CD Key WTF



  • I just purchased the Supreme Commander expansion pack, and when I went to enter the CD key into the installer, I laughed out loud:

     



    I think I need to Calm Da Fuck Down. 

     

    EDIT: The table is made out of particle board, not wood. 



  • Lol, I wouldn't be able to get the game installed if I read that... I'm so immature. :P

     

    In a related matter, I've noticed that on most LucasArts games I've purchased, the last three letters in the CD key has ended in "a20". Weird. :P



  • is that wooden table?



  • @Vechni said:

    is that wooden table?

     Notice I specified particle board ;). I don't have a scanner, and I thought a picture would have more oomph than just typing it out.



  • @PerdidoPunk said:

    @Vechni said:

    is that wooden table?

     Notice I specified particle board ;). I don't have a scanner, and I thought a picture would have more oomph than just typing it out.

     The Real WTF is you still felt the need to censor the key.



  • @m0ffx said:

    @PerdidoPunk said:

    @Vechni said:

    is that wooden table?

     Notice I specified particle board ;). I don't have a scanner, and I thought a picture would have more oomph than just typing it out.

     The Real WTF is you still felt the need to censor the key.

     

    Actually, the Real WTF is that he used the Mosaic filter to censor the key, since there are numerous posts on the intertubes detailing how to reverse the filter in order to get the value underneath. 



  • The Real WTF is you still felt the need to censor the key.

     

    Why would I give out the full key to a product I bought? I don't want anyone else using it. There are 3 groups of 4 alphanumeric characters preceding the last two groups. That's 32^12 combinations.

    Actually, the Real WTF is that he used the Mosaic filter to censor the key, since there are numerous posts on the intertubes detailing how to reverse the filter in order to get the value underneath. 

    While many filters can be reversed, I really doubt the mosaic filter is one of them. It averages the pixels across a certain area, effectively reducing the resolution of the information stored there. If you could reverse the mosaic filter, then you could also do that stupid 'Enhance!' thing that you see on crime dramas where they can extract infinite detail from a digital photograph. You would also be able to extract all the frequency content from any digitally sampled signal, effectively disproving the Nyquist-Shannon theorem and invalidating the effects of the Nyquist Interval (All information in a signal sampled at a rate N must be contained within the frequency range -N/2 < f < N/2, and all frequency content outside that range will be aliased into that interval).



  • @PerdidoPunk said:

     

    then you could also do that stupid 'Enhance!' thing that you see on crime dramas where they can extract infinite detail from a digital photograph.

     

    I was once watching an awful movie that had a part taking place in the crime lab.  The boss asks the tech analyzing the surveillance camera videotape "Can we see what's on the other side of that briefcase?".  The tech laughs and says "No.... but we can interpolate what's on the other side" and then brings up a detailed image of the briefcase.  Neat!!

     

    I loled.



  • @PerdidoPunk said:

    Actually, the Real WTF is that he used the Mosaic filter to censor the key, since there are numerous posts on the intertubes detailing how to reverse the filter in order to get the value underneath. 

    While many filters can be reversed, I really doubt the mosaic filter is one of them.

    I think his point is that although you can't extract "infinite" information from the mosaic, you do know that there are only 32 possibly values underneath it, and each letter/number will result in a different, but constant mosaic.  Knowing that, it's pretty easy to write something to give you the most likely values that are underneath (e.g. "L" will be lighter than "E", which is lighter than "8", etc).  Then it's a matter of guessing and testing a few values.  Still more work that anyone is willing to bother with, considering there are already a million cracks out there. 



  • @skippy said:

    I think his point is that although you can't extract "infinite" information from the mosaic, you do know that there are only 32 possibly values underneath it, and each letter/number will result in a different, but constant mosaic.  Knowing that, it's pretty easy to write something to give you the most likely values that are underneath (e.g. "L" will be lighter than "E", which is lighter than "8", etc).  Then it's a matter of guessing and testing a few values.  Still more work that anyone is willing to bother with, considering there are already a million cracks out there. 

    Given the uneven lighting of the picture, and the fact that the numbers and letters are pseudo-randomly choosen (so there is no dictionary-based attack possible), it might be quite a challenge to reverse the filter. 



  • @skippy said:

    @PerdidoPunk said:

    Actually, the Real WTF is that he used the Mosaic filter to censor the key, since there are numerous posts on the intertubes detailing how to reverse the filter in order to get the value underneath. 

    While many filters can be reversed, I really doubt the mosaic filter is one of them.

    I think his point is that although you can't extract "infinite" information from the mosaic, you do know that there are only 32 possibly values underneath it, and each letter/number will result in a different, but constant mosaic.  Knowing that, it's pretty easy to write something to give you the most likely values that are underneath (e.g. "L" will be lighter than "E", which is lighter than "8", etc).  Then it's a matter of guessing and testing a few values.  Still more work that anyone is willing to bother with, considering there are already a million cracks out there. 

    I guess it's good that I made the size of the mosaic slightly larger than the characters, then. Either way, even if you can narrow it down to say 5 possible characters for each position, you're still talking 5^12 combinations. Since the rest of the groups aren't words, it'd be difficult to obtain an absolute idea of any one character for reference. I imagine this would work really well for blurred documents where parts of words are blurred, since you could also use something like Markov chains to pick probable letter sequences. I wonder if any OCR systems use this kind of method to try to read poorly imaged documents.



  • You can't reverse it when the mosaic is that sever.  The pixelation is too large.



  • TRWTF is that anyone would spend this long arguing about something this dumb.

    1) Who cares if you CAN reverse it? W00t! I stole his key for Supreme Commander!

     2) Anyone who says it is possible, and hasn't put their guess up is nothing but a troll. Just shut up if you can't do what you are saying is so easy.

     

    Jeez..

     I am all for the extreme geekiness but sometimes these arguments go beyond all good sense and logic.

     



  • hey i lost my supreame commandeer box witch had teh cd key in it but luckeyly i toke a picture ov it but oh noes blurred it so can some1 pleeze pleeeeze pleeeeeeze hep me out an d unscrambel the cd key from my pictoare its hear

     
     



  • @ComputerForumUser said:

    hey i lost my supreame commandeer box witch had teh cd key in it but luckeyly i toke a picture ov it but oh noes blurred it so can some1 pleeze pleeeeze pleeeeeeze hep me out an d unscrambel the cd key from my pictoare its hear

     
     

    Thanks, just by reading that I think I got dumber. 



  • This should be in the Challenge section :)



  • @TDC said:

    This should be in the Challenge section :)

     

    [URL=http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0001jt7.png][IMG]http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/585/img0001jt7.th.png[/IMG][/URL]

     



  • @shadowman said:

    @TDC said:

    This should be in the Challenge section :)

     

    [URL=http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0001jt7.png][IMG]http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/585/img0001jt7.th.png[/IMG][/URL]

     

     

    You win, that's exactly right!


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