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Windows Vista Keygen a Hoax
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Mar 03, 2007 09:14 AM
from the too-good-to-be-true dept.
from the too-good-to-be-true dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The author of the Windows Vista keygen that was reported yesterday has admitted that the program does not actually work. Here is the initial announcement of the original release of the keygen, and here is the followup post in which the same author acknowledges that the program is fake. Apparently, the keygen program does legitimately attack Windows Vista keys via brute force, but the chances of success are too low for this to be a practical method. Quote from the author: 'Everyone who said they got a key is probably lying or mistaken!'"
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Vista Activation Cracked by Brute Force 470 comments
Bengt writes "The Inquirer has a story about a brute force Vista key activation crack. It's nothing fancy; it's described as a 'glorified guesser.' The danger of this approach is that sooner or later the key cracker will begin activating legitimate keys purchased by other consumers. From the article: 'The code is floating, the method is known, and there is nothing MS can do at this point other than suck it down and prepare for the problems this causes. To make matters worse, Microsoft will have to decide if it is worth it to allow people to take back legit keys that have been hijacked, or tell customers to go away, we have your money already, read your license agreement and get bent, we owe you nothing.'"
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i thought so (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://blog.woodysroom.com/)
a 4 year old using BASIC could do that
When in reality (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Saturday October 27, @10:19AM)
People lie on the internet? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh sure. Next I suppose you're going to tell me that the guy who claims he ordered (and received) a 37" LCD TV for $7.99 due to a price mistake is lying, too. Or the kid who swore he put a Beta tape in a VHS deck and it played...Don't you have any faith in people anymore?
OEM_BIOS_Emulation_Toolkit (Score:5, Informative)
But i don't know what will be the impact for online upgrades since i don't use Vista myself.
Re:OEM_BIOS_Emulation_Toolkit (Score:5, Informative)
Once again, product activation is only a PITA for legit customers.
Re:OEM_BIOS_Emulation_Toolkit (Score:5, Informative)
(http://evil.google.com/)
Why (Score:5, Interesting)
/.'d (Score:3, Funny)
well not really a hoax (Score:1)
If you're looking for a good laugh... (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/...id=44091&cid=4592270)
Warning: Extreme Tolerance for Poor Spelling Required
Good scare for Vista people though (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://suso.suso.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 09 2004, @12:03AM)
Might not even have to validate keys at all anymor (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.landoverbaptist.org/)
a key is valid before submitting it to their server for signing.
If I were them I would do what prepaid mobile phone has been doing
for years: generate completely random keys and at the signing server
end just check if that key is in the database and if it's not already
used. If that's the case then all they would have to do is sign the
key and the computer configuration and return that to the client code
that would in turn check if the signature is valid.
That way there would be no way to brute force keys because they have
control over the validation server and can put a stop to that and there
is no key validation code exposed from which someone might derive a
key generator or at least get hints at how the keys are distributed
in key space.
I remember the XP keygen - and that worked fine (Score:1)
Windows Vista Keygen Screensaver (Score:2)
Can we slap the Inquirer writer upside the head? (Score:2)
Re:Key gen or not.. (Score:1)
Re:Key gen or not.. (Score:1)
Re:Key gen or not.. (Score:4, Funny)
I, on the other hand, do not.
(Or I fucked up the post
Re:If it's actually a brute-force == Solution! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just like Dell (Score:2)
If MS weren't morons when they designed the key system, hundreds of thousands of years might be more like it. But you can keep trying if you like.
Re:Just like Dell (Score:2)
The brute force approach is fundamentally impossible, unless you are the luckiest person in the world. The same thing applies for any long user password, which is why rainbow tables are often used to bring down the possible combinations.
Re:fags (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is run by "Techies"?? (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 07, @01:01AM)
Don't go looking for contrition here. You'd have an easier time learning evolution in a tent revival.