Sony Patents Method for Detecting Pirated Software

Could it be used for the PS4?

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Sony Patents Method for Detecting Pirated Software
Sony might have put the kibosh on the PS4 blocking used games, but the company still intends to protect its new system from piracy. And it seems to have figured out a way to do that - a recently published patent details a method of determining if a piece of software is legitimate or not.

The system works by comparing load times of a particular piece of software against a benchmark. If the software breaches a certain comparison threshold, then the technology will be able to determine your copy as pirated.

Titled "Benchmark Measurement for Legitimate Duplication Validation", the patent was filed in 2011 but was published on February 21 2013. Just a day after the PS4's official announcement. Coincidence?

Via DarkZero
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Comments

Daz 25 Feb 2013 12:00
1/3
how would that work? wouldn't the load times be the same pirated or not since it's the same disc drive doing the reading?
ghoti 25 Feb 2013 12:38
2/3
I can only see it being different if the pirated disk had the data laid out differently or the duplicate disk caused more read errors.

Surely an ageing drive would cause this test to fail too because of increased read errors. Does anyone remember having to have their original PlayStation stood on it's side, for example?
irritant 25 Feb 2013 22:42
3/3
Upside down worked for my PS1. I'm guessing this system is to detect when games that are "pretending" to be on a BluRay are actually installed on the hard drive. I'm guessing it'll be when they load too fast, not too slow.
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