Deciphering Windows Product Activation

Stephen Lau writes: "Fully Licensed GmbH seems to have deciphered and analyzed the WPA code that Microsoft plans to use to protect from privacy in future products. They've got source and executables up on their site..." As well as an interesting paper which purports to describe the activation process but does not provide details on how these guys reverse-engineered it.

let them try

You are assuming that MS would actually be able to successfully prosecute these guys for reverse engineering. Here's a newsflash: reverse engineering is legal. Europe has neither DMCA nor UCITA. The world is bigger than US.
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Caller ID?

Registration by phone line, you'd think most people are/will be still stuck doing this.
Caller ID, plus a reverse phone number lookup and what more do you need to know?
Can a MAC adress be linked to your IP by going to a site or server (windows update active X controls?)?
Lookup a name and get a street adress, use public records to see who owns the home and it's value. you know they'll get the IP and know all about the computer, partner with doubleclick(or whoever) for tracking surfing habits..


it's not the information that's transmitted, it's what they can do to link it to you

who owns your data?

Re:No identifiable information

What is the phone number? If all they want is someone to read off 32 digits to them, I'm more than happy to play from time to time.

Windows XP connection logs

Here is an account of what network connections Windows XP RC1 make when it is installing itself.
It does all this without prompting the user.
The box was isolated at 192.168.1.3 and had ALL outgoing traffic denied and logged, these are the highlights.

device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
device eth1 entered promiscuous mode

Packet log: input DENY eth1 PROTO=17 192.168.1.3:123 207.46.228.33:123 L=76 S=0x00 I=5 F=0x0000 T=128 (#5)
time.windows.com (207.46.228.33)
This one is rather obvious, it sets the operating system clock, but don't try using netdate on it, it's proprietary to Windows only (whoops!)

Packet log: input DENY eth1 PROTO=6 192.168.1.3:1027 207.46.197.100:80 L=48 S=0x00 I=88 F=0x4000 T=128 SYN (#5)
(microsoft.com, www.domestic.microsoft.com, and microsoft.net address pool)

Packet log: input DENY eth1 PROTO=6 192.168.1.3:1043 207.46.227.40:80 L=48 S=0x00 I=770 F=0x4000 T=128 SYN (#5)
(wpa.one.microsoft.com try https [207.46.227.40] to it and see the certificate yourself!)
This is the Product Activation certificate, it attempted to connect to this server an incredibly large number of times.

Packet log: input DENY eth1 PROTO=17 192.168.1.3:1039 192.168.0.1:2869 L=48 S=0x00 I=673 F=0x0000 T=128 (#5)
Not sure what it did here, 192.168.0.1 is the gateway I don't have the packet data at all, I'll do that in the near future. MAD props to brewt for some of the info!

Re:Feeling ambivalent about Grandma...

Silly man, Al Gore invented the Internet...

This is a first, a businessman taking credit for something a politician did...

Re:Isn't this asking for a lawsuit?

That doesn't look like it was done in the the name of "interoperability" at all ...

But of course it was:

"My copy of Windows XP didn't work any more after I changed my hardware, so I took it apart to find out why! Oh, and by the way, here's what I found out..."

The key they removed: 0xD45EC86A

The key they removed (from the source) is:

void KeyedHash(unsigned char *Data, unsigned char *Result)
{
SHA_CTX Context;
unsigned char Digest[20];
static unsigned char Key[4] =
{
#error The key has been removed from the source code. Please obtain the executable.
};

SHA1_Init(&Context);
SHA1_Update(&Context, Data, 8);
SHA1_Update(&Context, Key, 4);
SHA1_Final(Digest, &Context);

memcpy(Result, Digest, 8);
}

Doing a quick disassembly of the code:

00401590 KeyedHash proc near ; CODE XREF: sub_4015F0+19p
00401590
00401590 var_74 = dword ptr -74h
00401590 var_70 = dword ptr -70h
00401590 var_60 = byte ptr -60h
00401590 arg_0 = dword ptr 4
00401590 arg_4 = dword ptr 8
00401590

...stuff deleted...

