Tag: crack

New Vista update sniffs for pirated copies

March 01, 2008 by Jason

As it promised, Microsoft Corp. yesterday started sending Windows Vista users an update that identifies illegal copies of the operating system installed with cracks that the company will disable when it distributes Service Pack 1 (SP1) in two weeks. Last Thursday, Microsoft announced the update, which detects two common cracks used to activate pirated copies of Vista, and said it would hit Windows Update (WU) within a week. Users who have left Vista’s recommended WU settings alone will receive the update automatically. Others, said Microsoft, must enable Automatic Update within Vista or manually call up WU from the Start menu.

A document posted to the company’s support site spelled out the details. Among other things, it promised that the 3MB update “does not affect the functionality of your operating system.” Read More»

Posted in Windows Vista | 2 Comments »

Vista Activation Succumbs To Brute Force

March 03, 2007 by Jason

IT LOOKS LIKE Microsoft’s unhackable OS activation malware has been hacked. There is an active thread at the Keznews forums, and a summary on its main page about the crack. It is a simple brute force attack, dumb as a rock that just tries keys. If it gets one, you manually have to check it and try activation.

It is ugly, takes hours, is far from point and click, but it is said to work. I don’t have any Vista installs because of the anti-user licensing so I have not tested it personally. The method of attack has got to be quite troubling for MS on many grounds. The crack is a glorified guesser, and with the speed of modern PCs and the number of outstanding keys, the 25-digit serials are within range. The biggest problem for MS? Read More»

Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »