UK government condemned on net address shift
A body set up to get the UK moving to the net's new addressing system has been shut down in protest at official indifference to its work.
6UK was set up to advise ISPs and firms about the move from version 4 of the addressing scheme to version 6. But 6UK has been wound up after its board realised its work was futile without official backing.The indifference means the UK is among the nations that have done the least to move to V6, it said.
Tech evangelism
"The biggest organisation we needed to join 6UK was the government," said Philip Sheldrake, former director of the non-profit body.
Although the UK government handed over £20,000 ($32,000) to get 6UK going in 2010, said Mr Sheldrake, support had been scant ever since. For instance, he said, nothing had been done to change official procurement rules to mandate the new protocol which would have had a significant effect on adoption.
"There's no material incentive for any organisation to go for IPv6," he said.
The internet grew up using an addressing scheme called IP Version 4 (IPv4).
In the 1970s when the net was being built the 4.3 billion IP addresses allowed by IPv4 were thought to be enough. However, the net's rapid growth has quickly exhausted this pool and led to the creation of IPv6 which has an effectively limitless store of addresses to call on. Europe effectively ran out of IPv4 addresses in September 2012.
Disrupt services
Official indifference was revealed, said Mr Sheldrake, by the fact that no government website sat on an IPv6 address.
By contrast, said Mr Sheldrake, countries such as the US had boosted adoption by mandating IPv6 compliance in contracts to force suppliers to work with it. The one factor that made a difference to a nation's adoption of V6 was government involvement, he said.
UK businesses and competitiveness would suffer, he said, as the world moved on with IPv6 but Britain stuck with V4. It was possible to translate between the two protocols, said Mr Sheldrake, but this could disrupt many services, such as Skype, that rely on using the same protocol across the entire net.
Government involvement with IPv6 sat at odds, he said, with its enthusiasm for other digital initiatives such as Tech City.
"If you were going to evangelise Tech City and the UK as a digital hub to the world you probably want to be building that on the modern internet protocol," he said.
A government spokeswoman said the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department of Culture "remain committed to the development of an open internet and regard the use of IPv6 as one of the technologies that is likely to make this possible".
She added: "The expectation was that it would be able to find wider funding and create a central point for the stimulation of IPv6 in the UK.
"We regret that this has not happened. We will continue to explore with industry and other partners the need for IPv6 and relevant ways in which we may be able to assist."
Microsoft hands Windows 8 Pro to pirates by mistake
For what is presumably a limited period, it's possible to just download Windows 8 keys directly from Microsoft -- keys that activate the Pro version of Microsoft's brand new OS.
You want a copy of Windows 8 Pro? Go ahead and download it -- Microsoft is giving the keys away for free.
According to VentureBeat, an interesting exploit on Microsoft's download page allows users to pick up a free copy of Windows 8 Pro -- directly from the website, and at no cost.
If you attempt to download the free Microsoft Windows Media Center upgrade, which is being offered until January 31, a strange side effect takes hold. Windows 8 Pro will be permanently activated.
For the pirates among us, this would provide a handy workaround for the tech giant's Key Management Service (KMS). Built for enterprise users, the KMS is intended to make deployment of Windows 8 through a KMS host and KMS client, making Windows 8 fully usable for 180 days before activation. In other words, instead of being required to input an activation key or reach Microsoft authentication channels on each individual computer, businesses can activate Windows copies on a local network and make the transition step-by-step.
Within the enterprise, making Windows deployment processes easier can only be a good thing. However, this does mean that by setting up pirate KMS servers, keys can be traded across the Internet for free.
One feather in Microsoft's cap, however, is that Windows has to be reactivated every 180 days using this method. Volume keys are no longer in use, and so each individual PC needs a unique key. Thus, "legitimate" activation cannot be achieved through multiple users activating through the same key.
As a result, pirates have had to come up with more complex methods, possible through the KMS system, but more time-consuming than simply downloading a Windows Media Center upgrade.
Once you've reached the desktop within the Windows 8 Pro installation and after applying a KMS key, using the new Windows Media Center upgrade key -- obtained for free by Microsoft's Web site -- does not result in a validity check. Therefore, any version of Windows 8 Pro, whether obtained through a pirate KMS network or not, will become fully active and "legitimate."
Stephen Hall at Windows Wave originally reported the exploit and was able to confirm that it works, at least for now.
Reddit user noveleven explained on a discussion thread why the method, in theory, works:
When you activate Windows via KMS, in the activation window it says "Windows is activated until..." and a date (so if you were to install it today, it would say it's activated until May). After installing the upgrade, the window just says "Windows was activated on..." and the date of activation. That means the activation is permanent. When you install the upgrade key, that replaces the existing product key; only the new upgrade key is used for future checks. Windows won't check the key you used to install because it no longer has it.
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