[HN Gopher] Windows XP leak confirmed after user compiles the le...
___________________________________________________________________
Windows XP leak confirmed after user compiles the leaked code into
a working OS
Author : headalgorithm
Score : 243 points
Date : 2020-09-30 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.zdnet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.zdnet.com)
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| XP compiled but would not run due to missing programs. Server
| 2003 would run because it's source was complete. Am wondering now
| if the XP code could be made to run by using parts of the Server
| 2003 code.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Actually, only somewhat. One of the "tricks" to get the whole
| thing to build was to replace some of the missing files with
| production, already-compiled versions from Windows.
|
| Thus, even though a few files are missing, you just need to
| include the few official missing ones, and the thing boots.
| Lammy wrote:
| Seems likely. Someone who has seen the actual source would have
| to confirm, but my understanding from back in "the day" was
| that Server 2003 was based on the XP SP0 tree, but that XP SP2
| and later were re-based on the Server 2003 tree as part of the
| security focus of SP2.
| space_ghost wrote:
| The Windows build environment uses Perl?
| anaisbetts wrote:
| Yep. Windows has been largely built, at least until the Win8
| Era, via `make` and `perl`. What a world.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Doesn't surprise me.
|
| What else are you going to use? Batch? Python certainly hadn't
| caught on yet in the late 90's when XP was being written.
|
| In 2013 when I was interning for a company making an audio
| driver for Windows, we used Perl to run our builds. While I
| hate Perl, it does make it real easy to run an executable and
| analyze its output.
| space_ghost wrote:
| I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, I'd just expect Microsoft
| to eat a little more of their own dogfood.
| qz2 wrote:
| This was fairly normal at Microsoft for years. Even the first
| .net framework (rotor) used Perl as a build system and worked
| on Unix systems.
| user5994461 wrote:
| Makes sense. XP was released in 2002 and took years of work
| before the release.
|
| A good chunk of languages we take for granted today did not
| exist at that time, or were in the very first release. Perl
| came out in 1987, it was quite the thing in the late 90s.
| muterad_murilax wrote:
| > XP was released in 2002
|
| 2001, actually.
| secondcoming wrote:
| The Symbian build system was Perl too.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Doesn't the Linux build system use perl as well?
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Not anymore
| rkeene2 wrote:
| Not really. I created and maintained a Linux distribution,
| and while Perl was sometimes used it was almost never
| strictly required (i.e., it was for documentation or
| something that really would have been better if the release
| maintainer had already generated....). This covers a few
| hundred packages, like gcc, binutils, glibc, linux, core-
| utils, util-linux, flex, ...
|
| Notable, also, is that I didn't compile perl for my Linux
| distribution because perl's configuration system is terrible
| (there's an out-of-tree patch to make it less terrible,
| though).
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| That's right. Flex and bison is required, but no perl. No
| idea where that notion came from.
| kasabali wrote:
| Developer scripts (checkpatch etc.) are written in perl,
| though it's not required for builds.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Probably beats python and the continuous version idiocy -
| Python 2 vs Python 3, 3.7 vs 3.9 &c, p.p. If you have
| throwaway scripts in a startup, fine, but unacceptable
| when you are maintaining an OS that all the world relies
| on. You wonder - what does Dr Hipp use for sqlite? Never
| looked into that build system!
| snazz wrote:
| https://www.sqlite.org/draft/howtocompile.html
|
| There's some tcl involved.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Perl has its own version naming problem. But there's no
| reason to think it would be any more stable or secure
| than Python, which is in the critical path of all sorts
| of things (not just "throwaway scripts in a startup").
| timw4mail wrote:
| Last I knew, OpenSSL required perl to build.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Still does.
|
| What about Git? Last I knew, it required Perl to build.
| rootw0rm wrote:
| i just built nginx yesterday, and i needed perl for at
| least a couple of the static modules i added...
