Texture theft

Now I'm wondering why LL doesn't put in an anticheat to catch texture theives, I know for a fact applications like gameguard DO stop this sort of game hack. Gameguard does have its flaws and maybe a bit excessive but you can't tell me their is nothing LL can do to stop them.

LL is already taking serial hashes off our pc for banning reasons, why can't you develop an anticheat that monitors memory range aswell, most people don't even notice an anticheat running till it disconnects them.

Not saying it would be a fool proof way of solving the problem, but it would be a nice start.

Some will say its impossible, but I've heard from programmers that, that just isn't so, and other say its intrusive, and still others have comments that seem to say, if you don't want your hard earned graphics work stolen, get off the net. The point is, every artist should have a reasonable assurnace their work isn't stolen, even if its only to frustrate the average Joe from ripping off an artist. Sure, there is always gonna be the elite thieves who can get around almost any protection system, but they are few and far between. Thta doens't mean you just throw up your hands and say, "oh well!".

Thank you for bringing this up and as issue John. *smiles

Don't clap too hard read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameGuard

Especially read the links below on the Wikipedia page. Your textures will be safe and your PC will be vulnerable to attack.

This is true it does leave something of a security hole, one which I'm not entirely sure the full implications of, but I've played games with gameguard for what, a year now, haven't had one problem with it.

But maybe there is a better way, gameguard is a prime example of a program that stops hackers though, I just wonder how hard it is to get textures from games like Guildwars that you dl everything off the web. I think I may snoop around a little and see if its hard or if they just let it go, what their using.

The two hacks I know of steals the textures (and more) from the OpenGL libraries or the SecondLife cache file while SL is not running. Neither are from the games memory (depending how you want to define such).

So forcing the client to clear the cache on logout may solve part of the problem? no way is it that simple is it? I would love to hear from a linden on that one, as for pulling them from the open GL libraries, thats a bit over my head but if you can pull up any info relevant I would love to see it. I know Game Guard monitors direct x, so I don't think that feature would do much of anything in this case since its Open GL.

you don't get the idea guys don't you?

the client machine is an untrusted system, aka it isn't under your control and will never be, the user/admin of the said machine is the master of the said system, not you and your aplication will never be, you can do whatever you want you will NEVER make an untrusted system 100% secure, because you cannot monitor it directly.

But if you are thick headed you can try and waste money in a concept wich has it's roots flawed. No control over the said system.

-Make a cd protection check, crackers will remove the protection, they don't need your benediction to do so
-Use a process guard, either they will develop a tool to make it blind, or they will simulate the said process guard so the game run without it.
-Crypt the cache files? at one moment the user has to "see" the textures on his screen and you can't keep something out of reach of someone and at the same time allow him to see it , especially on an untrusted system
-Use a secure cpu, good the first thing peoples with a bit of knowledge will do is to remove the said security while keeping its functionalities active.

This scheme is not enormously less intrusive than the one Sony came up with for their CDs, and Sony's faced with ongoing lawsuits over that.

Windows security is sufficiently bad already that I would actively boycott any application (whether games or not) that installed a trojan horse like this, and I wouldn't be alone.

There's a balance that has to be found between the conflicting sets of property rights, the physical property rights of the computer owner and the limited monopoly of the "intellectual property" holder. In my opinion security applications that irreversibly corrupt the security of your operating system step over the line.

Even with all of this protection, what's to stop a person from making a cube with the texture on it at a 1:1 ratio and SCREEN SHOTING it?