Timeline for Why didn't Microsoft use a well-known encryption algorithm like RSA for telephone activation?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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20 events
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| Nov 24, 2023 at 3:03 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 25, 2023 at 3:04 | |||||
| Nov 21, 2023 at 23:10 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | From a link-only answer: youtu.be/FpKNFCFABp0 - video from Dave Plummer, who implemented the Windows product activation when he worked at MS. titled: "Blame Me: The INSIDER Secrets of Windows Product Activation!". Apparently has quite a bit of info about design considerations around the limitations of telephone activation. | |
| Nov 20, 2023 at 10:04 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | So P4 specifically was especially slow at BigInt math, compared to AMD at the time as well as compared to modern Intel and AMD. But still, a 500 MHz PIII is totally fine at RSA for SSH logins, as I commented under an answer. P4 sucks, but the high clock speeds should make up the difference vs. a PIII. | |
| Nov 20, 2023 at 10:00 | comment | added | Peter Cordes |
@Schwern: Can RSA signature checking be usefully multi-threaded? I think the 4x number is more reasonable, since for this application it's only latency for 1 signature that matters, not throughput. But maybe another factor of 2 to 4 to account for 64-bit code working in 64-bit chunks on BigInt, getting about 4x the amount of work done from a 64x64 => 128-bit multiply as from a 32x32 => 64-bit multiply. (Even on an x86-64 Nocona P4, Win XP would be in 32-bit legacy mode). Also that P4 had bad latency for adc and imul, like 6c latency and multiple uops for adc r,r, worse in Prescott.
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| Nov 20, 2023 at 1:00 | comment | added | Schwern | "Because already in 2004 there was an Intel Prescott 3,8GHz CPU for Desktop PCs." Careful, you can't compare CPU performance between CPU families like that. A 3.8 Ghz Pentium 4 is not equivalent to a modern 3.8 Ghz CPU; it's quite slow. For example, a quite low end AMD Ryzen 3 4100 is about 30x faster despite both having similar clock speeds and power usage. Even with 1 core the Ryzen is 4x faster. Computers are quite a bit faster today than 20 years ago. | |
| Nov 19, 2023 at 17:46 | answer | added | Alan Birtles | timeline score: 14 | |
| S Nov 19, 2023 at 15:17 | history | suggested | Glorfindel | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
typos corrected
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| Nov 19, 2023 at 14:46 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Nov 19, 2023 at 15:17 | |||||
| Nov 19, 2023 at 2:45 | comment | converted from answer | normanr | You should watch Dave's Garage's video on Windows Product Activation. He gives a lot of information about the limitations that the telephone activation process has to deal with and the decisions that were made when implementing it. | |
| S Nov 18, 2023 at 22:08 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Nov 18, 2023 at 22:08 | comment | added | Chenmunka♦ | Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Retrocomputing Meta, or in Retrocomputing Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. | |
| Nov 17, 2023 at 20:12 | answer | added | poncho | timeline score: 48 | |
| Nov 17, 2023 at 19:02 | history | became hot network question | |||
| S Nov 17, 2023 at 19:02 | history | became hot network question | |||
| S Nov 17, 2023 at 19:02 | history | became hot network question | |||
| S Nov 17, 2023 at 19:02 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Nov 17, 2023 at 12:54 | history | edited | wizzwizz4♦ |
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| Nov 17, 2023 at 12:45 | answer | added | dave | timeline score: 17 | |
| Nov 17, 2023 at 12:04 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 17, 2023 at 18:23 | |||||
| Nov 17, 2023 at 11:01 | history | asked | zomega | CC BY-SA 4.0 |