WinXP Keygen Foils Product Activation

Bill Gates' Friend's Brother's Roommate writes: "The Register has a story on a working key generator that produces 25 valid Windows XP Product Activation Keys in a few hours. As author John Lettice summarizes, 'So the question as regards keymaking software is whether or not Microsoft has any way to differentiate between generated keys and the ones it has issued itself. If not, this generation of WPA is now surely toast.'"

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[strAtEdgE]

Ya, so, I mistyped my key and the computer thingy said it was okay. I threw away my boxes and manuals and what have you because windows XP is so stable that I'll never have to install it again. So what?

Intellectual build up

[acherrington]

This goes with the same old balance theorey. For every person building, there is an equal and opposing balancing force in the destruction of code. The question here, is which is the person building, and which is the one destructing?

~~~~~~

If Microsoft doesn't have a database of #s...

[Navius Eurisko]

then they are grossly mishandling their activation system or they seriously underestimate the intelligence of most Windows users.

Considering M$, I think it's a little of the former and the latter.

from bill gates to developers:

[edrugtrader]

i thought you guys said this was obscure!!

Wedding gift for Taco ?

[selderrr]

Nicely done, Kathleen. He'll appreciate that.

Geek chicks rule !

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[Dixie_Flatline]

But I AM a 78 year old airline instructor from Zanzabar. Am I in trouble?

And the award for thinking short-term goes to...

[Tackhead]

> [ ... ] while forum operators are in general managing to keep a lid on people posting locations for the program,

The Register's editors have obviously misspelled "Now that it's made Slashdot's front page, for about 10 more minutes..."

I wonder how that program works...

[m_chan]

BILL: Are you the keymaster?

VENKMAN: Not that I know of.

(Bill slams the door in his face - Venkman knocks again.)

BILL: Are you the Keymaster?

VENKMAN: Yes! Actually I'm a friend of his, he asked me to meet him here.

Wash, rinse, repeat...

Re:Bound to happen...

[jhaberman]

After all, nothing is unbreakable....

The only exception being, of course, Bruce Willis in the movie of the same title...

But I digress...

Jason

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I think "there's only a one in 80 zillion chance of this happening" would hold up in court for Microsoft.

Like it held up for the Rpublic of California vs O.J. Simpson?

new name

[graveyhead]

If not, this generation of WPA is now surely toast. If so, I guess they'll have to change the name to "Product Cracktivation" :-D Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:Weird

[Luminous]

They do have a database of the keys, but it was secured with a password and they can't remember what it is. They would use one of those programs that crack Access passwords, but that just seems wrong.

Tell me....

[tfurrows]

... if a group of people follows you in committing Karma suidicde, does that make it a cult suicide?

Aren't they're laws against this sort of thing? Moderators, can't you do something to stop this madman before he gets a following? Is nothing holy?

In any case, it sounds like a load of fun to me. Count me in My Master.

Re:Weird

[Lord Sauron]

I know of a CD-Burner software that if you enter a fake serial number, appears to be registered ok, but when you would burn a CD, it'd say there was an error, and your CD was lost.

Windows could pretend it was registered ok, and then start crashing, after some time.

But, oops, no one would notice between a crashing windows and regular windows :)

Heres another way to foil product activation

[mrroot]

If you already are using Windows 2000, just say, "I'm not going to spend $199 to upgrade to Windows XP when there are virtually no new features except for UI enhancements." Really, you can do anything on Win2000 that you can on WinXP.

Of course if you are running Linux you have already foiled product activation.

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[ArsonSmith]

Yea I can see it now:

MS: Mister ISP you seem to have a system on your network that is not a legal issue from microsoft. Tell us were it is at or the BSA will be on you like stink on shit.

ISP: Ohh that ip address is assigned to John Doe at 1234 W somestreet. Please don't put us through that.

MS: HAHAHAHA call the BSA anyway HAHAHAHAHA

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[Znork]

So, you have no box equals you have no license. Period.

Wanna imagine how many small to medium size companies have figured that one out after the BSA comes knocking? Either you have the little hologram, or you pay again.

That's just the way it works in the real world... even if your dog ate the hologram.

Oh give them a break, would you?

[geophile]

I mean, this was probably done before Microsoft spent 20 business days plugging all their security holes.

Re:You have the right to use the software you buy

[Dr. Awktagon]

waiting for the 4-line Perl version.....

Re:You have the right to use the software you buy

[Fishstick]

Cool. I give it 5 minutes before MS is lawyering up to C&D slashdot again (remember, what was it, the kerberos thing [slashdot.org]?)

