You've been heard. Response re: 4.9 and Encryption
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Not mine, I don't store credit card info on my computer ... I don't even have a credit card.
I have built my own custom plugins for notepad++ to edit them myself. Which is why encryption is off the table for me. I can no longer use tools I have developed for my own use.
I am trying to ask a legitmate question and I feel you are making fun of it. Is there a reason you are doing this? There are other methods than DRM to track and go after pirates, I am asking a question to see what other methods daz considered before going with DRM.
To assert that Daz didn't consider other options is speculation, at best. Other options, including the one being suggested, were considered. The suggested method is easily discovered and just as easily circumvented.
Me too! I get they need to fight piracy but as long as they don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
This has been discussed earlier in this thread, but I don't blame you for not spotting it, in such a long thread. However basically what you have proposed is a sound idea in principal, but is highly unlikely to work. Any pirate would only need to download two copies of a file from different accounts, and a simple file comparison would show them where the secret serial key is embedded.
So only those against, are those posting. Surely in that case, only those posting in favour are actually in favour, which seems to be about 3 or 4 posters?
I'm sure you're mistaken on both aspects (by stating one, you implied the other); most won't bother, if in favour or not.
Sales results will suggest people's feelings on it; although some against may not realise at first, and some for may be reluctant to upgrade because of issues reported; or perhaps they have a project and can't yet upgrade as they want to be sure nothing changes until the project has finished.
The person doing the hacking - always blame the perpetrator - even though society has a tendancy still, to blame victims.
Seriously Cho? I didn't assert anything, I merely asked what other otions were considered, not that they didn't consider other options if you reread my post you will see that.
In regards to the store/Connect adding extra resource drains to your system, has anyone compared CPU and memory use of 4.9 vs 4.8 with both systems in the same state (i.e., fresh startup, idling, no scene)?
Supposedly, the only other functional difference is improvements to the renderers.
I guess one would need to look at postgre usage as well.
You are assuming that daz would tell anyone that they implimented that form of tracking. Besides why would a pirte go to suckh lengths to pirate 3D content ... IF he was even aware of the tracking in hte first place.
He would go to those length if he was using his own account and did not want to have it locked
Since one of the objections to encryption is the loss of plain-text (if compressed) asset and preset files it seems highly unlikely that the addition of an account identifier would be missed for long, even if it wasn't the warezer who found it. And since, as Havos hints, some warezers use one-off accounts with stolen card details indentifying the accounts would be of limited use anyway.
Please give some specific examples, ideally in a separate thread, so that we can test. As far as I can tell this should not be an issue.
Ugh!! Well, I finally have a reason to dislike DAZ Connect Back in the old days, we had those horrible executable installers that basically punished people who spent the most here who had to manually go through and install each and every one. The more you spent, the longer you had to spend installing stuff instead of using it.
Then came DIM, which changed everything! Not only did it not matter how much you purchased, but it actually made life easier for big spenders. Not only that, but the suddenly new ease of installation gave a huge edge to DAZ over other store fronts.
But now we have DAZ Connect. The new caching servers are great (for me, anyway). But there's one huge problem -- it is integrated into DAZ Studio. So with DIM, I could happily play away in DAZ Studio while downloading the tons of new content I just purchased. But with DAZ Connect, I'm sitting here waiting for all of it to download because I do not want to find out what happens if DAZ Studio crashes in the middle of a download or worse, an installation. Or for that matter what happens if I kick off a render while in the middle of an installation. Not to mention that even if the installation continues, I now have no ability to cancel it and subsequent downloads while rendering. So DAZ is back to punishing the people that spend the most. It's just plain fracking stupid!! DAZ, we need a standalone DAZ Connect client!!
Better yet, why was this functionality just not added to DIM? Just add some thumbnails to the listing in DIM and it's five bazillion times better than DC is at managing content. Who is going to buy anything inside of DS via DC when there are so many sales going on!? It makes far more sense to check to see what sales and promotions are going on before buying anything, so off to the website. The logic on all of this is as well thought out as the snow blinding bright web theme and the new DAZ logo. Honestly, this DRM is even more alarming when these other poorly (imo) thought out decisions are factored in – what’s the next bad idea going to be?!?
Good job DAZ, at this rate, you will have sucked up all the fun in 3D content before spring hits.
just showing, obj export import versus save as support asset duf in Carrara and why props are OK as can be obj but figures you are pretty much plucked!
the UV mapping just goes bizzare, it still works in studio though so for some reason Carrara loads the duf wrong, often it is a matter of unticking tiled UV's but you do not get the option in the vertex room on the resaved encrypted duf files so I suspect the encyption does it
One piece of 'workflow' that Encryption is already munging up... for a year now I log in every morning, do a quick 'store low to high,' and grab up all the freebies.
Now, I have to double-check the freebies to see if they are Encryption-only. Also, now, I'm going to end up with freebies on the list I have to remember not to grab each day.
meh.
You were NOT supposed to have DAZ Studio open while installing with the DIM. There are countless threads of users who managed to somehow screw up their databases and loosing their metadata exactly because they were installing with the DIM while DAZ Studio was running.
In my time during the Beta I did not read a single post of someone having issues with crashed installations.
It is true that it is recommended to let the metadata updates complete for the first time you open up DAZ Studio.
It may also be the more cautious approach to let DAZ Studio just install the files and then start working especially when you are installing 1000+ files for the first time.
Nevertheless I now very often went to the updates tab of DAZ Studio, clicked on install and then went on to try out other things in DAZ Studio without having to worry about the download working in the background.
- - -
For the sake of it lets asume you did somehow manage to produce a crash during the installation.
If for some reason the DIM installation files got corrupted DIM would not anymore know what was installed where.
