utopia reindeer is a modified teapot.bin lol

[dark]

Here's a copy of an interview/funny bragging by utopia before they got arrested
https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comm ... _crackers/

I'd also like to see the picture of themselves they supposedly included on the disc. Here are some references to it:

http://www.boob.co.uk/docs/faq.htm
Q: Whatever happened to Utoptia?
A: Their true identities were eventually discerned, due in part
to their foolishly including a picture of themselves on the
Utopia Boot Loader. They were later arrested by German police
on or around 5 July 2000 and charged with multiple counts of
copyright violation. No other news has surfaced concerning
their fate as of this date. As a result, the DC bootlegging
scene has coined the term "Utopia bootleg" to honor the group
they consider to have invented what remains the most popular
format by far for such efforts.

https://dcemulation.org/index.php?title ... _Dreamcast
The pirate group Utopia discovered from work done by homebrew and commercial coders that it is possible to boot software from CD-ROMs (by creating MIL-CDs). Utopia created rips of GD-ROM discs, but these were not bootable because the GD-ROM drive was locked before binary execution, causing the games to crash immediately. Since Utopia was pirating programs, not creating their own, they couldn't just make their copies perform the "GD-ROM reset" trick. Utopia instead created the Utopia boot CD, which unlocked the GD-ROM drive and started the game from a disc that wouldn't boot on its own. They released this disc and some games. They soon disappeared from the Dreamcast scene, being arrested by German police, who could quite easily find them since they included their own faces in an image on the Utopia boot CD.

And a funny account in the media at the time. Note Sega's damage control response that only a handful of games are small enough to pirate
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story ... 647&page=1

[SMiTH]

It finds the 0gdtex.pvr displays that and then boots the game if you remember there is one on every release or gdi..

I like those samples.
Sphere map is really cool.
shitty tmnt turtles shooter is fantastic.
the sonic thing is interesting too.

Did you ever get those sdk samples converted from .elf files?
When I made that cdi collection of sdk samples, you mentioned that you had others to convert.

I remember utopia reading 0gdtex now.

--

dark, its crazy to think that now ppl just use gdemu and .gdi 1:1 copies of games.

[bingobongo]

I still remember a friend bringing round copies of Jet Set Radio, complete with garbled audio in the loading screens, and the Utopia boot disc with the spinning reindeer. I think the most amazing thing was that it could be cracked with just a boot disc (and that wasn't even needed not that long after) Compared to the Saturn or PSX it was the most open system you could get - just download and burn. No soldering, no nothing.

It has to be said, the GDRom system was utterly useless in terms of preventing piracy compared to its rivals. Which begs the question, why didn't Sega just opt for the same protection they had on the Saturn?

I'd still like to actually see this photo of Utopia extracted from the disc.

Also, weren't Utopia Kalisto? They had the coding chops to rival someone like Echelon (who were Kalisto, or an offshoot) - and it would make sense that they'd try to create some smoke and mirrors to hide any connection. But I always thought it was them, just a different name. Aside from the boot discs, I don't recall any other Utopia releases? Using an alias would have been a smart move because they wouldn't have had any idea how Sega/police would react to them cracking the Dreamcast protection - so use a dummy group to take the heat.

Just a theory.

[SMiTH]

I don't know where to start bingobongo.

Where were you while we were coming up with ideas and theories about bleem?
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... =2&t=12161

There is some truth in the bleem tinfoil thread.
In general it was a way to get people interested in the software.
The main points are still relevant though.
But, it also goes off the rails quite a bit

[dark]

It has to be said, the GDRom system was utterly useless in terms of preventing piracy compared to its rivals. Which begs the question, why didn't Sega just opt for the same protection they had on the Saturn?

I heard Sega did have some pretty good protection for the gdroms themselves, using a similar security ring as the saturn copy protection, and other interesting hurdles to overcome such as the dataless area on the disc, and of course the fact that retail cd burners would not be able to duplicate the gdrom format. That was all of no consequence though once the MIL CD exploit was figured out. Sega's huge blunder was putting in the MIL CD compatibility in almost all dreamcasts. It added practically no additional commercial appeal, no retail MIL CDs were even released in the West, and without that intentional ability to boot code from a CD, I bet the dreamcast piracy scene would have looked really different.

That being said, in the early days, I understand things weren't as simple as merely dropping retail gdrom files onto a cd-r that was formatted to be in MIL CD format. Sega weren't complete idiots and still had an anti-piracy measure in place for MIL CD stuff, where the gdrom drive would be shut down after loading an executable from a MIL CD. If the gdrom drive won't read the disc after loading the executable, that would effectively prevent you from playing retail games that would require the system to regularly read the disc to load in new graphics, sounds, textures, videos, etc. To the degree that the dreamcast was "cracked", I'd point to the homebrew and scene groups overcoming this hurdle to allow the disc drive to be unlocked and functional after an executable is loaded from the MIL CD. I'm sure that took some brain power to figure out.

I'd like to know how people in the west even discovered that the MIL CD booting functionality existed. I don't recall Sega ever publicizing it as a selling point, and obviously retail MIL CDs were extremely rare even in Japan.

[Ian Micheal]

It has to be said, the GDRom system was utterly useless in terms of preventing piracy compared to its rivals. Which begs the question, why didn't Sega just opt for the same protection they had on the Saturn?

