Hacking Quake 4 authorization
Most people agree that the Quake series are some of the best 3d games ever written (kudos to James Carmack!). I was recently browsing through the net, and found out that iD Software had brought the security protection of the game one step further: everytime the software is started, it will try to authenticate the CD key on their authentication server. I havent tried to run the game without being disconnected from the net - simply because I am too lazy to unwire those cables at the back of my table.
Most people had tried some clever alternatives, such as running firewall program, and block Quake 4 to access the net. Obviously this will prevent you from playing over the LAN. Unless you can identify which port Quake 4 is using to communicate over the LAN network.
A better hack involves identifying the authentication server address - which turns out to be: q4master.idsoftware.com
Now, if we can somehow re route any request to this address somewhere else, then we effectively:
- disable the authentication
- still allow quake to communicate against other quake 4 clients in the LAN
Turns out that this is not hard at all, thanks to Microsoft's adoption to UNIX ip route table syntax. I am not sure if I can legally post out how to do it here, but it IS possible, and it WORKS. Just with a little bit of thought, you will be happily fragging your mates over the LAN.
Having said so, please do buy the software if you like it. It is a great game, and you will miss out most of the fun of playing over their official server.
Ciao.
posted by WiB @ 3:23 AM
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