With DIM you had files scattered all over the runtime. It was pretty much impossible to manually clean out all the files of a product scattered across the whole runtime.
With DAZ connect it is now a lot easier than with the DIM to adress corrupted installations. All files are now packed in one folder with the SKU number. This means if for some reason an installation is corrupted you can manually delete the folder of the corrupted product, use DB manager to remove unused file references and simply download the product again.
In my book one of the biggest advantages of DAZ connect is that I can search for both installed and uninstalled products of one category directly inside DAZ Studio.
DIM vs DAZ Connect workflow example:
You are working on your laptop with limited HD space and now need a robot for your scene.
You have 3000+ products available. You only installed about 1000 to save space.
DIM workflow:
- Close DAZ Studio
- Open DIM
- Manually scroll down 2000+ products to find those who are robots
- install
- Open DAZ Studio
- load Scene again
- browse to product
How much time does it take you to find your robots in the DIM if you have 2000+ products?
Lets asume it takes you only 1 second to look at each preview image then you spend about 30 minutes searching trough them.
DAZ Connect workflow
- Open smart content tab with subtab "All" selected
- browse to figures/mechanical
- have a look at both installed and uninstalled products at the same time
- click on install
- wait 10 to 30 seconds.
- keep working on your scene
It takes you probably less then 1 minute to find a product with DAZ connect and installing it.
- - -
I can see DIM still being useful in managing software and plugin installations of BETA, General releases and products for 3rd party software like photoshop or e-on vue.
Now that I have gotten used to DAZ Connect there is no way I would ever want to go back to installing products with the DIM again.
Anyone know if Encryption is a filter term in URL?
Like: http://www.daz3d.com/daz-originals#filter_platClub=0&p=1&order=price^-1&filtered=1
'platClub=0' to search for anything non-PC, for example.
I love how you guys are latching onto one part of this ...The fact that they would know it is there. If this were done WITHOUT notifying customers what point would they have in looking for something they don't know is there?
I have installed many products with DIM whilst I had DS open, and I never had an issue with it. The meta data is automatically added, so once install is complete I click on Smart Content, and there is the item I have just installed.
The "Make A Wish" Freebie is EnCRAPted too?!... Yep... I don't care if its "FREE"... DAZ Connect DRM Encryption makes this a "MUST AVOID" for me. They can rub that Magic Lamp all they want and "MAKE A WISH" that this DRM BS of theirs is actually going to work! I hope an animated blue genie pops out and sings a delightful little shanty about how they are driving their customers away!!
WOW!!! we just went through this with the PC+ Freebie being encrypted and now this? Some how none of this is looking "Accidental" anymore ...Thanks daz ...you guys are a real piece of work.
+1
Um, because the first time DAZ followed up on it everyone would know. And again, given that one of the major issues is fraudulent purchases, Daz knows the accounts responsible and that info is useless.
This could EASILY have been solved by adding a simple check in DIM to see if DS is running, and pop up a dialog box that says "DAZ Install manager has detected DAZ Studio is running. Please shut down DAZ Studio before running DIM."
In this respect, I actually like Connect. Not that you can't re-name/rearrange/etc., but that it defaults to an install that is monolithic in its directory structure, and is self-contained. No more vanity folders!
But, until they fix a bunch of the outstanding issues, I'm not prepared to udpate yet.
And I still won't support the DRM'd products....
I never had any issues and fwiw my categories came over just fine when moving to 4.9. It makes zero sense to me as well since the only write operations from DAZ Studio should be for categories. Now, if you were updating categories while isntalling, compacting the databasing, stop/starting, it, etc. while installing then you got what you desrved. Otherwise, there should be no harm in read-only operations even while another clinet is updating the datbase.
As for the rest, DS could still connect to the content database to show what is and is not installed. And it could even e.g. add a product to a queue in the database that a standalone client could then grab. Or better yet, there could be an installation service that both DS and a stand-alone client could connect to to kick off the actual download, installation, etc.
You seem to think that having more than one client talking to a database is some bizarrre, complicated process when it isn't. Next you're going to tell me that I should not be running Carrara and DS at the same time because that would be two clients talking to the database server. A standalone client doesn't preclude your workflow. This is basic database stuff.
I seem to remember the comment that freebies WOULD NOT be encrypted or has that changed since the tollbooth set? Are we going to have to fight like this each time a freebie comes out now?
I do not like DRM either, but the idea that soemthing like this would remain secret for months let alone years is not realistic. We already know people do look at and edit the e.g. .duf files, so it would probably be discovered within a month, if that long. Edit: And what does DAZ do once discovered? No offense, but stuff like this just distracts from the concerns about the DRM issue.
This, honestly, is what worries me most about 4.9, above and beyond the DRM and encryption conversations. I have multiple runtimes on a dedicated hard drive organized within an inch of their lives in a way that makes sense to me, as an artist. When I'm building a scene, I want to access my items quickly and easily in the way my mind naturally looks for things. My library system works for me, and I've spent nearly a decade managing it for use in Poser and now in Studio.
I don't have a need for Smart Content nor the time to migrate to it. Especially if that Smart Content work means nothing and is still a jumbled mess of a runtime when I occasionally flip back to Poser for a project. I'm extremely hesitant to upgrade to 4.9 and turn on Connect. I'm using the beta version offline so that I still have 4.8, but that's as far as I'm currently willing to go.
The difference is that the "Make A Wish" freebe is NOT the regular weekly freebie which PC+ members feel entitled to. This is simply an extra freebie. So it's being encrypted does not infringe on prior expectations and nobody has lost anything. In fact at the time the weekly freebie was converted back to unencrypted it was stated that there might be other enctypted freebies that were not the weekly freebie.
If you don't want it you don't have to 'purchase' it and you haven't lost anything.