004015AE push 4
004015B0 lea eax, [esp+88h+var_60]
004015B4 push offset dword_40A034 ; ********** MAGIC!
004015B9 push eax
004015BA call sub_402170

...more stuff deleted...

004015E8 retn
004015E8 KeyedHash endp

And the location they referenced:

0040A034 dword_40A034 dd 0D45EC86Ah

Thusly, the key should be 0xD45EC86A.

More than one can play this game.

Enjoy! (Sorry for the formatting, /. doesn't allow <pre>'s)

Re:Isn't this asking for a lawsuit?

I haven't seen any of the license agreements concerning Windows installs that have WPA, but I assume that there's something against reverse engineering.

What if there is? Anything in an EULA which against the law is automatically void. Germany still appears to have laws protecting free speach in the area of software examination.

Feeling ambivalent about Grandma...

Like the rest of us, I've started passing out tapes loaded with my 90 minute speech to answer my non-geek friends and relatives when I hear them ask "Why won't the gov'mint just leave that nice Gates man alone? He invented the Internet, didn't he..."

I was actually looking forward to the day when I could say, "Well, Grandma, I could change your busted hard drive for you, but that would mean that nice Gates man would want another $300. Maybe you should just buy another computer..."

"Buy another computer?! What's wrong with you, boy? I'll just shop around for a cheaper copy of Windows! Someone'll will have it on sale..."

I was so looking forward to listening to Grandma on MS tech support demanding another activation code, and chewing them out when they inevitably refuse to give it to her...

XP activation was going to be the wake-up call for Joe EndUser. Now that it's been publicly hacked, I'm really rather torn...

reminds me of DeCSS

I can see the same thing happening with this as what happened with DeCSS. People will start mirroring this file all over the internet. Microsoft will sue everyone who posts the file under the DMCA and also anyone who knows someone who posted the file. The people who made this will get a ton of publicity and it will make MS look even stupider. I wonder if anyone will get this tatooed on themselves or sing it on an MP3. This is gonna turn into a huge mess for MS.

On a similar note, check out a Salon article on MS's bullying tactics on poor schools: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/07/10/micro soft_school/print.html [salon.com]

Re:hash pipe...

Exactly!

The hash function can be extremely complex, but given a small range of inputs M (only 2 double words), a hash table of possible values can be pre-calculated. The actual number of possible values for M will be very small, on the order of a few thousand, up to possibly 25,000. The input M to the RC5 hash will be a known, limited number of drive IDs, video card IDs, CD-ROM IDs, etc. micr~1.oft is in the position to have a list of every drive manufacturer and video card identification string, and could use those lists to obtain the original string from the hash.

This is what password cracking programs do, instead of trying to reverse the hash, pre-compute dictionaries and compare the outputs.

the AC

The real win here is marketing.

My god, think of how much those metrics alone are worth... A snapshot on DVD adoption, SCSI cards, % of laptops out there? Almost seems like the anti-copy stuff is just a smokescreen.

"an important cryptographic key"

Interesting that they removed the key in their source, but included it in the binaries.

Kinda like: "Here are the plans to build a nuclear bomb, but we took out the part about where to get plutonium. But if you want one pre-made with plutonium ready to go, we can hook you up with that, too."

Isn't this whole thing just a matter of time and programmer determination anyway?

Re:Same old Cut 'n Paste argument. But anyway...

An often ignored concept (that George Broussard from 3D Realms seems to have understood) is that most pirated copies would NOT have been purchased anyways. There are lots of users that will not use the software unless they can get it for free. So in effect, they can either not pay for the software and use it, or not use it at all. Note that such users dont give ANYTHING to the company anyway; it is just a question of whether or not they will use the sotrware. In this case, the software company enjoys a larger installed base.

This is most of the reason why I see the Y Company lost $X to piracy as a BS argument. I've always noticed that lots of people won't pay for software at all; if they had to pay they would do without. IN that case, the Y Company is losing $X in potential sales because their price is too high/marketing not good enough/etc... How different is that from any other company in the tangible good and services industries that loses sales because consumers dont want to pay that much for the product? Why, then, should we treat software companies any differently from those that have poor sales policies?

