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id Software's 1996 Quake shareware CD encryption cracked in 39 days

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

In 1996, id Software attempted to sell a shareware CD for Quake that included encrypted full versions of their other games. Customers could unlock these games by calling a phone number and providing payment and a challenge code. However, the encryption scheme was flawed, and a hacker group known as GNOMON cracked it within 39 days, releasing a tool called QCRACK.exe that generated serial numbers. This led to id Software halting distribution of the CDs, resulting in 150,000 unsold discs. AI

RANK_REASON This item discusses a historical DRM failure and its impact on a specific product release, which falls under the 'tool' category as it relates to software protection mechanisms.

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AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

id Software's 1996 Quake shareware CD encryption cracked in 39 days

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Signal score
0 / 100
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Tool
This item discusses a historical DRM failure and its impact on a specific product release, which falls under the 'tool' category as it relates to software protection mechanisms.
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Only one publisher covered this so far. Single-source stories can still rank when the publisher is high-authority, but they lack cross-source corroboration.
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product, other
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Low
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48 days old
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. Tom's Hardware TIER_1 English(EN) · Jowi Morales ·

    $10 Quake shareware CD locked copies of all id Software games behind a flawed encryption scheme — pay-over-the-phone system only held up for 39 days after 1996 release, leaving developer with 150,000 discs it couldn't sell

    id Software included locked versions of its entire game library on the $10 Quake shareware CD it released in 1996. But the system meant to allow gamers to pay for and unlock those titles over the phone proved vulnerable to crackers who discovered a way to unlock every game on the…

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