[PS2] POPS stuff & POPStarter

Since this scammer claims to be a legit developer, an owner of the FMCB 1.8 source code, a PSX-Scene member that has the agreement of the FMCB devs to violate the license and spread his ILLEGAL packages; I think he needs to have his usernames and activities COVERED IN SHIT in some news or sticky at PSX-Scene. Just a thought... He has started to distribute his crap on torrent sites too, like he already knows the party is over for him. The same story repeats itself with the very same asshole:mad-new:.

 

That is quite funny, I'd love to know what it's checking for. It might be emulator detection triggering it, they did attempt that.

 

That sounds great, the sticky at PSX-Scene. That guy is truly shit.

 

Sorry for the silly question but pops works only with an HDD?

 

Done their is a sticky with the 3 names at PSX-SCENE it the FMCB forum just let me know if should add something or change names:wink-new:

 

I know that the dumps in redump.org are 1.1 to be the more accurate, but for this case which it
have only one dump, is not possible that the guy who made the dump just missed to search
if the game have libcrypt protection?
Because in the files of paradox, the authors of the patch, says that is LC2 protection.
Or is just a protection from EA, is confusing.

Well, anyway i tested now again the game with the patch from paradox, and it not appears this
message when i check the email for the first time, just the email working fine which says:

"Just to let you know, we have sold a total of 27500 season tickets.
The prolits will be available to you at the end of this month.
Yours sincerely.
FINANCIAL"

If you can delete the protection message is possible you can continue playing fine, or is
possible the game after a long time of playing it degrades to a demo losing other things
and making your team the more poor one, like it happens with the game LMA Manager 2001.

Regards.

 

Great.
"BelieveMeIamTehChrist" and "yeshuaSATAN" were used in this discussion but he doesn't call himself like that.

Here are some of the aliases he used for spreading his shit :
"The_Pot_Of_Greed"
"theSAVIOR"
"Bee5ive"
"psalmsamuel"
"JESUSoCHRIST"
"yeshuachrist"

Some of his packages :
"FMCB Plus OPL Invisible Icon and More.rar"
"DEBRANDED FMCB 1.8 PLUS EXTRAS.rar"
"Open Public Loader 8 and 91 PLUS.rar"
"OPL8 debranded new icons.rar"
"POPS-00001 Tool Kit.rar"
"CUSTOM GRAPHICS AND SOURCE FREE MCBOOT 1.7.rar"
"ps2sdk Free Mcboot 1.7 swapmagic edit yourself.rar"
"FMCB 1.8 HACKED BY BOOTLEGNINJA.rar"


@ElPatas
Thank you for testing and for the explanations. Well, seems that some more routines need to be patched then...

Yes, an internal HDD hooked to a NIC.

 

This is one of the things I would love to see changed, I don't usually have my fat ps2 out because of the noise it makes.
Having this somehow launch able from OPL with all the storage options that supports would be my ultimate dream.

 

Updated :highly_amused:

 

Damn, he's on Gamehacking.org too? Man oh man....

 

Nice.

Perhaps I could block his modified code in my apps, so my apps (POPStarter for example) cannot be executed from his butchered FMCB/OPL; if the OPL/FMCB's ELF launcher doesn't wipe the EE RAM area where the identifiable data is loaded... Fuck, I hate the suckers who mess up with credits. It's so dumb and unfair. As for warez forums that allow lamers to post such crap (yeshuachrist didn't break our rules blahblahblah...), can't they have a bit of respect for the developers of FREE softwares that let them run homebrews (and eventually play their fucking game backups) by kicking his ass ???? PUBLIC HANGING, that is what yeshuachrist deserves.

 

We're pondering about adding a "Pure Init" module clone on the next stuff we do, to prevent elf extraction. /grin I wonder if this Jeeez'oChrish guy have any idea what the heck is 'pure init'... Probably not. Maybe he knows what a Kernel is ... Who knows ...

Also,

Nope, HDD only. Sorry about that. POPS was made by SONY themselves and it's goal was allow them to sell PS1 games through PSBBN so obviously it's for HDD only.

Edit2:

Regarding modchips and FMCB:

Jeeez'oChrish alleges that the SPLASH logo routine causes BSOD on mod chipped consoles. Far from truth. He's a clueless moron and the true reason why modchip consoles may fail booting FMCB is due to unintended modchip interference on the MAGIC GATE file decryption mechanism. No matter what he does to the launcher2 source code, that issue will be solved. Only solution is removal of the modchip. Also these consoles are highly likely to fail at FMCB install as well. The effect of some modchips into the MG functions are notoriously random. Some of the worst modchips even make it impossible to run the DVD utility disc.

 

You was right. It's definitely LibCrypt type 2 protected.

Some kind of Free DNA$ boot ROFL:biggrin-new:. That's MANLY.

 

Then the guy who made the dump in redump.org not followed the guide for search
the libcrypt protection of this game, well is the only case i encountered for now.
Good to know you identified it for sure, good work.

Regards.

 

Obviously isozone refuses to do anything, and wishes to allow him to spread his lies and bullshit. In fact, on the download for his corrupted FMCB (which I won't link to, but it's easy to find, just search for "debranded") site moderator CurbsidePharmacist says this:

This asking for proof shit after Vash32 quotes SP193's post from here explaining that the shit is 1.7.

