I.m.o. it only lasted 3 years because most crackers were not *tenacious* enough +willing to work hard to defeat it.

 

I'm certainly not claiming that I think these PACE clients are currently dancing in the streets. I imagine they're all quite pissed about the crack. What I mean to say, but have not articulated well enough, is that while I believe everything to do with ILok protection is a ridiculous failure, I believe that these developers who go with PACE iLok protection are so entrenched in their ridiculous way of thinking that they will actually manage to convince themselves that the iLok 2 was still an overall success for the years it gave them. The alternative would be for them to admit to themselves that the whole gambit was a total failure, that their judgment to go with PACE's form of protection was a total failure, and in my experience the kind of people who are boneheaded enough to go with PACE's brand of heavy-handed protection in the first place, are also the kind of people who are boneheaded enough not to be able to admit to themselves that they made a huge error, and therefore they will do whatever mental gymnastics they have to do to convince themselves that it wasn't a mistake or a failure. And of course there's no better way to convince yourself that you made the right choice the first time around, than to make the same choice again, and again, and again. So as much as I would like to see them jump ship from ludicrously obtrusive dongle protection schemes, (and for the record I believe they should jump ship), I have a little faith that they will jump ship just because it keeps on sinking. That would require rational thinking on their part, and really, how much of that have we seen thus far?

I can definitely see a bunch of them moving away from PACE and over to another company's form of intrusive dongle-style protection – but I don't see any of them having any great revelations about their protection philosophies just because iLok 2 was cracked.

I couldn't agree with you more. There are two plugin developers whose new products I always purchase immediately upon their release without even demoing them in any way. This is partly because their products are always top notch, but it is also largely because neither of them use any form of copy protection. Their plug-ins are designed to do what they are designed to do and only that. There's no extra code in there written from the mindset of waging a paranoid war with the world at large. If I am the one buying the plug-in why should I have to buy a bunch of code that I personally do not want or need, that is only in there to satisfy the developer's desire to wage a war with their perceived enemies? It's ludicrous really.

 

Oh I am not doubting that for a second. And not for a second am I saying that I believe their three years of protection was a success. I'm only saying that I believe these developers are so entrenched in their mindset that they will convince themselves that overall they still made the right decision to go with ILok 2 protection, mostly because they aren't open-minded enough to admit to themselves that they were wrong. So while some of them may abandon PACE and move to a competitor's form of intrusive, heavy-handed, dongle-style protection, I highly doubt any of them are going to seriously rethink how they approach protection in general. I hope they do, I just don't have faith in their ability to drastically change their mindsets just because actual evidence might suggest they should do so. Maybe time will prove me wrong, and I hope it does, but I doubt many of these developers are going to pull a "WAVES" and abandon über heavy protection schemes that are implemented at the expense of their customers. I mean seriously, is anybody expecting to see Steven Slate show up in one of his "electrifying" video appearances to tell us all that he's had a serious rethink about how he approaches copy protection? You know, a new, softer, more philosophical Steven Slate who has really altered his mindset because iLok 2 was cracked after three years? Maybe he will be sitting in Half-Lotus Pose while he affectionately addresses us . . . I'm not holding my breath.

 

Dunno, but things are in an interesting state now - at least one developer was about to release a new (iLok'ed) product has put the release on hold because the iLok now does not offer any protection.

This either means than Pace will offer something new to customers (although, developers must be wary of that now that iLok2 is cracked), or, it means going to a different protection system that still offers decent protection.

Pace have to respond somehow, or else their system is a lot of expense and effort to implement for essentially questionable protection.

 

who is this developer?

 

Empirical Labs, they where making a distressor plugin.

 

Dave Derr
He called a cracker pimply faced hacker kid from Bulgaria ruining his business, I assume Bulgaria is "the worst peasants" country for him, he could come up with, in his condescending, disdainful dumbass "rich" mind, while treating the rest on gearslutz like his dearest "musician friends"...
If he truly considered them dear, then he wouldn't regard Bulgaria as peasants country ruining his business... POS deserved a zero day release...

 

Last edited: Dec 29, 2015

it seems that a "little" brilliant team (AudioUtopia) puts a branch of capitalism in debacle.. we could think, there are still ways to change the world...

 

have PACE come out with an official release with regards to the cracked ilok2?

