SafeCast

This article is primarily about discontinued computer software, but the trademark term Safecast now has a new trademarked meaning in respect of the protection of children from seeing inappropriate video materials on television and the internet. For the radiation measurements network Safecast.org, see Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

SafeCast (software protection) was a registered trademark for Macrovision's legacy software protection system.^[1] Safecast features product activation (via telephone, or through internet), and executable wrapping technology. SafeCast can be easily defeated with a keygen. (Note: In 2015 the British company Cachebox TV Limited ^[2] registered Safecast at the UK Trade Mark Registry as its registered trademark for implementation of its patented technology to protect the television watershed in catch-up and timeshifted viewing. There is no connection between Cachebox and Macrovision and Macrovision had abandoned the trademark at the European Trade Mark office thereby allowing it to gain the new trademark meaning requested by Cachebox.)

Controversy

SafeCast exploits the lack of operating-system security in Microsoft Windows and writes directly to the boot track of the local disk as part of its operation. TurboTax, Intuit's tax-preparation software product, uses SafeCast in some versions, and the protection scheme has been blamed for a wide variety of problems with product activation and use, leading Intuit to partially remove the technology. Adobe also uses a version of SafeCast for its CS products, and has had similar but less frequent problems, particularly with certain types of disk configurations (RAID, multiple-boot), but continues to use the technology for copy protection.

Dangers

SafeCast with old versions of TrueCrypt can leave a machine in an unbootable state.^[3] This is a problem of SafeCast Protection and not TrueCrypt. The makers of TrueCrypt, however, have further insulated the drives from external writes in the later versions, and it can now handle this protection scheme with no damage to data.

Removing SafeCast

SafeCast nests itself into the user's computer deeply and therefore it can be quite challenging to remove all of its components. The procedure of removing SafeCast includes the deletion of several files, the removal of information from the Windows registry as well as manipulating data directly of the hard drive.^[4]

SafeCasted Applications

AutoCAD
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Puyo Puyo Fever (Japanese)
Typing of the Dead (Japanese)
All Adobe products included in the CS series

External links

Intuit to use kinder, gentler version of SafeCast - May, 2003 (link removed due to page no longer existing)
Intuit Soothes DRM Fears with TurboTax Uninstaller - January, 2003
Intuit press release on independent testing - press release, February 24, 2003
Intuit licenses SafeCast - press release, September 5, 2002
Intuit continues use of SafeCast - press release, May 15, 2003
Intuit scrambles to ease TurboTax woes - January, 2003
Intuit pours oil on TurboTax troubles - January, 2003
Adobe tries out DRM in Photoshop - July, 2003

References

↑ Safecast trademark is dead since April 8th, 2008 according to TESS http://tess2.uspto.gov/
↑ "Cachebox TV Ltd". www.cachebox.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-06-30.
↑ http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=incompatibilities
↑ wikiHow article: How to Remove Safecast

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