The truth about Windows XP activation
Posted on 20/05/01 19:01 by Jan Willem                             
The truth about Windows XP activation
Betanews has a nice article about the product activation of Microsoft's upcoming Operating System Windows XP. The article tells us the procedure Microsoft has in mind and also about Microsoft's view on both privacy and piracy.

For those who think it will be easy to 'hack' the Windows XP product activation, Microsoft has a suprise, according to the Microsoft employee in the Beta version of the OS this was easy to bypass, but for the final version this will be harder:

BetaNews: Does the apparent ease of cracking Microsoft's upcoming next-generation version of Windows concern the company?

Allen Nieman: Actually, product activation in Windows XP has yet to be cracked. I was able to analyze the "smart crack" that you forwarded to me and determined that it includes the same set of instructions that other so-called cracks do; essentially the setting of a registry key that disables activation. We made the existence of this registry key public to our beta testers back in early February and included it as a testing tool, telling them where it was and how to set it to disable activation. We knew what we were doing when we created it and we know how to remove it.

That said, the intellectual property (IP) protection arena is a cat-and-mouse game. All IP protection technologies will be cracked at some point; it's just a matter of time. So we need to take the measure of success into consideration. The measure of success is not completely stopping software piracy, which is probably an unattainable goal. Success is more likely measured in increased awareness of the terms of the license agreement and increased license compliance.


Very intresting article, read more by clicking on source on top of this newsposting.

Source: Betanews.com

Reactions
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By Kay, Sun 20 May 2001 21:09
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KayMaybe some microsoft employee will help us devil
By Guest, Sun 20 May 2001 21:59
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Removing a registry key as antipirary measure?? Ha Ha!! Like that's going to stop anything devil To be fair I guess atleast the guy deserves some credit for saying it WILL be cracked(Impressive insights there huh! Wink ) which it WILL be in a matter of days at the most. "If it's human made....."
By Guest, Sun 20 May 2001 22:47
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It is the same method as used in "Mijn Rijbewijs/Mon Permit" It took some months for that program to be 'key-genned', because simply there weren't enough ppl wanting it. I bet XP is 'key-genned' before it's officially released.
By Guest, Sun 20 May 2001 23:51
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I doubt that they will succeed in making a keygen for Windows XP... But a crack will without a doubt surface pretty fast after the final version is released!
By errorken, Mon 21 May 2001 00:04
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thats correct, but if you read the the whole story you'll find out that the _main_ goal of this protection is to stop "occasionally" pirates (ex. borrowig a office cd from youre friend and installing it on youre pc would make you a occ. pirate) they know it wont stop the "real" pirates Smilie
By the111, Mon 21 May 2001 00:27
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holding us back? how does 3 hours grab you!
By InterCepTor, Tue 22 May 2001 02:01
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I remember many years when a game called Robocop came out on the Amiga, it needed a dongle to be present. They simply reverse engineered the code, stripped the dongle checking routines, and remastered it. So there is no need for a debate about Windows XP Crack. WHAT CAN BE DONE VIA SOFTWARE CAN BE UNDONE. Product activation, is infact a breach of the end users privacy, in a sense it falls under the data protection act, so MS better remove it, or else they will be sued by millions globally because MS has been looking what is on yer home PC. In other words they are hacking, which is a criminal act, and MS could end up behind bars. :4
By Guest, Tue 22 May 2001 09:49
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Amen!!!!!! Wink
By ASTRAPI, Tue 22 May 2001 18:39
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MS ADVERTISE ALL PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT XP Smilie
By Guest, Mon 30 Jul 2001 07:00
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I am no computer expert, but i have seen some amazing cracks. I am from Pakistan. and Pakistan and India are the bigest markets for chineas cracked software. In front of chineas crackers this windos xp thing is nothing. just last week I received an e mail form my friend (who still lives in Pakista). He bought the full version of Office 2000 cracked for 1.5 dollars. He also bought a software known as 3d studio max (which uses hardware lock and requires a phone activatione) for 5 dollars. sorry microsoft but you are still screwed cry . and about casual copies, almost all of the young generation and kids are living in computer world, they know how to copy a cd on their cd burner and download a crack from some Taiwan Web site.
By Guest, Thu 23 Aug 2001 11:24
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I need the keygen for mijn rijbewijs I read TAFKAP cracked the code good work, please let me know where I can find it at wim.coene@pi.be
By Gertvdh, Tue 28 Aug 2001 21:27
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anyone has keygenerator for mijn rijbewijs zonder omwegen?
By Guest, Wed 21 Nov 2001 11:29
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Interceptor clown Although I hate to blow the microsoft trumpet, product activation doesn't infringe end-user privacy. It is a client-end hardware hash created by the software that is sent to Microsoft, and there is no way (I think...) to reverse engineer this hash. Even if it is reverse engineerable, what would be the point?

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