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140 Comments
- Neticule, on 10/12/2007, -4/+106It thrills me when not long ago, you hear them talk about how good the hacker protection is, yadda yadda, and then so quickly, the hackers prove their genius.
Right or Wrong, you have to admire the skills of hackers that can basically just laugh at any protection the biggest companies throw at them. I mean, at bare minimum, microsoft probably spent around a million dollars just on R&D for copy protection and licensing! That is a very very painful kick in the balls of microsoft. They could have fed the world for a few days straight on the money they spent, if they would have just accepted that the hackers can, and will always be able to get around their securities. - jackpot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+86The cat and mouse games continue.
- ScottMaximus1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+55EULAs say a lot of things.
- MikeWeller, on 10/12/2007, -3/+49It's like what they say with putting locks on your door. It's to keep honest people honest.
The real crooks (or pirates in this case) will never be stopped. So MS should just stick to the basic activation they've always had, and stop crippling the OS with crap like WGA. - eric0213, on 10/12/2007, -14/+57How about "but if you want to use it, just buy it"? If you don't want to buy it, there's Ubuntu, Fedora, Knoppix, or any of the other 31 flavors. Sure, Bill Gates has enough money, but he also employs around 50,000 people and as cliche as it sounds, this hurts every one of them.
stealing == stealing == stealing
I admit it is impressive that these guys cracked the activation server so quickly - inturnaround, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39@adml_shake
So, they're special ops like the special olympians are special.
After they solve the volume licensing crack, Ballmer's throwing them a pizza party! - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42"It thrills me when not long ago, you hear them talk about how good the hacker protection is, yadda yadda, and then so quickly, the hackers prove their genius."
It's like a 10 person special ops team trying to take on the worlds biggest and smartest army in a head to head battle. - repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -10/+40@adml_shake:
Microsoft isn't smart enough to be called special ops. Try something like the the Des Moines, Iowa chapter of The Crips. - itzfritz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+35google vista_kms for the KMS VM torrent.
- neoform, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32Having to type a 30 char code to install your OS is still annoying and shouldn't be necessary.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25I didn't say they were a GOOD special ops team.
- iancgi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22The pursuit towards the idea of all information and knowledge being free will always be greater.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16You know most of these guys don't do it to get a free copy of Windows, they do it just to see if it can be done.
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16The info from the torrent description
"This is a VMware Image of an already activated KMS Server.
A KMS Server is used by large corporations to activate the business and enterprise editions of windows vista. This activation process has to be repeated every 180 days. which means you'll have to fire up your virtual machine at least every 6 months.
The good side however is that the KMS server doesnt talk to MS about the activation(s), and your vista only talks to the KMS server.
detailed instructions can be found here:
http://keznews.com/1842_KMS_method_to_activate_your_Vista
and here:
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3572011/Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Local.Activation.Server-MelindaGates
if you still cant figure this out, you should consider buying vista."
This is not a direct link to a torrent merely to the page on which the description is posted.
http://isohunt.com/release/74205/Vista_KMS - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Already downloading it my friend...
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20More like the pursuit of getting ***** for free.
It's pretty naive to think that these hackers had any alltruistic intentions behind their actions. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for what they're doing. But don't romanticize it, tell it like it is. Hacker groups do this for the noteriety/reputation/challenge and people download it becuase they want free *****, end of story. - cryptoknight, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16no the hackers would be the army since the hackers vastly out number the amount of people who work at microsoft.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14And what does it matter how much money Gates has anyway? It's a matter of ethics.
That said, I'll be speaking with my money by NOT buying Vista. I prefer Ubuntu Linux. - repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Right at the beginning of your comment:
"Personally I'd like to get Vista, but I'm not going to bother because of the price."
At the end of your comment:
"I'll buy a single copy of Vista Home..."
Which is it going to be? To get Vista or not to get Vista? - itzfritz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12when this story first broke, like 3 days ago, i spent 9 hours trolling for english text in chinese forums looking for it ;)
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13"After they solve the volume licensing crack, Ballmer's throwing them a pizza party!"
Lol, then five minuets later he's throwing the pizza AT them after he reads on digg that it's been cracked again. - hohead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3572011/Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Local.Activation.Server-MelindaGates
- ScottMaximus1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17First Rule
- geoken, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13"I'd rather get sued than buy that at full cost! I wouldn't hire a lawyer, the most they could sue me for would be the cost of the OS."
You know absolutely nothing about law. Please look up the term punitive damages. - oliveroms, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Kinda makes you wonder though, Is the copy protection so difficult to crack? Or is it just something to 'scare' people/businesses.
I mean, windows got big because of all the pirating that went around, And before every pc shipped with a valid license, how many people got 'a' windows version from that guy across the street.
I think they still want Windows/Office to be pirated, especially by young people, so that they'll be infected and tainted for life, giving the MS legacy ways to exist. - etx313, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Hackers crack OSX within days of a new release, and nobody slams them.
The Digg retardation never fails to amaze me. This is about Vista being cracked, not Microsoft sucking. I cannot think of a single piece of commercial software that was deemed 'Uncrackable'. So how is MS any worse than any other software vendor? It's the nature of software. Anything can be reverse engineered! I do it on a daily basis. Grow up idiots.