| cbsks wrote:
| According to the Linux kernel documentation: "You will need
| perl 5 and the following modules: Getopt::Long, Getopt::Std,
| File::Basename, and File::Find to build the kernel."
|
| https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/2324d50d051ec0f14a548.
| ..
|
| That was added 11 years ago(!!) so it may be out of date.
| Daviey wrote:
| https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?q=perl
| movaps wrote:
| Nope, it's a combo of makefiles (GNU flavour I think) and C
| called Kconfig.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| You were expecting vbscript?
|
| There are tons of examples like this. My favorite is Apple
| using windows xp to make and test iphones
| https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-uses-windows-xp-in-iph...
| iwasakabukiman wrote:
| I've never understood this type of "gotcha!" that always gets
| trotted out when a company uses another company's product to
| develop their own.
|
| If all of the debugging, testing and factory management tools
| are standardized on Windows - why rewrite them if you don't
| need to? It seems like a waste of resources.
|
| (This isn't limited to Apple or even technology companies. It
| applies to tons of businesses.)
| saagarjha wrote:
| Last I heard, Apple uses Linux for bringup of their silicon
| in addition to-and sometimes even before-XNU.
| space_ghost wrote:
| Honestly, yes. And based on your username I'm surprised you
| weren't as well. ;)
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| vbscript is awesome :P
| umvi wrote:
| Someone should take the source for the old xp mspaint and spruce
| it up a bit to support for transparency and zooming with
| scrollwheel.
| joombaga wrote:
| Fun fact about the zoom in old mspaint: It gave you the options
| for 1x, 2x, 6x, and 8x zoom. But if you clicked one of the
| pixels directly below 8x you get a hidden 10x zoom.
|
| I miss easter eggs.
| wilhil wrote:
| That sounds like a bug!
|
| Easter egg to me is a flight simulator in Excel or pinball in
| word etc.!
| h2odragon wrote:
| At this point, a "free to use" license for XP or better yet win2k
| up to win7, would be worth it for m$ for the PR and goodwill.
|
| "you can get it if you want it" is just lame.
|
| m$ should, ideally, bite the bullet and do a (stripped if need
| be) source release of what they can, explain what they can't
| release. Everyone will then benefit from the relief from worry
| and lack of friction things like emulation and software
| archeology and etc will gain.
| beervirus wrote:
| Plenty of that code is still (one assumes) in use in Windows
| 10. Why make it easier for someone to find a zero-day?
| vbrandl wrote:
| By that logic, you can't use any open source software...
| Bancakes wrote:
| You can, but it's your problem if you don't stringently
| configure SELinux and have clear policies for yourself. If
| you use Linux like Windows thinking it's more secure, and
| run everything with 'sudo' "Just to make sure it doesn't
| crash or pop an annoying prompt.", you're worse off.
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| They should release software with known security problems, that
| they have said they won't be fixing? Please no... Botnets are
| large enough as-is.
|
| Plus a lot of people under-estimate the cost and difficulty in
| releasing the source code of previously proprietary software.
| You don't just slap it onto Github and everyone goes home, you
| often need a team of lawyers to look at third party licensing
| and go through the code file by file looking for potential
| liabilities.
|
| Code that started out open source software has to narrow third
| parties to only specific licenses/waivers. Code that has for
| tens of years been closed source may contain licensed source
| code (e.g. decoder libraries) that they don't own the license
| to publish for just one example.
| cycloptic wrote:
| >They should release software with known security problems,
| that they have said they won't be fixing? Please no...
| Botnets are large enough as-is.
|
| The source code has already been leaked, and I would bet that
| malware authors have no problem with acquiring it illegally.
| While security researchers working within the law may not be
| able to look at it at all. The current situation does a lot
| more to help botnets than it does to help honest customers.
|
| >Plus a lot of people under-estimate the cost and difficulty
| in releasing the source code of previously proprietary
| software. You don't just slap it onto Github and everyone
| goes home, you often need a team of lawyers to look at third
| party licensing and go through the code file by file looking
| for potential liabilities. [...] Code that has for tens of
| years been closed source may contain licensed source code
| (e.g. decoder libraries) that they don't own the license to
| publish for just one example.
