Keeping Children's Software on a Networked Server? 66
mache asks: "I have a seven year old son with his own Windows 98 machine and he has many, many educational and game CDs that his stupid parents have purchased for him. These CDs often get lost and scratched. Many of these applications will not operate without the CD being in the CD drive. At an average of $20 or more, I want to be able to load a CD on to a Linux server once and then access the application through Samba. I understand that there are some applications out there that provide a 'virutal' CD player interface to a remote server and may defeat the copy protection mechanisms (deliberately placed bad tracks) in place on kid/game/educational CDs. I bought the CDs legitimately and just want to use them legitimately rather than having my son destroy them, forcing me to buy him new ones. Does anyone have a recommendation for a Windows-based application that would produce a 'virutal' CD player on a Windows 98 machine and also defeat currently used CD copy protection allowing some sort of CD image to reside on my in-home networked server."
You usually don't need the CD (Score:1)
Keep a CD in the drive just in case the program is looking for something. A music CD works fine in most cases.
Not true anymore. (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, Daemon Tools defeats most forms of such CD-check copy protection, and new fixes are being incorporated all the time.
http://www.daemon-tools.net/main.htm is the place to get Daemon Tools. It's a virtual CD-ROM drive which not only mounts CD images, it will also emulate the proper security mechanism that the origional CD would have.
Anyone who wants to copy a copy-protected CD, or host CD images for a virtual CD-ROM drive, should read the tutorials on that site I referenced.
Re:Not true anymore. (Score:1)
:-(
Especially on children's educational software. You wouldn't think the low-volume piracy rates on those to be so high.
Re:Not true anymore. (Score:2, Funny)
Have you been in an IT office around christmas...the fathers/mothers form a committe and buy everything once, then swap and copy and drip feed the releases to the children
Re:Not true anymore. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not true anymore. (Score:4, Insightful)
It especially annoys me since I collect games, and eventually hope to be able to afford to build a home arcade machine containing a PC running all the games I've collected. Now, in that case I can't be inserting discs all the time; I'd want to run everything with no hassles from a nice custom interface for selecting games.
[Incidentally, anyone interested in building home arcade PCs should check this site out, if they haven't already: http://www.arcadecontrols.speedhost.com/arcade.ht
That means, of course, that I have to either make images for Daemon Tools of each CD and have them on the hard drive along with the installed game, effectively doubling the amount of hard drive space needed per game; or, find "cracks" for the game which let them run without the CD, from sites like GameCopyWorld, and crack each game the same way a pirate would.
Which, of course, highlights a big flaw in the game copy protection scheme: it just doesn't work. People who want to pirate a game can simply upload a CD image, and then anyone can download and play it with Daemon Tools. Or, people who want to pirate a game can "crack" the game executable to not check for the CD, or just download a pre-made crack from one of the big sites, and then upload the installed game along with the crack and a registry file to transfer the needed registry settings, or make a simple custom installer for it before uploading.
So, the game protection is effectively useless. People often say that the goal of copy protection is to prevent "casual" copying, like copying for a friend. In the case of a game, though, that's not going to be a big problem; the only thing it solves is people installing on multiple computers, but of course kids smart enough to be installing and sharing computer games are probably smart enough to find the cracks anyway.
And of course, having to go out and find cracks for games I actually own has introduced me to all the best ways of getting games I don't own. So copy protection may actually *promote piracy* in the long run. I'll admit I've downloaded games I don't own. However, I never would have done so if I hadn't been introduced to piracy by the need to crack games I already owned.
In the long run, the best thing is just to leave content unprotected--because anyone who wants to pirate it, will. Trying to prevent copying is a waste of resources, and in fact just pisses buyers off.
Just my opinion...
Re:Not true anymore. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it's obscene how large games are getting, and how much space they take. But then again, it's also obscene how large disks are getting and how cheap they are :)
(And yes, these are 5400 RPM drives. So what? They can still do 20 MB/s quite easily. And yes, they're IDE, but for a computer for playing games, that's just fine.)
what happened to CD standards? (Score:2)
Under the Fair Use rules established years ago, I have a right to an archival copy in case the original is destroyed, and no EULA can force me to "treat the original media as the archival disc for the purpose of compliance with Federal laws." If I buy a "CD-ROM," I expect to be able to make a usable archival copy at my own expense, and that includes burning it to a single CD or storing it in a collection of ISO images on a larger hard disk.
seven year old skill level (Score:2, Interesting)
I think once he destroys his favourite disk, and learns that such behaviour means that one of his possessions is no longer available to him, then he will have learnt a lesson more useful to him than whatever the software itself is trying to teach.
