$10 Quake shareware CD locked copies of all id Software games behind a flawed encryption scheme — pay-over-the-phone system only held up for

id Software included locked versions of its entire game library on the $10 Quake shareware CD it released in 1996. But the system meant to allow gamers to pay for and unlock those titles over the phone proved vulnerable to crackers who discovered a way to unlock every game on th…

Source: Tom's Hardware19 August 2026 at 4:00 pm ISTrss

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Original headline: $10 Quake shareware CD locked copies of all id Software games behind a flawed encryption scheme — pay-over-the-phone system only held up for 39 days after 1996 release, leaving developer with 150,000 discs it couldn't sell
Product category: gaming
Curation state: curated