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

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

#171

Post by harha »

wkat4242 wrote: post #69
KronisLV wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. Here in Latvia that's still somewhat the case, at least according to statistics like these: https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/latvia-leading-in... I've personally seen people who choose to pirate everything from movies, to OSes and IDEs, and have no problem with doing that whatsoever. That said, I can kind of understand it, due to…

I used to copy like crazy but now that I have a good job I pay for most of my software. Mainly because I like to keep my computer clean from malware. If I ever need to run something pirated because it's ridiculously expensive (like Adobe stuff or IDA pro) I run it in a VM or an isolated machine. It's less out of an ethical sense though. Video I still pirate by the terabyte. Most of that comes from large media concern…

It’s funny how regular software now seems fishy now that everyone is calling home. I’m close to getting a VM or a raspberry pi to run Citrix and zoom because they have all this junk that runs at startup and removing it causes strange error messages.

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

#172

Post by jakogut »

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…

VDDF2-JJWM3-X7P27-FRHRT-8BVHT

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

#173

Post by ranger_danger »

zargon wrote: post #127
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.

In college I got by with a 75 MHz Pentium with full disk encryption. I didn't notice any performance penalty.

I'll take things that never happened for $200.

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

#174

Post by ranger_danger »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #60
metadat wrote: post #50

Earlier 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.

Not if their cryptography is done properly. Cryptosystems are designed to maintain their security even if the complete algorithm is known to the adversary. You'll commonly see this phrased as "don't rely on security through obscurity".

> don't rely on security through obscurity

if it's not obscure enough that it will be found, then you are correct.

but what's more secure than a password that you don't know? not knowing there is a password in the first place. if the answer is never found, how can it be insecure? I dub this schrodinger's security.

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

#175

Post by ranger_danger »

shanghaikid wrote: post #139
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…

In old days, software is not that soft. Floppy disk, CD, DVD are gone now.

fun fact: in Japanese, software is literally just called "soft", regardless of the medium. and hardware is "hard". no joke.

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

#176

Post by fsckboy »

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 may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s...

Your remembrances are valid, and fun to read, but people gotta temper their memories with how old they were. You're not describing "the 90s" as much as describing "being a teen and up to the usual teen highjinks"... in the 90's. I'm sure teens today have many equivalent sorts of hustles, but that's not how everybody lives. I had jobs with high bandwidth uplinks and could've downloaded boatloads of stuff. But I didn't because who needs the hassle of getting your employer a nasty call from the ISP, and I could generally buy the things I wanted. a lot of software downloads had trojans and other malware.

not trying to be a buzzkill, just accurate to the history. by way of signing off, let me say

astalavista

.box.sk

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

#178

Post by akho »

toss1 wrote: post #33
seydor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> late 90s and early 2000s you could download pretty much anything you wanted, immediately, for no cost. This is still true today btw, but the broader user base includes a lot more people willing to pay

What may prevent more of it today is that "cracked" software has been found to be a handy delivery mechanism for malware so, especially after the spread of cryptocurrency and ransomware utilizing it for payment, there is a reasonable fear of your download coming with an extremely costly payload. So, oddly enough, the transnational criminal gangs are helping the corporations in a way they never could do for themselves…

Decent torrent sites get rid of those very quickly. It’s corporations doing their own work by creating a scare.

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

#180

Post by mmis1000 »

lloeki wrote: post #49
hyperman1 wrote: post #42

Earlier 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

> A windows password would have been silly, pressing F8 at boot would drop you in msdos As it is to this day with many many Linux installs (unless some disk encryption is set up): edit the kernel command in GRUB and add init=/bin/bash. boom, you're root without any password.

There isn't only one linux boot manager in the world. Not every boot manager allow that.

But… you can still insert a bootable usb drive to skip it

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