Here's what I understand about the issue - I'll be lazy and not post
links, but any google search on starforce should yield tons of info:

1) Ring 0 access - because Starforce uses a system driver that appears
like an IDE disk driver, it runs at a highly priviledged level in the
system that could potentially be exploited by malicious software. This
has been noted with multiple copy protection/DRM packages. So far
no-one has demonstrated or seen an exploit 'in the wild' AFAIK, but
that doesn't mean it isn't possible. Note that this is different from
the poorly-written Sony rookit. The Sony DRM package created a *huge*
security hole by creating a directory that was completely hidden from
normal system operations. A malicious program could drop files in the
same dir and there would be almost no way to detect it. The Sony
rookit also created a device chain that could bluscreen your PC if the
DRM driver was disabled.

2) Dead DVD writers. This appears to be the most common complaint.
How truly frequent this occurs is unknown (some fraction is probably
conicidental normal hardware failure), but some reasonably respected
netizens have posted that they have had DVD writers crap out after
loading SF-protected games. The problem is partly Microsoft's - what
appears to be the problem is the "auto-stepdown" function of IDE
drivers in WinXP. What happens is WinXP will automatically slow down
drive access as it encounters read errors on IDE devices, starting with
the Ultra-DMA modes, slowing all the way down to PIO modes. IMHO this
was one of those stupid "Microsoft knows better than you" decisions -
the OS never reports an error to the user or allows the behavior to be
changed (although XP SP2 apparently slows the step-down counter so it
is less likely to occur). I have personally experienced this in the
early days of XP (not related to Starforce). What seems to kill some
DVD writers is they are not designed to operate in PIO modes, and the
step down to PIO permanently damages the drives. Starforce was stupid
here in that they could have written the virtual driver as a SCSI
device (like Alcohol 120%'s drives) and avoided this problem
completely.

3) Starforce's business practices - Instead of recognizing there might
be a problem and trying to get info from users to fix it, they called
anyone who reported problems hackers/pirates/script kiddies. They
setup a ridiculous contest where they would pay anyone $10000 who could
come to Russia (on thier own dime) and reproduce the problem on
Starforce's own hardware. When nobody took them up on such a stupid
offer they proclaimed that it meant there was no problem. They have
also done such nasty things as posting links on thier own forums to
pirated software (Gal Civ II, I think).

Myself - I avoid 1+2 by having a dedicated gaming PC that I do not use
for regular internet browsing, nor do I do my DVD burning on this PC.
3 is a matter of personal decision. I abhor the way they do business,
but support Simbin and thier work for the sim market enough to hold my
nose and enjoy the hell out of GTR and GTL. I don't think the
developers make those decisions - that's more in the hands of the
publishers.

Hope I got all that right!
Kendt