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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

[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: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: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.

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?