Remember Kids the vendor is mother the vendor is father...
Posted on 05/04/2006 10:36:48 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Some system administrators are finding that Microsoft's new anti-piracy software is incorrectly labeling PCs used in public places, such as university computer labs, as counterfeits, and that the solution sidestep a basic security practice for out-in-the-open machines, according to a newsgroup discussion of the issue.
After Microsoft unveiled its Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications tool last week, a university system administrator -- who preferred to remain anonymous but took the name "GodOfLions" on the Microsoft "WGA Validation Problems" newsgroup -- said that lab PCs came back as running fake copies.
"I work at a University where we have a bunch of Windows XP SP2 machines setup in lab areas," said GodOfLions in a message on the newsgroup. "In these areas students are allowed to log on to the systems, but their accounts are restricted to what they can do. The problem with the WGA installation is that it works perfectly fine as long as you are using an account with administrative rights on the system. As soon as one of the students, or other non-administrative level account, logs on to the system it screams that it is not a valid copy of windows and it is counterfeit."
A Microsoft staffer monitoring the newsgroup intervened, eventually diagnosed the problem, and offered a fix: give everyone, including the student systems running under rights-restrictive accounts, write access to a file called "data.dat."
"Validation tool writes data to data.dat file during validation process," wrote a Microsoft staffer identified as "Satish." So 'User account' needs to have Write access to file."
The system administrator eventually gave in to Microsoft's solution, but blasted it as violating the security concept behind limited-rights accounts.
"It does not make sense to have to reduce security in order to validate the system," wrote GodOfLions. "Yes it is only allowing write to one file, but still that is another small area you can have users or viruses now write to on a system that it didn't have before."
He also pointed out that the Microsoft tech support document outlining the rights needed by data.dat were still incorrect, and needed to be updated. As of Wednesday, the document had not been modified.
"Our lead architect has been informed and we are noting the changes necessary," was the response from Philip Liu, another Microsoft staffer. "I apologize sincerely upon the WGA team for causing this inconvenience for you," wrote Liu.
Hey Ill be the first to say I am a hacker, I am a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and am working towards my forensics (CFS) and penetration specialist certification (LPTC). What you fail to grasp is the difference between hacking and cracking.
And if all you had to say in response to me pointing out that the vendor solution weakened the OS security was 'go away you icky hacker' its a safe bet to say no one with a clue would let you try to secure their system.
Nobody can build a more secure box than a hacker and people pay hackers damn good money to verify their security.
Like I said, obviously you're a hacker or hacker wannabee, and your advice that end users rely on hacker cracks like this instead of the original vendor proves there's really no difference between hackers and crackers these days. As for your supposed certifications, based on your comments I simply don't believe you're certified in anything other than BS.
Unfortunately you don't know what a hacker is.. To you hacker=bad which makes you at best a PHB
your advice that end users rely on hacker cracks like this instead of the original vendor
When the vendor advises me to do something in a public lab which will make my workstations less secure your damn right people should look elsewhere for help
there's really no difference between hackers and crackers these days
Wow not even a PHB...
The issue isn't whether or not N3WBI3 is a hacker...it's whether or not it's appropriate for Microsoft to introduce a program that incorrectly identifies it's own legally installed software as pirated, and can only be disabled by reducing security, BY THE VENDOR'S OWN INSTRUCTIONS.
So, quit obfuscating by shooting the messenger.
Is your brain even capable of logic? It sure doesn't look like it!
Changing your settings to something the vendor recommends that may sometime somewhere expose you to hackers, is nowhere near as dangerous as going straight to a hacker site and running their executables.
But what do you imbeciles do? Send them straight to the hackers, without even a warning of what you are doing to them.
Stupidity is defined by someone who actually gets enjoyment out of listening to the barbarians rant on Jim Rome's smack off. No wonder you sound just like them LOL!
Remember Kids the vendor is mother the vendor is father...
This is exactly the Microsoft mindset: everybody runs as admin. It is the major reason their security sucks.
Yet this entire article is about how legal copies of Windows are getting hit with this, and ways to get around it so that people can use their legal copies of the software they purchased.
Do you really think Microsoft would be stupid enough to employ GE to troll? GE is a discredit to whatever he represents, and Microsoft can ill-afford more damage to its reputation, much less pay for the damage to be done.
And what do we do when the vendor fix isn't a fix, but instead instructs you to damage the security of your systems? Self-help for OS screw-ups, or seeking a fix from the OS community, is at least as old as UNIX.
Work it out with the vendor, obviously, instead of turning your computer(s) over to anonymous hackers, like you idiots keep recommending.
You're a disgrace and a disservice to those in need of actual help, it's like someone screaming for help because they're drowning, and you throw them an anchor instead of a life preserver.
They did work it out with the vendor, who said to damage the security of their systems as a fix.
instead of turning your computer(s) over to anonymous hackers
The fix does not involve turning your computer over to anyone. It involves taking various steps that disable the offending Microsoft code.
it's like someone screaming for help because they're drowning, and you throw them an anchor instead of a life preserver.
In this case, Microsoft is the lifeguard who gave a swimmer an anchor and as a solution to drowning suggests the swimmer try cutting himself to see if the sharks will come around and finish him off before he drowns.
Meanwhile, a fellow "hacker" swimmer simply suggests the drowning swimmer drop the anchor. That is our stance -- drop the anchor, because it doesn't look like Microsoft wants to turn the anchor they created into a life preserver.
Yes it does, he linked to some hacker site where they required you to run some .exe that did no telling what. Whatever it wanted to, since you couldn't stop it after you launched it, including deleting all your data files if it wanted to. Even the hacker himself had more responsibility than you bozos, as even he said use it at your own risk.
It was a script that performed certain steps that could be done manually, but are packaged for convenience. The nice thing about the hacker community is that all sorts of alarms would be raised if the script did anything bad, and the hacker's reputation would be ruined.
And don't think we've forgotten that you in your paranoia panic at the idea of going to the site of one of the world's most famous white hat hackers.
Even the hacker himself had more responsibility than you bozos
Interestingly, the hacker has more responsibility than Microsoft, which rarely makes such disclaimers before screwing up your computer.
I have never met a dumb Microsoft rep. They actually tend to be pretty cool guys.
There's no easy way to know what that .exe file does for sure. You anarchists just like anything that's nonconformist, no matter how dangerous it may actually be.
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