DailyTech - Windows Vista Activation Cracked Yet Again

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Software Windows Vista Activation Cracked Yet Again
Brandon Hill (Blog) - December 26, 2006 11:28 AM

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102 comment(s) - last by GaryJohnson.. on Jan 2 at 7:26 PM

Another day, another Vista activation crack

It was just a week ago that Microsoft's Jim Allchin was talking about Windows Vista security and how the operating system would fend off attacks from malicious code and hackers. Allchin made no mention, however, of the recent successful attempts at cracking Windows Vista's activation scheme.

Earlier this month, pirates found a way to spoof Microsoft's Key Management Service (KMS) server using a VMware image. The software hack allowed pirates to run copies of Windows Vista Business and Enterprise for up to 180 days.

The folks over at Engadget have come across another exploit that allows users to permanently activate Windows Vista using crack files and some registry trickery. The TimeStop Vista cracks only works on 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, so those looking to crack 64-bit versions of the operating system may be out of luck.

The crack effectively stops the countdown times to mandatory Vista activation and freezes the countdown timer at 43,200 minutes (30 days). The countdown timer will not reduce any lower than 30 days.

The makers of the crack note at the bottom of their "instruction manual" that "This article is for educational and informational purpose only." Microsoft likely isn't taking too kindly to this latest activation breach and likely already has a team working to patch up the exploit.

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to shut down this latest exploit, it does leave us wondering just how secure this new operating system if it can be poked at and prodded this early after release.

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Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By bamacre on 12/26/2006 1:04:03 PM , Rating: 5

"Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to shut down this latest exploit, it does leave us wondering just how secure this new operating system if it can be poked at and prodded this early after release."

I haven't even looked at Vista yet, and I know nothing about hacking, but it seems to be that hacking MS's verification of Vista has nothing to do with Vista's other means of security. Hacking the verification is of no concern to customers, only to MS. What is of concern to customers is Vista's security against hackers, viruses, and malwares.

RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By ZackB on 12/26/2006 1:33:35 PM , Rating: 3

This is 100% true. No one would want an operating system that was impervious to alteration by the end-user. This hack involves installing a driver and has nothing to do with the security of Vista, which is pretty good.

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By FITCamaro on 12/26/2006 1:43:59 PM , Rating: 2

I agree. Activation key exploits in no way compromise the actual security of the OS.

And to the guy complaining about the ad, what picture did you want them to put there? A site has to make money. As long as its just pictures I'm cool with it. The ones I don't like are the stupid intellitext ones like on THG (move your mouse over a word and it gives you a worthless ad) and the kind that aren't pop ups but make something fly on your screen blocking what you're reading until you're finally able to locate the close button(and they can hide it pretty well sometimes) like on IGN.

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By Lord Evermore on 12/26/2006 2:34:10 PM , Rating: 2

AnandTech uses IntelliText as well. DT doesn't but I think maybe because people would get really pissed off having their comments changed to ad links. Might not even be kosher since it's a form of editing the post.

I bet there's a Windows Update posted to fix this that says it's to fix a problem that could allow someone to gain control of your PC or something ridiculous like that. Or they just call it an update to Windows Genuine Advantage.

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By Bremen7000 on 12/26/2006 3:52:21 PM , Rating: 2

You can turn off AT's IntelliText in the Prefs, so it doesn't bother me anymore. I'm fine with regular ads, but IntelliText annoys me to no end.

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By FITCamaro on 12/26/2006 4:59:15 PM , Rating: 2

I can't find that preference. Where is it?

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By Lord Evermore on 12/27/2006 12:41:40 AM , Rating: 2

I don't even know of a "preferences" for the AnandTech site (not the forums). And there's certainly no option to turn off any ads in the forums (although they don't use IntelliText there).