Since they refuse to stop the guy from spreading hacked homebrew, perhaps it's the right thing to do in blocking future developments from running on this bastardized FMCB. Here's an idea - check the MC itself for evidence of this hacked FMCB (this guy's invisible icons, etc). If it's found, display a message to the user explaining the situation in a nutshell and linking them to the real FMCB. That's assuming that there's not any RAM leftovers, which there might be, I just thought that actually looking at the files on the MC would be more conclusive. Same goes for OPL.

 

My own comparison of FMCB v1.7 against his sources

Alright, then try this:

Look at all these pictures here. They show the important differences in the core code files, which are basically the ONLY changes he made:








I've labeled the images, which should explain what each of them show.

For those who don't know how WinMerge colour-codes the lines, the yellow and grey bars mark differences. 1 highlighted line = 1 different line. It also only shows the files that are different. The fact that you don't see the rest of FMCB v1.7's files is because nothing else was changed, other than the files I'm discussing here.

Basically, look at what I've listed here and you'll see all that he only changed in those screencaps: http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...PS2-POPS-stuff&p=685804&viewfull=1#post685804

Why should that mod care? It's not so much about a breach of copyright, although that's one. He's false-advertising, and it's going to harm other users. Basically, it's not a quality product, and unlike what we're doing... he's spreading it around really quickly by posting it on every site he's been in contact with!

Things that were fixed in FMCB v1.8 - v1.8c... and we're not even talking about what I fixed for v1.9 (to-be, if it materializes for real):
1. Broken OSD configuration - your software and games that run afterwards may not have the right settings (e.g. timezone and language settings, but I don't remember what v1.7 sets correctly and what it does not).
2. No proper support for the SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000.
3. It's heavier and slower: FMCB v1.8 had its code streamlined and shortened. He claimed that his rebranded version of FMCB v1.7 is faster... but that's not possible.
4. Unlike FMCB v1.8c, his will involve using the Sony DVD Player. This means that it's installed size is larger and it'll be playing with that copyrighted software from the crab, which we've already moved away from doing so. Whether you feel this is an issue or not depends on you and your moral values... plus it won't work on the SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000, without copying a DVD player from another console.
5. He never fixed anything, but only removed the FMCB logo. He didn't change the graphics library, so it wouldn't result in any improvements. In that case, why not just leave FMCB v1.7 alone? It sounds more like an excuse to get rid of the FMCB logo. Displaying the logo will only hurt compatibility and performance, only if the library used was bad.

If he wants a diff against the FMCB v1.8c sources, I may be able to arrange that... but the differences may be very great because the copy I have seems to be a later one that has a different structure from older FMCB builds.

Sure, the FMCB logo screen looks as if it was rigged to be displayed there for 3 seconds or more. But I assure everybody that it's there because FMCB is really just that slow at initializing the console (it resets the IOP twice + has long initialization code).

 

I think the only reason the guy is now claiming it's 1.8b is so he can stop putting the source out there, making it slightly harder to call him out on his shit (because he can say that he's not "supposed" to release the 1.8b source).

As I said before, I did a cursory depacking and hex comparison of all relevant installers comparing to his most recent crap-release, and his "1.8b" installer is much closer to the official 1.7 than anything. Hell, I didn't even find any strings in the depacked 1.8b (which I wouldn't be surprised to find is by design to thwart those who would attempt to depack it, hack it, and repack it) but most of the same strings from 1.7 installer are all over his crap-release.

I can't post comments in the isozone downloads section, I have to have 5 posts to do so and I don't care enough about that site to get 5 posts. I hope someone like Vash who has already been posting in the comments over there do the same with sp193's post above in the hopes that this falsely-labeled illegal shit can be taken down. If not, then as far as I'm concerned isozone has no scene standing, no credibility, no respect.

Edit: Since noone has replied, I'll update a bit in this post. It seems that the thread on epforums got deleted, after being locked some time ago. One success! Also found a torrent on TPB, I have posted in its comments informing people that it's a false, illegal version of FMCB and OPL, and to get the real thing at PSX-Scene. I know not everyone reads the comments but hopefully it will at least turn a few people against the thing and towards the legitimate FMCB.

 

The moderator at IsoZone either didn't realize what's happening or he really doesn't care about homebrew things:



CurbsidePharmacist says:1 hour ago
Any further complaints on this item need to be direct to:(link to DMCA site)

 

I tired posting the info on him at TheISOZone, but sadly they are just not realize it or maybe not caring at all. CurbsidePharmacist just delete the post and give me a "Board warning issued" by PM for trying give proof and let the users know not to use it.

Thanks, sp193, krHACKen and RandQalan for all the info on him but sadly I can't do any more. I don't see why they just go and look him up and then once they see how bad this guy is, just delete all his uploads and remove him from the site. (Maybe some moderators just don't do the job right, sometimes.)

 

FMCB, CUE2POPS, OPL, and now Kermit

Since we were discussing about Satan here... I reviewed his latest "release", "HDD-OSD Plus KERMIT.rar".

1. Don't even try his HDD-OSD in a >137GB HDD, as it is NOT patched for use with a LBA48 HDD. The files are pointless hexhacks of the decrypted HDD-OSD that was put online in April 2010. Modifications are just random removal of some texts, and a dumb syntax error in the forced arg...

2. His "work" on Kermit is the defacing of the splash screen and the removal of the credit texts (+ maybe the injection of a HDL icon that no one gives a fuck about)...