What's that Dilbert quote? That sound you now hear is 500 lawyers buttoning their suit jackets as they prepare to decend upon you (or something like that?)

Include a movie clip, as "part of the OS",

[dpilot]

and then you can protect the whole shebang under the DMCA.

Right now, it's not illegal for someone to make a key generator, it's just copyright infringement to use it *for a pirated copy*. Presumably it's legal to use the key generator to activate a legitimately purchased copy of XP.

But by including a movie clip and citing DMCA, the mere act of writing a key generator becomes a crime.

Re:The Possible Dark Use of Distributed Computing

[maddman75]

Evidently the generation of keys takes a lot of crunching and may take awhile to generate one useable key. If you want to hack out more keys or at a faster rate you must throw more hardware at it or parallelize it.

Finally, a use for all those Beowulf clusters we all love to imagine. :)

Re:But what about Microsoft snooping on your key?

[switcha]

Either you have the little hologram, or you pay again.

OH CRAP! I thought the holograms were like Camel Cash! I've been sending them back to MS hopeing to accrue enough MS Buck$ for the XP duffle and sleeping bag combo!

Re:Bound to happen...

[llamalicious]

then, of course, Microsoft's security would be comparable to Samuel L. Jackson in the movie.

Re:The ultimate protection

[IGnatius T Foobar]

However, as the article notes, cracked software can be detected. No matter how good the cracker, there's little that can be done against online verification. If MS keeps a record of all valid keys, then anyone attempting to use online MS services of any kind with a genned key can be detected and denied/disabled.

Soooooo... what you're saying is that if someone uses a non-MS-generated key to activate Windows XP, then they won't be able to connect to MSN, MS Instant MEssenger, Hotmail, and .NET My Services?

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

This is a shame

[The OPTiCIAN]

We should be supporting Microsoft in their defense of Windows licencing, because it's really good for linux.

Re:This just generates the keys...

[Anonymous Coward]

So the only way to use this tool is to "phone home" to MS

*imitating E.T.* XP phone home!

Internal MSFT Memo: Redmond Campus Downtime

[lww]

To: Bill Gates, Chief Software Architect, MSFT

From: XP Activation Team

Sir, the XP Activation team would like to sincerely apologize for today's unfortunate occurence. In order for you to better understand exactly why this happened, we would like to outline the following sequence of events:

1) Per the mandate from Sales and Marketing, every single machine on the Redmond campus has been upgraded to XP, including the XP Activation servers. (By the way, we would like to congratulate Procurement on the expedited delivery of ten new servers - while traffic has not substantially increased, our ability to process requests seemed to require additional hardware after the upgrade. Technical Support has informed us that nothing is wrong with the XP system itself, they believe our code is not optimized so we are investigating this issue).

2) In response to the recent posting of a so-called "XP key generator" by the Rebel Alliance, we turned on the "UnauthorizedKeyLockDown.asp" page that you designed, wrote and had us install right into the production Activation servers.

3) Immediately after turning on the module, all valid Activation and Authorization requests were denied while all invalid requests were approved. We are attempting to trace the source of this problem - we currently have it narrowed down to the "UnauthorizedKeyLockDown.asp" page. As this page contains over 10000 lines of code, we have yet to identify the root cause of the problem.

4) Additionally, it appears that once an authorization request is denied, the "UnauthorizedKeyLockDown.asp" page locks up the requesting computer, forcing it to display an animated glove which proceed to make several inappropriate gestures and repeatedly shouts "Die OpenSource scum!!!"

5) Becuase the XP Activation servers actually run on XP, they attempted to authorize themselves - while normally this request is approved, please see item 3 above.

6) The XP Activation servers responded correctly to the UnauthorizedKeyLockDown commands. Nor can they be unlocked until they can access a functioning Activation server. All valid authorization attempts from any client continue to receive the UnauthorizedKeyLockDown commands.

7) Our machines are now among the several thousand computers affected across the campus.

8) While several suggestions have been made on how to remedy this problem, all of them have procedural or policy issues for which we are waiting a response from Legal. For example, can we downgrade the XP Activation Servers to Windows2k? Our license agreement specifically forbids this, so we would need a waiver. The same thing is true for trying to use an invalid key - we have strict no-piracy policies which we have not been able to obtain permission to workaround.

9) At this point, we have no estimated resolution for this issue. Because we already have an open issue with Technical Support (see 1 above), they are unable to provide any further assistance until that issue is closed, which we are unable to currently accomplish (see items 1-8).

Please provide us with some guidance on how to proceed,

Sincerely, the XP Activation Team.