|
| I'm sorry, I just have no sympathy for the trillion dollar
| company that trapped themselves in restrictive license
| agreements and then wants to cheap out on lawyers. It is
| entirely a problem of their own making, and I would expect
| them to pay to fix it.
| anticensor wrote:
| Strip those parts then.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| sounds like a security nightmare
| sumtechguy wrote:
| MS outsourced/bought a lot of stuff so they may not have a
| clear line of release it without a bunch of legal work.
| Something like that can be done I am sure. But the cost would
| be decently high.
|
| Also some interesting portions of the OS are under a 'view but
| do not touch' license already. Such as MFC, ATL, and the CRT
| and others. Depending on which SDK or Visual C++ you grab you
| can get whole examples of interesting bits of the code. I know
| for example one of the fun ones is the pipes screen saver code
| is an example in one of the Visual C++ disks (5.0 I think). I
| recompiled it years ago to make every joint a teapot and the
| hard one to find was the bend.
| mook wrote:
| I was under the impression that at least the CRT part was
| fine to modify. At least, Firefox used to ship a custom
| version with jemalloc, I think (with the necessary patches
| checked in as ed scripts so that they could avoid having the
| original source in the repository).
| easton wrote:
| Why wouldn't they just release Windows 10 instead? They don't
| "need" the money (because any self-respecting IT department
| that has a modicum of budget will pay for Microsoft 365, where
| they almost give away the Windows licenses and support, or have
| a SA license), so the only people still really buying Windows
| are home users with their laptops. Enthusiasts could maybe
| submit pull requests, and they could get rid of even more in-
| house dev/QA staff. It's the latest version of the kernel, so
| new drivers work. And they are still patching it.
|
| The real money is in Azure/Office/MSSQL anyway.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Even if somehow the leaked XP code were legitimized, it
| wouldn't do anybody much good since the driver model has
| changed significantly since XP and none of the hardware OEMs
| are going to go back to producing XP compatible drivers again.
| Kuraj wrote:
| > m$
|
| What is it, 2000?
| tus88 wrote:
| I wonder what percent of Win10 matches this code...I am guessing
| about 90%.
| sschueller wrote:
| I thought Windows 7 was a significant rewrite.
| monocasa wrote:
| Vista was, yeah. 7 was mainly cleaning up Visa.
| [deleted]
| Causality1 wrote:
| Fascinating. I would love for there to exist a fully-patched
| version of XP to run on classic computers.
| monksy wrote:
| So when will we start getting pull requests against it?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| If it was ever put on GitHub, Microsoft would take it down
| instantly. I don't think anyone would get away with filing a
| PR.
|
| At the same time though, that would be hilarious. Someone is
| going to do it just so they can claim that they were the first
| person unauthorized by Microsoft to ever file a PR on
| Windows...
| monksy wrote:
| It's probably already in github ;) (MS owns github)
| LockAndLol wrote:
| It doesn't have to be hosted on Github. Gitlab can run in I2P
| so it's possible to do all the development in the darknet.
|
| Not sure how big the repo would be though...
| ohgreatwtf wrote:
| all we need now is a neural network that generates code that does
| the same thing but looks different
| ohgreatwtf wrote:
| all we need now is a neural network that can look at source and
| generate new code that does the same thing but differently
| dang wrote:
| We changed the url from
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-xp-a...
| to what appears to be the original source.
| tus88 wrote:
| But not the original sauce.
| Kuraj wrote:
| I'm very tempted to look up and download that bundle, but it
| sounds like something that could potentially cause me _a lot_ of
| legal problems.
| akerro wrote:
| Overall it's 46Gb, a few thousands of IPs were downloading it
| the day it was released.
