Ok so, I was inspecting Windows XP's WPA system, and it seems to me that it would be possible to crack it through the phone activation method. Why I am saying this? Let's look at the facts: There are already keygens in existance for Windows XP. For example, MSKEY4IN1, and many others. The installer will accept those keys. The key used to sign the Confirmation ID could be crackable! This is my key point here. Windows XP has been around since 2001, and the private keys used by MS to sign the activation requests were probably even older. If we assume that, there should be a way to crack it. Sure, the algorithm is strong (I think it's PGP, not sure tho), but the key itself might not be, due to the processing power of the machines in that time vs now. So, taking all that into consideration, could it be possible to make a sort of Confirmation ID generator that takes an Installation ID and returns the corresponding CID that msoobe.exe will accept?
For legality reasons I can not go into details involving illigal activation involving retail versions Windows xp but google: "xp activation via skype" "UK xp activation phone number" you do not need to make a generator. Besides the algorithm is weak.
The problem is that even if you use the phone system it can still not give you the Confirmation ID since it detects that the product key is not legit. The idea here is to crack the signing system so we can generate Confirmation IDs without depending on Microsoft.
Sorry, if that was possible, it would have been done by now. And MS would have changed their activation system, again. Wash, rinse, repeat. A war you cannot win. But why crack the Retail activation, if we have two other possibilities (OEM:SLP 1.0 and VLK) that can be easily used and are far more robust?
As you said, there are easier ways, that's why it has been done by those instead lf retail. Now, I'm not talking about convenience here, just about if it's possible or not. I asked this question here to see if anyone could provide more info on the system, such as the public key used to check for the digital signature returned by MS, etc.
You can be sure the experts have looked into it. It's always a question if it's possible and, if it is, how permanent the achievement would be. It simply doesn't make any sense to invest time into something MS will most probably replace a week later with a better version (thus making you start over from zero). Retail cracking never really took off.
I KNOW! But we are talking about XP here, MS will probably not patch it. It's also not a matter of needing to crack it, it's just a curiosity. What I am asking is if anyone has a link to a paper/dump with the technical explanation of the system. And no, not the licenturion one, that one explains how the WPA works with hardware changes, I'm looking more into the Confirmation ID verification part.
I've never seen such a thing, sorry. Also, MS keeps track of the XP product keys that have been issued. All others will always be unknown to the activation servers and thus invalid (even if they pass the local validity check, such brute force tools exist).