Dvorak on Windows Genuine Advantage

PadRacerExtreme writes "Vista includes the much maligned 'Genuine Advantage' layer inside, which ensures that your copy of the OS is legit. If you're running a non-validated copy you get no upgrades, no security protection, nothing. That's all well and good, but what happens if a cracker tweaks that Genuine Advantage layer for its own good? Dvorak sees a huge problem, just waiting to happen. What's the vulnerability?" From the article: "I suspect the policeman [WGA] will actually be hacked before the OS. It might actually be easier for the pirates to create a fake cop that constantly authenticates fake versions of Vista than it will be to create a Vista imitation that can pretend to be a legitimate version. There is some irony to that idea. But that's none of my concern. I'm more worried about some joker creating a virus or exploit that turns the good cop into a bad cop, and I can only imagine the destruction and hassle that will ensue."

Comments

sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

i cant wait to apply this to my hax0red copy of vista!

Sadly

[Null Perception]

Dvorak's forecast of the future is often wrong.

Re:Sadly

[DynamoJoe]

I agree (his Mac columns are stellar examples of rectocranial insertion syndrome), but in this case I bet he's got a point. Which is kind of a bummer. I mean, it's Dvorak, leader of the clueless.

Re:Sadly

[TobyRush]

Dvorak's forecast of the future is often wrong.

I agree with you, and I generally can't stand even reading his articles... but he's probably got a pretty safe prediction with this one. It seems that those who say "It'll probably be hacked" are seldom disproven.

Re:Sadly

[RailGunner]

In this case, however, he's probably right.
Anti-piracy measures only annoy legitimate customers and thwart 14 year old morons - the "professional" pirates will eventually crack WGA, they have too much illicit profit incentive not to crack it and pirate it.

So I think it will happen, and MS will spend too much money, time, and effort in combating piracy instead of actually making a OS that's worth a damn. Let's face it - when all they do is pop up a message box when a process wants elevated permissions, and not require a password - too many users are conditioned to just click "OK".

Why is this a problem? Because it won't make Vista any more secure or protected, it'll just be *your* fault instead of MS's fault that you were infected with a virus. Whereas if they at least required a password, most mom & pop AOL'er might actually have a second thought about why this "N@k3d Brotney Speeris" screensaver needs additional permissions to run, and might not reflexivly click "OK".

Re:Sadly

[nuckin futs]

every so often he gets something right. if you spray enough bullets on a target, you'll hit it sooner or later. He basically does the same thing, shooting in the dark and hoping to hit the target.

Re:Sadly

[Artifakt]

For once, John has gotten it right, even making a more detailed prediction than just "it'll probably be hacked". There are two good reasons (from a black hat perspective) to crack WGA:

1. Make a bootleg copy look authentic.
2. Make an authentic copy look bootleg.

Figureing out how to do one means you have done at least 80-90% of the work to figure out the other. That's essentially twice the normal incentive to crack a Microsoft product. #1 has an obvious financial incentive, but #2 may have one too, if the cracker is willing to consider extortion or similar modes of funding. If the cracker is doing it just to spite MS and/or MS users, the same double whammy applies.

Re:Sadly

[RKBA]

1. Make a bootleg copy look authentic.
2. Make an authentic copy look bootleg.

I think it would be far easier to patch WGA in order to make it FAIL authentication than it would be to make a counterfeit Windows version PASS authentication, because of the cryptography involved (ie; probably all that would be required to make it fail would be to patch a conditional jump instruction in the executable code, but cracking the cryptography involved to pass authentication would be virtually impossible).

Re:Sadly

[mark-t]

#2 has good potential for the cracker as well... if he can make a legit version look like a bootleg copy, then the person will not be able to get upgrades and will be vulnerable to certain attacks on security that may have otherwise been fixed.

Re:Sadly

[crabpeople]

Of course, I thought thats why he kept being posted, to make us all feel more learned in comparison. If he was right about technological changes everyone would be using his stupid keyboard by now.

Re:Sadly

[IAmTheDave]

Anti-piracy measures only annoy legitimate customers and thwart 14 year old morons

• DRM measures only annoy legitimate customers and confuse the masses
• REAL ID measures only annoy law-abiding citizens and do nothing to stop terrorists
• New passport requirements only put law-abiding citizens at risk and do nothing to stop terrorists
• Anti-gun laws only annoy legitimate customers and don't stop criminals and murderers

I could list about 20 more, but I'm tired of this. Almost any measure or law that reduces the rights/privacy of normal citizens do nothing to thwart (for more than a day or two) those who would pirate, steal, kill, etc. Yet we march on to the same tune, never ever learning from the lessons of the past.

So who's really surprised by WGA? Guess I'll have to head on over to astalavista.box.sk to download a copy of the WGA crack, just in case MS one day decides my copy of Vista is no longer legitimate.

Re:Sadly

[RailGunner]

Guess I'll have to head on over to astalavista.box.sk to download a copy of the WGA crack, just in case MS one day decides my copy of Vista is no longer legitimate.

Nah - just head on over to distrowatch.com and pick a Linux distro. I personally dumped Windows at home 5 years ago and I've never looked back.

You can argue whether or not the Linux Penguin is retarded, but at least you know he means no harm...

Re:Sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

August was keyboard guy's name, not John

Re:Sadly

[wtansill]

#1 has an obvious financial incentive, but #2 may have one too, if the cracker is willing to consider extortion or similar modes of funding. If the cracker is doing it just to spite MS and/or MS users, the same double whammy applies.

Personally I think we should write a thank-you note to Gates and Balmer on this one. Think about it -- for years people have warned about issues ranging from monopoly abuse to the dangers of a "software monoculture", yet nothing really has changed (even after the DOJ antitrust "win"). Now we have the prospect of MS figurativly slitting its own throat with this foolishness. If Dvorak's fears are realized, this could be just the thing to push the public at large over the edge in terms of consciousness-raising.

Re:Sadly

[owenreading]

I can only assume you know this and are trolling, but John C. Dvorak did not invent the Dvorak keyboard layout. It was actually patented in 1936 by Dr August Dvorak. I'll let you read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Key board.

Re:Sadly

[supabeast!]

I think it would be far easier to patch WGA in order to make it FAIL authentication than it would be to make a counterfeit Windows version PASS authentication...

It's definitely going to be easier. All one will have to do is figure out where WGA stores the registration code, replace it with one that's known to fail WGA, and then cause the system to try and authenticate. Of course, the end user will then just be able to re-enter the good key, which on an OEM system is usually stuck to the front of the machine, so a really good trojan will send the original key to an army of zombie which automatically try to activate with it repeatedly, so that Microsoft flags the key as one released by pirates and refuses to ever activate it again.

Re:Sadly

[not-enough-info]

What's to prevent you from using another box's authentication? Just forward the auth to another un-cracked box that you control. Note here that even a signed/encrypted diffie-hellman exchange won't work because you control the un-cracked box. Also, if WGA is using a system hash for verification, you can pass the hash from your clean system also.

Re:Sadly

[soft_guy]

Dvorak's forecast of the future is often wrong.

Why is it sad that he is always wrong? He usually predicts bad news.

What gets me is the fact that he writes articles about what has happened in the past and his monday morning quarterbacking is pretty much always terrible advice, even if you were armed with his article and a time machine you wouldn't want to do what he suggests. (For example, the article he wrote one time about how Apple should have canceled the Apple II much earlier than they did - the fact is that the Apple II was basically a license to print money in the mid to late 80s. Dvorak's take was that it "held them back" or whatever.)

Re:Sadly

[ubrgeek]

So parent, unlike Dvorak, was modified insightful. Maybe Dvorak should post to comments, rather than articles? *grin*

Re:Sadly

[Virgil Tibbs]

if somebody perfect #2 and makes it easy then MS will be in a bit of a mess because as far as they are concerned that person is not legitimate so their system will be flawed and they will have to introduce something for people who dont hasve legit copies to get legit copies and all the related problems that will bring

Re:Sadly

[bzipitidoo]

Don't say that too loudly, as that comment fits the Slashdot community all too well. People who live in glass houses....

A lot of people have WGA wrong, and are commenting based on old info. At first, WGA did indeed prevent people from downloading security updates. That is no longer true as of sometime around March this year. MS came to their senses on that one, and now the validation is only needed to get fixes that are not security related. Not allowing security updates until validation made worse the chicken and egg problem in which a system could not download patches over the Internet until it'd been patched to prevent it from being pwned the instant it was hooked up to the Internet. Before WGA spoiled things, I worked around that problem by downloading the patches under Knoppix, or by having a CD full of patches that I'd downloaded and burned in Linux. Now that MS has relented, I can once again use Linux to help support Windows.

I hope Vista serves to further highlight fundamental problems with security. Ever since 9/11, there's been even more push for more security, a lot of people talking as if security was pure unadulterated goodness and as if there's no such thing as too much security, and a lot of bad security and abuse of security. Witness such things as confiscation of nail clippers and bottles of shampoo by airport security. When security becomes security for MS or the entertainment industry against evil pirates, that's not security for our benefit anymore however much MS tries to spin it so with such things as the "Advantage" part of the WGA name. Where's a Genuine Advantage program for software we write? When security gets perverted to mean "security for MS profits" and most definitely not "security for users against losing what they've paid for", people notice. When file format lock in gets justified with security, as in "preventing unauthorized programs from accessing and corrupting your valuable data" as if OpenOffice was written by a bunch of irresponsible hackers, that can give security a bad name. When "I can't tell you that for security reasons" is used as a cover for "I don't want to bother finding an answer", security is looking bad. A lot of Windows users have already tentatively decided they're going to stick with XP, because, ironically, they don't trust MS's intentions. So much for security increasing trust.

Re:Sadly

[Firehed]

Current XP WGA still allows you to get critical updates with a failed authentication. Have we heard anything to indicate that you won't at least get critical security patches in Vista without something shown as valid? I'd think they would still allow critical security updates with a "disadvantage", specifically for that reason. MS is taking enough flak from the public over WGA as it is; as long as there's even one false positive, they probably won't be allowed to not give out the critical stuff when they've just released a mammoth OS update, after charging out the wazoo for it, that doesn't yet have anything near a proven security layer.

That said, they're probably foolish enough to try, and the blackhats will rejoice.

Re:Sadly

[IAmTheDave]

Nah - just head on over to distrowatch.com and pick a Linux distro. I personally dumped Windows at home 5 years ago and I've never looked back.

As lovely as that sentiment is, and as much as I have a linux box and an OSX box at home, Windows is my bread and butter, so it's not leaving my life anytime soon.

Be prepared. I heard that somewhere...

Re:Sadly

[vhogemann]

Better,

Why dont setup some bootnets to authenticate every possible product key at Microsoft Site? This way rendering the registration process useless, as they wouldnt be able to differentiate the good ones from the fake ones!

Re:Sadly

[denelson83]

Like Dr. Soong?

"Often Wrong's got a broken heart; can't even tell his boys apart."

