Microsoft Confirms Windows Vista OEM BIOS Crack
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 11.4.2007
Tip: Click here to update all your PC's outdated driversMicrosoft confirmed the fact that hackers have developed a valid Windows Vista crack designed to exploit the operating system's OEM BIOS activation.
Alex Kochis, a senior licensing manager with the WGA team revealed that the OEM Activation was a measure introduced concomitantly with Windows XP and designed to streamline the deployment and activation process of the operating system.
“Microsoft worked with OEMs to develop an implementation that would work best for them and their customers while keeping the goals of product activation clearly in focus. As we looked to develop a solution, it was important to ensure that product activation technology could still deliver an acceptable degree of protection, while at the same time, reduce the need for an extra step by the end user,” Kochis revealed.
The Redmond Company introduced a marker in the BIOS of the OEM's motherboard that identifies OEM systems. Via this action, Microsoft managed to intimately connect Windows with a value in the BIOS of the motherboard, and with an OEM machine and an OEM licensed operating system.
“Over the years we've seen examples of BIOS editors that, with some work, allowed people to make an edited BIOS appear to be an OEM BIOS. Because Windows Vista can't be pirated as easily as Windows XP, it's possible that the increased pressure will result in more interest in efforts to hack the OEM Activation 2.0 implementation,” Kochis opined.
As of now, Microsoft revealed that it is aware of two cracks that exploit the Windows Vista OEM 2.0 activation. One method is essentially the same as the OEM cracks implemented in Windows XP and it involves editing the BIOS of a motherboard in order to masquerade the motherboard as an OEM product. Kochis classified the process as labor-intensive and risky due to the fact that users can render the motherboard completely useless. “So while this method works today, it's potentially hazardous and really doesn't scale well to large numbers of systems, which makes it less of a threat,” Kochis added.
As far as the second OEM workaround is concerned, Kochis promised that Microsoft will have little trouble in tackling it as it simply involves a software crack designed to make Windows Vista believe that it is running on OEM hardware.
“We focus on hacks that pose threats to our customers, partners and products. It's worth noting we also prioritize our responses, because not every attempt deserves the same level of response. Our goal isn't to stop every "mad scientist" that's on a mission to hack Windows. Our first goal is to disrupt the business model of organized counterfeiters and protect users from becoming unknowing victims. This means focusing on responding to hacks that are scalable and can easily be commercialized, thereby making victims out of well-intentioned customers,” Kochis concluded.
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Comments(25)
newer methods of cracking vista will be faster than the newer version of wga
you can't stop us now or ever bill, haha.
dont worry
this is not good.. hopefully this crack is not too popular so microsoft will leave it
alone. hey microsoft, go close down a warez factory in china instead!
of course if you own a machine with real oem bios, and just used the crack to install an
oem certificate in a better version of vista, there's not much ms can do about it...if
you have a machine with valid oem bios, that means you bought a version of vista with your
machine and ms got some licensing money anyway, so its probably not a huge priority.
i paid for an upgrade to ultimate, but the upgrade process is such a pain in the ass
(ms won't give you a new activation key, you have to install your original oem version
from the backup partition, not the upgrade disc, and then go online and perform an online
upgrade using your digital locker every time you want to do a reinstall).
this
oem bios crack makes it much easier for me to use the license i paid for.
i am very curious to know why microsoft has left such a window open in their activation
system. the rational that they wanted to avoid having the customers go throught the
activation process is not convincing since this could be done automaticaly upon connecting
to internet.
is it a marketting trick or what? any idea?
hi guys, i'm here to say that i was one of the unknowing victims of a pirate windows
vista.. yep, i downloaded this thing called "paradox vista volume activation" and what
happened was, it fully activated the copy of vista that i had unknowingly downloaded from
the net. so now, i have a fully activated copy of vista ultimate that i did not even pay
for... oh noes! i am a victim! help what should i do? i didn't pay for vista and it's
fully activated and will work forever as if i had actually paid for it! nooooo! now i have
$400 extra dollars in my pocket that i don't know what to do with... please help me get
rid of this money someone! help me pay microsoft so i'm not a victim anymore! :( :(
the guy "none" is right. as long as you have the real bios for the emulated system and
you just instaled the cert for your brand then theres no way for m$ to know what sytem is
legit and which ones not......... period! i will be dl the so called "bios killer" w/o
any fear for fun.
you can send the money to my paypal account
the last quote pretty much sums it up. they're not perusing bios mod crack, at least for
the time being. it's no way for ms to tell is your copy legitimate or not. they probably
won't catch bios loader too since it's basically transparent to the system. they're as
good as bios mod. bios emulation, however, could still be defeated since it leaves trail
of footprint in system services.
