 security system?

[@ControlAllDa1337]

Fairlight, there's a name I haven't heard for a while

[@JayBlackthorne]

A fascinating anecdote and a nifty piece of old school history. I hadn't heard this one before!

[@Warbandit100]

Must add to your video: in Italy, in the 90's, stuff from the rest of the world arrived 5-6 years later in the southern regions where I lived, so actually, I never played an original RoboCop 3 for Amiga, but the cracked version, as sometimes the original games were only for north Italy only, first time I hear about this dongle tbh, glad they failed or I could have never played this or many other games. The only original copies I own, are Dylan Dog's games, as the Italian origin of the comic allowed for the poor south Italy to receive them.

[@SchutzBoysband]

my dongle failed the other night im getting old

[@hqqns]

Mine's broken

[@MJunioR9]

can you get some fat piece of cheese? when my "dongle" starts failing i put it right in the middle of a wheel of cheese and let it there for two hours sure it smells funny but work afterwards

[@DaryxFox]

​@@MJunioR9 GrandmaFindsTheInternet.jpg