Vista Activation Cracked By Brute Force

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Thanks to voidunknown for submitting this to the Front Page.

It appears that Keznews forum member Computer User has discovered a method that effectively obtains a Windows Vista key which can then be activated. The idea is a simple brute force attack: the software generates keys and when it finds one, you manually have to check if it activates. The 8-step method can take anywhere from two minutes to two days. Members of the forum have verified the strategy and claim it works. This technique should worry Microsoft, not because they are losing customers to piracy again, but because the customers who are actually spending the money on the latest Windows version may start being unable to activate the software with a legally purchased key. It seems that the main issue is time, and with today’s modern PCs, it really isn’t that much of a problem. Evidently, pirates would rather wait a couple of hours, than go to work and make the money needed to purchase a legal copy. The author of the article over at Keznews has a disclaimer which emphasizes that, "under no circumstances should anyone sell the key that they generate. I do not support Piracy, this was simply an experiment in which i used to practice my vbscripting. This was just for fun and was a complete accident! I strongly encourage everyone to purchase windows vista, and be a genuine customer!"

That hasn’t stopped him from offering his crack as a public download.

Link: Forum Discussion

News source: the Inquirer

(1 reply) #1 Aleck79 on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:44

"That hasn’t stopped him from offering his crack as a public download."

...lol, so I assume he wants to have a huge lawsuit on his hands? Thats just stupid.

#1.1 stadsport on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:56

Quote - (Aleck79 said @ #1)

You say it like they do anything about the tons of other cracks out there, like rearms/time stoppers.

(1 reply) #2 dev on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:51

not exactly a crack is it? thats like saying online games are cracked as pirates can just keep changing keys till one works

#2.1 adversedeviant on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:53

its like brute force cracking a password but only there are millions of passwords

#3 kiran_aryan on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:59

A big loss to the software giant. What will MS do ? Taking down the crack doesnt stop from users sharing it over p2ps.

(1 reply) #4 random_n on 02 Mar 2007 - 01:59

Uhuh. And how long will it take for Microsoft to limit invalid key attempts over a period of time? A day or two?

That's not a crack, and it's barely even a cheat. Brute force doesn't work when it's so easy for Microsoft to put a bigger guard at the door.

#4.1 +XP-RTM on 02 Mar 2007 - 02:18

it checks for keys offline then if it works u can try to activate... i dont think microsoft can do much except an update to change the way wpa2 works

(1 reply) #5 MrCobra on 02 Mar 2007 - 02:02

There also exists modified BIOS files that contain the correct OEM IDs in them to fool Vista in to thinking it's on an OEM machine.

#5.1 Krome on 02 Mar 2007 - 09:14

Yeah this bruteforce method doesn't consider something of good hack. I think the best one had to be the modding of BIOS to fool Vista to thinking it's an OEM machine. The bruteforce method, MS can still blacklist the key. The BIOS method is bulletproof but guess not too many people think it was worthy of news.

(1 reply) #6 +XP-RTM on 02 Mar 2007 - 02:17

lots of genuine customers are going to be upset when their key doesnt work ... good job microsoft lol

#6.1 Julius Caro on 02 Mar 2007 - 07:07

Not really... I don't thing there's a high chance that a key that takes you day to generate already exists. How many million of different keys are there?

(1 reply) #7 +Smigit on 02 Mar 2007 - 02:29

Quote -

I do not support Piracy, this was simply an experiment in which i used to practice my vbscripting. This was just for fun and was a complete accident!

Yeah sounds completely like an accident to me....

#7.1 Patchou on 02 Mar 2007 - 19:22

yeah, happened to me last week too while I was changing my wallpaper, that would be the "wow" factor I guess.

(3 replies) #8 Naughty Dog on 02 Mar 2007 - 04:02

Maybe if they brought their prices down at least 50%, this would not exist unless you are really cheap.

#8.1 +Smigit on 02 Mar 2007 - 04:22

People would pirate it anyway...I'm pretty sure MS has done their research here and have set prices that meet their requirements.

hell you can buy music for $1 a track but that hasn't stopped music piracy. In the end of the day many users would pirate it regardless of the cost.

#8.2 ciaran00 on 02 Mar 2007 - 14:43

Nice to know that $1 a track is cheap for you. It should be a buck a cd. $1 a track is worse than CD prices. For godssakes

#8.3 +Smigit on 02 Mar 2007 - 21:23

Quote - (ciaran00 said @ #8.2)

if you say so. For something thats a luxory however I find it quite reasonable and ANYONE can afford it.

(1 reply) #9 adversedeviant on 02 Mar 2007 - 04:40

this is what gets me, in the zip file they have keyfinder v1.5 but version 2 is the only one compatible with vista. icall bull****

#9.1 Croquant on 02 Mar 2007 - 13:32

Um, no. The 1.5.1 version of the Keyfinder does work in Vista.
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

#10 david13lt on 02 Mar 2007 - 04:49

Yup , just found this generator on my local bittorrent tracker and as I can see from comments, it really works.