Re:Sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean these ones?
http://astalavista.box.sk/cgi-bin/robot?srch=wga+c rack&submit=+search+

Re:Sadly

[Artifakt]

1. You may well be right, in which case change my 80% estimate of the work involved to something lower as you see fit, but only one way. My point still stands the other way - the more it is hard to crack WGA for the purposes of making a counterfeit pass, the more it is positively trivial to go ahead and figure out how to make legitimate copies fail while you're at it.
2. If it really is that "virtually impossible" to make counterfeits pass, someone who fails at it may well decide to use what they have learned trying to do the reverse attack in compensation. If their motive is either money or spite, they can still succeed with the easier attack.
3. People sometimes get beaten after flashing loads of cash in cheap dives. People also sometimes get beaten after makeing disparaging comments about other people's mothers. So... What's it do to the overall chance of a beating if you enter the cheap dive and loudly announce you are carrying enough cash to buy everyone on the block's mother? Microsoft is giving lots of black hat types with lots of different motives an incentive to target this particular code, agreed?

Re:Sadly

[penguinrenegade]

If an army of zombies keep trying NEW codes - simple math says that in a matter of weeks nearly ALL Vista codes could be flagged as pirated. Making WGA point to false positives could be the death knell for Vista.

Re:Sadly

[sasdrtx]

Because there are appoximately 13367494538843734067838845976576 possible keys. If you have say, 100,000,000 computers each sending in activation keys at the rate of 1,000,000 per second (1mHz), it would take about 423 million years to get through them all.

Assuming I did the math correctly.

Anyway, Microsoft certainly has a database of good keys. It would be interesting if someone "accidentally" exposed it the public.

Re:Sadly

[OhioJoe]

Someone educate me here, but if WGA sends the product key to Windows, how can that be "hacked"? In other words, Windows, before it sends an update, has WGA send the product key that is compared to a huge database of "legit" keys. If that product key sent by WGA has either 1. not been diciminated in any release of the OS, or 2. is used from more than one (or more) IP's or hardware profiles, than no updates are given.

However, if Microsoft was stupid enough to NOT have WGA send the product key, and just trust whatever WGA tells it ("Yeah, this computer is legit. Send the update"), than I can see how that can be hacked.

OJ

Low-hanging fruits

[overshoot]

It's always easier to make something do what it's supposed to do (even when it shouldn't) than it is to make it do something it's not designed for.

For instance, chainsaws are designed to cut off limbs. Tree, human, what's the difference?

WGA and successors are designed to disable Microsoft systems. OK, I'm sure that there are those who appreciate the help.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[192939495969798999]

If you want to disable windows, there are much easier ways to do it than WGA, just look at the massive list of bots, viruses, etc. that if you're not up to date on patches and protection, can wreck your machine post haste!

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

After someone creates a virus that disables automatic updates by making the software look pirated, the OS can not update itself and will therefore be really vulnerable to all other threats.

I'm sure they thought of this though..

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[dsanfte]

That's not the point. The point is that Microsoft has designed their OS with a single point of failure, and to top it all off, if anyone were to exploit that point of failure, the deafening ring of poetic justice would be heard the world over.

WGA is a key to every Windows box on the planet and a giant club with which to beat Microsoft over the head if it's every hacked, and you can bet that's not going to go unnoticed by those with the capability to pull this off. It would be the hack of the freaking century.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[CodeBuster]

Yes, but this particular method has added irony of turning the tables on "the man" which fits in rather nicely with whole ethos of the malware authors and their fellow travelers.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Pharmboy]

If you want to disable windows, there are much easier ways to do it than WGA, just look at the massive list of bots, viruses, etc. that if you're not up to date on patches and protection, can wreck your machine post haste!

Not true. All of those NEED the operating system to work to either show you ads, or to send spam from your computer. If your computer is disabled, then they have failed. I CAN see someone making a virus that will make your Vista install appear to be bogus, just to wreak havok on:

1. Microsoft
2. America
3. Capitalism
4. Infidels
5. Other

This doesn't affect me personally as I have already decided that there is no way Vista will make it into my house, but it will affect me indirectly if customers/family/friends can't get online. MS is about to shoot themselves in the foot again, and just like with 9x/NT, I think they are underestimating hackers ability to carve up their little OS.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[voice_of_all_reason]

Yeah, but a bot attack disbling security updates would really screw with a corporate environment. IT's choices would probably be only to a) let the unpatched machines go until they could fix it, risking haxxoring of sensitive information or b) take down the network until they can sort things out.

Wouldn't either of these things be more of a hassle than simply rebuilding machines that got hosed by a virus? (I dunno, I'm not IT)

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'm sure they thought...

You are already incorrect.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Anonymous Coward]

it dosent even need to last long enough to stop any critical updates. If the computer was to go into lockdown mode, im sure a virus and other malware would be the least of the userses worries, and would probably stop the malware itself (a good worm can wreck havec if this is possible, a good virus would only use it for extortion and nothing else, you dont want a good botnet to stop working for you, unless that it what you want..)

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

fits nicely with whole ethos of the malware authors and their fellow travelers.

Cute dig at the Free software supporters. Ya got balls to make it so blatant right in the middle of the enemy camp here on slashdot. Just for the record, Free software is NOT communisim any more than copyright is communisim, and nothing about Free software is sympathetic to malware.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[slashbob22]

Ironically, that is the point of hacking the WGA. If you hacked it in such a way where you could make the WGA turn on the system, then the computer would not be able to update itself and MS would have to figure out some way to re-authenticate all the systems AND would likely be forced to patch all systems in the process. Not only that, but every system that was unable to patch could be exploited by bots and other viruses.

Sure, if you turned WGA on users through a exploit, MS would lose massive credibility. In that case, the only people who are protected have been able to patch before being exploited OR aren't running genuine systems.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[gbjbaanb]

No, no-one wants to disable Windows. They want to disable downloading the security fix that gobshite spamking has exploited to install his Trojan emailer/DoSer/Phisher.

Not to mention disabling the ability to update the WGA tool too.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Krizdo4]

Hack of the century?
No.
Way too obvious and likely to succeed.

What would be impressive if someone managed to have WGA in a way that gave them root access to Macs and Linux machines enmass.
Especially since they're completely unrelated.
Hacking Windows happens way to often to be cool anymore. You just expect it now.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[disasm]

no, poetic justice would be someone exploiting WGA to install ubuntu and move over all settings from windows without any user interaction, and while we're at it, have some virus like behavior and pass it around to everyone in your address book/cache/excel and word docs/everyone on your subnet/everyone on the internet ;-) Now that would be poetic justice, of course then all the computer shops that just fix spyware/viruses would all go out of business, how sad would that be...

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Otto]

Yeah, but a bot attack disbling security updates would really screw with a corporate environment.

Not as much as you'd think. Corporate Windows systems generally have updates disabled anyway, at least from Microsoft. The whole Windows Update system was designed to allow corps to run their own update server, so that they could a) pick and choose what updates they want to go to what boxes and b) use the mechanism to not only install their own software, but to prevent modification to the software. The corporate boxen rigged this way don't talk back to Microsoft at all, they talk to their own in-house update system.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure bad guys want to be able to disable Windows. Install a virus that can do in on 10,000 pc's in a corporation, and send the CIO an email that it will turn on 10 minutes if he doesn't send the bad guy ten million dollars.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[CodeBuster]

It was not a dig at the free software supporters and there is no explicit comparison being made between malware authors and people who chose to make their work available as open source. I was merely commenting that people who have an axe to grind with Microsoft, malware authors for example, would probably appreciate the irony of turning the Windows Genuine Advantage layer against licensed users via an exploit of some kind, hence the use of the phrases "turn the tables" and "the man". However, you have read your own bias into the comment and assumed that I was taking a shot at the free software supporters when in fact I was not.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"Fellow traveler" is a term with very explicit conotations. It is just about impossible to use without implying communism. If that was not your intent, I apologize for the accusation.

Re:Low-hanging fruits

[644bd346996]

I think you are now older than the average slashdotter.

Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy writes some symphonies back in the late 1800s, then in the early 1900s designs a keyboard that nobody except a few nerds can type on, and NOW he's criticizing Windows?!?!
Not only is this guy old, he should be commenting on things like piano typewriters or something like that...

TDz.

Complicated = Buggy

[crazyjeremy]

More complicated security simply means more circumstances for the code to be vulnerable. Windows continues to bloat in every direction and as a result, it continues to be an easy target. Now that so many systems areon the web, one wonders if there will ever be an exploit so complicated and devisive that it will shut down a significant portion of the windows user base. If this Security Cop layer of Vista gets hacked, a huge DOS will be easier than ever.

I'm going to start working...

[jizziknight]

... on a virus right now that effectively shuts down any Vista computer by causing WGA to always detect the OS as a pirated copy.

Actually, for some reason, I had never thought of this before. You probably wouldn't really even have to mess with WGA all that much, just change whatever it's checking to see if the OS is valid. Not sure how easy that would be, but considering the number of false positives that are cropping up on XP, it should be quite doable.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what happens if you hack the ethernet driver to randomize the MAC address on every boot?

Re:I'm going to start working...

[joe 155]

I'll assume that you were joking then (although I suppose that if anyone would have the ability they might be on here...) but what you mention, if it was possible would really screw MS over.

Imagine a virus which is very hard to get rid of, if not a rootkit which for the average user (read: knows nothing about computer) would as good be impossible to get rid of, then MS's WGA policy would have to stop. Say someone gets this virus and doesn't know how to detect or remove it they'll be ringing MS up and complaining loudly, they won't be able to get security updates, which will make them complain more loudly... MS will either have to let go of WGA (since most of the people it would stop would now be legal coppies) or come up with a complicated system to try and re-introduce the WGA check in a different way... it might be impossibe.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[shawb]

The thing about WGA is, it doesn't actually prevent you from using the computer. It prevents you from using Windows Update. So what you do is release the code into the wild that kills WGA meaning all infected computers will not be patched. THEN you release a virus into the wild that utilizes a vulnerability that has not been patched by Microsoft yet. Finally, you do whatever you want with the constantly growing botnet. DOS attacks, spam, spying on users, running a distributed password/encryption cracking utility... whatever. Shutting down their computers would be a waste at that time. You control all Windows computers that had WGA killed by the original exploit, as well as all pirated copies that wouldn't get the updates anyways.

THAT's the danger of WGA.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[peragrin]

No WGA in Vista has an Auto off feature. if you don't authenticate within 30 days You can only use the machine one hour a day, and you can only use IE during that hour.

I personaly hope MSFT gets widespread distribution of Vista before someone pulls out that virus that disables WGA from authenticating properly. Maybe twith 30-50 million users calling in complaining will MSFT stop being so greedy.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[jizziknight]

It prevents you from using Windows Update.

I thought that you were still able to get critical updates. If so, the botnet thing isn't as big of an issue. On the other hand, the amount of users, including businesses, that would be calling in complaining that WGA is saying they don't have a "genuine" copy would be ridiculous. Also, if MS doesn't realize right away that it is in fact a virus, they will end up having repeat callers.

