Posted on 03/02/2007 7:31:22 AM PST by sionnsar
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.'"
haha, security, windows, business
ping
Justice comes in varying forms.
Microsoft is going to have to admit that 'security' is just a relative concept. They still believe it's absolute, and it just isn't, ESPECIALLY in the electronic world.
How exactly is theft considered justice?
You seem preoccupied with "theft". Are you a hacker? Or just a Microsoft shill?
I think the justice he is referring to is Microsoft will realize how stupid it is to have these activation schemes that do nothing but anger legitimate users.
I'm a Microsoft shill? Why? Because I tried to inform people who don't understand technology why they were wrong? The DRM issue was badly misrepresented.
This rather juvenile (and completely nontechnical) article seems to be celebrating the idea of software theft. That's ridiculous.
My guess is that Microsoft will do the latter, judging by its past high levels of customer service.
That's completely incorrect. Legitimate users of Windows have to deal with activation for a minute or two and in the vast majority of cases they never see it again. People who steal software are angered by it - all of the people I knew who had problems with XP activation in college, for example, were trying to steal it.
It's not perfect, but it more or less serves its purpose.
Pointing out their weaknesses actually helps Microsoft. Pointing out their piss-poor public relations should also help them, but they seem to be so arrogant that they ignore it. Believe it or not, not everyone is a thief, they just want to challenge silly claims that a product is secure.
As for your DRM comments, I said before that Microsoft is responsible for not making their Vista limitations clear.
How exactly is theft considered justice?
----
Theft is not the justice. The justice is the breaking of the mile-thick bubble of arrogance and predatory marketing that surrounds MS. One has to only read the EULA agreement that comes with Vista, and have knowledge of what MS does to its OEM customers to understand. It is not a pretty picture and the reason I, and many others, will never buy another (even Vista) operating system from MS.
Activation is the reason I never went with Windows XP. I just didn't want to deal with it. I'm still cruising along with Windows 2000 Pro (although I'm typing this with my Dell laptop using Mepis linux). I remember people being upset with activation when XP came out, but it looks like most folks finally accepted it, just like they will with Vista.
From past experience, I've had to jump through hoops to get my legitimately purchased XP Pro reactivated when I reinstall. With Vista and crap like this, I will never purchase another MS OS. There is absolutely nothing besides game playing you can do with Windows that can't be done with free software.
Unless they are building a system, and decides upon certain choices. I decided to add a SATA drive, and change the video card, for example, and had to endure some long conversations. This was with XP; I cannot comment on Vista.
Activation is one thing. Re-activation is another (apparently likely under Vista? don't recall about XP). Win2K is as far as we got in our house (a copy of XP has been sitting on the shelf uninstalled since Nov/Dec 2001 -- though I did open the box back around 2005); my main machine is now Kubuntu Linux.
I've heard about changing hardware and such but never experienced it myself. While all my evidence is anecdotal, it suggests that reactivation is successful (while inconvenient). I've changed graphics cards twice, added a hard drive, and replaced both DVD drives in my machine while never having to reactivate, so I don't know.
Why is it alright to steal from MS but not for Adobe, Apple or any of the the others?
and this has nothing to do with security.
Well, I guess that it's all fun and games until someone rips off YOUR intellectual property. It's nothing to celebrate, IMHO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.