Pirates Find Proper Way to Crack Vista's Activation Schema 213
El_Oscuro writes "A genuine crack for Windows Vista has been released by pirate group Pantheon. The exploit allows a pirated, non-activated installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly activated and made fully-operational. 'It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn't require product activation — apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.'"
Old News Crack (Score:5, Informative)
Well we live in hope.
Re:Good work MS (Score:5, Informative)
old news. 365 days old. (Score:5, Informative)
THis particular crack has/will be defeated by sp1.
Fixed :) (Score:3, Informative)
What SP1? (Score:2, Informative)
the opposite of Acer (Score:-1, Informative)
If your DSL connection is down, the screen will just sit at the background with no icons or start menu until it times out in 3 minutes or you disconnect the RJ45, then your screen will appear but your network drivers and printers will be unreachable. It's become an issue because our mom-and-pop ISP is having reliability issues (the alternative is the expensive AT&T business class).
You cannot imagine how annoying this is. I told them to buy Macs.
Re:What SP1? (Score:4, Informative)
Where can I get one for XP? (Score:2, Informative)
As Windows is so damned insecure, I won't get on the internet with it, period. I mostly use an old distro of GNU/Linux/KDE, and that's what I surf with. When I install Windows I unplug the ethernet, and disable networking in Windows before I plug the LAN back in.
Even were I to trust a patched copy of Windows, it takes longer to patch than a cracker can find the machine and add it to his botnet.
As a consequence, activation is a complete and itter pain in the ass. I have to call their damned computer in Redmond with my cell phone, which costs me by the minute. I then have to key in a very long unintelligible string, talking to a computer that has more trouble understaning me than a phone monkey in India.
Windows is getting flakey again (one slashdotter says I must have a bad memory chip, but I had this problem before and reinstalling Windows fixed it. I don't see how reinstalling Windows would fix a bad memory chip. And Mandriva runs flawlessly, why wil Linux work flawlwssly with a bad memory chip but not Windows?
So before I reinstall that piece of shit operating system that I paid way, way too much for, could one of you pirates point me to a patch that Microsoft calls a crack?
On second thought, never mind. I have no way of knowing that the patch/crack isn't a trojan. If anybody can figure a way out of this goddamned stupid activation mess that frustrates and annoys the hell out of me, a paying customer, while doing nothing whatever to slow pirates down I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
-mcgrew (not the security guy, that's a differen mcgrew)
Re:... But Windows STILL not dying... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What SP1? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Old News Crack (Score:5, Informative)
The GP was alluding to the oft quoted Bill Gates line "640K ought to be enough for anybody" although Gates denies ever saying it. A very clever reference that whooshed over your head.
Re:... But Windows STILL not dying... (Score:4, Informative)
You are not the only person who uses Linux - Half the internet servers do so and so do a lot of users (just not a large percentage)
The Model T ford was sold in many colours, black was not even an option on the early models, and the later ones were always offered in multiple colours in all countries
The problem is that the alternative to XP was Mac (not then considered a viable alternative) Linux (not then considered a viable alternative) or Windows 2000 (XP Improved on it without adding too many annoyances)
The alternative to Vista is OSX (a viable alternative for most users) Linux (An viable alternative in for some users) or XP (it's not worse in most things people care about, and is less annoying)
Re:old news. 365 days old. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes this particular crack (by Paradox) has been fixed in SP1. The thing is, SP1 only blacklists some very specific 'soft mods' (Boot loader replacement designed to emulate an OEM issued BIOS SLIC table and trick Vista into accepting your machine as an OEM product). It is widely known that there are still many others out there, even ones dating from the middle of last year, that work just fine with SP1.
Re:... But Windows STILL not dying... (Score:3, Informative)
Already been done - still old news - http://defcon5.biz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=921 [defcon5.biz]
I have had an activated copy of SP1 on my laptop since the 7th of Feb
Re:Improper way? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft has fixed some activation cracks (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Old News Crack (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, the C64 used a 6510. However...
The 6510 wasn't a "clone" of the 6502, it was a 6502 core plus 8 I/O ports (although most versions of the chip only brought 6 of those out to pins). The I/O ports were similar to those found on the 6522 VIA.
Further, CBM had no need to "clone" the 6502 since Commodore bought MOS back in the early KIM-1 days, MOS Technology was also known as the Commodore Semiconductor Group. The 6502 and 6510 were both MOS Tech/CSG products.
The "hidden" op-codes weren't exactly a distinction from the 6502, various vendors' implementations (particularly Rockwell's) also had a number of undocumented op-codes. The 6502 instruction set being rather (but not completely) orthogonal, it wasn't hard to figure out what some of those undocumented ops did.
The 1541 (and the 1540 before it, it was just a ROM change) did use a 6502; mine had a 6502B (2 MHz clock) but I don't know if they actually ran the clock any faster or that just happened to be the part they had on hand when they assembled mine (which was a 1540 that I later swapped out the ROM on, the ROM change actually slowed it down slightly, the C64 had a bit more overhead than the VIC-20 that the 1540 was designed for.)