| duskwuff wrote:
| The majority of that torrent was junk -- something like 20 GB
| of Microsoft's (freely available) patents downloaded from the
| USPTO, a couple of DVD rips of documentaries tangentially
| related to Microsoft (like Revolution OS), and a bunch of
| wacky conspiracy videos downloaded from YouTube (Bill Gates
| 5G nanoprobe vaccines, etc).
|
| All of the actual content was available elsewhere as much
| smaller downloads. In particular, the Windows 2000 and XP
| leaks are distributed as a single 3 GB archive ("nt5src.7z").
| crakenzak wrote:
| boot up a VPN and download the torrent.
| znpy wrote:
| It's a pity no one has leaked the msn server and client source
| code yet. I loved it so much when I was a teenager.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Michael MJD has a video on Escargot, which hosts a server
| instance that knows how to talk to clients using the MSN
| protocol (official clients need to be modified, however, so
| connection attempts don't go to the now defunct servers):
| https://youtu.be/yrvNyvFwCJg
|
| Source code is available at https://gitlab.com/escargot-chat .
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| This just made my day, I was having some nostalgia on windows
| xp last week and was pretty sad MSN wouldn't open.
|
| Thanks for sharing, will look into it!
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| I set up a local Escargot server for chatting with homestay
| family kids aged 6 and 9 (too young for having their own
| email accounts).
|
| They had a LOT of fun with the fonts and animations, dancing
| pigs and that kind of thing.
|
| The trouble is, Escargot is a real pain to set up.
| Certificates need to be patched into the hosts file every 30
| days. The server must run on Windows 7 x64. The Windows XP
| client never worked for me; only on Windows 7 x32 and Windows
| 10.
|
| If I were able to run an Escargot server from my MacBook Pro,
| that would make it a whole lot more fun. In practice it takes
| me hours just to set it up, while they'd rather be playing.
| derefr wrote:
| > official clients need to be modified, however, so
| connection attempts don't go to the now defunct servers
|
| Presuming they don't use any form of encryption (and I think
| that's a safe assumption for that era), one could keep the
| clients official, while routing the packets themselves using
| a virtual Ethernet driver (or via software-defined routing,
| if the relevant copy of Windows is running in a VM.)
| boardwaalk wrote:
| Using hosts.txt or a local DNS server seems simpler.
| parliament32 wrote:
| You just need a destination NAT. One liner in iptables, not
| sure what the MS equivalent would be.
| znpy wrote:
| this is unbelievable, thank you!!
| culopatin wrote:
| Having extensively used MSN in the early 2000s, I bang my head
| every time I use Skype at work. How could they make such a
| terrible IM app after having made MSN? I just don't get it.
| brnt wrote:
| I used Zone.com, not just for gaming but just chat too. Never
| got used to that newfangled MSN. Remember the UI to this day
| too.
| [deleted]
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Having used Skype before MS bought it I think the same.
|
| I remember when our office was cut from Internet. Many people
| did not notice, because Skype kept working like nothing
| happened.
| 1023bytes wrote:
| I wonder what impact this will have on ReactOS
| google234123 wrote:
| Most informed people have correctly guessed that the ReactOS
| devs have used the old windows research kernel leak in their
| development.
| devthrowawy wrote:
| Honestly it would be dumb not to. ReactOS is basically a toy,
| why take what they're doing so seriously?
| ironmagma wrote:
| ReactOS has always taken a "we will rebuild anything from
| complete ignorance of the source" approach, precisely because
| of the legal liabilities. They are so good at it though, that
| people at Microsoft have actually claimed that the developers
| must have source code access.
| ed_elliott_asc wrote:
| I had windows source code access (read) about 2005 but
| because of that I am not allowed to contribute to ReactOS
| even today.
| debian_lover wrote:
| Contribute anonymously
| akerro wrote:
| Is that part of your NDA?
| saagarjha wrote:
| No, this is something ReactOS does themselves:
| https://reactos.org/project-news/reset-reboot-restart-
| legal-...
| belltaco wrote:
| >that people at Microsoft have actually claimed that the
| developers must have source code access.