Wasn't there also something about WGA limiting Internet usage to 30 min. or something when the OS wasn't "genuine"? This would be a kick in the nuts to businesses that rely on having access to the Internet.

The virus wouldn't necessarily be used to create botnets so much as to piss people off and cause a lot of backlash against MS.

And just to protect myself in the even that this sort of this ends up happening... I have not written, nor will I ever write, a virus that does the aforementioned things.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had cracked WGA, why not just create the botnet then?

Also, the next step from there is to DDOS microsoft (to prevent patching by unhacked copies), google (to prevent searches on how to remove the virus), symantec (to prevent antivirus stuff), and the other major players in the same category - all at the same time - bring the net to a grinding halt. Oh yeah, and make sure that the DDOS stuff uses a decent variety of normal traffic requests (i.e. GET requests for random pages at whatever site it is, POP3/SMTP requests using randomized E-mail addresses, etc), so ISPs couldn't just block them wholesale.

It's a good thing I'm a good guy.

Re:I'm going to start working...

[CCFreak2K]

I'm guessing that cracks for legitcheck.dll function a lot like no-CD cracks for most commercial Windows games: replace the CMP A,B with JMP. I'd imagine the reverse is possible (jumping to the routine for a failed auth).

Idiotic ramblings

[setuid_w00t]

Isn't Dvorak basically just an Internet whore? Why does slashdot link to his articles?

Re:Idiotic ramblings

[voice_of_all_reason]

"wga or gtfo?"

Re:Idiotic ramblings

[Technician]

Why does slashdot link to his articles?

1 Because in this instance, what he said is plausable however improbable.

2 Slashdoters love new FUD on MS products. Someone may be able to disable your PC remotely.

Validating

[Damastus the WizLiz]

Not that it is impossible or even unlikely but I am curious how it will get around having to contact microsoft to validate the windows version.

Re:Validating

[Fezmid]

I've never used Vista, but what about changing the LMHOSTS file to point wga.microsoft.com (or whatever) to a different server on the NET that says "Your copy of Windows is broken! Disabling now."

Re:Validating

[phreak404]

How about an entry in \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts for microsoft.com?

Re:Validating

[db32]

I'm not a programmer, and I don't know the in detail methods of WGA, but off the top of my head I can think of a few methods. Intercept the "call home" and either rewrite what is sent home to be a known good until they block it or redirect the "call home" to a local approval service installed as part of the "fix". I realize when you hit the MS sites for updates and the like the second may not work, but faking a good response to yourself would at least get WGA to pull its nag/disabling claws back out of your system.

Re:Validating

[Anonymous Coward]

overwrite/replace the dnsapi.dll file so that the computer is directed to a different server[s]. tough stuff.

Re:Validating

[Mateo_LeFou]

Is that necessary? Let it contact microsoft if it wants. The thing to exploit is what it says to microsoft when it calls. I don't know how it works, but it prolly takes a snapshot of a bunch of files & directories and sends that to MS. Sprinkle weird stuff in those places and you'll get false negatives aplenty.

Re:Validating

[SScorpio]

Microsoft ignores a redirect for microsoft.com in the host file. Try setting it to localhost on a XP machine and see what happens.

Re:Validating

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly it. Simply hook in and mess with whatever process Windows uses to send the authentication message. The message will be different than what it should be, so whatever Microsoft's WGA server sends back won't match the box. Instant disabling. We already know it's possible to hook into Windows DLLs in a way that is transparent to software running on the box (see the Sony root-kit, and various copy-protection methods used on games), so it's just a matter of time until someone creates a hook that disrupts the WGA process, and distributes that hook with a worm.

The work-around for Microsoft is to have a particular response that means 'Authentic' no matter what. They can tell their server to send that for a few weeks, and everybody gets their patches and the problem is fixed. (Until the next hacker hooks in.) The problem with the fixed, 'Authentic' response is that once someone discovers it, they can redirect their WGA traffic to a server somewhere that sends that response no matter what. They may not be able to get their updates without manually downloading them, but that's not going to stop people for long (if at all).

Re:Validating

[jawtheshark]

I have my own DNS server on a dedicated BSD machine. Let them try to block that one ;-)

Technically, I see no reason why someone couldn't make a small DNS caching service that installs on a Windows machine and then set all DNS lookups to be redirected to localhost:53, bypassing the %SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

Re:Validating

[Technician]

Not that it is impossible or even unlikely but I am curious how it will get around having to contact microsoft to validate the windows version.

1 Man in the middle

2 Packet spoofing

3 ?

Pick one or a combination.

Re:Validating

[SatanicPuppy]

But that's just icing on the cake! That shows they think it'll work! So just do the redirect upstream, and it'll work fine.

Re:Validating

[risk one]

Maybe they'll forget to pay their domain name fee some year. Then we'll have them...

Re:Validating

[SScorpio]

They did with both Hotmail.com and Hotmail.co.uk.

Re:Validating

[Mourice]

They may have done that for microsoft.com, but there was a virus for XP for a while there that used the HOSTS file to block all requests to the Windows Update server.IIRC, you can also block microsoft.com by IP address with no problem. (Someone may check that; I haven't touched a Windows machine in about 6 months.)

Who Polices the Policeman?

[w0d3h0us3]

It happened in a committee inside Microsoft when someone came up with the brilliant idea of essentially creating a virtual policeman to watch over the operating system to make sure it has the right "papers." This is an interesting idea, but who watches and authenticates the policeman?

I got it! "Windows Genuine Advantage Genuine Advantage."

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[Volante3192]

WGA = WGA's Genuine Advantage... ...some GNU freaks are gonna dock me for that one, but it's SO worth it.

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Stop messing with my head!

//also, monkeys are not donkeys

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[JordanL]

Would that be like "New NT Technology"? (For the uninitiated, NT was an acronym inside Microsoft which stood for "New Technology", and Microsoft turned it into a brand.)

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[dorianh49]

That's pretty LAME.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant!

Re:Who Polices the Policeman?

[inKubus]

WGA = WGA's Genuine Advantage... ...some GNU freaks are gonna dock me for that one, but it's SO worth it.

It's a recursive acronym, if you didn't already get it..

Hold on just a second there chief.

[nilbog]

Whether or not you pass WGA, you still get critical security updates. It's not in Microsoft's best interest to have a few million illegal Windows installs out there being compromised because it harms the user base as a whole.

The real problem here is that Dvorak might die old, alone, and invalid. He must come up with this crap to feel like he's important. What if a hacker did this or that? I don't really care unless a hacker actually does it. People have been talking about someone pointing auto-updates to a 3rd party that would be able to install anything, but I've yet to see any widespread auto-update hack.

Re:Hold on just a second there chief.

[LunaticTippy]

Whether or not you pass WGA, you still get critical security updates

Wrong. One of our other sites just got nailed by a trojan because some machines weren't updating because they had never installed WGA. I found this behaviour several months ago and ran windows update on the offending machines just to install WGA. (we use WSUS for updates) The machines mysteriously resumed updating after installing WGA. Fortunately I check the patch status of windows machines around here. Obviously our sister site didn't and got burned by MS withholding updates from a company that gives millions to microsoft every year.

Re:Hold on just a second there chief.

[geekoid]

Not having a plan for a probable scenerio(WGA fails for some reason) is a poor way to manage systems.

Re:Hold on just a second there chief.

[teh_chrizzle]

windizupdate comes close.

Re:yes it will be fucked up its windows

[Volante3192]

Most of us don't expect MS to release secure and bugfree software. What we don't expect is such blatent reaming of their customer base. Treat the user as a criminal, and they have to become one anyway.

MS is turning into an *AA in their business practice: Their cash cows are dying and instead of looking for new interpretations to their products, they refuse to believe their model is incorrect and enact strongarm tactics to keep people locked in. WGA, legal courses and even not-so-subtle threats documented as research.

It's not working for the *AAs; it won't work for their software.

Get a Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I switched last year. I don't have to care for all that Microsoft crap anymore.

WGA is the system blackbox ..

[rs232]

Why don't they make Vista out of the same stuff that WGA is made of, that way you wouldn't have any security issues.

Devilsown will make a client-side server

[spyrochaete]

"It might actually be easier for the pirates to create a fake cop that constantly authenticates fake versions of Vista than it will be to create a Vista imitation that can pretend to be a legitimate version."

This is exactly what I was thinking when I heard that volume licensed versions of Vista would no longer take the product key's word for it (bye bye FCKGW), but authenticate and activate with a local server. I bet the first pirated versions of "Vista Pro Corp" will include a proxy patch or HOSTS entry that will point the OS to a server run by a warez release group, or maybe 127.0.0.1 with a host-side server.

Either way, it's going to really suck when people need to run a one or more instances of Vista Ultimate in a VM (yes, Ultimate can run in a VM) for testing and staging but quickly run out of licenses on the local activation server.

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[vespazzari]

Wow, i actually know exactly what you mean by FCKGW, i dont know what is worse, the fact that i recognize it or that i have used it that many times.

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[Anonymous Coward]

RHQQ2....

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[julesh]

Either way, it's going to really suck when people need to run a one or more instances of Vista Ultimate in a VM (yes, Ultimate can run in a VM) for testing and staging but quickly run out of licenses on the local activation server.

The volume licensing EULA specifically allows for VM usage (one VM per machine only), so I'd expect the licensing server knows about this and can deal with it.

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[spyrochaete]

Crazier still... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCKGW

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[spyrochaete]

The EULA wording wasn't very clear to me. I took it to mean that you can install no more than one copy of Vista on a virtual machine on a PC. Does that mean that if you are running Vista you can run the same copy of Vista in a VM on that same physical PC? Are you entitled to one install at one time, or 2 installs on one PC?

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[julesh]

Certainly I interpreted it that you could make one physical and one virtual installation of each licensed copy. Not 100% sure that's the correct interpretation, but at least where I am, in a business-consumer contract, any ambiguity will be resolved by a court in favour of the consumer. :)

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[Nasarius]

YXRKT

Re:Devilsown will make a client-side server

[mqduck]

FCKGW

Fuck George W?

Doubt this is possible

[MobyDisk]

Server certificates are the basis for SSL, SSH, HTTPS, etc. AFAIK, nobody can make a fake policeman without faking Microsoft's certificate. I don't think Dvorak's scenario is reasonable.

Re:Doubt this is possible

[geekoid]

you only nede to make the OS think it is the correct certificate.

Re:Doubt this is possible

[badfish99]

It should be possible, so long as you can authenticate against a local server. Just clone the server.

It would certainly be difficult if Microsoft retained control of all the authentication servers. But then it would be impossible to install Windows on a machine not connected to the internet.

Re:Doubt this is possible

[FellowConspirator]

No need to fake the certificate, just tweak WGA to check versus a bogus certificate, or check a bogus creddential against the valid certificate. Either event will flag the system as invalid and the functionality will disable appropriately.

