All developers have been affected by piracy over the last 20 years. Everyone, no one excluded. And a lot of them get cracked regularly. And we're talking about very big companies, not small ones like yours. What makes you believe you shouldn't be cracked? R2R proved your lies to the whole world. Have you noticed in your public messages that you contradict yourself with every sentence? I personally advise you to abandon your mentality, along with your lies, and apologize first and foremost to the legit users who have supported you over the years. A developer should only focus on optimizing his products and his development, he should not even be aware of piracy, like all other developers publicly do. Instead you spend all the time refreshing on sister site, like every warez addict, even if you know warez very well, and R2R has exposed you. For the sake of your company change your path, it will lead to nothing but failure.

 

<<R2R Messages>>


- 20.11.2023 @ 01:58
Hi developer!
Finally you need to change the mind, after you found that current protection scheme does not work for R2R. You have serious misunderstanding about it.

* We showed we can reverse Virtual DLL trick and make valid keygen for RC4 Crypt for your products in 2014.
* We have shown that we can decrypt / unpack and emulate expensive commercial protections, which should be obviously more advanced than your homemade one.

We can't understand why you can believe in your super bloated multilayered protection. With the 2 facts above, there are no doubt that we can easily (at least should be much easier than paid protections) remove yours. As we stated in the previous section, it didn't even take 1 day for us.

Customer (incl. potential customer) are not blind. Please think about how they feel, once after we proved these protections are making your products really fat and decreasing the performance - and R2R ones are far better.
We saw you are saying that "legit version is better because you can get updates!" but these updates perform much worse than R2R release unless you change your mind.

Instead of threatening your customer, do the right thing. Make a statement that you will remove the shit and focus on the performance and quality.

We - R2R, customer, potential customer are watching you.

Don't let your customer selling your products and going to be R2Red.



-22.11.2023 @ 11:20
There are many duplicated files in their library. That's why R2R can compress well after the decrypting and decompressing.
We found some errors that some files in N2V are not decrypted as expected. There are too many similar issue in Acustica products. Some products do not work at all (try Crimson Trial and Pensado EQ 2 Trial if you have Aquarius, well, issue may be fixed by developer after reading this NFO).

In Acustica product, issue can happen only in specific sampling rate, because diffrent sampling rate uses different library files. This makes testing process hard for the developer.

Hi developer : How about encrypting SKIN only instead of encrypting all files? In the real world, the cracker who can decrypt one file can decrypt other files.

Bonus1 : Gainstation 1
Bonus2 : Proof that R2R release (Stereo Savage) is used in Studio DMI

Mr.Acustica needs to tell his business partner not to use R2R release in the commercial project.
Otherwise, the developer of Stereo Savage needs to put 10GB protection layer to his product, and post "we need to do this because of the piracy!" to facebook, then finally threaten the warez users.

Users and developers need to think about why many 1st class producers and engineers don't use his legit version even if they have license.
By the way, this release package (GS2 + Bonus) is still smaller than legit GS2



-22.11.2023 @ 12:19
Library is completely decrypted, decompressed, DRM related bloat removed, and built to the clean one.

Legit One : 3930MB (Per Plugin Format)
This Release : 140MB (VST/VST3/AAX)

Apart from the bloating (injecting SCORPION DLLs to any files), this data shows how the encryption kills the compression. Because R2R release is all decrypted and pure, 7zip-Chan effectively compresses them well



-22.11.2023 @ 12:20
According to the developer, the library of Ash Ultra is super optimized from Ash and bloating is solved. But you can see that R2R library is still 50% less from the legit version. The loading time is also better in R2R release, because there are no RC4 decryption, no GoogleSnappy decompression, no Virtual DLL loading, no NTDLL.dll scan, no RSA license decryption, no MultiLayered decryption by SCORPION.



-23.11.2023 @ 15:41
R2R - Acustica Side Story : Because there are too many human errors in their software (wrong file, broken crypto, broken TOC, non used files...) we had to code own verification tool for their products. While it really helped us rebuilding the libraries, it also annoyed us by finding too much errors made by Acustica.

