Brian Dorey

Brian Dorey | Tech Enthusiast | DIY Maker | Software Developer

🚀 Passionate about electronics, software development, and DIY projects.

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Not sure if Apple Support is supposed to be used like this when painting walls above stairs

[Dave W Plummer @davepl1968]

This is the story of FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8.

I was the primary author of Windows Product Activation on the operating systems side. Not the key math – those were the ACTUALLY smart guys with heads so big that they bumped the doorjamb on the way into your office. I just did the protection of and integration into the operating system.

As you likely recall, Product Activation required that you have a key, and you’d have to activate it online or over the phone.

But Microsoft had large corporate customers, think hundreds of thousands of PCs, and those customers did not want to have to activate every offline PC. So in that case, you would be given special “Volume Media” that could be unlocked with a Volume key.

That way, a volume key could never unlock your retail CD.

Now, to know what media you have, I inspect the disc image. And the Volume licensing media contained a special binary blob that I made. It was about 10MB of data, entropy stripped, hard to duplicate on Usenet at the time. And it was only present on the Volume media.

That secret data, which I hashed and checked to match to the key, was Microsoft Bob. I took their disc data and compressed and encrypted it several times. Rest assured it’s encrypted and even in the AI age no one has extracted it yet. I really just needed random data, so I started with a precompressed binary image because, secretly, I was young and didn’t know if I could trust CryptGenRand 

And so, if you ever tried the FCKGW key on a regular XP CD, it wouldn’t work, because you didn’t have Bob buried in your bits.

But if you had the means in 1995 to download large ISO binaries or copy CDs, all it took was the key and a copy of the disc.

The key itself still had to pass the product-key validation math (the part I didn’t own). Once it did, WPA simply skipped the rest of the process. That combination—valid VLK + matching volume media—is what made the install look fully legitimate, including early Windows Update checks.

How it leaked

RTM went to manufacturing on 24 August 2001. Retail launch was 25 October. Roughly five weeks before launch the warez group Devils0wn (often written “Devil’s Own”) posted a complete, non-beta “Windows XP Pro Corporate” ISO together with the FCKGW key. That ISO was the volume media. Pirates then started baking the key into images or just writing it on the CD with a Sharpie. The famous photo of the marked-up disc is from that scene.

The most plausible source is an OEM or hardware partner that received final media early so they could ship PCs on launch day. Dell is the name that comes up most often; Intel has also been mentioned because of later source dumps. There were very few organizations that actually possessed a VLK that early, which is why the timing points at a partner rather than a random corporate customer. But I do not know. Presumably someone does.

Aftermath

We started blacklisting the Product IDs that belonged to the leaked keys (FCKGW decoded to one of the 640-range PIDs we later treated as toxic) in SP1. SP2 and Windows Genuine Advantage made the check more aggressive and also started blocking updates for those installs. Other, un-leaked VLKs continued to work on volume media for years; Microsoft did not kill the entire volume-licensing path, just the ones that had escaped.
So the design decision was “give trusted big customers a convenient offline path.” The operational failure was that the media and one of those keys left the building before the product even reached stores. Once both pieces were public, WPA’s hardware-binding never got a chance to run.

These Days

If you’re curious about what I’m doing today, check out Task Manager TMOG at https://t.co/OZcq1axGTb where you can download the Free version! It runs fully native on Windows, Mac, and Linux!

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

This year has two website anniversaries. It's twenty years since the first post went up on my blog, and thirty years since I built Virtual Swanage, the community site for my home town
https://t.co/wSc5QlFUyD

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Found a tall Raspberry Pi case which would take our stackable expansion hats, see our review on https://t.co/UuWhXaFJmJ

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

@eevblog I keep getting those, the links look really legit 🤣

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Elgato Stream Deck, new software and new picker nozzles for our DIY Pick and Place machine https://t.co/wmZJiXLI9l #elgato #pickandplace @elgato

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Yet another reason why I prefer to ride offroad, dont get cars pushing past on a single carrageway #closepass #ukdriving

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

After several weeks of working hard, my OnlyFan's PSU has given up and gone to the electronics graveyard in the sky. After taking it apart it I found it needs 12 volt power, so after finding an old plug-in power supply and a connector, its going to be keeping us cool again

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

🎉 Virtual Swanage is 30! From dial-up in 1996 to full-fibre in 2026, we've been sharing the best of Swanage & the Isle of Purbeck online for three decades. Here's a look back, plus what's new for this year ���
https://t.co/pvtpXCj3Mh
#Swanage #Dorset @Bournemouthecho

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

British people are not built for these temps, 32.3C in the shade, and before anyone says "air con", UK houses dont normally have that. @home-assistant.io is keeping track of everything. 43C in the allotment polytunnel this afternoon. #heatwave

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Remains of a speed boat which caught fire on the shoreline in Durlston Bay today with small flames still burning on the hull tonight #durlston #BoatFire @Bournemouthecho

[Gannon @nonnag]

@Anubhavhing Their site's down now but here are the links from the original reddit post:

Live: https://t.co/re5nIO3m7s

GitHub: https://t.co/Cu7rxzDsPW

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Shimano Di2 to Bluetooth Keyboard remote control mod https://t.co/zERZPcawbE

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Got a pack of 15cm patch cables which has made everything a lot more tidy and got some 3D printed socket covers for the PDU to cover up unused sockets on our updated network, see the latest blog post for more https://t.co/LAS0imgm5z

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Thanks to @home_assistant our mains voltage monitor captured the time today just before midday when we had a 20 minute power outage and our UPS's all kept the computers running long enough to shut it all down safely.

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

We built an adjustable 3D printed PCB assembly jig to hold circuit boards when soldering, new post and build files are on the blog https://t.co/nzA9x49GvL

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Our public services aren’t for a secretive profit-hungry US tech firm. Sign the petition to tell the Government to scrap all contracts with secretive US tech firm Palantir. https://t.co/MLjTjnKSgZ via @38degrees

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Strange bright circle in the sky today on a walk around Corfe Castle, havent seen it for a long time #nationaltrust #corfecastle

[Brian Dorey @BriansTechStuff]

Tell Retailers to STOP Using Evri – Protect Customers from Missing & Stolen Parcels - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/GLfIY7OB5W via @UKChange

[Jonathan Pie @JonathanPieNews]

Trump vs The World.
https://t.co/CHb4VKcq2E