Security dongles

[Fabrizo]

I've just recently become aware that several devs make it so that their protos will only work with acompanying usb security dongles on PS2 (yea, I'm lttp on that info). At the very least I know that copies of 'God of War' and 'Sly: Band of Theifs' in collectors hands require them.

What I'd like to know is what other games, or game companies, use dongles to protect from leaks?

[Buyatari]

I've got about 10-15 games that came with dongles. On ps1 there was a mem card dongle for Mike Tyson boxing and colony wars thats all I can think of right now. On ps2 jak and daxter ,sly and god of war all came with mem sticks for dongles.

Just sony products so far but I'd imagine other systems required dongles as well but I've yet to see them.

[Taucias]

I believe EA used them on certain titles, but that is a memory and might be incorrect. I am pretty sure though.

[oldengineer]

Example of a security dongle...

http://oldengineer.com/gallery/v/sony/ps2-sly2dongle.jpg.html

[handofg0d]

So, in theory, could you say, copy the contents of that thumb drive, to another thumb drive and have a copy of the dongle?

Because if that's the case, wouldn't someone be able to just include the dongle's content in the .rar with some instructions on using it in the .nfo? Sure it'd be an easy way to impliment fingerprinting but still...

[Buyatari]

I've got a ton of ea games. I'm pretty sure they are fingerprinted but I've never seen a dongle on any one of them.

[APE]

So, in theory, could you say, copy the contents of that thumb drive, to another thumb drive and have a copy of the dongle?

Because if that's the case, wouldn't someone be able to just include the dongle's content in the .rar with some instructions on using it in the .nfo? Sure it'd be an easy way to impliment fingerprinting but still...

In theory yes that would work but a bit stream copy would work better, even more so if you could match it sector by sector with the exact same flash chip from the same manufacturing week. That might sound a bit overkill but believe me, if they wanted to do that they very well could. Some of the ps1 dongles are uncopyable by the ps1, but those of us cool enough to have dexdrives might be able to do it.

Nintendo tends not to make use of dongles instead prefering to padlock some of their 1st party games to the cube it comes in. Either disk or that fancy hdd in a cart type. I'd imagine ALL of these can be hacked but unless you release an image to the public there is no way it'll get done unless you contract someone with the necessary skills, good luck keeping it off the radar either way.

[CrAzY]

Example of a security dongle...

http://oldengineer.com/gallery/v/sony/ps2-sly2dongle.jpg.html (http://oldengineer.com/gallery/v/sony/ps2-sly2dongle.jpg.html)

Thanks for the picture. I have never heard of this, but it is a wise idea. :thumbsup: Not so good for some collectors, however. :lol:

[Taucias]

Some PS1 games also used special memory cards in a similar way.

[fiber]

I have a copy of Sly 2 that requires a USB dongle. Its a tiny blue thing that i'm too afraid to put in my pc for fear of somehow corrupting it. It actually looks exactly like picture posted a few posts up but my disc is different so I suppose maybe the dongles have different data?


I'd love to see what kind of data it holds or attempt to copy it.

[XxHennersXx]

http://cgi.ebay.com/PlayStation-dongles-for-proto-beta-dev-games_W0QQitemZ140097798577QQcategoryZ1489QQssPage NameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

here is an example of some playstation one security dongle's that used memory cards

[drx]

I'd love to see what kind of data it holds or attempt to copy it.

If you wish, I could write a little program to make an exact 1:1 copy of the dongle, if it's set to act like a Mass Storage Device or something similiar. Then again, you'd have to put the dongle in your PC's usb, so there would be a slight possibility of corrupting the dongle.

Another possibility would be to look at how the game code interacts with the dongle, but that's a different story.

[drx]

No, you can't. It's not that easy, mind you. If you copy such a dongle, even if sector by sector, the copy will not work.

Why's that? Do they also hardcode the serial numbers of the dongles into the game code?

[drx]

The memory controller inside the dongle is different, and that's the important part for the game to accept the dongle. That might not be true for all dongles, but it should for most.

Well, but you could still theoritically manufacture exact dongles, no?

[Taucias]

I can confirm that the dongles are supplied by an external company specifically for use as a security dongle. They are not just USB flash drives with code on them.