Isn't this asking for a lawsuit?

I haven't seen any of the license agreements concerning Windows installs that have WPA, but I assume that there's something against reverse engineering. Not only have these people reverse engineered (part of) the WPA process, but they've published the source code. While they didn't put the cryptographic key in the source, they did put it in the executable, and even clearly proclaim this, almost a wink wink nudge nudge to the people out there who are sure to take the executable appart, get the key, put it back into the source code, and then re-publish the complete, non-crippled source.

Given all this, it seems like their really asking for MS to sue them. Is something like this covered under an "academic research" clause that allows reverse engineering for research purposes?

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose that you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

What a shock

I'm so surprised, copy protection that annoys the honest users, and doesn't do anything to stop piracy. Who could've seen it coming?

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Re:How long?

since they are a GERMAN company, and (contrary to the DVD CCAs assumptions in that california lawsuit) germany is not an american state, they are pretty much immune from DMCA-like bullshitting.

there are two things that could make things ugly for Fully Licensed GmbH. one is a license agreement, but so far, the validity of click-through, shrink-wrap or similiar licenses is highly doubted in germany. AFAIK, none has ever been enforced in a court.
second, there is a provision against reverse-engineering in the german copyright law. however, it also allows for a number of exceptions.

one way or the other, since they are a GmbH, the worst that can happen is that they'll be sued out of business, but with no loss to their private capital. so they'll immediatly start a new company under a similiar name and harvest all the free publicity advantages.

because lastly, sueing them would be the equivalent of saying "yes, we feel guilty. yes, we've done wrong. and no, we can't stand that you found us with the hand in the cookie jar." - a pretty dumb publicity stunt, even for M$ standards.

Make sure to mirror this....

I have a feeling it won't be around [bitey.net] for long.

- A.P.

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Re:VMware

(I expect VMware would make these user configurable if they are not already)

Or they might not. VMWare is in bed pretty deep with MS--maybe they have to be, since it'd be pretty easy for MS to make the EULA invalid in a VM (legal or not, no corporation would run it in a VM if the EULA denied that right). Or MS could take technical countermeasures (see also DR-DOS and Windows 3.1) to keep XP from running in a VM, essentially putting VMWare out of business.

One thing I noted is that about a year ago, there was an announcement with much fanfare that VMWare would sell bundles of MS licenses with VMWare. At roughly the same time, OS/2 support, which had been worked on and tested for some time, was suddenly dropped. Can I prove cause and effect? No. Are there lots of other reasons support can have been removed? Sure. But the timing's awfully suspect.

Also, VMWare is hard coded to use a certain OUI (Organizational Unit Identifier) for VM network card NIC addresses--meaning they'll always start with a known prefix. VMWare provides no way to change this, meaning that MS or any other organization with access to the NIC address (or even a hash, probably) will know one is running a VM. (Imagine a typical Georgia network nazi reaction to seeing that with a sniffer.)

I'm not confident VMWare's going to be allowing anyone to change hardware serial numbers in VMs--I'll bet they randomize them just to avoid jepoardizing their "strategic relationship" with Microsoft.

Ridiculous

After reading the article, which half the time lost me, all I can say is "damn, those guys know their shit" and "how many different levels of encryption and checking does MS need to do?"

Really, checking the amount of RAM in a system? Of course, no one EVER adds RAM, right?

MS has perfected the art of "incremental monopoly." Each step is not too bad, and after 10 steps, you are used to the last 3 steps, so it still seems ok. Eventually, you have .Net and subscription based systems, with all data handled by MS, and suddenly you realize your are totally fucked, but it is a bit too late.

Privacy or Piracy?

I thought M$ only cared about money...isn't this supposed to be about piracy not privacy?

purpose of paper?

Onstensibly, the paper's purpose is to analyze the privacy impact of the registraction procedure; i.e. how much information about YOU Microsoft can glean from the hashed system info.

In this light, the paper itself is relatively benign; enough so that Microsoft shouldn't be overly worried about it.

The fact that it can be used to spoof WAP isn't even mentioned in the paper ;)

I am guessing this is entirely intentional.

Re:lok-tite

I think you are looking at it backwards.

