Circumventing Windows XP

You don''t have to tell them anything about yourself, and they don''t monitor your computer.... you''re either against pirating or you aren''t.

I don''t see why Microsoft had to make this registration thing, though. It''s not like pirating is causing them to go out of business.

-Forcas

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"Elvis is alive. He is Barney the purple dinosaur. He is the pied piper that leads our children into the wages of sin and eternal damnation."

And it doesn''t work either. Heck, 3 days before Xp came out in America, most of my friends were allready running it. No registration. Now, they all updated to a non-beta version. Still not registered. Heck, I also have a copy somewhere on my desk. But I doubt I''ll install it, ''cause that would put an end to our on-line gaming matches: right now, I am the only one whom can still start a fast server

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
I fully support that. I''m a game developper, and I hate piracy, but if it comes to M$ products: pirate them as much as you can. Why give M$ even more money ?

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If you don''t like Windows, don''t use it. Pirating Windows accomplishes nothing.

I''ve said it before, and I''ll say it again: Registration is optional. Activation is required. NO PERSONAL INFORMATION IS SENT TO MICROSOFT. All that is sent is a hash value computed from certain hardware components in your system.

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"Usewhitespacetoenhancereadability" - Steve McConnell, Code Complete

XP is garbage anyway. I''ve been using Pro (legal.. don''t jump down my throat) for about a week now on my gaming PC. It''s really laggy... especially in games (if you can get them to run at all)...

A question to those people that are so sure that MS is "evil" ..AND to those that are so sure that MS is not "evil" ..how can you be so sure ?

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NO PERSONAL INFORMATION IS SENT TO MICROSOFT.

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Don't you think that MS would be able to do this undetected if they wanted to ? ..yeah sure someone would notice it and scream about it.. but if you look around a bit youll notice that some ppl are screaming like crazy about all kinds of serious and unserious things about MS...

I guess the truth is probably some kind of average of the different stuff u hear.. its very hard to tell though. And to tell what is facts and what is not is as good as impossible.

Edited by - Jesper T on November 12, 2001 2:07:19 PM

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Original post by Jesper T
Don''t you think that MS would be able to do this undetected if they wanted to ?

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I doubt it. If they tried, many people would notice. If these people had _real_ evidence (e.g. packet dumps), then Microsoft would be in some serious trouble. But I haven''t seen any such packet dumps.

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I guess the truth is probably some kind of average of the different stuff u hear.. its very hard to tell though. And to tell what is facts and what is not is as good as impossible.

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That is so true.


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"Usewhitespacetoenhancereadability" - Steve McConnell, Code Complete

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
I fully support that. I''m a game developper, and I hate piracy, but if it comes to M$ products: pirate them as much as you can. Why give M$ even more money ?- JL

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How would you like it if your product was being pirated? Sure, MS ain''t going out of business no time soon, but still, those software engineers put in the time and worked hard on their projects I''m sure.

Also, in many a chat room, I witness hordes of (casual) game players talking about how the game industry has *enough* money. This is their reason why they pirate games. And this is their reason for telling all their friends to pirate games. Does this look familiar?

I too think it''s alright to use pirated M$ software; that''s what I''m doing now, and that''s what I''ve always been doing. What I don''t understand is why people want XP. XP uses the 2000 core, M$ has just added some colors and some more built-in shit.

I have a question: Is there something XP can do that can''t be done with 2000?

I just installed Windows 2000 pro - just another piece of worthless crap. It''s so nice to be back in Linux RedHat and KDE again after my ugly limited experience in junk-Windows.

I''ve almost never felt this much hate towards something, I want to kill, I would honestly blow up a M$ building if I was there with a bomb.

bacca bacca

haha I laff at j00 and I know xactly how u feel, i have win98.. fairly good puter (pIII 256ram), need to go through a special ritual to start it up.. crashes two times a day.. once in a while it suddenly restarts.. it never goes into standby mode no matter what i do and it makes strange noises.. i realize this migh be a hw problem, but I BLAME M$ THEY R EVUL !! :b
I dont feel an urge to pay for microsofts products, but i do though, cuz i know i have the option to switch to linux if i want to... something i am getting closer and closer at doing every day..

