Vista for $8

Iranian hackers crack Windows Vista, sell it on street for $8 a copy

All the effort Microsoft has put into making sure this Windows would be the most secure ever appears to be somewhat in vain. Iranian hackers, operating through a legitimate software firm, have gotten past all of Microsoft's "anti-copying tricks". These hackers claim they will sell these illegitimate copies of Windows Vista through the firm they work for at approximately $8 USD a copy. What's really interesting, though, is how they managed to give each pirated copy of Vista its own serial number, so that they can register it through Microsoft as a legal copy of Windows Vista.

Finally a reasonable price:)

indeed :D lol we all knew it was only a matter of time

they make it, we break it :assshake:

WoW I would have given vista at lest a month before that happened, so much for the much for a secure operating system huh.

well technically i dont think the copyright protection being broken has anything to do with the actual security of the OS :p

Remember that XP was cracked the same day it was released, but later they came up with SP1 and SP2, and now the windows genuine advantage. There are ways around it, but they can be such a pain. Internet Explorer and Windows Media player even make the validation from the software during install, so downloading from a machine with a genuine copy and then moving the file to another PC doesn't work.
Anyhow, yesterday I ditched WMP 11 for Winamp, because WMP was sucking 20 to 30% CPU, and it did not read the tag from ogg files (it did play them but it categorizes them as unknown artist)

thats true Dehcbad but even with MP11 and IE7 there are ways around validation.I always read up on that kinda stuff.It's always interesting to see just as fast as MS pumpsthat stuff out people find ways around it.It's just a fact as smart as they think they are theres always someone smarter to find ways past it.

The target of this WPA, WGA is not the end user but unscrupulous OEMs. OK if you want to run a dodgy copy of Windows/Office/Media Player or whatever you can find some way to defeat the safeguards eventually - then they patch that then you find another way etc..etc.

But if you buy a PC from an unscrupulous OEM and then you get the 'This is not genuine' message a couple months later - the OEM will maybe have sold 100-200 pcs and all their customers are coming back and complaining. They can't afford to do the same continous patching cycle and are forced to use the real thing.

The difference with this by the sound of it is that the software activates properly and is therefore going to work fine, that's not what you get with the Corporate XP versions - they don't activate.