I know how to pick locks, but I'm not a theif. I know how to hack, but I'm not a cracker. I can decrypt DVD's with DeCSS, but I don't pirate films. Same thing here. No security system should rely on common (the same for all users) secrets to maintain strength.
twb

Registration

It's easier to do through social engineering. See my previous comment [slashdot.org].

Quite interesting...

That's quite an in-depth explanation. It surprises me that they could figure it out. How many hours did they sit there going: "Hmm... maybe if we added those numbers together and then added the odd ones again... no wait... lets do the even ones. And to finish it off lets to the sum % 3. Oh wait... that should be sum % 7... Yeah, that gives us the check digit!" -Sean

How long?

How long until Microsoft will file a lawsuit and have storm troopers kick down the door? It didn't take the MPAA long to do that. It didn't take Mattel long to do that.

Will they change the algorithm before the next build? Probably not, their lawyers need the money.

Copy protection

As the game publishing companies have discovered a long ago any security system can be cracked given enough time. It is time Microsoft learned this fact as well. No amounts of law suits can put the genie back into the bottle once it is released which the MPAA has learned the hard way and at extreme cost. If any portion of the system is located on the users system, it will be able to be hacked. While I do not agree with software piracy, I also do not believe in copy protection whose sole purpose is to complicate the situation for the end users that buy software and expect specific uses from it.


--
When I'm good I'm very good, when I'm bad I'm better, But when I'm evil you better run :P

Re:lok-tite

Publishing how to pick a lock isn't going to keep the door locked long.

I beg to differ. There are countless articles written on how to pick locks. Here is one that is written on the level of the layman:

How Stuff Works: Lock Picking. [howstuffworks.com]

There are methods for doing many untasteful things(i.e. building bombs, cooking methamphetamine, etc) freely available, but this does not mean that everyone is blowing up buildings. I don't think it causes harm to simply have the information available. Security by obscurity is no securtity at all.


Enigma

For those of you who didn't read the doc:

There is a wicked table in there. While it's not surprising to see from Microsoft, it's still a tad bit scary and impressive at the same time.

Various strings are run through a hashing function and are stored in the key you read to the Microsoft rep over the phone (the Installation key). They are:

• Your network card's MAC address
• Amount of RAM installed
• Processor model
• Processor serial number
• Volume serial number
• Hardware ID strings from
  • Your CD-ROM drive
  • Your hard drive
  • Your video card
  • Your SCSI host adapter
  • Your IDE controller

These values are thrown together (along with some other values) into a huge bit field. Also, a three-digit random number is thrown into the mix. Because the end result that you read to the phone rep is encrypted, this three digit number causes your code to be entirely different on each install.

Here's the real fun part: The OS also stores a snapshot of your hardware configuration. If you change more than three of these hardware components out? It's time to call Microsoft and re-activate your license.

When you re-activate, naturally you'll have to generate a new Installation Key and they'll be able to see exactly what components you changed out. Fun, huh?

Same old Cut 'n Paste argument. But anyway...

Many commercial software developers like to list piracy as a reason for high costs. Microsoft included.

But when did Microsoft ever sell, say Win95 for $35 ? So, how has piracy raised the price? It's always been sold for one price (~$80) and hasn't gone up or down depending on how many copies are purchased.

And then there's the user base argument. When people are pirating your software, they're strengthening your monopoly. Just as it's good for FreeSoftware everytime a Linux/*BSD CD is given to someone new, how does it hurt MS when a home user borrows their friend's Win95 CD? The more times Win95 is installed, the more people are using it and the more likely that person is to become a valuable Windows-using consumer. Buying Windows software, perhaps purchasing a new computer with Win98 preinstalled. Requiring a Windows PC at work. Purchasing upgrades.

Now, I must admit that most people who are going to borrow a Win95 CD will be unlikely to turn 100% legal overnight. But then, when has Microsoft ever been struggling. Well, only when EVERYONE ELSE has been struggling. Back when the economy was booming, Microsoft wasn't struggling to survive due to piracy. Only when everyone else has been struggling has MS even started to feel the pinch.