 

This . . . Yesterday.

 

Last edited: Dec 31, 2015

lol

Pace aren't going to publicly say anything ("Hi, all our promises and the technology you bought from us were garbage, but thanks for your business, and we'll have an upgrade to something soon that *really* is secure this time...)

See what they said publicly the last time they had a tech catastrophe - the MD went running around in forums going "I'm totally gonna open up a dialog to you folks" and then never came back to post again... I really dislike Pace as a company on so many levels (and I'm not one of the anti-dongle brigade either, have a bunch of em - I dislike them, but not on philosophical grounds, more for practicality on laptop systems)

 

it s normal that a security device gets cracked with time,it wouldn t be surprising if pace or its developers have secretly helped,or if come competitor had had somethhing to do with it.It these kind of device was actually uncrackable, the developers would have gone to look for another job because they d be no longer needed

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2015

They are working on it...

 

Hello everyone. Windows ilok was cracked. But in mac, except the .lib file replacement (causing bugs, and replaced in every OSx update) the protection is still working. and pro studios are using (for some obscur reasons) Mac pro on there set up. There's only few musiciens Win users that enjoy audioutopia release, and it's fine
However, eLicencer seem to be strong. Never really cracked (the dongle)
Peace on you.

 

I enjoy both world (Hackintosh)
Happy new year and I wish everyone peace

 

I guess we got pro tools "by mistake", lol, because there's no doubt that in all those recent big releases Catalyst is in charge, he "caught" that guy first and closed a thread (he did the right thing). So Pro Tools DAW was released most likely as a "fuck you Avid" statement, for us to see "how pro tools sucks and is overpriced", while soundtoys was a "true" gift for Christmas as something which "doesn't suck", even though for me it simply "sucks" and maybe even overpriced, never looked at the price, because I never cared about it, can't afford anything.

Based on these observed priorities, I guess we can forget anything else... forget about new years, lol, wish I was wrong... but it seems, looking at "priorities", pro tools was fuck you avid statement, while soundtoys was a true gift from heaven, based on his "culling" process, because we didn't deserve bla, bla, bla....


Funniest thing is "didn't deserve", deserved what? apparently I didn't deserve a job in a super market as f***ing floorwalker, so should I care about something I can't afford when I'm told I didn't deserve it? lol, so if someone chooses not to buy it even though he can, a person is a vain greedy tosser, nothing artistic will come out of him ever, no matter even if he's money wise successful, not buying only will make him the bigger vain tosser.

I can die in piece with Pro Tools, so in no way I can complain about what I got, what I don't like is that someone is sitting on someone else's "cracks" and decides who deserved what even though original cracker most likely cracked everything he could get his hands on just to prove that that glorified protection is just a two weeks job... did you "deserve" to "sit" on those cracks?, did charity price level no protection developers deserve to be cracked all those 3-5 years? Interesting "priorities" to sit on...

Thanks for Pro Tools, which most likely was released as a "hate statement", for me it doesn't suck and all the price and shit is justified... thanks Cat for letting me to see it, lol...

what I say is weird , I know, but Cat most likely sits on way more.

In other words I'm pissed off, because I couldn't show off this picture:

 

Last edited: Dec 31, 2015

Happy new year guys!

no doubt that in all those recent big releases Catalyst is in charge, he "caught" that guy first and closed a thread
If I was a paranoid conspiracy nut, I'd say that Catalyst is/was more likely working for one of the devs. Maybe he's that Urs (uhe) Rinal guy; who prolly has too much time on his hands?

In retrospect, comparing Cat to the guy who makes spyware (some of which sometimes has a VST timebomb embedded deep in the code) may be a bit too strong. Possibly.

 

He took audioutopia "under his wing", even all that nfo "stories" sounds like his trademark bonfire stories, so he can be considered as a full on member of audioutopia, except he didn't crack anything. Nevertheless, I'm thankful he did take it under his control, because we wouldn't have seen Pro Tools and other shit if he hadn't taken down that thread and that guy under his wing.

 

Him generously "taking R2R under his wing" - how did that work out?

 

He never took R2R under his wing, during that "internal" turmoil everyone followed R2R's decision to go internal for a while and Cat and his troopers led people to believe that that was some kind of "agreement" between all groups, no it wasn't, R2R started it, R2R ended it.