Microsoft's Genuine Advantage program cracked in a day

Filed under: OS Updates, News, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial

Microsoft's Genuine Advantage program cracked in a day

by Marc Perton Jul 28th 2005

Well, that didn't take long. Just 24 hours after its release, Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage" program — which was supposed to block users of pirated software from using the Windows Update service — has already been cracked. And what's the crack? Just one line of Javascript that you can enter in IE's location bar before accessing Windows Update. Kind of reminds me of that CD DRM system that was defeated with a magic marker.

Check it out.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

mick said 11:30PM on 7-28-2005

awesome me hate microsoft
their shittie software is overpriced
keep cracking but stay clean!

ajp2116 said 11:43PM on 7-28-2005

It doesn't work. I typed in the javascript as told and, then it proceded with the scan for updates like normal. Then it prompted me with the verification of authenticity. I typed:
javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

Adora said 12:18AM on 7-29-2005

Did you type it in and then hit enter? It'll look like nothing happens, but it worked for me.

Not that I wouldn't have a true and genuine version anyway... >_>

:: Lisa
:: adora [at] techslut [.] net

hafa said 2:01AM on 7-29-2005

yep. what'd i said ?

Virion said 3:34AM on 7-29-2005

You can disable the WGA Add-on and that still works just as well, it's in the Tools menu in IE. Microsoft even has a help article about disabling Add-ons. I'm still suprised it hasn't made the rounds as well, yet. I got the new optional Outlook Express patch today fine. The only thing IE does is pop a little icon in the bottom saying the site tried to access a disabled Add-on.

Nicole Simon said 4:12AM on 7-29-2005

I might be tempted to use it too - and I do own a bought copy of XP.

But I do not like to be treated pirate because others are.

Erzengel said 9:17PM on 7-30-2005

A dayy? it really took that long? I expected something like "1 hour after" or even better, "1 day before" lol

JinFX said 7:01PM on 7-31-2005

this is better than disabling the addon afterwards b/c the whole point is to not have to wait for the download

so wat if i use dialup...bruin online is free...ok...T_T

Virion said 10:30AM on 8-01-2005

In reply to 8:

I guess that's one way to look at it, though with the people normally savvy enough to know these tricks they tend to have a faster connection (though I do like free, so I can't blame ya.) I think the real purpose of this is to avoid the software, I just meant that there was another way to avoid the proccess in general, and it just seems nobody on any of the sites that posted the link to boingboing has acknoledged it yet, especially considering it was an already existing feature of the browser and required little time to uncover and exploit (the suggestion to disable it that I saw predated this fix posted in the article.)

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