• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

DXO Copy Protection: is it screwing up your hard disk and operating system?

Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I came across this issue asserting copy protection of DXO really can act as a malicious virus that may damage your operating system and make it difficult to cleans. I looked into this as I am considering trying out DXO. I'm shocked at the paucity of argument to attempt refuting these serious assertions. Source in dpreview
here .

subdoodle For Antipiracy protection. It operates under or beside your operating system and can lead to MAC and PC problems. Look what others have experienced with interlok: [url said:
http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryID/134/Default.aspx[/url]

DXO uses it on the demos too. So demoing the program leads to software being installed outside of your operating system. So be very careful. I have experienced other programs being disabled along with various other PC issues including email issues since attempting to use DXO V5. Do not clean your registry for example. That is considered a piracy event and damage occurs. Interlok can reboot your machine at any time. Try googling wave and pace interlok or other searches on this subject.
…..Other DxO products may also be using pace interlok………….

............I was able to get it to run in a limited fashion with a tolerant attitude toward DxO due to the past good results. And disbelief that it could be this far off. But I ran into so many errors and crashes that I HAD TO change this view, and then it would not run at all no matter what. They even have people downloading .net fixers and c++ libraries...come on! This despite early adopters like me being forced to PAY for the upgrade to V5 as though I was a new customer with a discount. I had updated for free in the past. Yeah I PAID to have my computer messed up by DxO, lesson learned.

It is my hope that they straighten out the mess as the math behind DxO is good. The customer service and programming results are not…. is now suing the copy protection company that sold them the rootkit copy protection. LOL.
Is pace interlok a "rootkit" type of product? ...................

From wiki: "A rootkit is a set of programs designed to corrupt the legitimate control of an operating system by its operators. Usually, a rootkit will obscure its installation and attempt to prevent its removal through a subversion of standard system security. Techniques used to accomplish this can include concealing running processes, files or system data from the operating system.[1] Rootkits have their origin in regular applications, but in recent years have been used increasingly by malware to help intruders maintain access to systems while avoiding detection. Rootkits exist for a variety of operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X[2] [3] , Linux and Solaris. Rootkits often modify parts of the operating system or install themselves as drivers or kernel modules."
Click to expand...

So that's a lot. Tell me your experience!

Thanks,

Asher
 
R

Ray West

New member
Hi Asher,

afaik Adobe does naughty things too. A simple solution, get an external drive, load your op system and dxo on that, and give it a try. There will be so much rumour flying around now, that the only real answer will be to try it for yourself.

Best wishes,

Ray
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Ray,

It would need to have the operating system on that external drive. Still, it could be that the malware plants code in all drives with an operating system. One other approach is to use a virtual machine.

Asher
 
C

Colleen Vermillion

pro member
DXO uses PACE Antipiracy- I think calling it a rootkit is a little strong, because no-one has demonstrated that the software makes your system more vulnerable to trojans or viruses like Sony DRM did. Many people are not going to have problems at all with InterLok, but the people that do have problems are going to have to spend a lot of time and effort getting things back to normal. The major problems with the DXO release if I recall correctly, was that they accidentally left some supporting libraries out of the installer and had little to do with InterLok. The most troubling part of the InterLok system is something from their FAQs:

http://paceantipiracy.com/ilqanda.html said:
Are there any known issues where machines spontaneously reboot or freeze when using PACE protected software?
(snip)
It should be noted that InterLok does have mechinisms whereby it can reboot the machine if it detects aberrant behavior that could be trying to compromise the security of the wrapped application.
Click to expand...
From my perspective as a software developer, that is a completely unacceptable risk to push off on to your users. Yes there are cracked versions of Bibble readily available, but guess what, there are cracked versions of DXO readily available too. Believe it or not, we have made customers out of people using cracked versions of Bibble. The solution to software piracy is to offer a good value, not to make your paying customers jump through hoops. We have enough problems managing all the possible computer configurations without introducing software that purposely subverts the operating system into the mix. I believe that 90% of the people using pirated software wouldn't have paid for it under any circumstances, so you can't count it as lost business. However, if you screw up a customer's computer when they install your software, not only have you lost their business for a very long time, the customer is probably going to warn their friends about it. Although maybe you'd get the business of his or her enemies... :)

-Colleen
 
R

Ray West

New member
HI Asher,

I've only actually touched a MAC once in my life, afaik, and that is the honest truth (although I do not know what a dishonest truth may be), but with a pc, it's easy to remove/replace drives, boot from anything, generally screw things up. I guess the Mac is still more restricted. I think, if there is a suspicion that it as bad as the bit you've quoted mentions, I would not want anything connected, other than what I was testing, a virtual machine may not be safe. If DXO do not say what they are doing, then don't use it. Problem solved ;-)

Best wishes,

Ray
 
Last edited:
R

Rudy Zych

New member
I am no computer expert by any means, but I have DxO v4.5.1 and v5.0.3 running along side each other on an XP machine with 1 gig of ram and a Vista machine with 2 gigs of ram. Speed issues aside on the 1 gig machine, the PACE software has not caused me any computer problems. I first tried DxO on the XP machine at the v4.2 level but did not purchase it and un-installed DxO - yes the PACE software was left behind in my folder structure - it didn't cause me any problems. I tried DxO again at the v4.5.1 release (and subsequently purchased) on the XP machine and it re-installed without problems even with the PACE stuff left over from V4.2.

I am not attempting to validate DxO's copy protection scheme, only saying it hasn't caused me any problems to date since that was the question asked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top