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SP1 Unsuccessful in Preventing Vista Hacks

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Feb 11, 2008 08:38 AM
from the oh-my-god-i'm-so-shocked dept.
Microsoft
"The other A. N. Other" writes "It seems that Microsoft has been unsuccessful with SP1 in preventing hackers from turning a pirated, non-genuine copy of Vista into genuine copies that pass activation. The article initially looked at two of the most popular hacks (OEM BIOS hack and the grace timer hack) but after a little digging ZDNet were able to transform a non-genuine install into a genuine one. 'After a few minutes of searching the darker corners of the Internet and a few seconds in the Command Prompt I was able to fool Windows into thinking that it was genuine.'"
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  • WHAT!?!?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:42AM (#22378422) Journal
    A Windows upgrade leaves Windows vulnerable? It didn't fix the problem? I'm shocked! SHOCKED, I tell ya!

    -mcgrew

  • Black Screen of Death... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2008, @08:43AM (#22378428)
    So, if the screen goes black on users who have a genuine copy, maybe they can use this hack? Or would this be illegal? Although it would then be like tricking Windows into -realizing- it is genuine...
    • If you have a genuine copy, and all of a sudden your windows thinks its not, I don't believe any court will convict you of piracy.

      Ok they probably will, oh well thats what we get for being duped into buying a completely unnecessary OS upgrade.

    • So, if the screen goes black on users who have a genuine copy, maybe they can use this hack? Or would this be illegal? Although it would then be like tricking Windows into -realizing- it is genuine...

      It would be a pretty clear violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and similar laws in countries outside the United States -- bypassing a security system designed to prevent copying. Might be okay in Canada, though. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and you if you want legal advice -- go hire a lawyer.

    • Re:Black Screen of Death... (Score:5, Informative)

      by misleb (129952) on Monday February 11 2008, @04:44PM (#22383794)

      So, if the screen goes black on users who have a genuine copy, maybe they can use this hack? Or would this be illegal? Although it would then be like tricking Windows into -realizing- it is genuine...


      You know, it's funny... I've often found it easier to crack a piece of software than it is to track down my legitimate license. I can imagine does that with VIsta. If I were running a legitimate version of Vista and changed my hardware (or whatever causes Vista to require a to require you to reregister), I'd sooner install a crack than spend any amount of time on the phone with Microsoft.

      -matthew

  • Here we go again... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Computershack (1143409) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:43AM (#22378438)
    And it's because of people doing this that stuff gets tightened down and in the end, its not the thieving bastards who suffer but the rest of us who pay for what we use instead of stealing it.

    • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Funny)

      by badfish99 (826052) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:46AM (#22378462)
      Simple solution: pay for a copy, throw it in the bin, and install a stolen copy instead.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mattmcm (1143125)
        My kingdom for mod points. Hell, that's insightful and funny.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Call it funny, but it's actually nearer the truth than most imagine. I get so sick and tired of serial keys, activations and what not. And then still being artificially restricted in what you can do.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by somersault (912633)
          True. It's much more convenient to use cracked copies of games rather than take the CDs with you everywhere in case you feel like playing them on your laptop at your friend's house/whatever. Note: I do buy all my games, but I like to download the 'No CD' versions so that I can keep the original CDs/DVDs in good condition, and so that I dont have to swap out friggin game CDs to watch a DVD. Games should not need the disc after installation. Hopefully I'm not being hypocritical because I'm happy to use plasti

              • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

                by Vexor (947598)
                I actually typed my Starcraft CD key so many times I ended up memorizing it. 2518-77178-9492

                • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                  by DMUTPeregrine (612791)
                  The Install.exe files are actually MoPaQ archives. Just copy the install.exe from the broodwar CD to the starcraft folder and rename it to BroodWar.mpq

      • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Firehed (942385) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:28AM (#22378820) Homepage
        You've been modded funny, but that's how I run half my software. By running a cracked copy, I never have to worry about WGA, (re)activation, etc. I could do things completely legitimately and call up India every few months, or just install from a different disc despite owning a legal, shiny, "do not make illegal copies of this disc"-hologrammed copy, and never have to be bothered with any of it.

