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by kuschku 3597 days ago
The whole point is that you, as user, can not use your (legally guaranteed right in the EU) to debug software, reverse it, modify it, etc.

That is a big fucking disadvantage.

If I buy software (buying a license also counts, if you’re in the EU, or renting a license), I want to be able to use it like I’d use a table I buy: I can saw one leg off, repaint it, turn it into a chair. I want to be able to mod the game, skin it, theme it, do a total conversion.

This is preventing me from using my rights.
1 comments
snuxoll 3597 days ago
I don't see how this prevents any of that. While you are inside the running computer memory appears to you as it always has been, if you need to do post-moterm debugging you are going to need a proper crash dump anyway. This is nothing but a security benefit, it will prevent keys for full-disk crypto from remaining in memory where they can be retrieved.

If you're talking about the PSP or ME then I agree, they are dangerous and the inability to gain any insight into what they do means they should be considered hostile entities (especially if they may have access to the internal CPU memory where the encryption keys are stored).

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kuschku 3597 days ago
If the game is fully encrypted, and the DRM uses PSP or ME to keep the RAM of the game itself at all time encrypted so I can not read or debug it, it directly does prevent that.
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snuxoll 3596 days ago
Yes, but that's a matter of using the PSP or ME, not SME which is what I was discussing. SVE brings some "interesting" things to the table since they could technically spin up a VM to run the game and keep the memory protected from the host, but they'd have to pass the GPU directly into the VM which would cause all sorts of other issues in a PC environment (why the *&!$ can't I tab out of this game!).
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kuschku 3596 days ago
> which would cause all sorts of other issues in a PC environment (why the *&!$ can't I tab out of this game!)

As if that would work today – look at No Mans Sky, [Alt]-[Tab] already doesn’t work.

Wait 2 years, and we’ll see exactly this. Already today DRM is often implemented as kernel modules, and the OS – especially on windows – prevents debugging for normal users.

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