Green hills forever: Windows XP activation algorithm cracked after 21 years

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2 years ago

May 26, 2023

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The slowest warez team ever — Green hills forever: Windows XP activation algorithm cracked after 21 years Please, please, please do not actually install XP and use it. But if you must

Kevin Purdy – May 26, 2023 2:45 pm UTC Enlarge / With this background, potentially the most viewed photograph in human history, Windows XP always signaled that it was prepared for a peaceful retirement. Yet some would have us disturb it.Charles O’Rear/Microsoft reader comments 11 with

It has never been too hard for someone with the right amount of time, desperation, or flexible scruples to get around Windows XP’s activation scheme. And yet XP activation, the actual encrypted algorithm, loathed since before it started, has never been truly broken, at least entirely offline. Now, far past the logical end of all things XP, the solution exists, floating around the web’s forum-based backchannels for months now.

On the blog of tinyapps.org (first spotted by The Register), which provides micro-scale, minimalist utilities for constrained Windows installations, a blog post appropriately titled “Windows XP Activation: GAME OVER” runs down the semi-recent history of folks looking to activate Windows XP more than 20 years after it debuted, nine years after its end of life, and, crucially, some years after Microsoft turned off its online activation servers (or maybe they just swapped certificates). Advertisement

xp_activate32.exe, a 18,432-byte program (hash listed on tinyapps’ blog post), takes the code generated by Windows XP’s phone activation option and processes it into a proper activation key (Confirmation ID), entirely offline. It’s persistent across system wipes and re-installs. It is, seemingly, the same key Microsoft would provide for your computer.

Tools for generating keys that Windows XP would accept existed long before this entirely offline little programlots and lots of them. But they were typically software hacks or brute-force decryption tools that, while locally accepted, would not validate with Microsoft (for what that’s worth now). Another tool, WindowsXPKg, deliciously hosted on the GitHub servers Microsoft owns, can generate keys but requires an external server that, as of this posting, no longer seems to be operating.

Most people won’t actually, hopefully need this tool. Fully functional XP images that you can sandbox inside a virtual machine exist in many places, including Microsoft’s own Windows XP Mode for Windows 7. And, of course, installing a highly unsupported XP on a device that’s connected to the modern Internet is malice aforethought. Let us all enjoy this for the rhetorical, mathematical victory that it is, while we say a small prayer for those dealing with hardware that truly needs XP. reader comments 11 with Kevin Purdy Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering a variety of technology topics and reviewing products. He started his writing career as a newspaper reporter, covering business, crime, and other topics. He has written about technology and computing for more than 15 years. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Related Stories Today on Ars

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MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after historic Commons vote

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3 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after historic Commons vote

MPs have voted to approve a historic bill that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was approved by 314 votes to 291 at its third reading in the House of Commons – a majority of 23.

Politics Live: MPs back legalising assisted dying in historic Commons vote

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the legislation, was seen crying in the chamber as it went through.

Campaign group Dignity in Dying hailed the result as “a landmark moment for choice, compassion and dignity at the end of life”.

“MPs have listened to dying people, to bereaved families and to the public, and have voted decisively for the reform that our country needs and deserves,” said Sarah Wootton, its chief executive.

The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where it will face further scrutiny before becoming law.

Due to a four-year “backstop” added to the bill, it could be 2029 before assisted dying is actually offered, potentially coinciding with the end of this government’s parliament.

The bill would allow terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.

MPs have deliberated the proposals for months, with a vote in November passing with a bigger majority of 55.

Since then it has undergone some significant changes, the most controversial being the replacement of a High Court Judge’s approval with the expert panel.

Ms Leadbeater has always insisted her legislation would have the most robust safeguards of any assisted dying laws in the world.

Opening the debate on Friday she said that opposing the bill “is not a neutral act. It is a vote for the status quo”.

She warned that if her plan was rejected, MPs would be asked to vote on it again in 10 years and “that fills me with despair”.

MPs have brought about historic societal change

A chain of events that started with the brutal murder of an MP almost 10 years ago has today led to historic societal change – the like of which many of us will never see again.

Assisted dying will be legalised in England and Wales. In four years’ time adults with six months or less to live and who can prove their mental capacity will be allowed to choose to die.

Kim Leadbeater, the MP who has made this possible, never held political aspirations. Previously a lecturer in health, Ms Leadbeater reluctantly stood for election after her sister Jo Cox was fatally stabbed and shot to death in a politically motivated attack in 2016.

And this is when, Ms Leadbeater says, she was forced to engage with the assisted dying debate. Because of the sheer volume of correspondence from constituents asking her to champion the cause.

Polls have consistently shown some 70% of people support assisted dying. And ultimately, it is this seismic shift in public opinion that has carried the vote. Britain now follows Canada, the USA, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia. All countries with sophisticated health systems. Nowhere has assisted dying been reversed once introduced.

The relationship between doctor and patient will now also change. The question is being asked: Is an assisted death a treatment? There is no decisive answer. But it is a conversation that will now take place. The final answer could have significant consequences, especially in mental health settings.

There are still many unknowns. Who will be responsible for providing the service? The NHS? There is a strong emotional connection to the health service and many would oppose the move. But others will argue that patients trust the institution and would want to die in its arms.

The challenge for health leaders will be to try and reconcile the bitter divisions that now exist within the medical community. The Royal Colleges have tried to remain neutral on the issue, but continued to challenge Ms Leadbeater until the very end.

Their arguments of a failure of safeguards and scrutiny did not resonate with MPs. And nor did concerns over the further erosion of palliative care. Ms Leadbeater’s much-repeated insistence that “this is the most scrutinised legislation anywhere in the world” carried the most weight.

Her argument that patients should not have to fear prolonged, agonising deaths or plan trips to a Dignitas clinic to die scared and alone, or be forced to take their own lives and have their bodies discovered by sons, daughters, husbands and wives because they could not endure the pain any longer was compelling.

The country believed her.

The assisted dying debate was last heard in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated by 330 votes to 118.

There have been calls for a change in the law for decades, with a campaign by broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen giving the issue renewed attention in recent years.

Supporters have described the current law as not being fit for purpose, with desperate terminally ill people feeling the need to end their lives in secret or go abroad alone, for fear loved ones will be prosecuted for helping them.

Ahead of the vote, an hours-long emotionally charged debate heard MPs tell personal stories about their friends and family.

Maureen Burke, the Labour MP for Glasgow North East, spoke about how her terminally ill brother David was in so much pain from advanced pancreatic cancer that one of the last things he told her was that “if there was a pill that he could take to end his life, he would very much like to take that”.

She said she was “doing right by her brother” in voting for it.

How did MPs vote?

MPs were given a free vote, meaning they could vote with their conscience and not along party lines.

The division list shows Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer voted in favour of the bill, but Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch voted against.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who will have to deliver the bill, also voted no.

Read more: Find out how your MP voted

Bill ‘poorly drafted’

Opponents have raised both practical and ethical concerns, including that people could be coerced into seeking an assisted death and that the bill has been rushed through.

Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said she was not opposed to the principle of assisted dying but called the legislation “poorly drafted”.

Former foreign secretary James Cleverly echoed those concerns, saying he is “struck by the number of professional bodies which are neutral on the topic of assisted dying in general, but all are opposed to the provisions of this bill”.

Recently, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians have raised concerns about the bill, including that there is a shortage of staff to take part in assisted dying panels.

However, public support for a change in the law remains high, according to a YouGov poll published on the eve of the vote.

The survey of 2,003 adults in Great Britain suggested 73% of those asked last month were supportive of the bill, while the proportion of people who feel assisted dying should be legal in principle stood at 75%.