111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

Post by hulahoof » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

SpaceL10n wrote: post #30

twawaaay wrote: post #8

It 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…

Post by mtrower » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 2:47 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #126

merb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good idea on computers with 100 mhz, an encryption algorithm would've probably not slowed down anything at all, especially not because there was no encryption extension.

My 166Mhz Pentium MMX laptop was encrypted too, with the full disk encryption feature of network associates' PGP Desktop. It could handle it fine even without AES-NI. Slower computers also had slower disk access so the burden wasn't big. I think there was just less focus on security back in those days. We used the same password everywhere, left thumb drives in taxis, used telnet instead of SSH and regular http.

Post by andrew_ » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 2:50 AM UTC

twawaaay wrote: post #8

It 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…

Post by technion » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 3:00 AM UTC

SpaceL10n wrote: post #30

twawaaay wrote: post #8

It 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…

Post by nicolas_t » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 3:10 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #134

arsome wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're pirating IDA Pro, you're probably the type of person who can figure out which cracks are real and which aren't pretty quick.

True yes but a lot of cracks are real and still include malware. And it can even be introduced remotely. A malware downloader is a few lines of code hidden among millions. Also analyzing malware tends to make one more paranoid. This is definitely a thing too. And the most powerful features of it like hexrays require cloud cooperation so they don't work :( I really wish it was affordable for individuals because I woul…