        It's been working well for me for years, and I see no reason to stop. They have my money, I have their software, and I get to use what I paid for. Problem? Didn't think so.

      • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Ephemeriis (315124) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:39AM (#22378946) Homepage

        Simple solution: pay for a copy, throw it in the bin, and install a stolen copy instead.
        This is honestly what I do with the games I play. Purchase the game legally from my favorite retailer, install it from the disc, and promptly download the no-CD crack/patch.

        I started doing this a year or two back when the latest and greatest copy protection broke a game that I had legitimately purchased. It wouldn't run at all. No matter what I did it told me I didn't have the disc. So I grabbed the no-CD patch and had no trouble with it.

        Ever since then I've made it a habit to crack/patch every game I purchase. Not only do I no longer have to dig through my discs to find the right one when I want to play, but it seems to me that the games run better too.

        All these assorted copy protection schemes only affect those of us who actually pay for the software. The folks who are pirating the stuff are already bypassing it all anyway, so they never get inconvenienced at all.

    • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Funny)

      by SailorSpork (1080153) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:53AM (#22378526) Homepage
      You mean, someone would actually want Vista so much they'd pirate it?! These allegations surely come from M$'s PR department! If there's someone out there that really wants a copy that badly, I'll trade my Vista Home Premium that was bundled with my new system for your XP serial number...

    • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mysticgoat (582871) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:13AM (#22378672) Journal

      And it's because of people doing this that stuff gets tightened down and in the end, its not the thieving bastards who suffer but the rest of us who pay for what we use instead of stealing it.

      Well... it's more like from the beginning, not in the end.

      Basically its just another example of how even elegant code is unnecessarily costly when used to stupid purpose. Trying to prop up a 1989 business model with the likes of WGA, DRM, etc is just stupid. Find another business model. It isn't like there is some worldwide shortage of them.

    • Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy (12016) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:31AM (#22378850) Homepage
      The ORIGINAL real XP WGA crack still works and still can not be defeated by Microsoft. It has been a solid working crack for over 2 years now.

      That is the funny part. WGA is a solid failure, yet Microsoft will not give up on it. It only get's in the way of legit users and eats up processor cycles for no useful reason. Yet they insist on making life hell for everyone that is a legit user while all their attempts no not even bother the stolen software users.

      It's getting as bad as Games, Legit copies are more of a PITA than a cracked copy. Which is why as soon as I buy a game, I go searching for the cracks, no-cd patches, etc... to give me back control of the game I bought.

      BTW, the cool part of the XP WGA crack, I can reinstall XP on my machines at will without calling Msft. I simply use the crack to insert the COA sticker's number inot XP and it instantly becomes that copy, WGA is happy, the "you must register" crap goes away. I have a better experience.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ConceptJunkie (24823) *
        That is the funny part. WGA is a solid failure, yet Microsoft will not give up on it

        That's because Microsoft hates you. They say "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence", right? Well, in the past year or so, I've come to the conclusion that incompetence is no longer sufficient to explain Microsoft's products, therefore they must be the result of malice.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sfing_ter (99478)
      Unless you have had your head in the sand for the last 15 years, Microsoft has gotten most of their popularity from the fact that you only had to buy one copy of the software. Office has took over because of it's ease of installation on multiple stations without "needing" to buy more copies; same with Win3.1 WinNT Win95 Win98 and WinME. In fact a couple of shops in the area got busted numerous times for selling "pirated copies" (actually they were real serial numbers but they were used more than once), in f

  • This is nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2008, @08:46AM (#22378460)
    MS doesn't want to stop all Vista piracy. Sure, they want to stop commercial outfits producing fake Vista DVDs but stopping all Vista piracy is bad business. Using Vista (even a pirated copy) keeps you locked-in and makes it easier for MS to get people using more MS software. After all, Vista was an industry-wide attempt to get everyone buying new hardware. Yeah it failed (hardware sales have been well below expectations) but using free Vista still encourages you to get new hardware like DX10 video cards & other DRM-riddled hardware.
    • I don't agree with the "piracy boosts sales" theory regarding Windows.
      Yes, this might have been true in the past. These days, with all the OEM bundling MS manages to achieve, they don't need piracy anymore. For Windows anyway.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ericlondaits (32714)
        Perhaps not in the US, but they do in the rest of the world.