Judging from their code, they hate to handle the errors. For example, if there were missing files in the user installation, it just crashes or shows null GUI without notifying the acutual error. Their activation can lead the crash when its license file is not for that computer (it fails decryption and program reads broken data). We assume they don't make verification tools for their products to assure the quality.

The developer is insisting they are caring the user experience and they are reducing the bloat. However, we know that bloating was already there in 2014. There were plenty of time to remove it, but they put more and more effort on the protection instead of hearing the users' feedback. No other developers put such amount of the protection. How do we know? Because we have reversed thousands software

It should be very hard to maintain more than 100 software for small company. Even the big companies do not maintain such number of the software. Something is being sacrificed to realize that.

There are serious security vulnerbility in the Acustica's protection. Bad hacker can put malicious code to the Nebula library. That malicious code will be run by Nebula / DAW. When DAW has admin rights, that code runs in admin rights, of course. There were similar issue in the Cherry Audio plugins, but they fixed it after we pointed out. To fix this issue, Acustica needs to update all related plugins. To make matters worse, library devs (their party too!) need to update all the library (with DRM) to be validated by new plugins. We are sure Acustica knows where to fix this issue, because that vulnerbility is not made by error




-24.11.2023 @ 20:30
Witch Knowledge : We recommend VST2 for Acustica Audio. Their AAX and VST3 are just wrapper (made with JUCE).

You can find ACQUA.dll or ACQUA.engine file in *.aaxplugin / *.vst3 folder. That is the real plugin (VST2).

- According to the developer :
> Our protection system WORKS. The
> crackers exploited an obvious
> vulnerability: ... It's not hard:
> the files all come out in the
> clear at the same time.

We are very sorry to announce that every single behevior of your DRM is defeated. Rebuilding the library is the hardest achievement for your protection, because we need to know every single encryption layer and Nebula2/4 Image structure which is not publicly documented at all. People can say it's fully reversed / cracked - minor DRM change can't stop us anymore. You need to change everthing from scratch

- Mr.Acustica says :
> they packaged the products the same
> way we do for testing.
Thanks for clarifying that our release is as pure as your developing version (without any protection).
> we've become disinterested in
> piracy.

As we explained in our AA Framework release, they continuously updated the DRM. (From NFO : Anyway, there are many small differences in the protection between product A and B.) We saw DRM update in the last month too. The new way of dual-scorpion definition : [1,2] But let's say, he can update his sweet DRM without being interested in piracy



-25.11.2023 @ 19:18
We can see users are really frustrated by seeing the "fact" and complaining to developer in some forums / SNSs. Funny thing is, many are asking iLok as a new protection. R2R users know that it's another bloating protection. Current Acustica DLL is about 4MB. WrapWarden (iLok wrapper) adds 10MB. If dev wants more, they put MetaFortress, which adds another 10MB. The estimated DLL size is about 25MB after protecting by the iLok. If there were 8 DLL in 1 product, WrapWarden + MetaFortress adds (10MB + 10MB) * 8DLL in the end. Need VST3 and AAX? It must be further multiplied by 3. Another big bloat for sure.

One of the typical mistake of Acustica, is mixing retail files and trial files. Since retail and trial files are protected by different licenses, it can't be mixed. When they mix, the product will not work correctly (file decryption will be failed). It crashes the host, or plugin will be muted. Sometime, issue happens only in one sampling rate. It is because Acustica product does not use same file. If you have problem with one rate, you can try another rates. Their mistake tends to happen in 48kHz and 88kHz. They should develop automatic file verifier to test all files at one. R2R actually developer it and it catches many errors. We fixed many

Acustica Audio put many efforts to avoid hackers for [legit license + bypassing machine id check] attack. That attack tends to be used when the hacker failed reversing the main protection, and hacker does not care sacrificing the legit license (the license owner gets banned later). The famous example is reFX plugins released by VR and Chinese cracker. Both contains legit license with few-bytes-modified DLL. Mr.reFX obviously didn't thought that poeple would sacrifice the legit license. The efforts of Acustica does nothing to the legitmate attack : Patch+Keygen or library rebuilding. That is one of the reason why Acustica products are hard to be cracked from beginner crackers.