|
| Source?
|
| Arent decompilers and disassemblers pretty good today anyway?
| concernedctzn wrote:
| Legally they can't even use those, React does a totally
| blackbox reimplementation
| soganess wrote:
| Wait, pardon my ignorance, but isn't a decompiler
| required for the kind of work they do at react?
|
| Person A's Job:
|
| - Decompile shit.
|
| - Then write down the names of the functions with (1)
| input, (2) output, (3) a description of what person a
| think the code is doing (4) any side effect /
| preconditions / post conditions they can deduce.
|
| Person B's Job:
|
| - Take the spec created by person A and write code.
|
| while(missingFunctionality.hasNext): goto Person A's Job
| saagarjha wrote:
| It is and the split between person A doing the first part
| and person B doing the second part is important in a
| "clean room" reimplementation in the US.
| rootw0rm wrote:
| decompiler vs. disassembler is an important distinction
| here
| opencl wrote:
| A lot of stuff is based or observing the Windows
| functionality in a debugger, or Microsoft's API
| documentation.
| dosshell wrote:
| A source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341022
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Same as Wine: none, since they are required to be 100% black-
| box reimplementations. No one who contributes to Wine is
| allowed to even look at the original Microsoft source code.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Don't you mean black-box reimplementations? White box would
| mean they have access to and use the source code. Black box
| means they don't.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Thanks; fixed the original post.
| aloknnikhil wrote:
| Curious, how do they enforce this? Or is it just assumed in
| good faith?
| Bancakes wrote:
| While I haven't seen such a case, I can imagine a mailing
| list 'leaking' with posts like "like the trick Windows did
| for fast_malloc()" and such, then being summoned.
| pmarin wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Internal_audit
| [deleted]
| prepex wrote:
| We're allowed to talk about this now? As soon as the leak
| happened last week I posted a torrent and the HN mods took it
| down in less than 15 minutes.
| lostgame wrote:
| There is a massive difference between discussion and posting of
| direct links to torrents of said materials.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Sharing the Torrent Link puts HN at legal risk. You are only
| allowed to share commentary, not original torrent links.
| ramshanker wrote:
| I got "Sorry, you don't have permission for that!"
| duskwuff wrote:
| This is an ongoing, infuriating Twitter bug. Reload the page
| and it'll show up properly.
| whyfy wrote:
| "Video unavailable This video is no longer available due to a
| copyright claim by Microsoft Corporation."
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| It's basically just blogspam reporting that a YouTuber named
| NTDEV posted two videos. His build of Win2003 was successful:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO0daYbti5g
|
| I hope your company firewall does not block YouTube.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Now's your chance everybody: Someone has uploaded the source code
| to GitHub, no torrent needed now. If you want to be the first
| unauthorized person to ever file a PR against Windows, you have
| the opportunity.
| TomJansen wrote:
| Not really true, there was a Windows XP repo on the darkweb
| already
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Hopefully this is going to boost ReactOS and Wine development.
| dosshell wrote:
| How would this help in a clean room implementation?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Perhaps if it spreads wide enough it will cease to be
| considered a trade secret.
| chabad360 wrote:
| One man reads the code and writes docs based it. Everyone
| else reads the docs.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Whoa. I thought when that was leaked, that there would be no way
| it would be able to compile or, well, run without Microsoft's
| extensive and extremely complicated build setup. What an
| accomplishment.
| derefr wrote:
| I believe Microsoft's internal build toolchain was part of the
| leak. Looks like the particular tool used wasn't part of the
| centralized CI system, but rather one intended to be used to
| time how long builds take (guessing: intended to be run on the
| developer's workstation as a pre-checkin checklist step, in
| order to avoid committing code that bloats CI build-time?)
| mdriley wrote:
| Heh, nope, `timebuild.pl` is the canonical entrypoint for an
| "official" Windows build, and has been for a very long time.