#11 Gotenks98 on 02 Mar 2007 - 05:13

I feel this is the begining of the end of activation. If this gets out really wide spread Microsoft will have a really hard time with all the of this. This totally screws Oem customers out of vista if they dont get a chance to enter the key first. I still think the bulk of all these issues could have been avoided years ago had they kept their prices lower and not gotten to this point where we pay $400 for windows. It is true that pirates would still pirate it but you would get less folks switching to piracy because they feel the cost of windows is outrageous.

#12 Sp3ctranova on 02 Mar 2007 - 05:18

owned.

#13 leo221 on 02 Mar 2007 - 05:36

i just read a chinese site about a new hack. it also uses oem method without flash bios. the idea is to load modified bios into memory before boot. screens shots shows it works.

#14 macstorm on 02 Mar 2007 - 06:53

It's useless try to stop those guys.

(1 reply) #15 jimbo11883 on 02 Mar 2007 - 09:21

This "key generator" is useless for people looking for a quick activation. It can take hours, or even days to get a useful key.

#15.1 ronami on 02 Mar 2007 - 10:00

well, you legally got 120 days to find a key or a lot more if you use a timestopper hack.
What's the rush?

(1 reply) #16 kaffra on 02 Mar 2007 - 11:27

Evidently, pirates would rather wait a couple of hours, than go to work and make the money needed to purchase a legal copy

something strange about this statement

#16.1 +Smigit on 02 Mar 2007 - 11:47

yeah in a way it implies they are at home bludging. In reality most are active at work or something and could afford the OS but just dont want to pay for it.

#17 scyphe on 02 Mar 2007 - 12:35

This is a REALLY BAD form of piracy that can/will affect CUSTOMERS, not only a possible loss in sale for MS. REALLY BAD piracy is piracy that affects not only the company selling the product, it also affects the customers that actually paid for the software in negative ways. It's no better than stealing other peoples credit cards instead of robbing the bank directly.

#18 Foub on 02 Mar 2007 - 12:59

Any form of anti-piracy technology is a waste of time and money. It will always be circumvented eventually. Its not a matter of if, but of when.

#19 Glassed Silver on 02 Mar 2007 - 14:26

accident my a** lol
why the freck do u release it then... bastar*
i mean... if i find a way of creating a virus and dont want it to leak, i will not distribute it myself.
what a bad excuse

Glassed Silver:mac

(2 replies) #20 shawnie53 on 02 Mar 2007 - 14:35

...

Last edited by shawnie53 on 02 Mar 2007 - 16:59

#20.1 isock86 on 02 Mar 2007 - 15:34

are you sure you read and understand how this works? from what i getting from your post, you dont understand....

#20.2 kezzzs on 02 Mar 2007 - 15:41

When someone installs Vista without a key they choose which version they "purchased". They would pick Vista Ultimate and then put in thier key later - if the key that was discovered was for basic then it wouldn't work!

#21 Helba on 02 Mar 2007 - 18:45

It's kind of funny to hear that this actually works, but I think it's not that bad of a step. Screw activation. I hate it. Even with my legal key, I have to reactivate all the time. Now I have to do it the old fashioned telephone way, as well, because my key has been 'activated too many times' or whatever.

I read this on the Inq yesterday. Way to go!

#22 Windows Vista User on 02 Mar 2007 - 19:54

Where there is a will, there will be a way.

Look for activation for the next version of Windows to tie into your credit card or something, the lengths that microsoft will do to curve piracy.

#23 Emon on 02 Mar 2007 - 20:03

In worst case .. it will take 4613477611100251487689152970642 years to find a valid key.

#24 dl0711 on 02 Mar 2007 - 20:29

Any news from Microsoft on what they think of this?? would be interesting to know what they think of this method and of the OEM Bios method..

(1 reply) #25 trashpickinman on 03 Mar 2007 - 04:16

It was a fake, from the author himself.

#25.1 boogerjones on 03 Mar 2007 - 07:00

It's not fake, it would just take too long to be practically feasible. To guess 25-digit keys at random when the valid keyspace is unknown is just plain silly.

In theory, the "crack" will work. In time, people will learn more about the product-key algorithm, and that might help people guess keys. But it's not likely to happen any time soon.

#26 Gobelet on 03 Mar 2007 - 11:20

It's dumb. I followed the conversation from the beginning on their forum, and it has a lot of problems.

If he wanted to do a real keygen, he should've found the dll that checks the key, then use a little reverse engineering (already done for XP Keys - should be the same) to compute keys for Ultimate, Business or whatever. It worked at the time with that XP Bruteforce Keygen which took a long time.

#27 Sue1 on 04 Mar 2007 - 14:24

I'm glad Microsoft has another pain in the ass problem to solve. They sure made a pain in the ass for everyone else. Hey did you ever see them offering sales for any of their softeware? lol Never. They are greedy bastards

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