Something that bothers me thoug.. is that if i go to an ordinary pc shop to buy a pc... i will get a pc with windows on even if i dont ask to... I mean they should ask me when i buy a new pc: "do you want windows XP ready installed with your new pc ? or perhaps you want linux instead ?" ...thats how it should be.

edit: ok couldnt make the spellcheck work... just pretend there r no typos k.

Edited by - Jesper T on November 12, 2001 3:35:35 PM

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Original post by Series X4 1_0
I have a question: Is there something XP can do that can''t be done with 2000?

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Fast boot.
Fast user switching.
Skinnable GUI (without hacks like WB).
Driver rollback.
VESA and DMA support in NTVDM.
Cleartype.
Fast system calls.
Remote Desktop.
Side-by-side DLLs.
Multiple TCP/IP configurations.
Push locks.
64 Bit support.
System restore.
Logical prefetch.
Individual page charging.
1.3 Gigs of PTEs.
Direct execution from ROM.
WebDav redirecting.
Formatting DVD-RAM disks as FAT32.
Kernel debugging over 1394.
Unlimited registry size.
... and so on.

~~~~~~~~~~
"Usewhitespacetoenhancereadability" - Steve McConnell, Code Complete

Martee: Good one!

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Original post by Series X4 1_0 I too think it''s alright to use pirated M$ software

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So you seriously says that it''s ok to use illegal software if it''s from a certain company? That''s about the most stupid thing I''ve ever heard.

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Original post by Jesper T Something that bothers me thoug.. is that if i go to an ordinary pc shop to buy a pc... i will get a pc with windows on even if i dont ask to... I mean they should ask me when i buy a new pc: "do you want windows XP ready installed with your new pc ? or perhaps you want linux instead ?" ...thats how it should be.

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From what I''ve heard, all you have to to is to tell them you don''t want Windows. It''s not like they can force you to buy it.

*sigh* I guess it''s just cool to hate Microsoft these days. Damn those ''leet'' kids...

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From what I''ve heard, all you have to to is to tell them you don''t want Windows. It''s not like they can force you to buy it.

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No offcourse not, but its really sneaky I think.. and often people that are not so much into pc''s dont know that they also pay for a operating system.. they might not mind.. and windows might be easier for them to understand than eg linux.. but its not right to lure someone into buying something they havent decided wether they wanted or not.




while(consciousness){ while(beer){ drinkBeer(); if(sick){ vomit(); } } while(money){ buyBeer(); } if(consciousness && !money) { if((bool)(rand() % 2)){ stealBeer(); } else { stealMoney(); } } }

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Rudan

So you seriously says that it''s ok to use illegal software if it''s from a certain company? That''s about the most stupid thing I''ve ever heard.

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Well, I am stupid.

I think it''s OK to use pirated software from any company, and that''s because I''m a loser, I have no grades, no future, no friends anymore, I can''t get a job etc... so I really don''t have a moral, I don''t care about ''anything''.

HAHAHA too bad for M$ that I don''t pay them!

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Original post by Rudan
*sigh* I guess it''s just cool to hate Microsoft these days. Damn those ''leet'' kids...

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You could say that about anything, you''re just trying to get people riled. You know what I do due to my dislike of Microsoft? No, I don''t pirate Windows. No, I don''t pirate Microsoft''s other software (that''s why I''ve always taken 2 years to get up-to-date, heh). I use and develop for an alternate OS. I give people choices.

Insulting a broad group of people based on the actions and distinct views of the more vocal percentage is somewhat bothersome to the less vocal portion. Sure, I admit I dislike the company (I dislike a LOT of large companies due to their actions, it isn''t only Microsoft), but calling me and others "leet" really gets on my nerves, so cut it out.

You''ll notice I didn''t insult you, and you probably know just how much I want to. Why don''t I? Because I understand that emotions form faulty bases for objective arguments. I don''t see Martee (one of the many people who''s opinion I respect, even if I don''t agree with it all of the time) bringing up his own personal (and potentially insulting to others) thoughts.

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

For those of you who were wondering, Windows XP has cleanup software running in the background. It hasn''t crashed yet for me. You can run Windows XP using the FAT32(Windows 9x) or NTFS(NT) file system, so you don''t need a super-computer to run it.