Re:seven year old skill level (Score:2)
I don't mean to brag (much) but my daughter already has the good looks that skipped her mom and my generation. (Sweetie, if you read this... I didn't mean it that way) I want my daughter to assist in developing a Linux kernel, or at the very least appreciate when the overthrow of MS happens. I want her to enjoy writing code, playing games, and take pride in her EIEE7E HAX0R-ism. Parenting is all about enabling a child to be self-sufficient. My goal is to teach my daughter to love her computer, and the more she plays with it, the more advanced topics I can get her understand.
I don't want to curb her appetite to "break things"... I want to encourage it. That's want turns a good developer into great one. I want her to feel free to scratch the surface off of the CD to see what is on the other side.
I will teach her to respect the rights of others (maybe), and I'll teach her that it costs money to replace things that break, and I'll teach her that daddy will not always pay for these things, but until she turns 5, I'm not going to teacher her to respect her CD's. Screw that! I'll make copies of them, or use the daemon-tools mentioned earlier to keep them safe for her.
(There are not enough hot chick in the geek world. I submit we can't live in the MaTriX until hot chicks start writing good code-and like it!!!)
Re:seven year old skill level (Score:2)
I'm not trying to trample on you, but a lot of your post isn't necessarily about your daughter. It's about you.
Re:seven year old skill level (Score:1)
Re:seven year old skill level (Score:2)
j/k the other reply to my message explains it mighty fine.
Re:seven year old skill level (Score:2)
What about 3 and 5 year old skill level then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whilst I appreciate your willingness to comment on others' child rearing techniques, no doubt from your own vast experience as an educator and parent, I don't think you've addressed the question.
My own children are 3 (as of two weeks ago) and 5 (soon to be six). Both are fond of computer games; the 3-year old plays "Elmo's Playhouse" (which is a superb educational tool - kudos to Children's Workshop!) and the 5-year old has been playing the Richard Scarry "Best Math" and "Best Reading" games for nearly two years now.
I'm getting tired of replacing the Elmo CD, and I've had to replace the CD drive itself once already (and it's broken again now, but maybe I can glue it back together). I will try the Daemon tools and see how it goes.
You do realize a children don't have fully developed fine motor control, right?
Re:What about 3 and 5 year old skill level then? (Score:1)
It sounds to me that (Score:1, Funny)
;)
Easy Solution (Score:1)
try (Score:4, Informative)
CJC
Re:try (Score:2)
Amen. I've been using Daemon Tools for exactly this purpose for almost a year now. I love it. The kids never need to search for the CDs and I don't have to worry about a favorite game getting scratched. I've been using it for my games, too, just because it's so much more convenient. (That, and my CDROM drive sounds like a jet engine warming up...)
Loopback? (Score:1)
I did this with a primary school client of ours, but I have no idea how copy protection is these days - I don't really play games or use/recommend commercial software!
Re:Loopback? (Score:1)
To copy a CD in an iso image under Linux it is enough to use dd(1) (dd if=/dev/cdrom of=filename.iso) or readcd(1) (should come with cdrecord) (and then mount them loopback): this is going to work also with some copy protected CDs, but not all of them.
There was an article in LJ (Score:2, Informative)
Did you buy or lease (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Did you buy or lease (Score:2)
The easiest solution is to force your kid to put his cds away.
Behind the scenes.... (Score:2, Funny)
It's early, no blood-level caffeine yet etc. but this gets me for some reason...can't put my finger on it quite, though.
OK, getting the l'il unit involved with comps is great but ya gotta give yourselves some credit here.
OT...why, sointley.
Could it be... (Score:1)
Daemon Tools (Score:5, Informative)
It runs on Win95/98/ME, and NT4/W2K/XP.
