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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]

#211

Post by rft »

nicolas_t wrote: post #159
wkat4242 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, if only IDA pro had a hobbyist license :(

For what it's worth, IDA now comes in an IDA Home version [1, 2]. It is a one year subscription for 365 USD (single arch) and is cloud tethered for at least the decompilers. I no longer have access to IDA Pro via my university, so I am now using Ghidra. I can recommend newcomers to take a look at it or other tools (e.g. binary ninja), if you are not locked into your IDA workflow.

For me IDA Home seems to lack at least one key feature we needed back then: customizable CPU plugins. We had to extend one with a newer version of the instruction set. On top of that, that CPU type is not even available via Home. Also no RISC-V support (yet?).

On another note: the whole cloud based concept for a disassembler/decompiler with debug support sounds like a recipe for disaster. One wrong key press and you might run malware on an internet connected system. Even when only disassembling, I am tempted to run everything in an offline VM to defend against bugs in the disassembler.

[1] https://hex-rays.com/cgi-bin/quote.cgi/products [2] https://hex-rays.com/ida-home/

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

#212

Post by chungy »

OEM keys for Windows 95 followed a similar structure to the retail key, albeit with a lot more digits.

OEM Windows 95 keys came in the form of XXXXX-OEM-00YYYYY-ZZZZZ. The XXXXX grouping represents when Microsoft issued the key by day-of-year and year, and the operating system would validate any number where the first three numbers range from 001 to 365 (or 366 for year 96), and the last two X digits were 95-99. The YYYYY group must be a multiple to 7, excluding the number 0. The ZZZZZ group is basically noise and anything is permissible in them.

Now you can run a Windows 95 keygen in your head. You're welcome :)

Actually I believe Windows 98, Me, and 2000 have a similar scheme but they obfuscate it with some algorithm to generate the 25-char alphanumeric style that Microsoft continues to use to this day. I've never dug into how it goes, but you can see the 95-style key on System Properties post-install.

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

#214

Post by zxcvbnm »

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…

Everyone used pirated software, Bill still got rich, software developers did make a living, and software prices did not cripple companies. Good old times.

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

#215

Post by ptsneves »

ilyt wrote: post #112
SpaceL10n wrote: post #30

Earlier 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…

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.

Keep in mind that here in Poland it is said cdprojekt of Witcher and cyberpunk fame started by selling bootlegged western games. I do not have a source for this.

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

#216

Post by psychphysic »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #209
psychphysic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the gaming space prompt cracks are still common place. Empress cracked Hogwarts Legacy in about 2 weeks to much fanfare[0]. Cracker efforts are now even crowd funded. Maybe this is a Peter Pan moment, you grew up but the ever-child world of Piracy continues. [0] https://nfomation.net/info/1677131115.EMPRESS.nfo

The goal is to not have it immediately cracked on release, so for that the copy protection does work. To protect it indefinitely isn't the main objective. The copy protection should be called malware though, because it basically is. Same goes for some anti-cheat tools. I think it should be made more transparent if a game uses such tools.

Sometimes it is cracked immediately on release. Hogwarts Legacy had a playable beta crack in only a few days.

Denovu v17 is broken but it still takes work to apply the process and it's tedious which is why only one person works on any/all game (Empress) (a few others only crack single games presumably those they enjoy themselves).

Although I'm sure 2 weeks is a very nice cushion, ideally it'd be at least a month.

There is a conspiracy theory that Day 1 patches are to mitigate cracks.

I've taken my eye off DRM as I believe the real big issue will be cloud gaming.

But Empress at least cracks Denuvo due to not liking the idea of intrusive DRM.

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

#217

Post by stevekemp »

dools wrote: post #97
stevekemp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, there are a lot of sites out there back in the day that a lot of oldtimers would remember. My personal favourite was astalavista, named in relation to the legit search-site altavista I guess. Actually I take that back, my favourite site was +fravia's reverse engineering pages. Mostly because the legitimate crack-sites were safe, but there was always a risk of downloading something with a virus, or a trojan…

> My personal favourite was astalavista, named in relation to the legit search-site altavista I guess. That name contains two very iconic pop culture references from the 90s: altavista and the terminator

I noticed the terminator connection, but I wasn't too sure of the timescale - which came first.

Anyway it's a definitely a nice memory!

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

#218

Post by metadat »

porbelm wrote: post #204
metadat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devils0wn Windows XP Final serial key, yeah baby! Seared into my mind forever after entering it so much: FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXKRT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 I used to reinstall windows anytime anything got weird, which was often because I was always messing with disabling combinations of system services in attempts to reduce OS memory consumption. Wtf is svchost.exe doing? I don't want it! Wireless Zero Config? I don't have Wi-Fi, too fla…

Very close to the key I had memorised, but now forgotten; although mine had RQ2D3 in the second part and something else at the last part (I think. But am positive about RQ2D3)

Win98 serial.

https://old.reddit.com/r/windows98/comments/6trdvf/working_w...

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

#219

Post by nezza-_- »

MrYellowP wrote: post #193

You've posted this 12 hours ago, which was roughly when it showed up in my youtube feed. Did you post this, because it showed up in your youtube feed?

It seems like the YouTube algorithm started randomly recommending it to a lot of people (before it landed on HN)

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

#220

Post by consp »

Dalewyn wrote: post #148
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 was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. To be fair, this is specifically to do with personal computers of the time; MS-DOS, Windows 3x, and Windows 9x were all single user operating systems: They simply had no concept of multiple users at all. The concept was bolted on later as an afterthought, but it was really janky and paled in…

I distinctly remember having lots BSODs with IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors due to shoddy drivers all the time on XP (which is the first consumer NT kernel windows version), especially in the early days. Maybe not related to shared memory but overall not great either.
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