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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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/

Stop submitting this dolt

[jzuska]

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

[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:

[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:

[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:

[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.

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.

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).

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

[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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :-)

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".

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

[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".

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.

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 ]

Re:Validating

[risk one]

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

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?