It'll mount
Programs/apps/games think its a real CD in a real CD-Rom drive, because it installs a 'virtual SCSI card', and 'virtual SCSI CDrom/DVDrom'. Its as real as it can get. But the driver doesn't talk to actual physical hardware, it just talks to a file on your local or remote filesystem.
So. Use CloneCD (or whatever, but clonecd is definitely best) and image all your kids' CDs onto the linux server. And use daemon tools to mount the cd images over samba.
I hardly use any CDs anymore. I have literally 100s of CloneCD image's on my fileserver, and just mount them using Daemon-Tools over Samba.
You will LOVE this program!
D.
Re:Daemon Tools (Score:2, Insightful)
By the time i posted this comment, about 5 other people have posted about daemon-tools. I should just go back to my programming assignment and quit wasting time on slashdot.
D.
Re:Daemon Tools - Useability (Score:1)
The question here is useablity for a 7year old. I can't really see that this is a major issue, but it isn't the most user friendly of tasks to do, popping cds into a tray and waiting for them to auto load - easy.
Re:Daemon Tools - Useability (Score:1)
Daemonmounter 1.01 [daemon-tools.net]
A program allowing you to put keyboard shortcuts on up to 10 images. Just press your shortcut and the image will be mounted.
Re:Daemon Tools - Useability (Score:2)
---begin cdrun.bat---
"c:\program files\d-tools\daemon.exe" -unmount 0
"c:\program files\d-tools\daemon.exe" -mount 0,%1
cd %2
%3
---end cdrun.bat---
Then create shortcuts to the batch file that supply
image file, program directory and program name in that order, and you're set.
(Lines 1 and 3 may not actually be needed)-- I haven't tested.
Re:Daemon Tools (Score:1)
Easier Solution? (Score:1)
Re:Easier Solution? (Score:2)
Crack the progam (Score:3, Interesting)
As I have said before in a previous post [slashdot.org], If you have legitimately purchased the software, and the copy protection is causing you problems, you are IMHO, perfectly entitled to crack the copy protection.
There are essentially two ways to crack the program. (besides just making a CDR copy).
1. Search the web or usenet for a crack, produced by one of the many cracking organisations. This usually works well for teenage games, especially those popular at LAN parties. I don't know if it will work for educational stuff interned for kids.
A google search for "<program name> no-cd crack" should produce results, but be prepared for many annoying pop-ups, pornographic banners, broken links etc.
2. Alternatively you could crack it yourself, as this is often quite easy if you have programming skills.
The usual approach is to run the program under a debugger, tracing the program as it starts up with & without the key disc present. The just patch the executable so that the check is not performed, or the result ignored.
Needless to say, you should only apply such techniques to programs you own, and you should not share the results with anyone who does not also own a legit copy of the software.
Re:Crack the progam (Score:1, Flamebait)
After the fact, perhaps the copy protection lessoned the value of the product for you, but that gives you no perfectly entitled right to crack it. Cracking it is illegal under the DMCA and whether you agree or not, it's a federal offense. You are, however, perfectly entitled to attempt to take back the game, to never buy any game with said copy protection again, or most likely, to reasses the copy protection scheme into your perceived value of the next game that you assess. This is a benefit of Capitalism.
Re:Crack the progam (Score:1)
Re:Crack the progam (Score:1)
Re:Crack the progam (Score:1)
deamon (Score:1, Redundant)
http://www.daemon-tools.com/
http://www.is
and for linux
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CDServer-HOWTO/i
CD fixers (Score:2)
Re:CD fixers (Score:1)
what about Macs (Score:2)
if it's Mac software? Does anyone sell or have
utilities for that platform???
Re:what about Macs (Score:2, Informative)
I've run several games this way, much faster then being on the cd drive.
Apple's own disk image will do the trick.
In OS X, im not sure if thats still the way to do it, but its always worked for me and my little brothers games under MacOS 7+
Re:what about Macs (Score:2)
I've tried it a couple different ways and haven't had any success so far.
Anyone else have any clues?
Re:what about Macs (Score:1)
If you are running OS 9.2 or earlier then I think you have to buy an app like PC-Mac Lan,(which can then contact the Samba box like it was a Windows machine) though there might be Free alternatives.
Another alternative could be to activate Appletalk in the Linux Kernel and use whatever tools are available to create a file share that way, though I don't have any experience with that.