        At least here in Argentina most home and small office users have pirated copies of Windows. Although it's bundled in brand computers, most people buy computers assembled by small computer shops or by themselves, because there are much much cheaper than buying Dell, Compaq, etc.

        OEM copies of Windows, though much cheaper than boxed versions, are expensive enough to have a big impact in the price of a custom-built PC.
  • was the time most peoples pirate copies of XP got found out due to activation exploits being broken.

    Will be the same in Vista I'd imagine.

  • Curious tactics anyway (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Toreo asesino (951231) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:51AM (#22378506) Journal
    I've often thought that for Microsoft to significantly damage Linux on the desktop for Windows 7 for instance, all it would need to do is make Windows 7 licensing about as intrusive as the Win2k licensing. I.e enter a serial during setup, and that's it.

    Geeks complain about WGA and then crack it anyway, n00bs buys their boxen with it pre-installed and so the audience WGA seems to be the most effective against are the casual upgraders that don't have the cash to shell out, but want the shiniest and latest software regardless.

    Another angle; several friends of mine have to my pleasant surprise, asked me before if I knew of a retailer that would sell PCs with Linux on. Upon querying if they're sure they want Linux what with most commercial software being incompatible etc, the answer has always been the same; "no, but I'd save fifty quid (pounds) on Windows and then install it anyway".
    Invariably, if this process was easy to do, it would beg the question; without the hassle of cracking Windows, would Linux even be considered? I think not, but increasingly it is.

    • Re:Curious tactics anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Graftweed (742763) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:21AM (#22378742)
      I, for one, hope that MS is entirely successful in their (alas futile) search for the means to stop piracy.

      If people actually have to buy Windows and Office for what MS is charging for them, maybe they'll stop for a second and finally realise what it means to enter into business with a monopoly: high prices and low quality.

      There's no doubt in my mind, from the sample of people and businesses that I know, that they'd take a long hard look at Linux if they were unable to pirate MS products so easily.

      • Re:Curious tactics anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

        by plague3106 (71849) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:37AM (#22378926)
        Funny. I ran Linux on my server for about a decade, and Linux on the desktop for three or four years. I now happily pay for Windows to use my computer instead of fighting with it. The quality is about the same, its just that I don't need to research 20 hours to figure out why my printer isn't working.

        • Re:Curious tactics anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Psychopath (18031) on Monday February 11 2008, @11:30AM (#22380054) Homepage
          That's an unpopular sentiment around here, where the upgrade-Vista-by-installing-XP +5 funny post apparently never loses its humor, but there's a lot of truth to what you said. Linux has come a long way towards desktop/user friendliness and distributions like Ubuntu are a huge leap forward, but they still haven't achieved the holy grail of but-can-my-grandmother-use-it. Getting closer, though.

      • Re:Curious tactics anyway (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheRaven64 (641858) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:39AM (#22378948) Homepage Journal
        Exactly. A lot of people tell me that MS Office is better than OpenOffice, but is it really $400 better? For a few classes of user, maybe. For most? Probably not. But if you're pirating MS Office, then the cost is exactly the same as OpenOffice, so if it's any better at all then it will get used.

  • No surprise there... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kjella (173770) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:58AM (#22378552) Homepage
    Sure, they've always found a crack. And every time you try to get updates, the crack will break and you need to find a new one. It's not about making it impossible, just about making it annoying, timeconsuming or scary because you don't have the latest security fixes. To paraphrase a little: "pirated Windows is only free if your time is worthless". While I'm sure it makes some people pay for Windows, I do hope it also brings some people over to Linux mhere apt-get distupgrade "just works".
    • To paraphrase a little: "pirated Windows is only free if your time is worthless".

      I don't know about that, I've been able to get along just fine with XP...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by petermgreen (876956)
      here apt-get distupgrade "just works".
      Sure as long as you are running a stable release and stick within that release. Upgrading between releases can be much more troublesome.

      In the windows world most home and small buisness systems are never upgraded from one windows release to the next. they are purchased with a version of windows and that version of windows stays on them until they are retired. Versions of windows come with a very long security update life cycle that facilitates this (7 YEARS of overlap!)

