No, That Leak Doesn’t Mean the CIA Is Using Pirated Windows

The most recent documents revealed by WikiLeaks include information about how the CIA is using Windows, with a link that’s now making the rounds seen by many people as “living proof that the agency is pirating Windows.”

While it’s hard to tell whether the CIA is using pirated Windows or not, the documents that the link in question is linking to certainly do not prove this, and all the reports claiming that the agency isn’t running genuine Windows mistake skipping activation for cracking the OS.

Specifically, this link allegedly points to what many believe to be clear evidence that the CIA is pirating Microsoft’s operating system, and given the fact that it comes from WikiLeaks, it’s mostly taken for granted.

Not related to pirating Windows

And while nobody can deny their legitimacy, it’s worth noting that this information has nothing to do with pirating Windows and is only related to what the article’s title says in the first place: skipping Windows 8 activation. The description posted on the text says it loud and clear:

“The default MDSN Windows 8 installation requires Product Key Activation in order to setup. The following steps are useful in editing the MSDN iso to enable the Skip button during the install.”

So why do you need to skip activation during the install if not for pirating Windows, you might ask? The reason for this is as simple as it could be: for some reason, there’s no skip button during the Windows 8 install as Microsoft decided to remove it, so for IT admins or users who want to install the OS and activate it at a later time, it’s pretty much impossible to get beyond this step.

Installing Windows 8 in a virtual machine or simply setting up a computer for evaluation purposes without supplying a key was no longer possible, so this is why the CIA provided guidance on how to skip the whole thing during the install.

So there you go, this recent leak does not show that the CIA is pirating Windows 10, but only that they were trying to get around an odd restriction put in place by Microsoft. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that the CIA is running genuine Windows on all their computers.