Oh yeah, Vista is basically useless right now anyways. I tried it out and all my 3D apps ran like hell, Modo didn't even load. It's going to be at least 6 months until it's even usable. - repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The activation server runs in a virtual machine. Nowhere in the article did it say the activation server was running on Vista. They'll let you run Ultimate in a virtual machine anyway, so long as you don't use it to play any Windows Media protected content or use BitLocker.
- kaniz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@cquinnd
And then the hackers will just come back with yet another workaround / crack. MS is the one wasting money and company resources on it. The hackers are probably just doing it for a kick in their free time. - logik3x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This is not very ingenious at all... the fix is temporary and fake keys will be banned by wga at one point... removing the activation process from the os would be ingenious... this is just a workaround the problem but it's still there... I find the fix using beta/rc keys more ingenious ...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13...but it's insistence on over priced hardware. Neither Apple or Microsoft is out to help users, they are both huge companies only looking to make money. Don't forget that.
And welcome to my ignore list. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8How long before they crack Vista itself to change this 180 days to 180,000 days?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8They charge for both... best of both worlds for Microsoft.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9punitive damages... bah humbug, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip! When I say I have no money, I really mean I have no money.
- cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Isn't that what the Gates Foundation is trying to do?
Given past examples of such attempts, feeding the world with a few million would prove even harder than creating an activation scheme for Windows that nobody would want to
hack. - theOster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7thigns like this are such a nod to MS and their OS design. apparently people *do* like windows.
- coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"I imagine Dell kills them in this league."
At what cost to Dell? Dell's margins on these are pretty slim (if anything at all judging by their results). They can only make on them by shifting very large volumes, which is not something that Apple can guarantee. If I was an Apple shareholder I don't think I'd want them to to go there. There's no point competing on absolute price when you can remain just as profitable by not doing it. A cheap PC from Apple would be cheap in the same way that Dells are too. - repruhsent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm sure that's where they're going next. It's probably in the god-awful registry, somewhere - everything else is.
- jaredvolkl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5And they used VB to do it. Classic!
- spenceman01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Looks like it happened sooner rather than later.
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://www.mythtv.org/
Don't worry about buying Vista for recording HDTV, do it now for free with MythTV and you can even follow this guys instructions if you have no idea what you are doing.
http://wendy.seltzer.org/mythtv/ - digitalrift, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7yo ho! fiddle dee dee! the life of a pirate's the life for me.
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This may be clever, and it will allow you to run an illegitimate copy of Vista on your machine, but it still won't get you around the WGA checks. You won't be able to update your initial version of Vista at all, unless they find workarounds for each of the security releases or software updates.
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5OS X has no activation scheme it just is tied to a select set of hardware. Cracking a kernel to remove a hardware tie in was a huge achievement but it still wasn't enough to guarantee that pirates could use OS X to its full potential on generic hardware without jumping through hoops.
Microsoft on the other hand has made it harder and harder on legit customers while pirates make things easier and easier for those who don't want to pay. It's like evolving backwards for Microsoft and Apple is moving forward, so if any retardation should amaze you let it be the people who pay $499.00 for Vista Ultimate only to have an activation hassle whenever Microsoft deems it. - itzfritz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4the activation server is running under vista business edition (want screenshots? ;).
- blankoboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Microsoft spends so much on R&D to try and lock down their OS to ensure they get every cent for each copy of their OS out there. In the end they will only be hurting their legit paying customers by making them jump through hoops they don't want to.
In the mean time the pirates, who were not going to buy the real deal anyway, are using their cracked versions anyway.
What does this all mean? Microsoft is wasting piles of time and money on something that has no meaning. Microsoft should just cut the prices of their operating system in half (or greater even), cut the crap and all would be well with the world (mass acceptance of their software globally). They are completely backward thinking in this respect and this will be their downfall. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Why can't I claim that someone sold it to me pirated and I had no idea... I'm nothing but a victim!
Speaking of victims, I wonder if people will start scamming people by selling computers that need to be reactivated in 180 days. By the time the 180 days comes around the person who sold the machines is nowhere to be found. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Uhh... I have the Vista DVD sitting right beside me dude.
- GTMopo3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4he wouldn't do that, because Apple is in the hardware selling business not the OS selling business. The software helps to sell the hard ware.
- athan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4> If Microsoft was smart enough to allow for home users to have a "site license"
> covering all the PCs in their home for say, $500 or something, a lot of this
> would be avoided.
Seconded !
Asking for $500 ($700 in EU) for a single machine activation is marketing stupidity. Legal users will be punished with all activation limitations while pirates will continue "fixing" and using Vista. - dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would be genuinly curious to know how much difference it would make to microsofts profits if they decided to just dump the entire Activation and WGA idea, stopped spending what I expect is at least several million dollars a year on trying to stop piracy. Every single anti-piracy measure they have released, with the exception of downloading a WGA only file from thier servers (which are mirrored elsewhere without WGA anyway) can be easily circumvented by the average computer user with only a few minutes of searching, and all of these methods were cracked well within a week of them being released.
I realise there are some people who will give up when they need a valid CD-Key, a few more who will give up when they find they need an activation key, and a few more when they get annoyed at WGA, but on the big scale, are enough of these people resorting to paying for a copy of windows to justify the costs of making more and more complicated anti-piracy measures? And if they are actually profiting from their anti-piracy measures, by how much, enough to justify the extra trouble that some people have with their legit copies? Hell, I find it annoying enough just entering a CD-Key, but I'm lazy. -
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