Oops. Ubisoft's "Uplay" DRM is a remote-root Windows backdoor.

[directhex]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4311264

[Biscuit]

oh dear Ubisoft...

[Phage]

Blimey.
Does the BF3 plugin do the same ?

[ladcrooks]

The days of playing your pc games where you had the disc and that was that, seems such a long time ago! Now your beheld to every developer one way or another!

[Agent]

Meanwhile, pirates don't have to worry about it

[atlewis]

This is your reward for playing games legally, YAY! ..

[dangel]

Patched now apparently. I love their games but argh..

[ZaO]

This is your reward for playing games legally, YAY! ..

Exactly. Stuff like this goes on all the time. Everyone affected should be getting dished out compensation. What happens to you if you do this to one of their computers? You don't just say "oh yeh, er, I'll just patch it then seeing as you noticed" and then get away with it. They'll have you locked in a cage owing them thousands in compensation for being a criminal. Then they expect us to respect their eula's? Pirated versions of games are safer sometimes it seems.

[outwar6010]

seriously drm causes way more problems and doesnt prevent piracy in fact pirated copies of games probably have fewer problems!

[schoeee]

Holy crap, that's bad.

[SilentDeath]

Hello, done a few searches and this is the most recent thread on the subject. Ive got a free code for farcry 3 (came with gfx card) to redeem on the ubi store/uplay. Id just like to know is the DRM fixed and considered safe or should I avoid it?

Ive heard FC3 wont be available on steam in the UK but is elsewhere, so its possible to have somone outside UK to gift it to you.. however since I have it for free Id prefer not to buy it again.


thanks

[dangel]

Hello, done a few searches and this is the most recent thread on the subject. Ive got a free code for farcry 3 (came with gfx card) to redeem on the ubi store/uplay. Id just like to know is the DRM fixed and considered safe or should I avoid it?

Ive heard FC3 wont be available on steam in the UK but is elsewhere, so its possible to have somone outside UK to gift it to you.. however since I have it for free Id prefer not to buy it again.


thanks

Well this is a very old thread but.. FC3 has a one time activation check - and uplay is used regardless of where you buy it from. I don't find either onerous.

[Ferral]

Ubisoft fixed the problem with the backdoor a good few months ago now. They actually had it fixed a few hours after it was discovered, they did a good job in all fairness with how quick they sorted it out.

As for UPlay client, it works in virtually the same way as Steam, must admit I do personally quite like it, clean and easy to navigate. When you install Farcry 3 it will ask for your activation key, pop it in the box and it ties it to your UPlay account (Exactly the same way Steam retail boxed games do). Once downloaded and run for the first time you can put the client into offline mode and you don't have to worry. Saves are done locally and when you next go online with the UPlay client it will sync automatically for you.

If you have bought any Ubisoft games on Steam in the past that have used the small version of the client (Splinter Cell Conviction, Assassins Creed 2 for example) you will have created a UPlay account already. So just go onto the UPlay site and get the client and log in using your existing credentials.

http://uplay.ubi.com/en-GB

[ZaO]

Ubisoft fixed the problem with the backdoor a good few months ago now. They actually had it fixed a few hours after it was discovered, they did a good job in all fairness with how quick they sorted it out.

As for UPlay client, it works in virtually the same way as Steam, must admit I do personally quite like it, clean and easy to navigate. When you install Farcry 3 it will ask for your activation key, pop it in the box and it ties it to your UPlay account (Exactly the same way Steam retail boxed games do). Once downloaded and run for the first time you can put the client into offline mode and you don't have to worry. Saves are done locally and when you next go online with the UPlay client it will sync automatically for you.

If you have bought any Ubisoft games on Steam in the past that have used the small version of the client (Splinter Cell Conviction, Assassins Creed 2 for example) you will have created a UPlay account already. So just go onto the UPlay site and get the client and log in using your existing credentials.

http://uplay.ubi.com/en-GB

Yeh this uplay thing came in handy for me actually because when I logged into it recently I was able to download an older game that I'd lost the disc for. The strange thing about it though is that it wont show the most recent Driver game in my account. That just stays on Steam. I also noticed Origin doing something similar. I bought Dead Space 2 on Steam, and I can DL and play it on either Steam or Origin now as far as I can tell. Tbh though, I'm getting sick of all these clients. I just want my games on Steam since the bulk of my catalog is there.

[=assassin=]

I found the Uplay app a pain to get working, I spent about an hour and half installing then updating patches for a game (Splinter Cell: Conviction), then patches for Uplay, then it had issues connecting, I had to mess around with Firewall settings. The game itself only lasted 7 and a half hours!

[SilentDeath]

It works ok, however it tryed to install version 1.0 of Uplay and the patched version as a seperate plugin. firefox auto disabled version 1. I assume it done IE aswell. Would like to remove the browser plugins, if anyone knows where to find them. Dont think it would stop Uplay working..

its a good game, played about 7 hours