Faking the certificate would only be necessary for falsifying updates and so on. I'm actually surprised you haven't seen more malware through auto-update attacks for Windows, though I suspect those clever enough to do it are perhaps clever enough not to have that detected. It's decidedly trickier than fooling WGA into thinking a machine has an invalid copy of the OS.

Re:Doubt this is possible

[giafly]

Microsoft have never yet produced any major system that's totally secure. Just because you can't instantly see how to break WGA, why on earth would you conclude that it can't be broken? Personally I think they've just made life simpler for every crook why wants to extort money from Windows users.

Re:Doubt this is possible

[gubol123]

So who has produced a mainstream operating system that is totally secure? Apple? RedHat? IBM? HP? Sun? ...

Windows a time-bomb

[MECC]

"I do not even want to think of the consequences of Vista turning itself off in enterprise situations such as airline reservations or a hospital full of patients on life support."

The Vista cop will likely cache authentication like so many other things. And, airlines, hospitals, and other large organizations won't be moving to vista with any gusto anyway.

Still, the mere idea of a self-disabling software product make me want to use something else even more than a product that breaks down just because its poorly [designed | built].

News Alert

[Anonymous Coward]

Viruses can cause windows based computers to be unable to function properly, access windows update, or lock out the user.
More news at 11.

Reducing Illegal Copies?

[CycleFreak]

MS gets beat up all the time here on /. - but what if they're right? I mean, what if suddenly all those people that run illegal installations of XP suddenly have to pay up for Vista (even though most people are hesitant to upgrade anyway) because they can't effectively get around the WGA controls. Say, by 2008, there are twice as many Vista installs (according to MS) than XP installs as of today. Wouldn't that prove that MS was correct in forcing this level of validation upon us? Given today's saturated market, the only conclusion would be that illelgal XP installs were replaced with purchased versions of Vista. Just one possible outcome.

Re:Reducing Illegal Copies?

[businessnerd]

I think the main problem is not that Microsoft (or anyone) wants to prevent/stop priacy. They have every right to. The problem is how they go about doing this. Basically, they are shooting themselves in the feet and are assuming their customers are guilty until proven innocent (see any parallels here to the RI/MPAA?). The way you deal with piracy is to address the demand for piracy. People are always going to pirate/counterfeit almost everything that's not already free (beer and speech). Look at the market for counterfeit merchandise. So what drives more people to use priated software or buy counterfeit goods? Price is a good starting place. Windows is DAMN expensive, and for those don't see Mac or Linux as an option (pussies) it's essential. So you get a cracked version. Just like the fashion obsessed MUST have a Louis Viton or Prada handbag, but can't afford it, so they buy the knock-off and hope no one notices. Second, you can go after the criminals without inconveniencing your customers. All you have to do is search for the distributers and shut them down/prosecute. There is no need for Microsoft to stay one step a head of the hacker's latest exploit, all they have to do (or the police have to do) is stay one step ahead of the latest ditribution methods. You find a site hosting cracked copies of XP, you have the ISP shut it down, you track who put it up, you prosecute. But like I said earlier, you have to address the demand as well. Microsoft really needs to lower the price. Afterall, they've already told you that you NEED Windows and that there is no substitute. If XP only cost $50, more people would buy it legitimately because they can afford it, less reason for them to knowingly break the law to get it.

Now since I mentioned it, let's look at the digital music industry parallel. Given that I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay for my music downloads, I'm not ready to stop downloading pirated music (Although I do buy CD's still). Others (lots of Slashdotters) however, object morally to the DRM that infests all of the legit music downloads. They don't have the freedom to do what you want with the music like you do with CD's and mp3's. Hackers are still cracking the DRM and will continue to do so no matter how much DRM you put in. Solution, don't give people a reason to pirate it. Sell mp3's, no AAC or WMA. The people will explore ways of using/sharing/whatever the music that no one ever thought of and further advance the way we handle media.

Jerry's Final Word: Stop treating the consumers like two cent whores out to make a quick buck and screw you over! Most of us dont' want to break the law, but if you push us beyond reasonable means, you better be ready to accept the consequences.

Re:Reducing Illegal Copies?

[Lactoso]

"...the only conclusion would be that illelgal XP installs were replaced with purchased versions of Vista. Just one possible outcome."

An interesting idea, but one that will never happen.

Speaking for myself, the only, umm, non-legit versions of Windows I have are on boxen that I don't really care about (a dedicated PC to run security cam software, my 4 year old's PC, and a couple of others). Even if Vista turns out not to be the train wreck it appears to be, it simply isn't worth the money to make those PCs all legal-like. Not to mention the fact that they are nowhere near capable of meeting the minimum hardware requirements for Vista. I will, instead, continue to run WinXP and finally invest some time into setting up Linux on them.

I very much doubt that there's an appreciable percentage of users running a pirated version of Windows as their only or primary computer. But you know what? If Microsoft were to revise their pricing and licensing structure (perhaps something like Apple's Family Pack), I *might* actually consider Vista and being 100% 'Genuine'. But as the cheapest, most-crippled version of Vista is rumored to be over $200 and historically MS seems determined to piss off their base users, I very much doubt that'll ever happen. :-(

Re:Reducing Illegal Copies?

[ElleyKitten]

Not everyone who has pirated Windows XP would purchase Vista if WGA locks them out. Many won't pay for it/can't afford it (which is why they're pirating in the first place) and not everyone's existing computer can run Vista. Some will, of course, but some will switch to Linux. Linux is usable enough now, and someone who's desperate/mad that they can't run Windows anymore without paying microsoft money will likely try the free option. Not everyone who gets lock ut with WGA will go to Linux, but enough that I think this is a stupid move by Microsoft. A person running pirated XP today might buy a new PC with Vista later, or might encourage friends/family to. A person running Linux today is very unlikely to purchase Vista in the future and will encourage friends/family to switch. Microsoft has all the big name shops (well, besides Apple) selling only Windows boxes. That's the only anti-piracy they need (not that I appreciate that), and the only kind that won't bite them in the ass. Of course, I'm a Linux user, so I'm not complaining. :-)

You can already do that!

[Tei]

If you hate enough some random guy, create a small application that will rename boot.ini something else (boot.dat?). Nothing more, nothing else. This will cross any antivirus, is not a virus. Will kill that poor bastard on the next reboot.

Of course, with WGA will be much more espectacular and fun, but you can already cripple a system with a simple change.

Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves the

[CoJeff]

Beware. Vista is an OS like no other. I'm for one am not going to upgrade after reading part of the EULA. 4. Problem-solving prohibited. "You may not work around any technical limitations in the software." http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2006/10/19/ forbidding_vistas_windows_licensing_disserves_the_ user.html/

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

A lot. He used to hang out with Charles Babbage. I'm wondering how he got so dumb since then.

So this is a client-side DOS attack?

[un1xl0ser]

What I think that he is stating is that one could easily cause denial-of-service on the clients of Windows Update. If you can make the system look tampered with or pirated, that host won't be able to get updates automatically without intervention by the user.

The user will know that their copy is suspected of being pirated, but may not know how to fix it. This could potentially ensure that a large amount of devices that were compromised stay compromised and unpatched for a period of time.

Stop submitting this dolt

[jzuska]

He's an idiot. Stop submitting his articles. Nobody in the tech field (should) take(s) him seriously.

Re:Stop submitting this dolt

[Anonymous Coward]

He's done more than you ever will. Dvorak has a point. WGA is good for one thing. Preventing illegal copies from activating through Microsoft. Look at Micrsoft's track record. Will it work as advertised? Has Microsoft made it hack-proof? MS has a long history of NOT thinking of everything. Hackers will exploit it, and in many cases, innocent users and corporations will pay the price, and MS will take a BEATING from the public. Frankly, I hope MS stock price takes a big hit, and they're forced to do something "friendly" for once.

Instead, they want to tell us how we can use their software. I think that's a joke. I paid for the software, yet MS thinks they can dictate everything done with something I bought. Balloney. I hope they go under. I'd really like the entire planet to tell them to go F_CK themselves. Then maybe they'd learn.

should have left it web based

[Wizzerd911]

didn't WGA used to be an activex on the windows update site? What was wrong with that? It sure would have worked a lot better leaving the genuine validation function on a webserver. They'd have to make it not go crazy if the computer wasn't connected to the internet though but who isn't?

Just change the cd key?

[a16]

Couldn't a virus just change the local cd key, as documented by MS, to a pirated one? Then effectively they have a machine that can't be updated.

He has a point ...

[robpoe]

Even though he's occasionally mis-aligned himself, he DOES have a very valid point.

But to what end? Why couldn't any kind of software do this?

Free anti-virus..(not Clam .. it's OSS .. but closed source stuff, why not)
SpyBot S&D
Ad-Aware
Hi-Jack This!

Could ALL be spyware-in-disguise. We don't know. How could we?

It's not just Vista's WGA we need to worry about. I mean, what better way to take over the world. Develop some cool little free app that EVERYONE starts using. Get it installed on a bajillion computers, then it grabs an auto-update and WHAMMO! You've got ... "DUN DUN DUN!!!" SKYNET...

Re:He has a point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux says, "Follo mee eef yoo wahnt to LIHVE!"

- the Win-inator

Re:He has a point ...

[phliar]

It's not just Vista's WGA we need to worry about. I mean, what better way to take over the world. Develop some cool little free app that EVERYONE starts using. Get it installed on a bajillion computers, then it grabs an auto-update and WHAMMO! You've got ... "DUN DUN DUN!!!" SKYNET...

Man, that's brilliant. That's the best plan for world domination I've seen yet, especially if if they all play the cool DUN DUN DUN!!! fanfare as the machines turn on us.

Windows, Pestilence and Plague

[Doc Ruby]

Denying unlicensed Windows instances access to security upgrades does to the Internet ecosystem just what denying poor people access to vaccines and other public health does: it creates incubators for plagues. The "underground" class of unlicensed Windows instances will offer criminals, vandals and spies a cesspool in which to multiply, and launch attacks on everyone. Since Microsoft cannot exterminate completely the global unlicensed Windows population, nor ensure licensed instances are invulnerable to these attacks, their WGA program is making everyone less safe.

Re:Windows, Pestilence and Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a great insight. It is the current paradigm for large US corporate/Republican behavior: as long as I (and my corrupt cronies) are making money, we will screw whom ever we want to screw.

Public health in the US is undergoing a slow colapse because the health care industry, which controls the current Republican congress, can't make enough mony on poor people. This is evident in the closing of emergency care clinics; in Los Angeles there isn't a year that goes by without one or two closing. It's not the hospital's fault, they are being squeezed by having to provide care to poor people who don't have health insurance. People who can't pay end up in emergency rooms, and the hospital has to absorbe the cost.

What happens when a real serious flu or SARS or other contagious situation arrises? I think that there will be rioting in many communities. I think that people will start shooting strangers (or maybe neighbors) on sight.

But don't wory, no rich people will be harmed. They'll have all the shots and all the isolation that they need to keep well.