-25.11.2023 @ 19:19

R2R members think that Giancarlo is a cracker himself, after we reversed how he protect his software.

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=581638

Here he is talking about how AV and malware works, and Windows PE format. The knowledge of PE format will be needed when

* Cracking software protected by packers (like iLok WrapWarden, WIBU AxProtector, VMProtect etc).
* Reversing malware (for packers).
* Developing compiler / linker. Most programmers don't even know what "PE" means in the real world.

He is also saying that some advanced protections are effective but easily done by experienced people, which is correct. He knows too much about these things



- 25.11.2023 @ 19:20
0 nights after it's released. (Acustica Audio Midnight 2023-R2R)

 

So maybe now it's a good idea to make the plugins more light, it's not good for the paying customer (myself included) to find out that most of the disk space used from the plugins is for protection. All this time I thought that the plugins where taking so much space and where heavy on the cpu because of the sampling method, not from the protection. Please make them usable.

 

That "extreme scenario" appears to result in you moving on to selling new plugins without fixing the old ones.

 

Oh my God, this guy is hopeless. Even when hunted, he continues to lie.

 

I like taking risks, and like all entrepreneurs, this form of piracy is a risk that could help me expand, as is happening right now. There's always the possibility, and I do not rule out, that this risk may turn out badly, leading me to failure. The problem is not so much about what happens to me, because in any case, I will have a future. I have many skills, some personal funds, and will fundamentally live off something. There will always be something to be passionate about. The real issue concerns the community. Why do I say this? Because many people I read here, probably youngsters, seem to be rooting against developers. The problem is that it's the developers and their number that keep this market alive. The more of us there are, the more developers there are, the more competitive products and better prices we have. In the end, if all companies are sold off, there will remain a single cluster that will produce nothing more. At this moment, my feelings are mixed, as I am very excited to see this situation turning out well. On the other hand, of course, there's also a sense of danger. But remember, when we start this work, we take an entrepreneurial risk.

 

Every new post you drop contradict what you said in the one before…. You sell so much on this bf because you have 293639394729 plugins…. Let’s wait and see how this piracy doesn’t affect you

 

This guy doesn't give a fuck about nothing but himself

 

Point;
Set;
Match.!

 

Dear Giancarlo,

I'm a 40%-tier customer (around 2k spent). I will keep on supporting AA, but there has to be some sense to this space-eating craziness. I bought a SSD to have your software in it. Nothing else, just AA stuff. All software companies will be cracked, sooner or later, so everyone will benefit if there is some change in the copy protections software. There never will be a 100% piracy-free method, specially when quantum processors hit mainstream. There all hell will break loose. Of course I'm a bit pissed that R2R did their thing (which is both amazing and shitty at the same time), but we all knew it was a matter of time before someone cracked your stuff.

The thing is that if we can have lighter alternatives, I'd prefer that. It means more processing allocated to where it is needed, which means more instances. Your business will grow a lot after this, as big studios will need support for your products as well as updated versions.

Final question: what the hell with this midnight plugin? I have ultramarine and paid serious bucks. Are you gonna let us have a crossover price as with SALT?

Love,
Godhimself

 