I like Windows XP..... just my opinion.

-Forcas

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"Elvis is alive. He is Barney the purple dinosaur. He is the pied piper that leads our children into the wages of sin and eternal damnation."

www.mslinux.org

Null and Void: Sorry if I insulted anyone. I didn''t mean to, and maybe I shouldn''t have written that last thing. But it wasn''t aimed at anyone particular here. I have no problem whatsoever with people who actually thinks Linux is better than Windows. I''m sure it is in some ways, I don''t know, I haven''t even tried it! What I was talking about was those people who run around, screaming "Microsoft is evil" for no reason. If you ask them what''s so bad about Microsoft, Windows or whatever, they don''t know... I don''t know about you, but I have met quite a few people like that.
And that leet statement wasn''t really serious, maybe I should have put a smiley in there...
If you still want to, please feel free to insult me.

Jesper T: I agree with you. Although I''m pretty sure most people would choose Windows, at least they could give people some info first about their different options.

Nice try. From the FAQ accompaning the text file where you got that information:


>> 8. Why doesn''t Microsoft know which hardware I use?

Let us consider the case of IDE controllers. In the installation ID
transmitted to Microsoft they are represented by a 4-bit value. The 4
bits are obtained by applying the MD5 message digest algorithm to a
string that uniquely identifies the vendor and model of the IDE
controller, e.g.

''PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7111&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_01''

and picking 4 bits from fixed locations in the resulting 128-bit
message digest.

With 4 bits, we can represent 16 different values at maximum. However,
there are far more than 16 different models of IDE controllers out
there. So, since there are more models than 4-bit values, the above
hashing procedure must yield the same 4 bits for more than one
model. The more models there are, the more models will map to a given
4-bit value.

In contrast to what Microsoft says, the privacy that WPA provides is
not based on the assumption that it is impossible to invert the
employed message digest algorithm, i.e. MD5. If we used all 128 bits
of the message digest derived from a hardware component''s
identification string, this 128-bit value would most probably uniquely
identify the hardware component. If we used 128 bits, each hardware
component on earth would probably map to a different value.

What an attacker would then do is build a list of all hardware
components on this planet and calculate the corresponding 128-bit
values, which are probably all different. Then finding the hardware
component that corresponds to a certain 128-bit value is just a table
lookup away.

Privacy is based on the fact that only a few bits of the resulting
128-bit message digest are considered. Obviously this leads to lots of
collisions, i.e. lots of hardware components mapping to a given
value. If there were 160 different models of IDE controllers, we could
on average expect 160 / 16 = 10 models to map to the same 4-bit value.

Let us, as another example, consider the MAC address of an ethernet
adapter. The discussion is technically not 100% accurate, but it
illustrates the point. The MAC address is a 48-bit value, which means
that it can theoretically be one of 281,474,976,710,656 different
values. However, its 10-bit representation in the Installation ID is
obtained by picking 10 bits from the MD5 hash over an ASCII string
comprised of the 12 hex digits of the 48-bit value. Picking 10 bits
leads to 1,024 different results at maximum.

So, on average, we expect

281,474,976,710,656 / 1,024 = 274,877,906,944

MAC addresses to map to the same 10-bit value. Because of this, nobody
will be able to obtain the actual MAC address from the 10-bit value,
since there are 274,877,906,944 candidate MAC addresses from which the
10-bit value could have been derived.

It is interesting to see that the bit-field that represents the MAC
address is 10 bits in size, while the bit-field representing the IDE
controller only consists of 4 bits. Microsoft probably have assigned a
longer bit-field to a component if they expect more diversity in the
identification string of this component. The number of different IDE
controller models is smaller by orders of magnitude than the number of
different MAC addresses. So, to produce sufficient collisions, they
decided to use a relatively small bit-field for IDE controllers but
could still afford to chose a 10-bit bit-field in the case of MAC
addresses.

Allow me to repeat myself:
THERE IS NO WAY FOR MICROSOFT TO KNOW WHAT HARDWARE YOU HAVE IN YOUR COMPUTER. THE PRODUCT ACTIVATION CODE IS PRODUCED BY A ONE-WAY ALGORITHM.

Oh no. Microsoft knows that my MAC address is one of 274,877,906,944 specific ones. I''m really worried that they might use this information against me