Sadly, we may end up changing corporate behavior on the Internet before we end up fixing the medical system. If Vista causes too many problems for making money on the internet even Microsoft will have to clean up their act.

The day the spam stopped

[goombah99]

Someday in the future a worm will set off a wildfire, disabling every windows box in the world in a single day. Everyone else will only notice that there suddenly was no more spam and wonder why. Then the spammers will notice all their bots are dead and they will create a new worm that goes out and fixes the vulerability in the few remaining zombies they have left.. So mircosoft's problem will be solved by the spammers faster than you can say Patch-tuesday.

Whihc brings me to another question. What happens when the WGA cop is triggered. Your machine still functions right? you just can't get updates or fixes for vulnerabilities....

Re:The day the spam stopped

[Phisbut]

Whihc brings me to another question. What happens when the WGA cop is triggered. Your machine still functions right? you just can't get updates or fixes for vulnerabilities....

If I recall correctely, you have 30 days to authenticate or the WGA cop disables everything except IE. "Everything" probably includes the ability to be a spam-bot, but I'm still not sure.

Re:The day the spam stopped

[Mister Whirly]

WGA exists now - how come this "magical hack" hasn't happened already??? And I'm sure if lowly Slashdotters are talking about it's potential for abuse, MS has thought of it too. Isn't it amazing that every few months you read about "the big hack" that is the Achilles heel of Windows and will bring down XX% of the world's computers - and it still hasn't happened. MS not only is still around, but still domminant.

Re:The day the spam stopped

[soft_guy]

Failing WGA has very few consequences right now. Under Vista it will have much bigger consequences. Target is the same, but the payoff dramatically increases under Vista.

Re:The day the spam stopped

[Mister Whirly]

That makes some sense, although if it were that easy to falsely trigger the WGA, I would think someone would have by now, bigger payoff later or not...

Re:The day the spam stopped

[Nasarius]

"Everything" probably includes the ability to be a spam-bot, but I'm still not sure.

Doubtful. It's certainly possible to write something like a spam bot at the driver level.

Re:The day the spam stopped

[shadow_slicer]

Or write a Spamming IE plugin

Please Wait

[Geccie]

Whomever creates the crack of the century and turns the good cop bad, Please PLEASE be patient. Don't just send out the bots 2 days after Vista's launch, give Vista a chance to permeate the bowels of the gulible and self opressed - Then - and ONLY THEN can the bots be launched, creating a wondrous show for the rest of use to enjoy.

Microsoft has long been due the fruits of their incidious labor and it is only just that they reap the true rewards.

Is there a front coming through?

[SuperMog2002]

Woah! Someone check the weather, 'cause it's gonna be a cold day down in you know where. Dvorak just said something that makes sense! Of course, it's the same chain of thought that's been going on for weeks here at Slashdot, so it may not be his own original reasoning. But nonetheless, that's the first article of his I've read in longer than I can remember that didn't make me want to highlight all the flaws in his reasoning and send them along with proof of their idiocy to his editors.

Re:Is there a front coming through?

[Anonymous Coward]

on your mark... get set.... ass kiss!!!

"destruction and hassle"? perhaps not...

[Anonymous Coward]

"destruction and hassle"? perhaps... or maybe not... if it leads to Microsoft having to strip off WGA, I say bring it on!

I particularly like this bit:

[Old Man Kensey]

"I do not even want to think of the consequences of Vista turning itself off in enterprise situations such as airline reservations or a hospital full of patients on life support. A serious collapse of the authentication network that could not be fixed without sending out discs or one-by-one-downloads will end up in the courts, and you can be certain that the shrink-wrap license agreement that holds Microsoft blameless will be tossed out as bogus."

1. Patients on life support? Is this the new "it's for the chilllldren!" in the software industry? Hospitals and life-support systems seem to come up really often when validation scenarios like this are discussed, yet, I have never, EVER heard of a patient dying because Windows crashed. I suspect this might be due to medical equipment manufacturers not quite being dumber than a bag of hammers and therefore not using Windows in life-critical situations.
   
2. I bet you anything there is a clause in the EULA that says something like "this software is not to be used in life support equipment, nuclear power plants, or other life-critical systems."
   
3. I further bet you that in the unlikely event some cosmically stupid company actually built life-critical systems around Windows Vista and it caused loss of life, that company, not Microsoft, would be held 100% liable for a) not doing due diligence on whether or not their off-the-shelf components were suitable for the intended purpose and b) being dumber than the aforementioned bag of hammers. The EULA wouldn't need to be held enforceable per se, the court would merely need to find that they ought to have read the EULA and from it derived knowledge that Vista should not be used for certain purposes.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[d3ac0n]

I bet you anything there is a clause in the EULA that says something like "this software is not to be used in life support equipment, nuclear power plants, or other life-critical systems."

That, and the fact that most of our nuclear power facilities are still running on Win2K. I'm not kidding. I work for a company that makes software for nuclear power facilities (and other places) and most of our customers just transitioned from NT4 within the last 2 years. By the time they start using Vista, Microsoft Windows X should be out.

Oh, and yes, I was as surprised as anybody that these places aren't running UNIX.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[bunions]

I agree. However, I was a little horrified when I found this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsautomotive/default .mspx

Hopefully it doesn't have anything to do with the car itself, only GPS things and the like.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[paralaxcreations]

If that IS in the EULA, it sure would contradict their "world of devices that run on windows" campaign, where they mention "schools and hospitals"

Furthermore, Dvorak isn't the first to use hospitals as an example, as can be seen in this article from 2004. And whaddya know...it is an actual concern, albeit not of Microsoft's but of the manufacturers, and it seems it's because the manufacturers don't want hospitals installing the security patches. The article also makes mention that worms have hit hospitals in the past, often shipping from the manufacturer with viruses already on them. And you thought the iPod story a few days ago was bad.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Fatal Darkness]

Patients on life support? Is this the new "it's for the chilllldren!" in the software industry? Hospitals and life-support systems seem to come up really often when validation scenarios like this are discussed, yet, I have never, EVER heard of a patient dying because Windows crashed. I suspect this might be due to medical equipment manufacturers not quite being dumber than a bag of hammers and therefore not using Windows in life-critical situations.

Perhaps not life support, but I was interested in getting LASIK surgery at one time. I went to a presentation given by a doctor that came highly recommended from some of the locals. When they were showing off the actual laser equipment that performed the surgery, it turned out the machine was controlled entirely from a PC workstation running Windows NT. I asked one of the doctors what would happen if the controller "blue-screened" during the procedure and was told they would have to contact the developers and research that and get back to me. I never received a reply, and they never received my business! I'm not taking any chances with my eyes, I'll stick with glasses.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[betterunixthanunix]

Happens all the time. Actually, the worst part is not that worms can hit hospitals, but that most operating systems are very, very poor at handling hardware failures. Most of the 2k/XP BSODs that I've seen resulted from issues with hardware or hardware drivers, and in some cases these are just typical failures -- like the time that XP started randomly hanging because a hard drive motor burned out. Linux only does SLIGHTLY better out of the box, same with BSD. Life-support equipment should NEVER use an operating system like Windows or Linux -- they should be using a realtime operating system designed to handle equipment failures without freezing. This is not a question of cost, this is a question of life.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[oc255]

What does that mean "makes software for nuclear power facilities", do you mean the HR system that gives you a report on how many vacation hours you have or do you mean the system that adjusts the rods, coolant and what I would consider massively critical (observation). The FAA runs assembly in a lot of it's systems, depending on as few moving parts as possible. Anything like a 9-11 system or power plant I would expect would be running something similar or QNX as an example.

In other industries there's safeguards and levels of acceptable failure. An airplane's fuel system has a more critical rating than the in-flight movie system (as an example).

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[honestmonkey]

Well, I'm not sure about "life-critical" systems, but I do know that the EKG machine I saw on a recent ER visit was running some version of Windows. So how "life-critical" is having the ER folks know the status of your heart?

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[teh_chrizzle]

I never received a reply, and they never received my business! I'm not taking any chances with my eyes, I'll stick with glasses.

glasses are nothing more than tiny little windows.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Spinlock_1977]

Don't be a dumb-dumb. Of course Windows is used in applications where a failure could cost a life. I've written a few myself. The question you're really asking is: Wow close to "yikes it's embedded in a freakin pace-maker!" we've gotten. I can assure you, it's getting closer every day. Remember when no one in their right might would base an bank machine on windoze? Boy, are those daze over.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[mgv]

Patients on life support? Is this the new "it's for the chilllldren!" in the software industry? Hospitals and life-support systems seem to come up really often when validation scenarios like this are discussed, yet, I have never, EVER heard of a patient dying because Windows crashed. I suspect this might be due to medical equipment manufacturers not quite being dumber than a bag of hammers and therefore not using Windows in life-critical situations.

Actually, it probalby has happened. And you won't hear about it if it has, most likely.

Basically when an error occurs, mostly the patients forgive the staff if they are upfront about things. Occasionally people look at compensation. Usually this sort of thing ends up in a closed claim; you will never hear about it publicly. I have know of all sorts of equipment failures to occur, some of them with bad outcomes, but its rare for a failure to go public, for any reason.

For example, I've seen diagnostic imaging machines (based on windows) that have crashed mid operation; or which take so long to start up the information they provide is too late.... Do you really think if this went public that this would sound like a good defence? "We bought the machines because they had a good feature set, but they take too long to start up sometimes, nobody thought about this when we made the purchase?" Just one tiny example.

But, I'll promise you, there are people who do all sorts of silly things when they build equipment....

Occasionally you will get a Dr. Death that makes the news, but this is rare. Everything else gets swept as much as possible by management.

Michael.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[kbob88]

I don't know about hospital software (although I bet a ton of it runs on Windows), but I do know of one instance of Windows leaving a Navy cruiser dead in the water. That's not exactly a good thing either.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[ghjm]

No, he's right. Essential control infrastructure (SCADA) in nuclear plants and other industrial facilities runs on Windows, Linux, etc., often unpatched, and often with ineffective firewalling or access controls. The industry is trying to work itself up to do something about the security implications, but seems to have little interest in non-"hacker"-related stability and reliability problems (because they are not exciting enough to convene a Congressional panel over).

-Graham

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Rowanyote]

USS Yorktown?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)

I think a naval destroyer counts as life and mission critical...

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Old Man Kensey]

Don't be a dumb-dumb. Of course Windows is used in applications where a failure could cost a life. I've written a few myself.

I'm not saying it hasn't happened ever -- just that those companies who perpetrate such abominations are beyond clueless and most likely will bear full legal liability if anything goes wrong leading to loss of life.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[fishbowl]

The ship was never without command, weaponry, or drive systems. Despite the claim in the Wired article, the ship's crew could have controlled its propulsion system. It being peacetime, and there being no emergency, the *choice* was made to "remain dead in the water" for a few hours while the problem was fixed. The ship was not planning to go anywhere at the time, to begin with.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really surprising. If a critical situation arose, they'd want even the dumbest employee to know how to use the interface to clicky-clicky crisis averted a-la Homer Simpson.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[jalefkowit]

Hospitals and life-support systems seem to come up really often when validation scenarios like this are discussed, yet, I have never, EVER heard of a patient dying because Windows crashed.

