SP1 Unsuccessful in Preventing Vista Hacks

"It seems that Microsoft has been unsuccessful with SP1 in preventing hackers from turning a pirated, non-genuine copy of Vista into genuine copies that pass activation. The article initially looked at two of the most popular hacks (OEM BIOS hack and the grace timer hack) but after a little digging ZDNet were able to transform a non-genuine install into a genuine one. 'After a few minutes of searching the darker corners of the Internet and a few seconds in the Command Prompt I was able to fool Windows into thinking that it was genuine.'"
*slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/11/1316209
^-^ :

My post on the Vista SP1 activation hack has generated a lot of feedback (especially in the form of questions) from both individuals and other media outlets. I’ve put together this post in order to answer some of these questions.

More information on the Vista SP1 activation hackFirst off, the hack. The hack in question is another OEM BIOS hack but packaged under the name of Vista Loader. This hack is similar to the Paradox OEM BIOS. The Paradox hack was the most commonly used Vista activation hack (which is why Microsoft pulled the plug on it) but this one seems to have been quite popular, so I’m not sure why Microsoft didn’t pull the plug on this one too. Since other outlets have now named this hack as working on Vista SP1 I don’t have any problem with naming it here.

More information on the Vista SP1 activation hackAs you can see from the video above (or the gallery - I’ve put up a separate gallery because the video is rather small), this hack can take a non-genuine Vista SP1 installation and turn it into one that appears genuine to the OS.

After the reboot you can see a product key being entered - this is one of many OEM product keys shipped with the hack. Unless the hack is correctly applied these key is considered invalid by the OS. With the hack the addition of the product key makes the OS appears like a genuine OEM install.

More information on the Vista SP1 activation hackIt seems to me that Microsoft has been rather half-heated about blocking OEM BIOS activation hack. However, just because this hack works today, that doesn’t mean that Microsoft won’t change tweak WGA at a later date in order to close it off. Given how this hack works I’d say that it would be a trivial matter for Microsoft to add a detection routine for it.

SP1 was supposed to seek out and uncover activation hacks so that life was harder for pirates and that customers were reassured that their install of Vista was legit - it hasn’t. What I’ve shown here is that it’s easy to fool SP1 into thinking that a non-genuine copy is genuine.

*blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1271

really a bad news for VISTA users. This all prevented myself from upgrading to VISTA. Still i use XP and it's fine working.

V

I think XP is better than VISTA.
As I think VISTA had only upgraded his graphics but not performance.
I am too happy with XP..!!!

vaibhavtek said:
I am too happy with XP..!!!

Another happy guy here,,,but also deviated to linux for more pleasure!!!

H

no probs for me.
i've added the OEM SLIC info into my mobo's bios.so i'm in no danger.

T

It was about to happen.
Whatever u do, Hackers and crackers find a way to crack/hack the software

hellgate said:
no probs for me.
i've added the OEM SLIC info into my mobo's bios.so i'm in no danger.

what?

forget all that, just see how Happy Praka is to post this news

It will take some more time for vista to be usable in market
maybe another service pack

Yaar Vista as OS at this time works great for me on my lappy. The USB Drive based viruses made me go mad with XP, it was a matter of a accidental double click on the pen drive to start the process of os reinstall. Since i am a software professional working mainly on VS 2005 and VS 2008, it was a real pain in the a**. First install XP in 45 mins or so, then install VS 2005 for 1.5 hours and then 2008 for another 1.5 hours (i know that i can work on all the three versions of .NET in VS 2008 but i require it sometimes due to internal company issues.) so its a 4-5 hours of lost productivity every other day.
Now with vista, since these viruses are non functional, i am very much releaved. My fully patched Vista installation works very fast even on my 1.6 GHZ, 1.24GB ram and 5400rpm 40 GB hdd and that too without viruses.I have NOD32 installed although.

I really dunno how many of viruses are non-functional on Vista but there are a hell lot of them that still can infect Vista as I already had my vista crash two times due to them as I didn't have an AV installed.

Also there are many others which have infected my friend's PCs who have Vista+AV installed.

H

The_Devil_Himself said:
what?

wat do u wanna know?

Saste mein kaam ho jayega ab to

i was talking about USB Drive based viruses, which spread using autorun.inf file to auto execute them. I am not saying that Vista is safe from all kinds of Viruses out there. But still its quiet secure if you follow a little care. I myself visit various warez, torrent related illegal sites but never got an infection in last 8 months.

^^ +1

Even I was saved from the havoc many times as I forgot to install AV before using pendrives of many people.

well , i guess it will take another 2 service packs for vista to become good . .
anyways am happy with xp and not touching it any time soon.

