Sony DADC has announced the release of Metamorphosis - a new SecuROM™ encryption technology which will enhance SecuROM¿s™ capabilities as the most secure copy protection provider currently available. This new powerful generation of sophisticated copy protection is an important step for developers and the software industry in keeping their ideas safe on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. As a first, SecuROM™ will present this new innovative solution to the industry at the E3 exposition in Los Angeles from May 14-16, 2003 in Kentia Hall, Booth 6245.
Top games are often available on the web prior to their official street release. But there is hope for the games industry. SecuROM™, a copy control solution developed at Sony DADC, has been able to offer unlike other copy control providers protection to their customers for many weeks. Lee Briggs, Security Manager at Eidos explains, ¿It was fun to co-operate with Sony on the implementation of this new kind of protection. Three days of hard work gave us a crack-free sales window until ¿Hitman 2 : Silent Assassin¿ had reached number three in the charts in the second week.¿ Some further successful examples are¿Anno 1503¿ (Sunflowers), ¿Vietcong ¿ (Take 2) and ¿Gothic II¿ (JoWooD) which couldn¿t be cracked for five weeks.
The technology behind this success is called Trigger Functions and was first presented to the industry by SecuROM™ at the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) in Los Angeles in 2002. Providing more effective copy control than conventional systems with only one check at program start, SecuROM™ Trigger Functions allow game developers to program multiple and fully customisable authentication checks throughout the entire application. SecuROM¿s™ revolutionary security enhancement has also proven successful for its customers by preventing 1:1 copying. Sony DADC reports that since early 2002 discs equipped with SecuROM™ technology have been prevented from being copied 1:1.
To continue to stay ahead of piracy, SecuROM™ is taking security to the next level. One year later and again at the industrys most important annual gathering place, the E3, SecuROM™ will present a new sophisticated copy control feature. The new powerful element is named Metamorphosis and an addition to SecuROM¿s™ existing copy control solution.
This Next Generation Cracking Defence is an important step for developers and the software industry in keeping their intellectual property safe on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. The feature dynamically arranges and rearranges the programmed code in a way which requires a bit-by-bit search to find the hidden checks making reverse-engineering attempts not only time-consuming but highly complicated.
¿Metamorphosis is a new level in securing the sales revenue of games in the first weeks after their release,¿ says Bernhard Wiesinger, Product Manager of SecuROM. ¿Metamorphosis protected games can¿t be tampered with or ripped to a compressed format.¿
As with all SecuROM™ solutions, Metamorphosis offers many customer benefits. Aside from the high level of security, SecuROM customers will enjoy the Online Encryption Toolkit allowing the encryption of executable files in minutes via the Internet. With its highly advanced digital signature, SecuROM is compatible with 100% of the CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives available, allowing publishers to offer their consumers a copy controlled disc which can be used on any available drive.
Source : Sony Press Release
