[iwar] [fc:Chinese.crackers.dampen.WinXP.celebration]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-30 06:27:30


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Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 06:27:30 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Chinese.crackers.dampen.WinXP.celebration]
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Chinese crackers dampen WinXP celebration 
By Nick Farrell, vnunet.com, 10/30/2001
<a href="http://www.vnunet.com/News/1126503">http://www.vnunet.com/News/1126503>

A Nottingham-based security company claims Chinese crackers had disabled
Windows XP's anti-piracy system within a few hours of the product's
launch. BitArts Labs' chief technology officer, John Safa, said that
crackers have developed illegal installation files that bypass the
registration process for Microsoft's new operating system. "These files
can now be downloaded from websites in the Far East and cracked copies
of Windows XP, with the protection mechanism stripped out, can be
downloaded from Warez sites across the internet," Safa said. Safa added
that his company warned Microsoft about its flawed anti-piracy system
when it tested the product during its beta phase. The Redmond giant said
the problems it highlighted would be fixed in the final version. "But it
wasn't, and now crackers have studied and bypassed the security by using
publicly available monitoring tools," Safa said. He dubbed Microsoft as
naive for underestimating the high level of technical intellect within
today's cracking community. "If they'd taken our advice, they really
wouldn't be having these problems," Safa said. While Microsoft was right
to introduce licence activation, it needed to adopt a much better
approach. The design of many software companies' activation technologies
- and this includes Microsoft - provide no barrier to today's advanced
cracking techniques. "Companies must learn to understand cracking
ideologies or they will be consistently caught out. The industry is
educated in the art of hacking, but the elusive world of cracking allows
the inner workings of applications to be reversed and modified," Safa
said.

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