      • Re:No surprise there... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kjella (173770) on Monday February 11 2008, @04:02PM (#22383338) Homepage

        In the windows world most home and small buisness systems are never upgraded from one windows release to the next. they are purchased with a version of windows and that version of windows stays on them until they are retired. Versions of windows come with a very long security update life cycle that facilitates this (7 YEARS of overlap!).

        in the linux world you are lucky to find a vendor offering more than a year of security update overlap for desktop versions.
        Unless of course you consider the service packs, which by themselves introduced and broke quite a bit of functionality, to be the equivalent of releases with other distros. My experience with distro upgrades have certainly not been more painful than that, and plain XP as well as XP SP1 are no longer supported. And you're certainly counting if you bought XP in 2001, if you bought XP right before Vista was released there's no 7 years of support for you, more like 2.5 years. Well, the LTS versions of Ubuntu has 3 years on the desktop with a 1.5 year release cycle, in the worst case this means 1.5 years remaining support. It is somewhat poorer but nowhere as much as you make it out to. That also doesn't take into the account that two of the main reasons for not upgrading is the upgrade price and new anti-features, none of which are present on Linux. Personally I've found the 6 month release cycle to be more preferable than the LTS release because they keep introducing nice features, though I suppose evil tounges will say that's because Linux has so much catching up to do. I disagree but still, 1. It's not Windows and 2. Some Windows applications don't run well under WINE means it's not for everyone just yet...

  • Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

    by koan (80826) on Monday February 11 2008, @08:58AM (#22378554)
    M$ could lock it down and make it much more difficult but why? With everyone using it because it's easy to pirate they maintain their market share, and it appears there is no shortage of people willing to pay for that crap called Vista.
    I have to say the other post about "the ones that steal it making it harder for everyone else" is one of the most naive and ignorant post I have ever seen.
    It isn't "stealing" it's copyright violation, and you have fairly naive view of human behavior.

    Relax there are more important things to worry about than some crappy OS.

  • How is MS supposed to win? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elrous0 (869638) * on Monday February 11 2008, @09:08AM (#22378632)
    If they tighten it down too much, everyone bitches that they can't get legitimate copies to pass. If they don't tighten it down enough, people like this find ways to pirate copies and chide MS for it. So how are they supposed to come up with a happy compromise in a no-win situation?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ephemeriis (315124)

      So how are they supposed to come up with a happy compromise in a no-win situation?

      Ideally you want a balance of price to value, so that people feel they are genuinely getting their money's worth. I know there are some pieces of software that I gladly pay for because they do what they are supposed to and do it very well. I genuinely want to help the developers out and ensure that they will continue to develop the product. Then there are other pieces of software that seem like a waste of money.

      No matter wh

  • Does anyone think MS really cares? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNetAvenger (624455) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:26AM (#22378788)
    Does anyone think MS really cares?

    In an age of copy protected floppies and copy protection on games and virtually every type of software, MS still shipped DOS and Win 3.1 unprotected. Friends would install it, and even geeks would go, wow, a GUI that works and I can even multi-task my DOS applications.

    Corporation and distributor fraud has been at the heart of the MS movement for Geniune. Yes, they are stupid about it, as WGA has screwed users more than it ever should have with XP and Vista, but prior to WGA, even if you were a legit OEM MFR of computers you often had a 50% chance of getting pirate copies of Win9x/Win2K and especially Office.

    I know from being an OEM and buying through distribution channels that 50% of the product that came through the door was not legit. It was so bad that even employees at some of the larger vendors, would place your MS software orders to their 'friends' and invoice it separately without your knowledge or the knowledge of some of the distributors.

    This also wasn't from fly by night wholesalers. Our corporate IT people also had problems, even orders from companies like CDW and others had a large chance of being fake.

    So MS added WGA and activation, this cut down the problem, but put a strain on legitimate users. MS would have been served to just put more monitoring and pressure in the distribtution channels, but again there are retailers and OEMs that would take advantage shady 'good' deals, and the customers would again be using forged copies, not even knowing that their local shop was screwing over people.