Like I said, it's the same old cookie-cutter answer to "MSFT looses $X Billion to piracy each year", but it's always a fun argument :-) .


kickin' science like no one else can,
my dick is twice as long as my attention span.

Re:lok-tite

When you promise someone (IBM) a piece of sofware you don't have, then pay someone $50,000 for a piece of software without telling them you're going to turn around and sell it for millions, then I think you're in ethically murky waters.

Well, then, I guess my employer is going ot hell after all! He promises customers something he doesnt't have (a functioning network), then pays me peanuts to fix it/install it/etc. without telling me how much the customer is paying him (obviously, more than he pays me).

Re:My Experience with XP Activation

While I'm not entirely happy with what Apple has done with their registration system, it's also entirely optional. If you're on broadband, simply unplug your machine from your network while you fill out your registration. It then tells you that you can send it later if you want to once you get online, but it doesn't enforce anything.

Also, may I point out:

--Apple Doesn't Require Serial Numbers For MacOS X!-- (It does for OSX Server, though)

I think that kinda beats out a small annoyance with the registration.

Just my $0.02CDN.

Argh, this really will suck...

Now, I swap out video cards, CD's, NIC's, and CPU's fairly often. I also use removable HDD chassis to ease swapping drives in my primary box.

For this purpose, the double words are divided into twelve bit-fields. The relationship between the computer hardware and the bit-fields is given in the following table.

double word | offset | length | bit-field value based on
H1 | 0 | 10 | volume serial number string of system volume
H1 | 10 | 10 | network adapter MAC address string
H1 | 20 | 7 | CD-ROM drive hardware identification string
H1 | 27 | 5 | graphics adapter hardware identification string
H2 | 0 | 3 | unused, set to 001
H2 | 3 | 6 | CPU serial number string
H2 | 9 | 7 | harddrive hardware identification string
H2 | 16 | 5 | SCSI host adapter hardware identification string
H2 | 21 | 4 | IDE controller hardware identification string
H2 | 25 | 3 | processor model string
H2 | 28 | 3 | RAM size
H2 | 31 | 1 | 1 = dockable 0 = not dockable

Bit 31 of H2 specifies, whether the bit-fields represent a notebook computer that supports a docking station. If docking is possible, the activation mechanism will be more tolerant with respect to future hardware modifications. Here, the idea is that plugging a notebook into its docking station possibly results in changes to its hardware configuration, e.g. a SCSI host adapter built into the docking station may become available.

When judging whether re-activation is necessary, the bit-field values of a) are compared to the bit-field values of b), i.e. the current hardware configuration is compared to the hardware configuration at the time of activation.

Typically all bit-fields with the exception of the unused field and the 'dockable' field are compared. If more than three of these ten bit-fields have changed in a) since product activation, re-activation is required.

This really will be a pain for those who have rigs used for a lot of testing.

The Mac registration isn't mandatory.

You can quit the setup program by hitting command-Q. The OS won't complain if you do, and you can run the Internet setup assistant separately.

-jcr

Re:Actually,

Well, okay, so the Germans are bipolar or schizophrenic: they either go with lots of words when one would do (the "limited" example above), or one humungous mofo of a word that's damn near impossible to parse.

Like "neunhundertneunundneunzigtausendneunhundertneunun dneunzig" -- because, hey, it's just so handy to have to read your Really Big Numbers as a single word.

Or "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenüber tragungsgesetz," (hell, Slashdot inserts a space!) which more or less directly Alta-vista translates as "British beef labeling monitoring function transfer law" and actually means "watching out for Mad Cow disease."

I look at it sort of like a user interface issue: what's going to increase comprehension and decrease error rates -- using spaces between words, ornotusingspacesbetweenwords?

The former, obviously. So why on earth choose the latter?!


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Re:My Experience with XP Activation

Bothered by filling out that Apple registration form? Lie.

I think that when I registered the iMac a certain company bought to do web compatibility testing, it wound up being used primarily for scientific research. In an elementary school.

They ask you for _your_ email address. But all they require is _an_ email address. Besides, you have a throwaway webmail account for everything that asks for your address where there's a slight chance that they might actually need to use it to achieve something you want, right?