As long as there are people who want to use pirated software, hackers will find a way to crack software

Ah! I m so waiting to get back to Home & kick the arse of ignorant fanboys

The article is about making cracking Windows Vista activation, which we all know isn't that hard. However, Prakash is portraying it as Vista SP1 is unable to prevent itself from internet hacks...

gr8 twist of logic lingeek.

u r right gx. praka is just foolin us around with the misguidin title

fun2sh said:
u r right gx. praka is just foolin us around with the misguidin title

+1

Its just the activation crack and nothing related to security of vista. if the activation is cracked, the pirates will be happy cause they can install vista instead of L!n :lol:

u r right gx. praka is just foolin us around with the misguidin title

fun2sh said:
u r right gx. praka is just foolin us around with the misguidin title

I am NOT.I posted what is found in original source,even with the origianl title

words are words ,just search for my threads and say whether I am lurking around or not esp OSS section u kid!

*www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/vista-sp1-still-vulnerable-to-activation-hacks/

Vista SP1 still vulnerable to speech recognition ‘analog’ hole

hmmm...this is a big prob security ppl..neways has neone tried the Windows XP SP3

gx_saurav said:
Ah! I m so waiting to get back to Home & kick the arse of ignorant fanboys

The article is about making cracking Windows Vista activation, which we all know [size=+1]isn't that hard[/size].

Why? Why does Microsoft not want to make it "that hard"? Are they DUMB? I don't think so, its deliberate.

*img217.imageshack.us/img217/9472/pubthefuture2cisopen466cr4.png

^^no dude its not deliberate

. Consider all the non-microsoft software that is cracked all the time and freely available on warez sites..

fun2sh said:
u r right gx. praka is just foolin us around with the misguidin title

first of all..stop being a dumba$$ by double posting on the same thread..Secondly, its not anyones fault if you take the thread title in the wrong sense..

i am grateful that iam not using Vista(complete crap)
Xp rocks!!

NucleusKore said:
Why? Why does Microsoft not want to make it "that hard"? Are they DUMB? I don't think so, its deliberate.

Nope, they are not dumb. There isn't much money left in selling an OS now...the money is in services which comes in the form of Windows Live. MS would rather prefer a user using Vista pirated with paid services from MS instead of switching to Linux....

business dude, Linux may know how to polish a tard & release it to the market, but MS know how to make money out of it by recycling the tard into some thing good

hellgate said:
no probs for me.
i've added the OEM SLIC info into my mobo's bios.so i'm in no danger.

I always prefer software based emulation.Bios se ched char karna bhut dangerous hai

^^^ In fact adding oem slic is the most fool-proof way and future proof too!

gx_saurav said:
Nope, they are not dumb. There isn't much money left in selling an OS now...the money is in services which comes in the form of Windows Live. MS would rather prefer a user using Vista pirated with paid services from MS instead of switching to Linux....

business dude, Linux may know how to polish a tard & release it to the market, but MS know how to make money out of it by recycling the tard into some thing good

Spot on gx_saurav

*img217.imageshack.us/img217/9472/pubthefuture2cisopen466cr4.png

gx_saurav said:
Nope, they are not dumb. There isn't much money left in selling an OS now...the money is in services which comes in the form of Windows Live. MS would rather prefer a user using Vista pirated with paid services from MS instead of switching to Linux....

business dude, Linux may know how to polish a tard & release it to the market, but MS know how to make money out of it by recycling the tard into some thing good

Rightly Said Saurav!

This is something that only some people understand

^^lol,you mean change the course and use unethical means when you see that the end is near?

google pwns\and will continue to pwn M$ on web front and as you guys said there isn't much money left in OS department(linux being free and more than competitive).

SO here's a two way strategy used by M$:
1.Acquire Yahoo(its gonna happen,one way or another) and then 'try' to challenge Google.This is just not gonna happen,google is unbeatable.

2.Why stop vista piracy?it increases the user base.SO they are not gonna do anything special about it(all the efforts are futile anyway).On the contrary it will stop,to an extent, people from migrating to Linux.

I say this is what I would have done had I been running M$,no other way left.

I don't want to type much here as it is tough to type in phone...but still.

The_Devil_Himself said:
google pwns\and will continue to pwn M$ on web front

Ya, I agree....Orkut does pwns anything similar MS has to offer....

Google talk???? oh wait...no webcam, blocked in various places etc etc..google docs is tooo inferior...ya, google is on top (from the bottom)

and as you guys said there isn't much money left in OS department(linux being free and more than competitive).

Free, yes. More then competitive in desktop department...ya in your world only.

the money is in services which comes in the form of Windows Live. MS would rather prefer a user using Vista pirated with paid services from MS

just curious, but which windows live services are these from which MS can earn even from pirated vista's??

^^ LOL

Even SP1 isn't released to public. It's available only for RTM right now!