What, you expect the dead patients to tell you all about it? They're DEAD!

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but when your glasses crash it's your own fault :)

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Lisandro]

I've recently started working in an automation consultant company, and the ammount of hacked, lousy set up Windows servers for SCADA scares the shit out of me. That, and people routinely creating OPC severs for special applications in .NET...

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[mstone]

---- I bet you anything there is a clause in the EULA that says something like "this software is not to be used in life support equipment, nuclear power plants, or other life-critical systems."

Even if it is, that doesn't automatically take Wintel machines out of the loop.

A friend of mine develops industrial control systems, many of which are life-safety critical. The actual devices are controlled by PLCs, which are pretty damned bulletproof, but the control and monitoring software runs on Wintel machines. A Windows crash won't automatically wipe out the ammonia generating facility (where they heat natural gas to something like 5000* at 1500 atmospheres and then react it with superheated steam -- the walls of the control facility are 4' thick), but it will kill your ability to monitor the process, meaning you still have to hit the Big Red Button if you can't get the control interface back online within a reasonable time.

On a similar line, the Wintel machines in a hospital don't have to be running the life-support systems, they can just be storing all the patient records that doctors need to make diagnoses, set prescriptions, schedule treatments, and so on. A person who dies because the doctors couldn't get the necessary information in a timely manner is just as dead as the person who dies because the Machine That Goes 'Ping' BSOD'd at the wrong time. At an individual level, that doesn't generate much noise, but if someone dies because a major hospital's entire network goes down, the press will be on it like stink on sewage.

And while I'm sure Microsoft's legal team has already written the company an escape clause for just such situations (hell, they barely guarantee that there's a working CD inside the box), that won't stop someone who's just lost lots of money and face from suing anyway. At worst, they'll end up just as badly screwed as they were going in, and there's always a chance they might be able to win something. Besides, the court victory for Microsoft would be hollow, compared to the cost of the PR disaster and subsequent log-rolling to keep or win future contracts for large Vista installations.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[The_Morgan]

The thing I've noticed about industrial automation is that the programming software is typically made so that electrical engineers can write and maintain the code/logic. They have no training in computer security. Also if there is any disconnect between the customers and the programmers(term used loosely), such that the customers were not the ones writing the original sequence of operation or the logic wasn't written by the company that installed the system and does owner training, the security situation can be very dire.

I can't count the number of times I got requests to make a control system web accessable just so the 'janitor' could check that one temperature that he thought was the endall to keeping his process running.

For a industry that has a lot of promise it sure has a lot of growing up to do.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Bert64]

Wether there were ways to manually man the controls or not, if a failure occurred that disrupted the crew and required them to change the way they control the ship, the ship would be less effective for a time...
It doesn't take long for a missile to hit your ship and sink it, if a disruption like this occurred at a critical time the only thing that could save you, is the chance the enemy might be too busy laughing at you to shoot.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Single GNU Theory]

At the nuclear plant I worked at, the workstations were running a mix of Windows 3.1, 95, and NT4. However, they were mostly for checking e-mail and writing documents, etc. The IPCS (Integrated Plant Computer System) that carried on the plant monitoring, was not Windows-based and on a completely different network and set of hardware. The other heavy lifting was done on a VAX cluster.

Granted, this was almost 10 year ago, before W2K was available, so I can't say that they didn't put some Windows boxes in critical roles.

Re:I particularly like this bit:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not enough to actually convene a congressional panel over."

That is, until.... wait..

Yay! Fireworks!

You missed the best part

[overshoot]

Ah, but you didn't follow through to the conclusion: the fix, according to Microsoft, is to buy another license!

Now, I wonder how upset they're going to be if something like this gets loose? Hmmm....

So if WGA really screws itself up?

[Z00L00K]

what will happen then? A big pile of badwill for M$. OK, if it's overly complicated to hack it will also be overly complicated to administrate by IT departments and also very sensitive for businesses as a whole.

It seems to me that every step M$ takes to make sure that no illegal copies are around it will also create more work for the IT department. And what if there is an unexpected problem popping up causing all legitimate copies to be locked from the users due to a flaw in WGA? Who will be paying the standstill cost? Not M$ in the first turn.

It seems to me that alternative solutions like Linux and the BSD variants will benefit most from this. The latest versions of the Linux distros aren't really that complicated to install and use, even if there still are flaws. (most notably the X11 config, which can be a real pain to get right, even if Fedora Core 5 seems to work acceptable there). Another item that can cause severe dandruff is the SELinux package, but I assume that there are work in progress on that.

Re:So if WGA really screws itself up?

[CAIMLAS]

If Linux and/or BSD benefit, it's solely as a side-effect to the further adoption of Apple/OSX machines. Apple was well aware of MS's foolish maneuvering in this department re: WGA, and counter-maneuvered to feed the market where MS will fail.

Linux, I suspect, will mainly be employed as a sever network component - Samba, databases, directory services and what have you, all of which work much better with OSX than with Windows anyway.

What?!

[somethinghollow]

I didn't RTFA, but the quote in the summary might be the first thing I've read that Dvorak wrote that wasn't mindless trolling. He actually made a good point. I wonder how long he can keep it up.

Re:yes it will be fucked up its windows

[FudRucker]

why mod parent down as flamebait?, he is speaking the unvarnished truth...

considering microsoft's heavy hand & draconian EULA and abuse of monopoly powers, the parents post is a practicle suggestion... --not posting anony_mouse_cow_herd

No Incentive to Cause Failure

[miyako]

I really fail to see what incentive a cracker would have in making someone's legitimate copy of Vista appear to be illigitament. Granted, I'm sure somone will write it to see if they can, and it'll make it's way to a few people, but it seems counter productive for any big time cracker to do this.
Most of the people who send out these exploits aren't doing it to piss people off, they are doing it to make money. The thing is, a botnet only works when the zombied machines are running. If you are Joe Cracker, you want those machines up so they can be sending your spam, performing your DDOSes, and collecting information for you to sell to ad companies. What you don't want is for the machine to stop working so that the owner takes it in to be fixed - especially when the person fixing it might just put some antivirus software on there that will stop your bots from running (for a while).

Re:No Incentive to Cause Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

The word you have overlooked is blackmail. Threatening to shutdown a large chunk of the world's windows machines could be worth a lot of money.

Hell some people would pay to make sure they stay shutdown.

Re:No Incentive to Cause Failure

[jawtheshark]

I really fail to see what incentive a cracker would have in making someone's legitimate copy of Vista appear to be illigitament.

Read this: I fail to see why a cracker would be interested in deleting all my files and rendering my computer unusable.

I hope you understand the sillyness of your statement now. That kind of stuff does exist, if only for the "bragging rights" of the cracker. A more dangerous type of cracker might even use it to blackmail a company and thus even gain money by that way!

Re:No Incentive to Cause Failure

[giafly]

I really fail to see what incentive a cracker would have in making someone's legitimate copy of Vista appear to be illigitament.

So they can't use Windows Update to patch the security holes that the cracker is exploiting. Also - it's funny!

Re:No Incentive to Cause Failure

[miyako]

There have been a few people who have replied with similiar statements to yours, so I'm just going to address all of them in one reply.
The thing of it is, there have always been people who would write programs like one that would need to be written to make WGA fark up a computer just out of a sense of fun. In the past these people have been in the majority, now days though, most of the crackers aren't in it to have fun, they are in it to make money.
To reply to your example- yes there are virus out there that delete files- but think about what a small portion of viruses actually do that. Sure, they are out there, but on the other hand, when I clean up my families machines and remove two or three thousand pieces of malware none of it has deleted any files or disabled any programs.
As for the blackmail aspect, I admit that I hadn't thought of that, but even then I don't see it as being a big possibility. For the most part, if you have enough money to pay off a blackmailer, you have enough money to instead pay someone to re-image your machines.
I'm not saying everyone should feel all warm and fuzzy about this, WGA is bad and it will be broken quickly, I'm just saying that I think that there are probably more lucrative holes in Vista that will be exploited by the majority of crackers.

Re:No Incentive to Cause Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple. If you steal windows, you want WGA to fail. What better way to make MS remove WGA from windows, than to have every PAYING customer demanding that MS takes it out?

So, there is a real incentive from the pirates to make sure WGA fails.

honestly...when online validation began...

[Anonymous Coward]

i wondered how long it would be before someone either wrote a daemon to handle the task, or even better for some laymens, wrote simple firmware for a cheap home router/firewall that would intercept and handle these requests automatically...when we started seeing l*nksys ports of linux, i thought for sure someone would take those ports to the next level.

Shouldn't this have already happened?

[Jack Pallance]

This doesn't sound like news to me.

Activation is already a part of XP, and Genuine Advantage software has already been installed on lots of Windows computers. I'm not saying this will never happen, but it is not like this issue will be new with Vista. Rather, it's a problem for which we are already waiting to happen.

Re:Shouldn't this have already happened?

[BCW2]

Activation in XP is already a joke. All you need is a corporate key and you can activate anytime. M$ doesn't know the location of every corporate customers machines and as long as the number of seats paid for isn't exceeded you will get away with it. WGA is their way of fixing this "problem".

Check out Microsoft's wrongdoing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right here http://malfy.org/

Actually no

[tkrotchko]

The upgrade market for PC's is very small. Those days were long ago when Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were the hot OS. There's no incentive to pay $200 for a copy of an OS when $500 gets you a whole new machine with a copy already installed.

XP installs are almost all OEM copies, Vista will be the same way. The only people it affects are white box PC's (which are rare these days). Every PC that comes from a name vendor already has a license for Windows, which makes me wonder who the target is for these WGA activation patches.

Re:Actually no

[Anonymous Coward]

which makes me wonder who the target is for these WGA activation patches

Like all DRM (which I consider WGA to just be a bigger, fancier version of), the target is the pirates who will 100% of the time figure out how to get around it. The people actually affected/stopped by it are, of course, the legitimate customers.

I wonder if execs even ponder for a moment why people really rail against these solutions instead of assuming "Well they're just mad because they're all pirates."

Re:Actually no

[CycleFreak]

XP installs are almost all OEM copies, Vista will be the same way.

That's a good point - and one that I hadn't considered. I agree - 99.9% of the people with PCs running XP will not run out and buy Vista just because. Especially not at that price point.

I buy components and build my own PCs, so I have to buy the OS. Looks like a very likely choice for my next home-built PC is Linux.

Really?

[east coast]

What's even more unreliable and short sighted than WGA?

Dvorak!

This man is a looney but the second he says something people want to hear they chant his name like he's the new Moses leading you guys out of Egypt? Come on now. Get real.

Any other time 90% of the comments are "Dvo-crack is teh r3tard" but now everyone's all "Maybe this will mean Linux will meet the masses". I've been hearing this for years. Every week or so a new "Microsoft killer" is announced here... I'm sorry but everytime one of these come up we keep hearing that it's the straw that's going to break the camels back but I'm still just not seeing it.

