Oculus Rift update designed to remove Vive compatibility backfires, enables full-scale piracy
Revive creator finds a way to bypass the software ownership check.
The creator of Revive, a tool that allows VR games for Oculus Rift to be played on HTC's Vive headset, has released an update that bypasses the Rift's DRM entirely and lets users pirate its software.
On May 22, Oculus released an update that introduced "platform integrity checks" which, among other things, closed the loophole allowing Revive to make Rift games compatible with Vive. Revive's developer, however, has found a workaround that bypasses Oculus' ownership check completely.
"This is my first success at bypassing the DRM," reads an update on the Revive subreddit. "I really didn't want to go down that path. I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies."
Revive's developer has found a workaround that bypasses Oculus' ownership check completely.
Speaking to Motherboard the developer, who identifies as Libre VR, said he didn't design Revive to pirate games, but noted that people could use it for such a purpose, should they want to.
He added that if he is able to find a workaround that allows Rift games to be played on Vive without bypassing ownership checks entirely, he will implement it. According to Libre VR, he would like to work with Oculus to allow people to play games on both devices without circumventing the ownership check.
Following the release of its update, Oculus explained that the Revive tool wasn't being specifically targeted.
"Our latest software update included several new features, bug fixes, and security upgrades, including an update to our entitlement check that we added to curb piracy and protect games and apps that developers have worked so hard to make," its statement said. "This update wasn't targeted at a specific hack.
"When we first learned about hacks that modify our software to interfere with the security, functionality, and integrity of the Oculus ecosystem, and allow games to run outside the scope of our QA, testing and support, we immediately notified the community that we will not be supporting or maintaining the long-term usability or quality of hacked software.
"We take the security, functionality and integrity of our system software very seriously and people should expect that hacked games won't work indefinitely as regular updates to content, apps and our platform may break the hacks."