The sum of last 7 digits has to be a multiple of 7, not sure if I remember correctly but definitely very simple
111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
111–120 of 269 posts
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#112It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…
It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…
My friend from school basically got his entire PC upgrades for good 5-6 years paid because he "invested" in CD burner (then-expensive devices requiring SCSI card to even work) and profited off copying business. Think it was around age of 10.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…
When I was a kid it was an actual thing to know how to lift postage stamps off of envelopes with rubbing alcohol so they could be reused to mail pirate floppy disks to your friends. Try explaining that to a kid today and they'll think you had a stroke.
Uh, here since forever post office put rubber stamp mark on stamps to prevent that, I'm surprised there is country that doesn't
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#114It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…
It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…
It was so common that "something cd key" was a common search term. And people would put that in the wrong input box/window such that they would end up typing that in chat rooms. In some of those, people would reply with the same "something cd key" followed with "to you too", as if it were some form of greetings. Later on, people would show up saying "something random cd key" as an actual form of greeting, not a mistake.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always thought the password was for the network shares only. You could perfectly log in without a username and password, except networking partially fails. The login dialog only appeared after installing win9x networking components. A windows password would have been silly, pressing F8 at boot would drop you in msdos
Ah, this reminds me of one time being an amazing average-competence hero. Labmate: “my Linux install is borked, now my files are all gone” :( Me: “Fortunately here in 201X (for low values of X) full disk encryption is rare! Let me introduce… another use for the install drive!”
I remember grepping my entire 2GB hard drive for some files (a bunch of scripts) I lost when doing some Linux shenanigans...
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…
When I was a kid it was an actual thing to know how to lift postage stamps off of envelopes with rubbing alcohol so they could be reused to mail pirate floppy disks to your friends. Try explaining that to a kid today and they'll think you had a stroke.
Now you can just buy bootleg stamps on Amazon. Search "Forever Stamps". Amazon catches them frequently but then they just liquidate the stamps. My local Amazon returns store has them upfront 100 for $10.00 and they have tons of them.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#117It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…
cm3hy-26vyw-6jryc-x66gx-jvy2d reporting for duty. Probably did 50-100 OS reinstalls a week so it is burned into memory.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the length of Windows serial keys is not that long, why couldn't one extract the check function and run an iteration attack to generate valid keys? Edit: @ale42: makes sense, thanks for putting this one to rest. 36^25 is approximately 8 x 10^38 which is a really, really big number.
There are 25 characters, each of which has 36 possible values. So 36^25 possibilities, and log2(36^25) = 129.2. There are basically 129 bits of entropy in there, so good luck bruteforcing it. This makes me think of a shareware app (I think an icon editor) for Windows 3.1 back in 1994 or so... I could find a valid registration key by entering random numbers by hand in around 2 minutes. And I wasn't lucky as I tried an…
> There are 25 characters, each of which has 36 possible values. So 36^25 possibilities, and log2(36^25) = 129.2. There are basically 129 bits of entropy in there, so good luck bruteforcing it.
Kinda depends what is encrypted there. If it is just "magic number + SKU + licence ID" and there is no online check whether that combination is valid then you're "just" trying to hit one that's valid and that cuts few bits off equation as there is spectrum of keys that will be valid but not generated by Microsoft.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#119It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…
Microsoft software (and borland) were easy to copy, but it was not the case before. There were many tricks to protect software like "weak bits", "laser holes", fancy sector layout. We had special software to copy protected disks.
Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…
It was so common that "something cd key" was a common search term. And people would put that in the wrong input box/window such that they would end up typing that in chat rooms. In some of those, people would reply with the same "something cd key" followed with "to you too", as if it were some form of greetings. Later on, people would show up saying "something random cd key" as an actual form of greeting, not a mista…
Reminds how typing an album name into Google used to autocomplete to add MediaFire right after it.