| It's a hideously elaborate dependency resolver and task
| runner that is responsible for tying together all the various
| build steps necessary to create an installable OS.
|
| refs:
| https://web.itu.edu.tr/~dalyanda/mssecrets/other/Startup.htm
| In order to perform these operations, execute the following
| command from within a razzle window, whose current directory
| is %sdxroot%. * perl tools\timebuild.pl
|
| https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/869511
| Experience with "Timebuild", razzle, and the Windows build
| system
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Which build of Perl is used inside Microsoft? ActiveState?
| Strawberry?
| saagarjha wrote:
| That job description is strange to me-how could they ask
| for experience with an internal tool? Is it just a
| filtering mechanism to hire ex-Microsoft employees? This
| seems like an Apple job posting asking for experience with
| XBS, or an Amazon one asking for Brazil familiarity-unless
| this has been published in some form to the public, like
| Google and Facebook have done?
|
| > #gamingjobs
|
| Heh. Someone needs to tell Microsoft recruiting to dial
| back the "fellow kids" :P
| cartoonfoxes wrote:
| Seems perfectly legitimate to me. Returning, former
| employees, are a thing.
| bri3d wrote:
| Most large companies, for various legal, policy, and
| compliance reasons, require job requisitions to be posted
| externally in order to be posted for internal hiring and
| vice versa. This job listing is probably intended to make
| an internal hire.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| But why not list it as a "required" qualification then?
| This way, people will apply because they think it isn't
| necessary.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Because some middle manager is likely filling out a web
| form with zero regard for accuracy because it's just a
| formality they already have someone in mind and HR is
| gonna bin all the resumes anyway.
| ghaff wrote:
| People will apply anyway because so many requirements
| aren't.
|
| Also, people do boomerang to companies they've worked at
| before.
| thisisnico wrote:
| I've seen companies list x number of requirements and
| hire someone that doesn't meet any of the "requirements".
| easton wrote:
| They do it if there is a candidate(s) internally they
| want to hire, but HR requires (either because of laws or
| internal policy) that they also look for outside
| candidates. The outsiders won't pass the screening
| because they don't have experience with the required
| tool, and the team gets to hire the person they wanted
| anyway.
| crmd wrote:
| That's exactly what it is. I worked at IBM many moons
| ago, and at one point was asked to create a list of job
| requirements that would ensure I was provably the only
| person in the world who met the constraints. Big
| companies are weird, man.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's also how procurement works in the public sector.
| Either of their own, or with a help of an external
| consultant, public sector workers will create a set of
| requirements that are tailored to fit a particular
| desired supplier, with a bunch of extra bullshit
| requirements thrown in so that _technically_ allows other
| competitors, and doesn 't look obviously illegal.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I wonder if you can still apply if you're managed to sus
| out the requisite experience through reverse
| engineering...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Depends, some places only want to count experience if it
| can be linked to hours you billed.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| How would this comply with the law if an external
| candidate would have no chance to pass anyway (due to
| work experience required with an internal tool not
| available to the public)?
|
| Wouldn't posting a job that an external candidate has no
| chance of obtaining still violate the intent of that law?
| ponker wrote:
| There can be external candidates with that qualification.
| In general the standard is "Bona Fide occupational
| qualification" which means that you have a legitimate
| reason for the requirement. For a college hire this would
| likely not suffice ... you can teach a college hire what
| they need to know. For the engineering director running
| the project it very well might be.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Incidentally, a bunch of people outside Microsoft had
| access to these tools (e.g. academics).
| vlang1dot0 wrote:
| Who outside of Microsoft is going to have experience with
| the Windows build system?
|
| Is this like recruiters looking for 20 years of Go
| experience lol?
| [deleted]
| unixhero wrote:
| I am far from a Microsoft zealot. But this is damn awesome.
| blibble wrote:
| maybe someone will finally port Pinball to X64, given MS didn't
| seem capable (at least in the time allotted)
|
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20121218-00/?p=58...