Re:Really?

[bennomatic]

Hey man, Even a broken clock (at least an analog one) is right twice a day. If people didn't acknowledge that Dvorak is right when he is, then they'd be as silly as he often is.

Re:Really?

[east coast]

Just remember that a broken clock isn't right twice a day by any effort of it's own.

This is to say that, when it comes right down to it, there are more credible sources. Heck, at least half of the slashdot community has just as much, if not more, insight as Dvorak. I think I would be better off doing my own study instead of listening to Gimpy, er, John.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[revery]

he should be commenting on things like piano typewriters

It looks like you're composing a letter in the key of G, would you like some help?

Re:yes it will be fucked up its windows

[j0kkk3l]

Their cash cows are dying
I would like to see some proof for this statement. MS is far from dieing, as are Office and Windows. Windows still has a 90+ % marketshare in Personal Computers. Just look at how 5 years without a new desktop OS has hardly scratched them.

Good thing palladium is unbreakable

[ebyrob]

Otherwise Dvorak could actually be right!

In any case. I'm guessing this "software cop" will be down in the portions of Windows that are "impossible" for a user to modify. You know, the same part that won't let you play the latest Britney spears album without paying for it. If the Windows Platform Security Initiative has any success, then this "software cop" should remain uncorrupted. If not, people will do whatever the heck they want and Microsoft is going to have a really messed up userbase.

Oh, and don't forget the implications of the DMCA. Anyone caught hacking WGA or palladium is going down for 5-10, whether they're trying to help the situation or not.

Re:Good thing palladium is unbreakable

[Anonymous Coward]

assuming of course that they are in america. Countries without the DCMA or its equiv are a little more forgiving to their citizens

Two big issues with his doom and gloom scenario:

[araemo]

Two big problems with his proposed scenario:

#1: After vista 'detects' that your version is not legit, it gives you 30 days to fix that before actually shutting down.

#2: "Once a virus that makes the cop refuse to authenticate Vista hits the Net, then how can the problem be fixed? By definition and the way I see it, this will be an impossibility."

Well, while a small # of users will already be effected, I see something that prevents vista from being upgraded by paying customers is one of the few things that could convince MS to patch out-of-cycle. Fix the bug in WGA and release it after a couple days of QA.

He stole my /. comment...

[chill]

...so there isn't much point in repeating it.

Because Roland Piquapaille's been slow lately

[Anonymous Coward]

Without Roland's web-site whoring, the editors had to turn somewhere else to satisfy their fetish.

Multiple infections...

[supersat]

Better yet, what happens if the virus repeatedly switches the product key? MS would likely give instructions to victims on how to switch the product key back to the one glued onto the machine's case, but each time you switch it back to a legitimate key, it'd have to reactivate. Eventually, the key will refuse to be activated on suspicion on key sharing.

If MS takes steps to ensure that valid product keys can always be activated, then they'd introduce a new way of pirating keys.

You're young-ish, aren't you?

[Weaselmancer]

I really fail to see what incentive a cracker would have in making someone's legitimate copy of Vista appear to be illigitament.

To answer your question, please read this. To summarize, some people are flat-out bastards.

Maybe somebody beat you to it

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I'm going to start working... on a virus right now that effectively shuts down any Vista computer by causing WGA to always detect the OS as a pirated copy. ... considering the number of false positives that are cropping up on XP, it should be quite doable.

Considering the number of false positives that are cropping up, perhaps it has already been done. B-)

Unlikely

[bberens]

I find it very unlikely that someone will create a virus that will massively disable Windows machines around the globe. It won't happen for the same reason viruses typically are not destructive anymore. Once a virus has taken the system out of commission it ceases to spread to other machines. Virii need to keep their hosts alive in order to propogate. They WILL crack it to authenticate illegitimate versions of Windows, because that's like being able to print your own money.

Re:Unlikely

[Grishnakh]

I find it very unlikely that someone will create a virus that will massively disable Windows machines around the globe. It won't happen for the same reason viruses typically are not destructive anymore. Once a virus has taken the system out of commission it ceases to spread to other machines. Virii need to keep their hosts alive in order to propogate.

Viruses in biology don't quite work this way: they allow the host to stay alive long enough for the virus to propagate, but eventually the host dies. But by then, it's too late as the virus has reproduced and spread to many other hosts.

If someone wanted to create a WGA virus to trash Windows machines, that's how they'd do it: have it spread itself, and then after a certain amount of time or a certain number of successful infections, it'd release its "payload" and trash the system. Maybe (like other viruses in the past) it would infect as many systems as possible, and then at a specific day and time, it'd trash all the machines simultaneously.

This doesn't have to have a financial motivator behind it; I'm sure some people out there would find this very humorous. That was the motivator behind all the (mainly DOS) viruses in the 80s and early 90s that I remember.

Re:Two big issues with his doom and gloom scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so right! If you detach the 'net update module, how does Wista get the update that fixes it?

I'll tell you why it waits 30 days; because M$ believes that it can mail-out an update CD (more like DVD) to all of their regsitered users before the time runs out.

Here's the question, though: How will M$ know when to mail them out?!?!?!

- justThinking (crime or not)

Keep your hand off my fruit

[ColdWetDog]

no, poetic justice would be someone exploiting WGA to install ubuntu and move over all settings from windows without any user interaction

I'm on dial-up, you insensitive clod. Leave my modem alone!

Re:Keep your hand off my fruit

[disasm]

Well as long as you're already running linux, it won't affect you ;-)

Re:Grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

I appreciate your attempt to sound sophisticated by using "whomever", but in this case (the nominative), the correct word is "whoever".

A "payload" by any other name is just as malicious

[Torodung]

If they go ahead with the code to disable the operating system, Vista will be the first ever OS to ship with its very own payload. Virus writers will only have to find a way to trigger it. I say there's about a 25% chance of that happening, and that's too much. WGA is a security nightmare.

Expect Volume License editions that do not have this WGA "payload" built in on the insistence of corporate customers who will rightfully describe the OS shutdown code as an utterly valueless feature and potentially crippling attack vector.

WGA *subtracts* value if there's code for anything beyond nag screens.

And in follow-up, expect that VLK edition to be leaked to the public. The only people getting shut down by the "Vista WGA virus of 2007" will be the legitimate users!

Way to go Steve Ballmer. You're company is now producing a "malicious" OS.

--
Toro

MS market research

[Nicolay77]

I believe this is a result of market research:

- "Lots of people are paying $$$ to fix their spyware and troyan infections!"
- "Hey... it should be MS the one receiving the $$$!"
- "Yessir, I'm working on that!"

So, home users, expect to pay a lot $$$ in renewing licenses when you get hit by a virus.

Big virus outbreak and the WGA call center jammed

[Brit_in_the_USA]

If there was a quickly propagating virus written that made every infected machine report an invalid WGA then the call center that handles the WGA reactivation would collapse. It could be weeks or months before they could Handel that back log, unless the windows update website check for WGA was switched off so patches could be distributed to everyone (including the virus fix) - the side effect being that everyone for a period would be able to get windows updates.

Eventually the whole WGA approach would fail if more and more virus variants came out. It would be more trouble than it is worth. (how to tell the virus infected legit customers form the smaller minority of illegal users).....

I bet there are more consequences if given some more thought...

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[zlogic]

Uhm, perhaps they're meaning "You may not hack Vista Home Basic (or whatever the cheapest version is named) into Vista Ultimate by changing a registry key".

Oh For Sure It Is All Of It Is In The EULA

[EXTomar]

It is stated in the last few Windows EULA (I don't have the XP version in front of me) that it is not a real time OS and it should not be used for "mission critical" applications like medical equipment, power plants, aero-space, high power applications, etc. I highly doubt they'll retract this for Vista. In any event, reguardless of your feelings about Windows using a desktop for a "99.9997% uptime" application is insanity. You need a very different operating system for these types of applications.

And besides, many pieces of software, free and closed, including operating systems have a "No Warrenty" clause that says they are not responsible if the software blows up your hardware or destroys your data. If something goes wrong it isn't their fault. I'm fond of pointing this out because neither Microsoft nor any Linux kernel developer make the same level of assurances that their stuff not only works but doesn't destroy things (which is none from both).

Re:Oh For Sure It Is All Of It Is In The EULA

[Bert64]

If you get something for free, fair enough it comes with no guarantees...
If you pay for something, then you should definitely get a guarantee that it will *at least* live up to the marketing claims, and offer you a full refund or compensation if it fails to.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Grishnakh]

These aren't all the same Dvorak. The composer was Antonin Dvorak, John's grandfather. The keyboard designer was Dr. August Dvorak, his father. Unfortunately, this family line of geniuses stopped cold there, with poor Johnny being an idiot child and getting into journalism, making a successful career somehow of writing moronic columns in computer publications for 25 years.

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't matter what they mean; what matters is the exact wording of the license. The license says you can't work around any technical limitations. That sure sounds like you're not allowed to work around any bugs to me.

I for one hope they strictly enforce this clause on users.

Didn't this occur to everyone ?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Cause it did to me, when it was announced: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:G1hJ62O_NM4J: www.rachaelandtom.info/node/1369%3FPHPSESSID%3Dee1 3b39483045a55f2f217b75f26d5e4+site:rachaelandtom.i nfo+www.rachaelandtom.info/node/1369&hl=en&ct=clnk &cd=4

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[CoJeff]

That may be what they mean but it isn't what they said. If its one thing I figured out about legal stuff is that its all in the words. Also I doubt they will make it easy to find the regsitry key.

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[zlogic]

Bugs are not technical limitations. Converting a cheaper version into a more expensive is. Hacking a non-administrator account into full-access is.
Hell, I think that they may be referring to "don't try to run Vista RC2 after the beta license expires". Or "don't try to install drivers that are known to cause crashes and are forbidden to be installed".

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[zlogic]

I can't remember the details but I've read that changing XP Home into XP Pro is REALLY easy. Something like changing a reg key, an integer in a *.inf file on the installation CD or running some program (already included with Windows) with weird parameters.

DOS?

[Asprin]

I've been tossing around this idea for a while. Corps with massive Vista installations are now tethered to MS. What if someone DOSs WGA or figures out how to make the volume licensing corporate WGA middle-servers unable to auth back to MS? Every desktop in your company goes completely down

I thought MS was finally starting to get it, but it looks like I'm staying as far away from Vista as I can.

Dvorak just likes to talk about stuff

[sonixtwo]

On 10/9 on a This Week in Tech podcast (http://www.twit.tv/72), Dvorak said that Google will never buy YouTube. I haven't listened to it yet, but in this weeks podcast, I think he talks about it (http://www.twit.tv/twit73.

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[Grishnakh]

Bugs are not technical limitations.

How is a bug not a technical limitation? A bug can certainly limit your use of something, and it's most definitely technical in nature.