i'm using the paradox bios emulation. note that i chose the same brand bios emulation as
my computer. does that make any difference as to the risk of being killed by ms ?
i
think i've better turn off automatic vista updates now. anyone knows what that emu bios
killer is called or when it is due ?
to those who are using these cracks understand that if you choose your windows updates
carefully, you'll never get burned.
tip: create a vmware vista build with your
crack installed and use it to test updates,,,,,,,,,,
those people at redmond should know better...there will always be a better crack and
their software isn't invincible. people made windows and people will always find a way to
crack it. right bozos ?
right bozos ?
damn right!
this article is great news!
it proves that microsoft doesn't really care
about stopping hobbyist crackers. they just want to go after the bootleggers who actually
sell cracked vista on an installation cd.
good to see that microsoft can
differentiate between pirating that actually hurts their revenue (aka bootleggers selling
cracked vista for money) and pirating that actually promotes their product (free spreading
of cracked vista among the tech savvy).
unlike the riaa and mpaa, microsoft
knows how not to shoot itself in the foot.
"people made windows and people will always find a way to crack it."
can't
agree with you more!! :]
and this website is a hooot! thanks for the laughs....and btw...billybob gates..r.educe
the price of veeesta to $59.95...sell a quadzilion copies...and forget about paradox (a
group and a person who i have conversed with many times...great guy....hyper-intelligent
and simply motivated by "because i can".
kochis added:
"as far as the second oem workaround is concerned, kochis promised
that microsoft will have little trouble in tackling it as it simply involves a software
crack designed to make windows vista believe that it is running on oem hardware."
which one is easy to detect????
the paradox vista activator or vista oem
activation tool kit 0.5 .... the 1.5 toolkit was removed from keznews due to a letter from
m$.... anyone??
he said the first oem "kochis classified the process as
labor-intensive and risky due to the fact that users can render the motherboard completely
useless. “so while this method works today, it's potentially hazardous and really
doesn't scale well to large numbers of systems, which makes it less of a threat"
can anyone confirm that you can get updates without getting caught or that genuine shit
coming up?
yes, you can update vista with the oem toolkit illu. i'm actually a visually impaired
user of vista (meaning that i use a screen reader that reads outloud what's goin on with
vista). this can ultimatly mean that i can get some neat stuff (like extra logs or object
titles/properties) for an application that would otherwise require a regular user to look
in the source code.
hey i bought vista ultimate only for 3us$ in sri lanka
the vista activation form using the oem tech suc.ks , i had vista fully activated since
1 january 07
the hackers will always win the battle with microsoft
you speak with members of paradox ?, to the poster above. i highly doubt that buddy.
firstly if you did they would eat you alive for stating so, secondly a person with
such contacts would not bother posting in a lame ass site like this.
so get a
life and stop lying to yourself.
you know i bought win95 and i run and update xp and vista now have never had problems i
just kept in there. always remember we are better then m$. and yes i did buy win 95 and
that was the last os i bought. mind you it the only program i bought.
i have a legit copy of xp pro, let that be said right now. as a business owner here i
need a copy of vista for
practice on how to repair the multitude of problems
that are going to occur with my customers machines. i however
am not going to
give you $400 for a piece of software which i would be hard pressed to justify the price
of $150
for. you priced yourself's out of the market for the average
customer. did you ever consider that people wouldnt be
putting forth the
extreme effort to pirate this software if you were not gouging them by the eyeballs? how
much
money would you make at $50-$100 a pop, hundreds of millions, instead of
half a billion? vista underlies why people
pirate your sofware, you over
charge and under deliver. i'm going to continue to use a bios emulated vista as a
testing machine, while sticking with my legit xp as primary, mostly because vista is
inferior to xp currently, and
possibly in perpetuity, and i refuse to pay 4x
more for an inferior os. did you ever think that by simply lowering
the price
of your os, instead of constantly trying to counter the piracy aspect you just might
actually increase
sales? if you make it hard to copy, but cheap to buy, people
will buy it. if you make it $400, well, then you just
make piracy more
attractive. it's that simple folks, you can try to come up with all sorts of defenses
about why
you have to charge this, and piracy is evil plain and simple, but
point is you're greedy. you've priced yourselfs
out of what the majority of
the population is willing to pay, and you've made piracy that much more attractive. i'd
have paid for an upgrade to vista ultimate, but now why bother. paradox has
given you your just desserts, and i
hope the public gets fat on that, as
opposed to your bank accounts getting fat with the hard earned money of the
average consumer.
Windows 7 RTM 7600.16385.090713-1255 HERE !
Cracked Vista
By Macieqqq on 11.04.2007 - 13:04