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RE: Hacking verification does not necessarily equal lack of security

By freon on 12/26/2006 6:01:11 PM , Rating: 2

That was exactly my thoughts on this. The activation application is a completely separate entity from the OS itself. It's really just Microsoft's problem to deal with to fight piracy, not OS security.
We will see how "secure" the actual OS is once it has widespread deployment in a couple months.

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news?

By msva124 on 12/26/2006 2:57:30 PM , Rating: 1

As long as there are computers without internet connections, activation schemes will always be cracked.

The only way would be to require a constantly active internet connection to even use the product. Even then they would find ways to get around it at first.

RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/26/2006 3:05:35 PM , Rating: 1

And as for the rest of Vista, didn't we go over this already? Nobody is going to use it. It will achieve security through obscurity.

Isn't there some kind of website where you can bet on certain things like "The Departed will win the Oscar" or "Vista is going to bomb"? I would like to throw a few hundred bucks in.

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RE: news?

By masher2

(blog) on 12/26/2006 4:50:09 PM , Rating: 1

> "And as for the rest of Vista...Nobody is going to use it...Isn't there some kind of website where you can bet on certain things like "The Departed will win the Oscar" or "Vista is going to bomb"? I would like to throw a few hundred bucks in. "

Make it a few thousand and I'll bet you directly. I'll even give you 2:1 odds. DT can hold the stakes for us.

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RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/26/2006 7:52:33 PM , Rating: 2

One problem. Those websites are contractually obligated to pay you when you win the bet. You and me are not. Neither of us will pay up if we lose.

And 2:1 odds? So if I bet $2,000 and Vista bombs, you pay me $4,000? Big whoop. How about 10:1 odds?

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RE: news?

By masher2

(blog) on 12/27/06, Rating: 0

RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/27/2006 3:31:29 AM , Rating: 2

I am serious about doing it through an established betting website, not direct person to person through an escrow service that I have never used before. That is just asking for trouble.

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RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/27/2006 3:33:15 AM , Rating: 2

Do you work for Microsoft, by the way? The only reason I ask is that TomZ, another poster here who I frequently debated with, was suspected of being an MS employee.

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RE: news?

By Sharky974 on 12/27/2006 6:32:25 AM , Rating: 2

I think you work for Apple MSVA124. You must be trying to sabotage microsoft products.

By the way, everybody with common sense knows Vista will continue MS's OS monopoly. Even the sensible microsoft haters here will admit it. That's how a monopoly is, it just continues through sheer momentum.

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RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/27/2006 3:06:03 PM , Rating: 2

Sabotage Microsoft's products by....posting mean things about them on online forums? Yeah, that's likely to work.

I do not work for Apple, Microsoft, or any other tech company. And I do not have common sense, if what you mean by common sense is the ability to predict the future. I don't "know" Vista is going to do badly. I just think it will.

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RE: news?

By The Boston Dangler on 12/26/2006 7:15:37 PM , Rating: 2

Vista will bomb? This, and that meatball whining about "MICROSUCKS", are the dumbest things I've read in weeks

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RE: news?

By msva124 on 12/26/2006 8:08:12 PM , Rating: 2

Wanna bet?

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surprised?

By Saist on 12/26/2006 9:50:39 PM , Rating: 2

I found this line to be, well, hilarious:

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Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to shut down this latest exploit, it does leave us wondering just how secure this new operating system if it can be poked at and prodded this early after release.
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Many of the security features were already being cracked a year ago or more on the beta's that were going out. Over the past 6 months as the final release firmed up, the known exploits didn't stop. We knew literal months ago that Vista was no more secure than a properly configured and hardware firewalled protected Windows XP or Linux OS.

The end fact is, it's still going to take work to protect any computer system, any OS. Vista has changed nothing in a System's Administrator job, end of story. We don't have to wonder. We know that inherently, any Microsoft product will be less secure out of the box than it's competitor. We know that people will still be earning paychecks fixing that.

RE: surprised?

By Sharky974 on 12/26/06, Rating: 0