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#11
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Clean install of Win 10 ?
On Tue, 13 Nov 2018 19:38:05 -0800 (PST), Davej
wrote: On Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 4:48:51 PM UTC-6, Paul wrote: Percival P. Cassidy wrote: Are you sure that only the MAC address is used? I was attempting to use the hardware identifier with the most weight, as a simplified example of how it works. The alternate term I use "hardware hash", I'm not even sure of the mechanical details, and how big of a packet or table is sent. See now, that only makes sense to identify an exact configuration. That is part of what has had me confused. A hash is not the correct thing to use in this situation, because a hash changes dramatically if even one bit of the input changes. Agreed, they almost certainly do NOT use a hash, in the common meaning of that word. They have the disk space to be able to store the actual values that they collect**, and by having the actual values versus a hash, they can then see when some things remain the same even while other things have changed. As you say above, a hash would be limited to a boolean decision - the hash either matches or it doesn't. By collecting and storing the individual data elements, they can be properly weighted so that, perhaps, more weight is given to the NIC MAC. Obviously, they can't use only the NIC MAC or we'd all simply clone that MAC address and get free activation. **Regarding what specific info that they collect, I've never seen an authoritative answer to that question, but I agree with Paul that it's most likely things like NIC MAC, CPU ID, HDD SN, etc. To get an idea of what all they can collect, take a look at the file gatherNetworkInfo.vbs in System32. That script is an example of how to collect WAY more than just network info. I'm not saying they use that exact script, but probably something similar. For fun, copy that script to a new folder and run it, then check the output. There's lots of good info in there. |
#12
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Clean install of Win 10 ?
On Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at 3:55:33 AM UTC+8, Paul wrote:
If you never paid for Windows 10, then the following "generic, useless" license keys are provided. I'm quite used to seeing 3V66T for example. If you enter these in a license key box, the OS will laugh at you. That's because all the upgrade machines (7,8.1==10) use these. If you *buy* a license, then you get a unique key. VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T (Windows 10 Professional) YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7 (Windows 10 Home - multi language) BT79Q-G7N6G-PGBYW-4YWX6-6F4BT (Windows 10 Home - single language) Yesterday, I tried some keyfinders. One was a Lenovo, almost new, never fiddled with. Belarc Adviser and Licence Crawler both report a different key to what showkey.vbs does. Belarc had a note this may be the key embedded in BIOS. Also tried on a hard drive pulled from a fried PC. I believe it was upgraded from Win7 to Win10. Belarc say "key none activated" which I presume meant a digital licence. But Licence Crawler displayed the useless default product key (3V66T) But showkey.vbs gave a different key. |
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