On the other hand, the WinXP product verification collects true information about your computer. Perhaps the one for OS X does also, but they haven't mentioned anything about not being able to install that copy of OS X on another Mac. There are indications that changing your hardware "too much" will invalidate your XP product verification. People have asked Microsoft, "How much is too much?", and they're not telling. That certainly seems worse to me.

I suppose this would bother me more if I were ever going to use one of these operating systems at home, but I'm not. This is one of the main reasons I use free software. If I see an operating system or program that looks useful, I download it and use it. If I like it, I continue to use it. If not, I discard it with no sense of loss. The most invasive thing I've ever encountered was when someone wanted me to send them a postcard for using their software.

Sotto la panca, la capra crepa

Re:Question about the keys

A CD key is ideally a random piece of data (numbers, digits, etc) that includes some hard-to-compute checksum information. For a good key, it would be extremely difficult to determine the algorithm used to find this cheksum. Note that these keys have become progressively more complex over the years, getting longer and using more digits/letters. Note that all the keys will work on any copy of that specific release of the software, so they only add a minor annoyance to pirates.

Starting with Office 2k, MS required actual activation of the product in much the same way as Win XP. Office generates a hardware ID for your system and submits it to Microsoft. MS then gives you another product key specifically for that hardware ID. They allows you to register online once, and you're required to call an 800 number each time after that to get your key.

Office required a new key on a hard drive upgrade and on a motherboard upgrade. The fourth time I installed it (on my laptop), I also had to submit my serial number (generated from the CD Key I assume) to receive my activation key.

Though this might be new for MS, other companies have been doing it for years. Much of the engineering software we use here for classes (Mentor Graphics, Orcad, etc) has much more intrusive licensing, since a license for the software can cost several times the price of a low-end workstation. This software can often get away with tough licensing restrictions because of the small market served. Because windows is so widespread, however, Microsoft will have a hard time keeping their progressively more complex protection schemes from being thwarted.

Re:All the hardware you're not allowed to change:

Primary Harddrive Ethernet card CDROM Drive Graphics adaptor CPU Harddrive SCSI controller IDE controller RAM Changing any of these items will result in you needing to call up Microsoft and beg for a new key.

No. Changing four of them (sequentially or all at once) will result in you needing to call up - and changing hard drives four times doesn't count.
---
TheGreenReaper (Laurence Parry)

No identifiable information

I don't know about the online activation (haven't run a sniffer on it, yet), but I tried the telephone activation today, and there was no personal information exchanged. I called the toll-free number, waited on hold for about 10 minutes (and we're still in the beta stage--just wait until this thing hits mainstream), then finally talked to a patronizing tech support drone. He asked me for the product activation key, a numeric string that makes MS CD keys look sane--32 digits, IIRC. He then read back a 36-digit numeric string to be entered in the activation window. That was it--no e-mail address, no name, phone number/address, etc. I suppose it could have been a hash code containing my name, but that's all it could have contained, as I had not entered any other information to that point. Probably just a hardware ID.

Incidentally, I recommend everybody register every copy of Windows by phone. First of all, you know what you're telling them, at least directly, but more importantly, it costs them more money. Think about it: ten minutes on hold on a toll-free line (their expense), five minutes of techie-time. Even at a modest $10/hr for the techie, that's almost a dollar spent on him, plus the phone charge. Now, imagine ten million copies of Windows being registered by phone. The infrastructure cost alone would be enormous--you know they haven't planned for that many people to call. Just one more example of my favorite form of vengeance: use their own weapons against them.

Re:For those of you who didn't read the doc:

Surely this is just a call for clone equipment manufacturers to just start producing hardware that identifies itself as "CD-ROM" or "DISK" for the registration process.

Then you can change whatever you like, whenever you like.

Re:My Experience with XP Activation

Oh, come on, postcard-ware is awesome. I've seen photos of guys who have walls of their houses covered with postcards they've received from all over the world. What's wrong with this?

All the postcard-ware licenses I've seen simply ask you to send a postcard if you like the software. No registration, no details, just a postcard from where you live. I think it's cool.

"We all say so, so it must be true!"