    SP1 lightens WGA, and MS has internal plans to further lighten WGA on the websites and for allowing updates. They are looking into taking the burden of WGA off the end-user. I would look for more OEM tools and OEM activation, and keeping Corporate IT activation systems intact and WGA for consumers going away eventually.

    This is a good thing and now SlashDot makes the article read like Vista is 'hackable' in a 'bad' way, instead of a 'good' way.

    Also remember MS has already put out enough copies of Vista, that they probably don't care about the few *nix users hacking it for a VM or dual install, nor even the OSX Mac base.

    Counting the entire sales history of Macs as total base, and the entire *nix installation base, Vista is still millions of copies ahead and still growing, and THIS is even if you only count the retail copies sold, not even the OEM portion which is substantially even larger.

    MS can afford for people to Hack Vista, especially when there are cliches in the Mac community that love the hardware, but like Vista better than OSX and use it as their primary OS and great if they hack and install Vista, and find out that it runs better on Mac hardware than OSX. MS has a win win, even if the people don't like Vista, and it didn't cost MS anything for the % that did prefer Vista. (See online articles comparing Vista to Leopard or running native Intel binaries under OSX compared to Vista. (Adobe products and OpenGL games are great selling points for Vista, all running faster under Vista than OSX on the same machine.)

  • It seems that Microsoft has been unsuccessful with SP1 in preventing hackers from turning a pirated, non-genuine copy of Vista into genuine copies that pass activation.

    Can someone please explain to me how they can get a non-genuine copy to "pass activation"? I can understand hacking WGA so that it doesn't request activation or hacking WGA so that even when Microsoft tells it that its failed, it reports a success.

    However this article suggests that you can feed a duff key to Microsoft and they'll incorrec

    • Re:How does this work? (Score:4, Informative)

      by rriven (737681) <slashdot@rriven.com> on Monday February 11 2008, @09:49AM (#22379050) Homepage

      Can someone please explain to me how they can get a non-genuine copy to "pass activation"?

      Sure, some OEM versions don't need activation, all they need is the correct SLIC table embedded in the bios to tell vista that it is a OEM computer and a OEM product key.


      With that you will not need activation and you will be Genuine. So you are right it does not pass activation, just like the VLK keys of XP don't pass activation, because it is not needed.

      There are tons of sites about it

      On a side note if you buy a computer that is OEM Vista Home Premium you can use the SLIC table in your BIOS and get Vista Ultimate, just by changing your key. Once again no activation

  • I wonder how much money Microsoft spends on this WGA crap, versus how much is actually lost in pirated software, versus, the monetary benefits of having people using a non-legitimate OS copy. Seriously, maybe spend that money on bettering the compatibility of Vista with it's own brothers (XP, 2000, etc.) and sisters (Samba network shares, etc.).

  • Ironic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder (17205) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:50AM (#22379062) Homepage Journal
    Its ironic that if you are sometimes better off hacking Windows to pretend it is genuine, than using the clean bought install. Case in point: I have a legitimate Windows XP install on a MacBook Pro, using BootCamp. First due to a few install issues I ended up having to activate it three times and for the final, but successful install, had to call Microsoft. Later on I decided I would use Windows with the help of Parallels, but found the even if I was using the same install, it required me to activate it again. Yet another call to Microsoft and trying to explain that yes this was the same machine. With the cracked version I wouldn't have to worry about calling Microsoft once in a while.

    I understand why Microsoft does this, but I wonder if it is really solving the problem?

  • My predictions for the future of Windows XP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by erroneus (253617) on Monday February 11 2008, @10:54AM (#22379698) Homepage
    If Microsoft keeps with its typical "I don't care if we piss off our users" M.O. then Microsoft will present some update to WindowsXP that will make WinXP so annoying to use that it makes Vista look attractive by comparison. Off topic? I'm not so sure, because for the most part, people are going with their "downgrade" option quite a bit and Microsoft will want to prevent or dissuade people from using that option if possible.

    • Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Aurisor (932566) on Monday February 11 2008, @09:10AM (#22378648) Homepage
      This is ZDNet we're talking about here. When he says "searching the darker corners of the Internet" he's probably talking about his cluttered address book, looking for the phone number of his friend who knows how to hack vista.

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