Quote from a piracy thread:

"Red Dead Redemption uses some obfuscation written by the same folks that sold previous obfuscation as 'Arxan'. The HWID-bound license probably plugs into the DRM such that it enables continued execution of the game code. This has become a feature of complex DRM."

"It also has a lot of custom checks that Rockstar wrote."

"That's it. There's no grand mystery, it's a classically challenging problem using new ways of writing frustrating-to-reverse bullshit."

src: https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/h0j17y/red_dead_red...

drmcometru

I work on anti-DRM techniques for a living.

The experience has shifted my views of DRM. Originally, I saw DRM as highly anti-consumer, and a waste of time and clock cycles. Arguably I do still believe that - but now I have great respect for the technical side of good DRM implementations, and I acknowledge that they provide a time buffer to protect against the first wave of piracy.

I've stripped Arxran's protections from software in the past, and I might just have a look at breaking RDR2 now it's been brought to my attention...

pabs3

Have you ever encountered any DRM using M/o/Vfuscator (compiler that only produces mov instructions) or REpsych (psychological warfare against reverse engineers)? The DEF CON talk about REpsych is pretty hilarious and worth watching.

https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/movfuscator https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/REpsych