Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005, 4:39 pm
One Line of Code = Free O/S
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An article from Techworld proves how ridiculously easy it is to break the Microsoft authenticity check, which is needed to allow users to get software updates such as the common Service Packs. It is yet another story which reflects terribly on Microsoft and their security loopholes. Perhaps they try to make it easy and encourage distribution of illegal copies of Windows, just as they turned a blind eye to piracy in the far east. Some would argue that they simply cannot program a mechanism that is sufficiently secure.
To carry out the hack, users simply needed to insert the following line into Explorer’s address bar before the WGA authentication check was carried out:
javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')
This revelation is utterly embarrassing for any manufacturer whose annual revenue pushes the high billions. It took only a day since its announcement for WGA to be broken. Ironically, believe it or not, WGA stands for Windows Genuine Advantage. Piracy was definitely an advantage which promoted Microsoft when it was still in its diapers.