| mappu wrote:
| It's not true, though, a 64-bit pinball binary is included on
| the Windows XP 64-bit media.
|
| I had posted this on the Old New Thing comments at the time,
| but comments on all old posts were lost in the blog transition.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Here is the original post with comments:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190108095105/https://blogs.msd.
| ..
| Lammy wrote:
| Which XP 64-bit release? (IA-64, x86-64, both?)
| carabiner wrote:
| I keep thinking about this.
| anticensor wrote:
| There are huge changes to numeric code needed as some floating
| point calculations were borderline working.
| soylentcola wrote:
| Are you talking about "3D Pinball"? Looking around it seems to
| be available for later versions of Windows (but I didn't look
| into the details of whether it's a port or something else).
| sebazzz wrote:
| Surely it can be run in compatibility mode on modern Windows?
| GranPC wrote:
| I think the Pinball source code was not included in the leaks,
| possibly because it was developed by an external company.
| aap_ wrote:
| It's included in the the NT 3.5 leak.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| It was developed by Maxis I believe.
| sli wrote:
| Correct. It was a single table, or at least a version of
| it, from a Maxis pinball game called Full Tilt! Pinball.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Tilt!_Pinball
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| 3D Pinball can at least run on modern windows, literally just
| copy-paste from Windows XP and it will run.
|
| They don't make software like they used to! /s
| 0df8dkdf wrote:
| what about MS Paint? There is a bug in there were you can draw
| with the background DVD video. Would love to have that
| bug/feature.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Isn't that just one particular color close to black serving
| as mask for the dvd renderer overlay?
| holidayacct wrote:
| The Russian government compromised Microsoft in early 2000 and
| the source code for windows 2K XP and 2003 were all leaked on
| usenet over a decade ago. Why is this news?
| fourseventy wrote:
| I came here to say that as well...
| muterad_murilax wrote:
| I am not aware of any earlier publicly documented attempts to
| build XP from leaked sources.
| SSLy wrote:
| >Why is this news?
|
| Because the more general public (for a certain degree of
| generality) apparently didn't know about this until this week.
| Usenet is now seen mostly as a device for good ol' piracy.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| I suspect msft provides sources (for audit) to governments all
| over the world if they want the contract.
| thrownaway954 wrote:
| everyone working on ReactOS must be drooling right now, though
| they can't even peek at the source without risk of going through
| another audit.
| crazypython wrote:
| Is ReactOS allowed to read documentation written by people who
| read the source code?
| appleflaxen wrote:
| It's dependent on the jurisdiction, but in the US: yes
| McGlockenshire wrote:
| Back in the day, IBM published technical documentation (and
| assembly source? It's been a while) on the 5150 Personal
| Computer BIOS. The first PC clone BIOSes were created by having
| a team re-document how the BIOS worked from IBM's docs, and
| then having an entirely separate team create new code from that
| documentation.
|
| How useful would this technique be to the ReactOS and Wine
| teams? Are there things that they don't know how to make work
| correctly that this source leak could help them with?
| fizixer wrote:
| I learnt about this technique in Triumph of the Nerds[0] long
| time ago.
|
| [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115398
| rzzzt wrote:
| They are doing this (clean room implementation) right now,
| and very-very-very thoroughly trying to avoid coming in
| contact with source code leaks in any shape or form:
| https://reactos.org/wiki/Audit
| thrownaway954 wrote:
| They were called red books ;) i loved reading through them
| even though i didn't know assembly and often the content was
| waaaaaaaay over my fragile little mind.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Redbooks
| google234123 wrote:
| The windows research kernel has been leaked for more than a
| decade. It's actually quite clear that ReactOS has been taking
| a look.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I have nothing to do with ReactOS, but I've heard this
| allegation made many times on HN, but I have yet to see
| anyone point to a hard example. Some of the allegations
| relate to symbol names, but Microsoft has leaked private
| symbol names in the past[1].
|
| [1] https://kobyk.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/oops-microsoft-
| privat...
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