Windows Vista Hacked Within Hours Of Launch

[cynatnite]

Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows Vista was finally released yesterday – and already a hacker has claimed to have broken the operating software’s encryption.

Five years in the making, Windows Vista has been described by Bill Gates, head of Microsoft, as one of “the highest quality products that Microsoft has ever released. We are excited to see what people are going to do with it.”

Though today’s Metro reports that a Candian security expert has already released technical details of how to unlock Vista’s video encryption, allowing him to now copy high-def DVDs on to his computer.

Microsoft isn’t going to worry too much however, as Vista is expected to be installed in at least 100 million computers by the end of this year, keeping Gates at the top of the money tree for a long while yet.

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=27388

[SpiralHawk]

1. D'oh

Thanks a pantload, Microsoft.

Bill Gates & crew must take their clues from Commander AWOL.

[havocmom]

2. Maybe what we are seeing is Karma

If Gates hadn't pissed off so many bright chaps with his methods...

[Ravy]

5. Microsoft Karma(tm) is not due for release until 2011.

:hide:

[havocmom]

8. That'd be about right. Mayan new world starts in 2012

Out with the Material World in with the World of Ether... Have you stocked up on ethernet cards? Gonna be bigger than duct tape and plastic sheeting ;)

[Taverner]

3. There is no reason to upgrade to Vista

It looks pretty, but it runs slower, you can't view HD DVDs without going through a million steps to "prove" theyre legit, everything else is hampered, and its impossible to find anything

Stick with XP or better yet, use Win2K

[iconoclastic cat]

6. I am THIS close to going to Linux.

I'm just working up the testicular fortitude.

[Swamp Rat]

12. Do it!

You won't be sorry once you make the leap. ;)

[IDemo]

14. I made the leap to Linux not once, but several times

And have leapt back and nuked the 'Grub-Lilo' bootloader from my machine. Tried Suse, Mandrake/Mandriva, Knoppix, and Red Hat. I have removed each installation after experiencing enough frustration with various system tools, and having to use terminal windows more so since my Dos 5.1 days. I would not recommend any current flavor of Linux to someone who is not already somewhat experienced with computing in general, and has more patience than I do. Simply doing so because you loathe Windows or Microsoft is not a good reason.

[Swamp Rat]

17. I loathe viruses and virus protection software, spyware, trojan horses,

and an operating system that crashes frequently.

I never had the problems you experienced with Linux.

[Occulus]

19. Try Fedora

I've used all the distros you mentioned, but I noticed you said "Red Hat" and not "Fedora", which makes me think you may not have seen it in a while. Fedora is a whole lot more slick than Red Hat ever was.

They're trying, hard, to address your (and many users') biggest concern- having to use the terminal. Sometimes, it's unavoidable, but then, I occasionally have to open up a "dos" box in XP to issue this or that command.

All that said, I have very little patience for seeing

Dependency failed: package foo-1.0.0.2-x86_64 conflicts with package foo-1.0.0.1-x86_64.
Installation aborted.

*sigh*

su -c 'yum remove foo'
yum search foo
yum install foo-1.0.0.2-x86_64

*sigh*

./configure
make

Make sandwich.

make install
make clean

foo

foo: command not found

Then I implode.

:D

[kineneb]

22. been using Linux for 5+ years

and have been perfectly happy with it. It is particularly good for those unable to do frequent hardware upgrades. I have it running on an IBM 600E Thinkpad (366Mhz Pentium II,<256K ram), it runs faster than 98.

[Taxloss]

9. I'm sticking with XP.

After three years of tinkering I've only just got it to run right.

[jsamuel]

10. If your getting a new computer, you have little choice.

[kineneb]

21. reformat, load Linux

yes, there still is a choice...

happy (poor) Penguinista!

[Occulus]

23. Totally not true

Buy a new motherboard and CPU with sound and networking installed (as most motherboards are). If you don't want to game, get a generic video card. Cannibalize your current hard drive and/or vid card and/or CD/DVD drives if you can or want to.

It costs a lot less than you might think. It can also cost more if you don't know how to shop for parts. Personally, I prefer to build my own- especially since one of HP's latest seems to be a possible harbinger of things to come: it doesn't let you run linux on it, period.

Apparently, HP wants you to have no choice but to use Windows. I smell antitrust.

Sure I do....

[MyNameGoesHere]

29. huh?

HP is a big supporter of linux servers and boxes.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/309906-0-0-0-121.html

The boogeyman can't be everywhere at once give him a break.

[walldude]

4. Hacked copies have been floating around the net for months

already. Hackers are hard at work getting work arounds for all the spyware and anti-piracy stuff embedded in Vista.

[cynatnite]

7. But aren't those beta versions? n/t

[walldude]

13. Yup.. sent out to beta testers to uncover bugs

the releases I've seen in the last 6 months have been near complete though. I tested it on a spare system I have, hardcore users won't find much to love, but the casual user will like it. It's much easier to use than XP, the hardcore will find that it's been dumbed down a little too much for their tastes. I'm going to hold out buying it till they get a few service packs out and the hackers can get rid of all the spyware, I don't think it will be necessary to own for at least a year or so.

[RegimeChange2008]

27. Not all of them.

The Windows Vista final was released to computer manufacturers around Thanksgiving so they would be able to pre-install new computers with Vista. This version of the final is always out 2 or 3 months before the retail release date, and so far it's always been leaked to the internet.

Uhh, or so I've heard O8)

[Little Wing]

11. It's not the activation that's been cracked, it's the video viewing system

I wish people would read more.

[Occulus]

24. In a way, this is better for us than an installation crack

This crack actually allows you to use the hardware you paid for to its full potential on the computer you paid for, running the OS you paid for, playing back the content you paid for!

Imagine that!!

:nosarcasmatall:

[Occulus]

15. As Scotty said in Start Trek III,

"The more they overwork the plumbing, the easier it gets to plug up the drain."

One DAY. 24 HOURS.

I'd like to send a message to all the content protection DMCA DHCP cheerleaders on this board: You can't win. Ever. Hackers will always- always- be able to beat you at your own game, and as we can see here, very quickly. Stop spending money on making it harder and harder for me to make legit copies after paying you (funny thing about that: the more you spend on content protection for "your" "property", the more *I* get to pay *you* for using it... I wonder how that benefits *you*)- do what Bethesda Softworks did for Oblivion, what Firaxis did with Civilization 4, what Tilted Mill did with Children of the Nile- GIVE UP. You can't win.

You won't win. We won't let you.

[gristy]

16. And this would be a bad thing for the consumer? For Microsoft?

For who?

[Tesha]

18. Golly.

[The Straight Story]

20. To be fair - vista copies have been floating around for awhile

So they may have hacked it earlier :)

[paparush]

25. The HD content encryption was broken (by a very clever hack)

A VISTA user loaded a HD DVD into his player and began playing the DVD. He took a snapshot of the systems memory and forwarded that snapshot to muslix64.

Since the blue ray disk was being played, the license key had to be somewhere in memory. Muslix stepped through the memory stream, 4 bytes at a time, until he found the license key that would decrypt a HD dvd..

VERY SWEET HACK!

[Beelzebud]

26. Content protection schemes will (and should, imo) always be cracked. On ANY OS.

[Poiuyt]

28. Get a Mac

I've never had to worry about viruses, worms, malware, hacking.

[MadHound]

30. Yeah, and water is wet too

After all, this is a Microsoft product, and this is entirely predictable. Hell, I'm suprised it took hours to do rather than minutes.

Just another reason that I'm glad I have a Mac, I don't have to deal with this shit.