Re:what about Macs (Score:2)
application run from the local CDROM???
Is there a way to spoof that??
VMware can spoof a CD drive (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it's a bit more work, and the daemon-tools that everyone's mentioning look nice, but TMTOWTDI, and for me one of the other ways is with VMware.
The other benefit being, if you set it up right, the critter will have his own "sandbox" and can blown up the VM but it's really easy to back up the VM's directory, so when s/he does take the machine down, you can bring it back in a couple minutes of copying, rather than a couple hours of reinstalling.
The drawback? Fast games won't be.
One Place to Look (Score:1)
I use CDspace (Score:3, Informative)
Look at http://www.cdspace.com [cdspace.com] to find it.
It's not free, but it's inexpensive. It has worked on EVERY game I've ever bought. You just scan an image into a disk file and then you can just mount the file.
If you're setting up your kid's machine, I'd probably mount the files locally. Also, for minimum hassle, I would create a whole bunch
of drives, one for each application so you don't have to switch files.
random story from the prehistory of computing (Score:2)
The system would have a set-top box running some Microsoft OS, connected to servers, using an IP network laid over the cable lines (basically like what cable modems do today, except it would only connect to the cable headend, not the Internet beyond).
We wanted to let users run CD-ROM games on the set-top box with the actual CD images on the central computer. So somebody investigated how easy this was to do. Now we are probably talking about a beta of Windows 95 on the client and these are old CD-ROMs conforming to the "MPC" spec. Anyway the guy discovered that most of these games stored the drive letter of the CD-ROM in the win.ini or somesuch place (what would be the registry these days) and if you simply copied the CD-ROM to a network share, mapped that network share to a local drive letter, and changed win.ini, many of them would still work. But some didn't.
Now that was a long time ago and who knows if it would still work (although some of the childrens CDs probably date from that era). Also this is the days of 1X CD-ROMs doing 150 kilobytes/second, which was reasonable to expect to achieve on a 10 megabit/second ethernet. Nowadays with a 100 megabit/second ethernet in yor house, you might get the performance of about a 24X CD-ROM drive (which will probably be fine).
May not be the most useful info but it reminded me of that story so I wanted to share.
- adam
Try a Zerver (Score:1)
Zerver [4tape.com]
It had a CDROM so you could 'rip' CD's right from the tower.
Re:Try a Zerver (Score:1)
What are the legal implications of something like this?
Daemon Tools and CloneCD (Score:1)
Daemon Tools allows you to mount a 1 to 1 copy of a CD (an ISO image, not a file copy) as a virtual CD. It also emulates most (if not all) of the current "copy protection" schemes in use.
Note that you must keep the ISO around if you want to continue to use the CD. With the files ranging in size from 50 or so Meg to 700 Meg or more, this can quickly eat up space. With disk prices being as cheap as they are, this isn't as big of a problem as it was in years past.
You'll also need a good duplication package for that 1 to 1 copy mentioned above. I have had very limited success with Adaptec's Easy CD Creator and no success at all with Veritas' CD Pro software.
The one package I've yet to have a problem with is CloneCD [clonecd.net]. This product also seems to be able to copy most "copy protected" discs with the schemes intact on the duplicate; a nice bonus.
Daemon Tools is fairly intuitive for the stuff it's doing and it's also the only software I've used that loaded a Windows VXD and didn't require a reboot after doing it. It is not, however, 4-year-old intuitive, so you'll probably have to either mount the ISO images as separate drive letters or mount them for your kid yourself.
Hope that helps.
Second'ing CloneCD... (Score:1, Informative)
In constrast to my cdrom drives, which corrupt the data as it's read off the "copy-protected" discs about 50% of the time, rendering the software unusable. (Had to create a non-copy-protected "correct" disk to install the software, and a second "copy-protection-enabled" disk to actually use the software. Does anyone else besides me think it's nuts that these "copy-protection" systems require me to make TWO copies before I can even run the software?)
not one solution (Score:1)
Caddies. (Score:1)
One of my coworkers has two sons, about two and four, and he's in the same situation. His solution was to put all of their game CDs into caddies and get an old caddy-loading SCSI CD drive for their computer.
It's still not perfect protection, but it certainly stops most of the casual scratching and such.
--saint