[AntiPasta]

I figured, it'd be a lot more effective to put some crypt chip inside (and not that terribly expensive) than putting some easy-to-copy files on them... and if they did, I sure hope they wouldn't use bog-standard FAT16 ;-)

[ph4nth0m]

I've never heard of this before! maybe some genius will be able to make a copy or build a dongle to make those betas work

[Taucias]

I'd guess that it would be much easier to hack the check code out of the game than to try to reproduce the dongle.

Am I the only one that smirks every time I type/read the word dongle, BTW? :lol:

[yourTom]

maybe OT ,but the Namco 246 and 256 arcade boards use security dongles aswell , they come in form of a PS2 mem card.

for the Taito Type-X , the security dongles are usb memory sticks.

[unclejun]

For the system 246, the executables of the games are on the dongle.

[Bramsworth]

I know there's a Dreamcast vcd player that requires a dongle in order to play anything on it. No idea if it's for security reasons or it holds some sort of memory though. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I used to want one some years ago but now I see that it's just crappy quality video that plays at a slow framerate. :crying:

[kholdfuzion]

Let me tell you hacking out a reliance on a security dongle is a pain in the... Took me and a few close friends around a year and a half to remove the reliance of one arcade game on a dongle. Granted the dongle did hold an encrypted decryption key for all game data.

[ConsoleFun]

I can imagine that the requirement for executables to be signed, in many current generation systems, makes it hard to remove a dongle presence check, or do a LC-crack style key insertion, too...

CF

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

Anyone got a pic from a vmu dongle for DC?

[fiber]

If you wish, I could write a little program to make an exact 1:1 copy of the dongle, if it's set to act like a Mass Storage Device or something similiar. Then again, you'd have to put the dongle in your PC's usb, so there would be a slight possibility of corrupting the dongle.

Another possibility would be to look at how the game code interacts with the dongle, but that's a different story.

I've actually attempted to look at the assembly driving it but the SCUS file is not terribly helpful. One positive thing is that I can get it to emulate right up to the "INSERT USB DONGLE" error screen in pcsx2 so I will probably try fooling around with it a bit in the memory editor.

Regardless, I have no idea how intricately the dongle is coded in. If it actually contains boot data i'll never be able to figure it out, but hopefully it is just a branch or two that I can re-write.

[APE]

I'd imagine duplication of a dongle is easier than removing the requirement for one.

[WolverineDK]

Id there isn´t some obscure chip on the PS1 security dongles, then I don´t see any thing impossible about being able to copy its content, to a memory card. Since I do remember some dude long ago said, that they had copied the Net Yarozes keycards content on to a normal memory card. It just plainly sucks, that I can´t find the thread where I read it on here.

[ConsoleFun]

Id there isn´t some obscure chip on the PS1 security dongles, then I don´t see any thing impossible about being able to copy its content, to a memory card. Since I do remember some dude long ago said, that they had copied the Net Yarozes keycards content on to a normal memory card. It just plainly sucks, that I can´t find the thread where I read it on here.
There is no obscure chip in the PS1 security dongles :-)

You can copy a Net Yaroze keycard to a normal memory card. You just can't to it with the PS1's Memory Card manager, but need to write a small program to do a raw read and write of all the blocks. Paradox had a tutorial on this at paradogs.com, but their site is down now....

[Buyatari]

http://triumphguide.com/assembler/MVC-037S.JPG

This isn't PS1 format so I assume it has to be a PS2 boot disk? Then again I didn't try it for the Dreamcast or the Saturn yet.

BUT it might be just for 1 specific game.

[APE]

There is no obscure chip in the PS1 security dongles :-)

You can copy a Net Yaroze keycard to a normal memory card. You just can't to it with the PS1's Memory Card manager, but need to write a small program to do a raw read and write of all the blocks. Paradox had a tutorial on this at paradogs.com, but their site is down now....

90% certain the ps1 dexdrive can do that, it sure as hell doesn't mind copying any save I throw at it.

[ConsoleFun]

90% certain the ps1 dexdrive can do that, it sure as hell doesn't mind copying any save I throw at it.
AFAIK a standard PS1 memory card is 16 blocks, but only 15 of them can be used for savegames. The 1st block is a directory.

Not all information in the directory can be copied with the PS1's memory card manager. That is the copy protection. If the DexDrive software can do a raw copy of the 1st block, you should be all set :-)