SP1 Unsuccessful in Preventing Vista Hacks

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praka123

praka123

left this forum longback
"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.
Click to expand...
*blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1271
 
anand1

anand1

In the zone
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

vaibhavtek

Guest
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..!!!
 
Krazy_About_Technology

Krazy_About_Technology

Padawan
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.
 
Ankur Gupta

Ankur Gupta

Wandering in time...
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.
 
Krazy_About_Technology

Krazy_About_Technology

Padawan
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.
 
narangz

narangz

Web developer
^^ +1

Even I was saved from the havoc many times as I forgot to install AV before using pendrives of many people.
 
x3060

x3060

A LOTR fan
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.
 
nvidia

nvidia

-----ATi-----
As long as there are people who want to use pirated software, hackers will find a way to crack software:D:D:D:))
 
gxsaurav

gxsaurav

You gave been GXified
Ah! I m so waiting to get back to Home & kick the arse of ignorant fanboys :D

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.
 
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