Joe Wilcox posts on Microsoft-Watch about the supposed hack that defeats Vista's authentication facility. Windows Genuine Advantage -- the Stalin-esque nomenclature for the Windows Vista authentication mechanism -- appears to be under commical siege before Vista is two strides out the door.
Wilcox...
I can confirm the cracking tools are out there. I easily found Web links to torrents of the crack. Supposedly the software contains a VMware image and visual basic script that acts as a pseudo activation server for Windows Vista. The user obtains a Windows Vista image file--also available on torrents--and activates against the pseudo server.
Apparently, Genuine Advantage wasn't working well anyway: ZDNet's Ed Bott observed the system was registering false positives when some legitimately purchased installations of Vista checked in with MotherShip and these boxes were being infairly disabled. That's bad, and probably stimulated the 2600 guys to get busy on a clever hack to prove Genuine Advantage is fundamentally wrong-headed, counterproductive, idiotic and all other kinds of derrogatory things we can imagine.
Microsoft will need to learn the hard way that pricing is the only anti-piracy measure worth pursuing. Central Command & Control is hard to pull off. Take the Soviet Union as a case in point. From the brilliant Daniel Yergin's Commanding Heights series on PBS...
1989-1991: Gorbachev's relaxation of controls creates an economic halfway house. As output plummets, shortages, rationing, and queues grow increasingly severe. A desperate attempt to restore centralized planning proves unworkable. The Berlin Wall falls, and Eastern Europe breaks free from communism and Soviet control. The USSR is dissolved, and Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation.
Hey Daniel. [Piercing NYC taxi-cab wistle with thumb & middle finger.] We've got another one over here.
Piracy, piracy, piracy, piracy! I wish that usage of the word had never been invented! FWIW, I've just sent Lawrence Lessig a missive telling him that it should be restricted back to actual forceful/forceable pwning of a computer by some botnet scumbag. That's in line with its historical usage, which was the forceful/forceable possession of a ship by outlawed non-owners.
Posted by: Wesley Parish | December 17, 2006 at 06:55 AM