I heard Sega did have some pretty good protection for the gdroms themselves, using a similar security ring as the saturn copy protection, and other interesting hurdles to overcome such as the dataless area on the disc, and of course the fact that retail cd burners would not be able to duplicate the gdrom format. That was all of no consequence though once the MIL CD exploit was figured out. Sega's huge blunder was putting in the MIL CD compatibility in almost all dreamcasts. It added practically no additional commercial appeal, no retail MIL CDs were even released in the West, and without that intentional ability to boot code from a CD, I bet the dreamcast piracy scene would have looked really different.

That being said, in the early days, I understand things weren't as simple as merely dropping retail gdrom files onto a cd-r that was formatted to be in MIL CD format. Sega weren't complete idiots and still had an anti-piracy measure in place for MIL CD stuff, where the gdrom drive would be shut down after loading an executable from a MIL CD. If the gdrom drive won't read the disc after loading the executable, that would effectively prevent you from playing retail games that would require the system to regularly read the disc to load in new graphics, sounds, textures, videos, etc. To the degree that the dreamcast was "cracked", I'd point to the homebrew and scene groups overcoming this hurdle to allow the disc drive to be unlocked and functional after an executable is loaded from the MIL CD. I'm sure that took some brain power to figure out.

I'd like to know how people in the west even discovered that the MIL CD booting functionality existed. I don't recall Sega ever publicizing it as a selling point, and obviously retail MIL CDs were extremely rare even in Japan.

Bios reactvation if you read one of the sdk samples it shows you how so not sure how much of hack that was for homebrew.. If you remember mp3 player and others that could read off another cdr.. If you had the leaked dev kit it was not that hard to work out ..

I compiled and made this katana unreleased game work with nothing from homebrew at all..
https://streamable.com/ub138j I use the katana sdk made a self boot cd by self .. Never been released or even compiled..

It finds the 0gdtex.pvr displays that and then boots the game if you remember there is one on every release or gdi..

I like those samples.
Sphere map is really cool.
shitty tmnt turtles shooter is fantastic.
the sonic thing is interesting too.

Did you ever get those sdk samples converted from .elf files?
When I made that cdi collection of sdk samples, you mentioned that you had others to convert.

I remember utopia reading 0gdtex now.

--

dark, its crazy to think that now ppl just use gdemu and .gdi 1:1 copies of games.

Other samples
https://streamable.com/8ytnw7

https://streamable.com/9cyfs0





Gdrom format is not cracked the bios is not cracked there is no exploit your using a function of the bios that was always there..

[SMiTH]

Gdrom format is not cracked the bios is not cracked there is no exploit your using a function of the bios that was always there..

I'd like to know how people in the west even discovered that the MIL CD booting functionality existed. I don't recall Sega ever publicizing it as a selling point, and obviously retail MIL CDs were extremely rare even in Japan.

didn't rand linden mention that he figured out the mil cd function.
this was before it was really known by any dc scene groups.
he used heartbreak diary mil cd for the betas.

[Ian Micheal]

He did yeah.. also mp3 player sold far as i can see it was selfboot sold from china when they was still putting out releases using the boot disk 18 Aug 2000 only record first for sale i can find for the mp3 player for china .. Its selfboot and loads files on another cdr with mp3 files.. Not homebrew at all..

Not sure how much credit you can give any of these hacking groups it's not a save exploit comes from leaked sdk.. If you look thru the examples headers pretty clear how to do things..

all so called cracked gdrom releases use a retail Dreamcast to dump it then used the sdk tools to downsample the sfd and other files.. Heartbreak diarys show you how to do the mil-cd exloit which is not really a exploit just a bios function of the dreamcast..

Gdrom format did it's job we still cant even now easy read it or copy it.. Cant even boot a gdr with out a system disk..

If sega never put the mil cd function people would of have to really crack the Dreamcast..

[SMiTH]

Heartbreak diarys show you how to do the mil-cd exloit which is not really a exploit just a bios function of the dreamcast..

Not trying to argue with you because I agree. <---
I just want you to see maybe why it is considered an exploit.

Yes, mil cd is a function of the dc.
But, It still can be considered an exploit due to the fact that it was used to run game executables instead of weird hybrid video cd's.

Similar to the ps2 dvd exploit, the function was intended to play dvds.
But, instead it allows you to run executables.

A function was exploited to do something it was not originally intended to do.
The function itself is the same.
But, the way it is used to accomplish something else makes it an exploit.

Either way I understand what you're saying.

[dark]

I wonder what the main way of playing DC pirate games would have been if MIL CD functionality didn't exist. Maybe it would be like gamecube, where one of the online games (Sega's PSO as a matter of fact, lol) could be exploited to load and run game rips through a broadband adapter. In that case, the DC broadband adapter would have been even more expensive on the used market

Regarding Rand Linden - he might have figured MIL CD out early and independently for the small distribution of his betas, but Bleemcast didn't get released until 2001 I think so I don't think the commercial releases would have influenced the homebrew/scene groups at large to learn about MIL CD. I remember when it was brand new and selfboot DC pirate rips and homebrew were already long since available for what felt like a good while before Bleemcast.

When did Gameshark come out? That was MIL CD as well, and those gameshark guys were always early to figure out ways to boot their software on the various game consoles, since otherwise they couldn't sell their product.