Well "Genuine Advantage" cost me 3 hours

[nastilon]

The genuine advantage software downloaded on one client machine, before I could tell windows to ignore downloading it. I logged in as administrator and registered it, and then later the end-user logged in, as a non-admin user, got the genuine advantage prompt and they ran it, clicked the wrong thing, and it disabled windows. Even though I had already completed the process, for some reason it stayed active and let a non-administrator user manage the license for the software. Why is that allowed? I ended up having to spend 3 hours on the phone talking to an indian guy reading codes over the phone to get it back up and running.

Re:A "payload" by any other name is just as malici

[freeze128]

Except for one thing:

Microsoft's 'built-in payload' does not PROPAGATE the virus. It just STOPS the PC from working. Now, tell me, how is a virus going to affect a large number of machines when it can't even REPLICATE ITSELF?

This is why viruses don't format your C: drive anymore. It's a lot easier to backup your machine now than it was when viruses erased your C: drive. Viruses like mydoom and nimda hit the front page of the NYTimes because they propagate, propagate, propagate!

Re:Two big issues with his doom and gloom scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

"#1: After vista 'detects' that your version is not legit, it gives you 30 days to fix that before actually shutting down."

If I am able to co-opt WGA enough to make Vista think you're a pirate, what's to say I can't make it think you've been that way for 31 days too?

What illegal copies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok Ok .. I know there are illegal copies available and yes, are in use by a few people but when 90 plus percent of all computers manufactured are shipped with a licensed copy of Windows, how much piracy can there be?

How many valid, bought and paid for licenses have been abandoned from computers now running Linux?

China?

That demographic can't afford to shell out for legitimate copies of Windows and if Microsoft manages to shut those machines down, they will switch to Yellow Dog Linux or the equivalent. Is not YDL the official OS of China anyway? If not Yellow Dog it is some version of Linux, not anything by Microsoft.

Russia?

I don't see Russia as a well spring of new Microsoft licensing.

Rest of the world?

As far as Microsoft recouping any OS license money, that's a financial desert as well.

In short, I believe MS has overstated and overreacted to the problem and will be lucky to recoup the money they have spent in trying. Plus, by impinging on existing users, legitimate and legal, they are losing goodwill already found in short supply.

Microsoft forgets that they became the most popular and richest software company on the planet during a time when piracy of their software was rampant.

Microsoft also fails to acknowledge that much of that piracy was frivilous. People having copies of Office installed they certainly didn't need nor would ever pay for even though it did help establish Office as a standard. In effect, piracy greatly helped bolster MS into a world standard across the board.

With licensing deals in place with all major manufactures and rudimentary license keys on software, piracy isn't what it used to be and this has been the case since at least version XP. To move beyond that level of limits and controls will simply serve to push people into looking at alternatives and that will begin to erode Microsofts base in turn.

It is almost as though Microsoft has become desperate and in a way we can see why. The company has the lions share of the market and cannot grow within that market any more in result. Microsoft is trapped at the end of the line and losing large chuncks of the market is odds on more likely than opening new markets to lionize. So the company takes more draconian measures in an attempt to maximise capitalization of their existing market which will encourage people to look at the alternatives.

At the same time, Microsoft believes that new money is to be found brokering media to their client base but to do that they have to appease those who control the content in a clash of monopolies. To realise this vision, Microsoft moving forward must be able to provide end to end security and control over content. This is the imputus of Microsoft Vista and it is therefore important that
Vista security not be broken. It is not a matter of piracy per'se but maintaining the confidence of the media providers that DRM isn't likewise compromised.

Piracy on the face of it, should not be that great of concern and any short term outlook for media exploitation of any Microsoft OS user base in China or Russia won't be bearing any fruit either. North America and the European Union is where the media money will be made if it is to be made at all.

Personally I believe the whole premise is a concept doomed for failure but that doesn't mean the Microsoft user base won't suffer in the interim.

Why try to crack WGA? Just run the code.

[Torodung]

My primary concern with the remote shutdown procedure is that there will be code, in exactly the same place, with exactly the same offsets, on every Vista machine in existence which is solely there to cripple a machine. Some rumours say that even Internet Explorer won't work.

In light of this, the challenge is far simpler than cracking Palladium or any of the impossible tasks being presented. All you have to do is activate that code! The payload is already there. All a malicious cracker needs is a valid jump table or a set of exports. He doesn't need to crack the user's registration hashes at all.

I imagine this would even be hard, as I'm sure no user context, not even Administrator, will be cleared to run that code, but even so it is still easier than cracking hashes.

Can anyone address the idea of just directly accessing the library?

Screenshot

[badpazzword]

This copy of Windows is not genuine.

You may be victim of software counterfeiting. This copy of Windows is not genuine and is not elegible to receive the full range of upgrades and product support from Microsoft.

Click Get Genuine now to get more information and resolve this issue.

[ Get Genuine ] [ Resolve Later ]

Uptime on Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

No there is no "warrenty" ..but the Linux (not windows) powred Mars rovers are still running long past expected. They are on day 973 of there 90 day mission.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Man Eating Duck]

I think he's perfectly aware of that, he's going for funny.
Did you leave your sense of humor at home today? :)

Re:Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves

[westlake]

Vista is an OS like no other.

Microsoft targets distinct market segments with Vista. In which the Geek is conspicuously absent.

Windows and the Mac split the PC market because users do not want to mess with the internals of an operating system.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Grishnakh]

I'm perfectly aware too. Did you read my post carefully? I'm pretty sure John C. Dvorak isn't closely related to either of the other famous Dvoraks (nor they to each other), but I was also going for funny with the bit about him being an idiot child.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Man Eating Duck]

Ah, sorry then. Way past my bedtime here now. Please ignore.

Let's call this "Pluto's Kiss"

[jameskojiro]

If there is ever darkware that turns off all windows, it will be pluto's kiss and we will have to switch to Altimit OS a linux derivitive.

How is this a problem?

[jorghis]

If a virus can get to the point where its torpedoing your keys or doing something similar to cause WGA to think you dont have a legitimate copy you are hosed anyway. It could just as easily delete all the autoupdate code that would be used to download security fixes if it has the ability to muck with WGA. This isnt some secret gotcha button attackers can use that no one thought about until Dvorak came along.

This sounds like a journalist speculating about things he doesnt understand.

Re:A "payload" by any other name is just as malici

[Steve B]

Microsoft's 'built-in payload' does not PROPAGATE the virus. It just STOPS the PC from working. Now, tell me, how is a virus going to affect a large number of machines when it can't even REPLICATE ITSELF?

Why would it need to? WGA would already be in "a large number of machines".

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[Grishnakh]

Don't worry; my attempt at humor probably wasn't that skillful and apparently fell flat on its face. It happens a lot. :-(
It's ok, though; every once in a while I hit pay dirt and get +5 Funny. I can handle a few failures.

Microsoft's genuine disadvantage..

[bdwoolman]

When Microsoft was making its bones in the early 1980s one of their big advantages was their no-copy-protection software philosophy. Copy protection was a big swinging deal back then. Everyone had it. Software manufacturers were paranoid to a fault over piracy and user reproduction. The protection was very breakable, but ordinary users found it impossible to deal with. Lotus 1-2-3, other operating systems, they all did it. It was a mess. Backups were a nightmare, system recovery was hard.

One company didn't do it. Microsoft got miles of cool points for making their operating system, and eventually their applications, easy to copy. There were legal barriers to reproduction but no technical barriers. People bought MS at premium prices because they could copy. System administrators knew they would have no difficulty making backups, or "educational" copies to take home to put on their systems. They also knew that things would not be difficult if they had to do a reinstallation. It was viral marketing at its most effective. The license agreement of course forbade such practices, but Microsoft winked at personal duplication. Licenses had to be bought, of course, because support was needed, especially in a large enterprise. My personal opinion is that the bugs in early iterations of Microsoft software were their insurance against wholesale ripoff. This is just a feeling.

I thought activation was a big mistake. I actually do think it slowed the adoption of XP if you can recall back that far. However it was easy to crack so the viral thing happened. Anyway Microsoft continued to thrive. I was living in Eastern Europe at the time of XP's introduction and cracked copies were everywhere. Pirate copies of the beta were in the electronics market in the months running up to final release. I am in Western Europe now so I don't know what the Russian and Ukrainian guys have done with WGA, but I can only guess. Vista will be zooted as soon as it hits the market. The Russian and Chinese pirates will not be slowed down at all from putting cracked versions onto hardware. Legitimate customers however will have no end of headaches. It's a crying shame.

The fact that this WGA is vulnerable to hacks is merely the bitter coating on the poison pill of this new form of copy protection, which is always a bad idea because it hurts your customers. DRM and copy protection are ideas that corporate lawyers dream up. Marketing men instinctively know they suck.

I actually think Vista might not even fly very well. Net services are coming. Linux could be attractive to eterprise in some circumstances. And there is always Apple waiting in the wings with good stuff. Corporate prejudice against the "toy computer" might well melt now that the OS is riding on an Intel platform. And there is also the iPod effect. Nothing sells like success.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's latest patch automatically installed itself and rebooted my computer even though I have set the update options to stop at the download. Feh! I didn't have any process running, so I skated, but that is practically a crime in my book. If Vista is going to walk all over me like that I won't want the thing. Certainly I am going to wait as long as I can before I get it. And if I can get away without getting it I won't get it.

Please Don't Feed the Dvorak

[__aawdrj2992]

The guy is a troll who writes his "articles" by stringing as many buzzwords as possible into one paragraph. Pretty soon he'll be telling us that Vista will run on a Mactel as a browser-based application but only for those who subscribe to Verizon FiOS, is Google in on this and how will this affect Net Neutrality?

Re:Unlikely, BS

[Your Average Joe]

What about the hackers in China or North Korea?

Don't you think for a minute that disabling the entire infrastructure of the USA would be a score? What the heck did Nimda, Blaster and Nachi do to the good old USA? The company I work for lost an estimated $2 million just from Nachi.

Re:Dvorak? What does he know about computers?

[jaelle]

Hey! I've been using the Dvorak layout for the last 4 years. It's done wonders for my wrists, and only took about 2 weeks to learn, after doing qwerty for 20 years.

People don't switch to it for the same reason people don't switch to linux. They think it's gonna be too hard. Dvorak was 10 times easier to learn than qwerty.

You all missing the REAL problem here:

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists. Vista will have a "kill switch" built in. Terrorists WANT to create havoc. It's easy enough to write a Trojan with some "cool" features that every damn Joe Sixpack is going to download and install. Then one day (how about 9/11/2007?) all these Trojans hit the the kill switch together. Poof. Gone.

My .net pacemaker gpf'd

[Spinlock_1977]

The sad part of all this is that despite warning numerous previous managers of such poor choices, they usually perceive the thousand bucks saved by going Windows instead of an industrial-strength RT OS as a brilliant strategic move. And think of all the cheap programmers available! Oops, now we have "cheap" programmers building our life-critical app on an OS not really suited to task. One day the statement "Blue Screen of Death" may take on a very literal meaning. Hope your .net pacemaker doesn't gpf.