Disk space only became a recent concern, as until not long ago it was a minor issue. With the advent of SSD drives and especially the new situation with Macs, it has become a problem to the point where some users started pointing out the space occupation issue to us, and we began to take measures to significantly reduce the sizes. When we started, the disk space issue incredibly was a minor problem compared to others, such as CPU consumption. And the way our plugins were built, our type of protection didn't even have a real-time impact, only possibly at load time. This was the case for many years, until our products started to dynamically load certain vectors. So, the disk space issue was never a determining problem, and I make a simple reasoning. If it had been, people would have gone to buy products from other companies that are very small. If you now ask me if it's a problem, I would say yes, it's time to start optimizing it, even though we are about to witness a new wave of hard disk depreciation. There was a first moment, a first wave when SSDs were very expensive, there was a wave when apple disks were expensive, and now we are returning to a reasonable cost again. This does not mean that we will not optimize our products, it is absolutely part of our policy already started well before this crack. In reality, my problem is not so much competing with a cracked product, because in the end, I offer a product that, if I wanted on Mac, would be untouchable. My problem is to have a competitive product against the competition. Now that we can be competitive with a lighter product on the CPU and with a traditional workflow, it makes a lot of sense for us to optimize the space as well. When I saw that Ash Ultra was becoming a 6 gigabytes product, I stopped everything to create things differently.

 

This is contradictory to your older posts on FB. I know you're using ASH as the example, but what about the other non hyper products that have been R2R'd? They hands down perform better to what I've bought from you.

I truly believe that in most cases, if someone pirated your product, they were never going to buy it in the first place. No sale lost. However, there are many other reasons to use a pirated version such as auth server no longer available, longer trial, and in your case; performance improvements. I distinctly remember when Nebula 3 Pro was posted to the sister site many many years ago, there was barely any talk about your tech until that happened. More people started playing around with it and saw what could be done with it. It's popularity GREW because of that. There are MANY people who go legit once they can afford it, or because they like your product. But sometimes the pirated version offers benefits.

 

Thank you for proving my previous post correct!

Also, UAD's main market was Mac, but they've seen the profits that could be made from Windows users. It would be very shortsighted to go full Mac.

 

Giancarlo is a human contradiction

 

The reason some people are abrasive towards you is because of how you come across in your messages. But I can assure you, many of us do not want to see you or your company fail. Treat your customers right by listening to them, fix your issues and produce GOOD products that do not negatively affect your customers.

 

Disk space was ALWAYS a concern. However many thought the large size was due to the amount of samples. It's even more a concern NOW because we know WHY the files are so huge. It's disingenuous to say it's only now been an issue. You can do a google search about the size of your products and you'll see results going back years.

 

You get a 10% discount for owning Ultramarine bought through their store. And playing the game gives you an extra 5%.

 

As giancarlo said, a plugin getting cracked by R2R is like free advertising & marketing in the audio scene.
Usually the protection R2R remove is not such a big part of the total filesize & it is not so invasive, so im a bit surprised in this case.
If Acustica Audio and every other company wants to put a downloader/monitoring hub on your system like "Aquarius", there will be no space left for anything else, its ridiculous.

As a previous poster mentioned Audio Damage income, Do we see Audio Damage cracked (aka leaked) by a large group since the past 10 years? no, as i presume they respect how Audio Damage treat their customers too much.

One more point giancarlo, we read here how your customers get caught installing a crack, and you/your team ban them from the system, cancel their products (which i assume means refund them under EU law) and seem to make them wait for weeks for a response about their account reactivation.
This doesn't make sense to me, if cracks only boost your product popularity, why not slap them on the wrist and reinstate their accounts next day so they can buy more from you?

I dont need more plugins, I have wasted too much money already on digital dreams but, no bullshit, if it was a clean, bloat-free install like audio damage, i would probably buy something at some point in the future

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023

UAD has been Mac OS only for almost 20 years, and now perfectly supports native Windows. They are doing a massive discount campaign and are now riding high. If a developer gives up the world's leading operating system for piracy, it only confirms his great shortsightedness. The CEO of Acustica doesn't care about his users or the community at all, he only cares about money. Sad story of a wrong developer. And thanks to R2R we saw his true face.

 

DRM in games for example isn't really to fight of piracy, because they'll eventually bypass the DRM. However, it's merely to delay it enough so they can get enough ROI before it eventually happens. Many games eventually drop the DRM altogether after a year or two. Even more so when the user base can definitely prove the games perform better without DRM compared to the retail version. So many such Denuvo cases.

 

Last edited: Nov 26, 2023