Re: Info WGA sends to MS

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Leythos wrote:
In article <rsk982ds6d2ppd4dgtv2k0a3rab1mle3r1@xxxxxxx>, aegis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
On Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:43:07 +0200, Alias
<aka@[notme]maskedandanonymous.org> wrote:

The only information collected in the validation process is:

* Windows product key
* PC manufacturer
* Operating System version
* PID/SID
* BIOS information (make, version, date)
* BIOS MD5 Checksum
* User locale (language setting for displaying Windows)
* System locale (language version of the operating system)
* Office product key (if validating Office)
* Hard drive serial number
That's actually a lot of information. Why does it need information
about my hardware to determine if my copy of Windows is genuine or
not? What does that have to do with it?

If you read their site where the explain how WGA works, you would know that they save this information so that they can tell if your key is being installed on a bunch of computers in order to invalidate them. So, if you are the first to validate a key against the hardware specifics, it would be used to invalidate the same key against some unknown number of other configurations. At least that's my take on what they describe. So, it means that your key won't be stolen and used by pirates and then cause your own key to be invalidated on your hardware.

This happened in the MS Universal products a year ago or so, they found that a group of MSDN keys were being used all over the place and they invalidated them without notifying the real key owners - but they re-
issued new keys when asked....


Again, they should go after the people who steal the keys not force the customer to play cops and robbers in their game with the crackers. And what's to say that replacing a failed hard drive or flashing the BIOS wouldn't trigger a message every time you reboot that you have a counterfeit copy of XP? Has anyone tried that yet?

Also, what is PID/SID?

Alias
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Info WGA sends to MS
    ... BIOS MD5 Checksum ... User locale (language setting for displaying Windows) ... System locale (language version of the operating system) ... Office product key ...
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  • Re: Info WGA sends to MS
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  • Re: Info WGA sends to MS
    ... Those being unique to the Product Key version of the XP I have running? ... BIOS MD5 Checksum ... User locale (language setting for displaying Windows) ... System locale (language version of the operating system) ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)