Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ubuntu Linux Validates As Genuine Windows

Posted by kdawson on from the it-was-the-wine-talking dept.

bobbocanfly writes "Another crack in the Windows Genuine Advantage wall. A user at UbuntuForums.org managed to validate an Ubuntu installation as a genuine copy of Microsoft Windows and get to the download page of Windows Defender, using IE4Linux and Wine. (Here is an OGG video of the process.) Along with the advancement of LiveCD technology, this could spell the end of Microsoft's control over who gets their updates."

4 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"This could spell the end of Microsoft's contro by Fordiman · · Score: 4, Informative

    You kidding me? That's more interesting than anything else. I'd love to see *why* it does that, and *how*.

    For one thing, WGA is supposed to check Product key, PC manufacturer, Windows version, PID/SID, BIOS information, BIOS MD5 Checksum, Language setting and version, and Hard drive serial number, among other things.

    Since your winver and product key don't technically exist (I believe the former comes up as Win 98), I don't see how WGA gets a false positive in this case (which means it's also going to be an easy bug to track down).

    But, theoretically, since xubuntu doesn't need a 'valid' key, it may throw random numbers out (which would be very unlikely to trip the 'pirated' check, but would mean WGA doesn't check if your key is valid.

    --
    110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
  2. Re:I thought WGA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please, for the love of god and all things holy, mod parent up!

    I used to work at Microsoft. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons, so feel free to doubt what I'm about to tell you.

    Parent is spot on. The purpose of WGA isn't to block all attempts to pirate Microsoft software. As we've seen with countless articles here on /., dedicated people will bypass WGA. People at Microsoft know this - come on!

    WGA exists because unscrupulous PC manufacturers / PC builders will sell PCs with improperly licensed copies of Windows. i.e. they'll pay for one copy and install it on every computer they sell. Saves 'em what, something like $60 per computer? I forget the exact number of computers sold this way, but it's surprisingly high.

    So the thought is: you (or your mom, or gramma) buy a PC from one of these guys, you find out that they sold you a computer with a bogus copy of Windows, and you no longer do business with them. And you tell your friends, and they don't do business with them.

    As I said, feel free to think I'm lying to you. There are plenty of things to dig Microsoft about, but I'm afraid there's no delicious irony in an Ubuntu user validating their copy as Windows.

  3. MS has allowed this for AGES by batkiwi · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/08/ 2343248 2005 reference to the same thing.

    MS is looking for copies of XP that are nongenuine. Think of it as a negative return check, not a positive return check. The fact that it passed means that MS is fairly certain you're not running a pirated copy of XP (which is correct), NOT that MS is fairly certain you're running a valid version of XP.

  4. Windows Update alternative by AncientPC · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've always used Windiz Update as an alternative to Windows Update.