posted by
Fnord666
on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:06AM
from the all-your-code-belongs-to-us dept.
from the all-your-code-belongs-to-us dept.
Someone leaked a large amount of sourcecode that may or may not be the complete source code to Windows XP, NT, CE and a few DOS versions. Microsoft won't confirm or deny if it's the actual code.
The source code for Windows XP SP1 and other versions of the operating system was allegedly leaked online today.
The leaker claims to have spent the last two months compiling a collection of leaked Microsoft source code. This 43GB collection was then released today as a torrent on the 4chan forum.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:30AM (8 children)
...tell us already, does it run on Linux?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:52AM (4 children)
And m4, and has ls.exe, cp.exe, and a few other unix-style utilities. And while that sounds like a joke it isn't. What this means in useful terms, however, is that UEFI/GPT support can be added to XP/2K3 (which XP x64 is) and then security patches applied for every issue that has come up since their release. It also will give an opportunity for people to prove whether microsoft's remote update feature could have been used to inject malware, if any spying was going on Pre-Windows 10, and if future driver support can be backported to XP.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday September 26 2020, @12:10PM (3 children)
However, if it's "leaked code", then it's owned by MS and there is no valid license. So any time spent developing based around it is useless....for legal purposes.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @07:09PM
With all these versions of their code out, it doesn't make any sense for them to keep obsolete versions of windows subject to a proprietary license except and unless they are trying to protect their current OS monopoly because, for example, Windows 10 is actually considered inferior by most users and given a chance to have security fixes backported to Windows XP by a team of volunteer developers they would actually find themselves losing marketshare to their own obsolete OSes, while also seeing OEM PC sales decline as more people realize they can do just fine on older hardware, or buy lower end modern hardware and get the same level of performance out of it as a much higher end modern PC running Windows 10 (or 7 or Vista).
Having used XP, XP x64, 2k3, Vista, 7, the public beta of 8, and 10, I can tell you out of all of them, only XP, XP x64, and to a lesser extent Windows 7 didn't suck, particularly in keeping a clear and consistent user interface that i was productive in. That being said, XP x64 had a number of flaws in the memory subsystem that would cause it to grind to a halt if you had the wrong applications running (Not sure if it was a specific application memory model or all of them) and would require a reboot to get the system back to its initial login level of performance (and no logging out and back in as another or the same user wouldn't solve it.)
Given Microsoft's claimed newfound love of open source, they shouldn't have any trouble putting their money where their mouth is and auditing the leaked code for 3rd party claims so that it can be released royalty free and for the public good, right? :-)
We will however see BSA DMCA takedown notices all over, as happened with the NT3.5 repo that was up on https://github.com/AR1972/NT3.5 [github.com] a while back. Interesting that someone could both be in Github/Microsoft's Arctic Vault program, and also have a DMCA takedown against them for illegal publishing of Microsoft Proprietary Source Code, isn't it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:21PM (1 child)
These folks agree --
https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20189 [reactos.org]
All this leak does for them is to poison some possible future developers for React OS--they won't have anyone on the project that has been exposed to MS source code.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:34AM
The worst part is the inadvertent exposure. Say some idiot writes some code for a particular subsystem and sends their patch. Is that patch by idiot tainted or not? You don't know but a developer has to look at it regardless. So they do look at it and then Microsoft bangs on their door because it is a direct copy. Now that developer is tainted by that patch thanks to idiot. What if six months or a year from then developer pushes some code that is in the same system and is similar but not identical to the Microsoft code. Is that infringing or not? You don't know because they could have come up on it on their own or they could have just accidentally rewritten it thanks to the idiot patch. As you can see, idiot just contaminated everyone that even looked at his patch.
Even worse is that idiot could have no idea because they were inadvertently exposed themselves by copying code someone else said they wrote without reference to Microsoft but in fact stole directly. And it doesn't have to be as obvious as that. Pointing out edge cases, bugs, missing tests, features, etc. could be enough to contaminate because it wasn't given "cleanly" thanks to the Microsoft code access.
(Score: 5, Funny) by RandomFactor on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:34PM
Always the same thing...wine wine wine...
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:38PM
From what I have seen they can't even get it to compile, but that might have changed, so I would say it remains highly doubtful. More relevant perhaps then is does it run Doom? Since that runs on more or less everything.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:51PM
...and with the source it could be made available for Gentoo:
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:49AM (9 children)
Isn't this a re-run? If I recall correctly, many years ago some similar code was circulated claiming to be XP or NT code. It created a stir to the point that Linus had to warn people away from looking at it in order to avoid the possibility of accusations of copyright infringement.
Speaking of creating a stir, what is this announcement distracting from? Either something is going well with GNU/Linux and M$ needs the press to ignore that, or else something is going down in flames, such as Azure's revenue, and M$ needs the press to ignore that. Either way, we should be ignoring this rerun. Windows is so 20th century.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @12:01PM
My recollection is that it was Windows 95, and it was the WINE project, not Linus, that said they wanted nothing to do with it. Although it's possible that more than one free software group would have considered it radioactive. It was a long time ago, maybe circa 2000.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @01:58PM (2 children)
Maybe the real story is the Bill Gates conspiracy videos included in the torrent.
And, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that 5G radio towers are literally transmitting COVID.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:44PM
Did you see the new? The building next to the lab where huawei safety tests 5g burst into flames.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:59AM
There's nothing to worry about if you've been microchipped:)
The 5G powers up the implanted chip, and it communicates back to the tower that you are already a sheep.
As a side note... I was experiencing some connectivity issues at my house, and it turns out every single one of my neighbors Joe Biden yard signs contained a phased array antenna that was jamming the deactivation signal from reaching my BaM (Bill and Melinda) freedom chip!!!
No wonder the covid is spreading like crazy!
Get your chips now people! They have enough spectrum to deactivate any vaccines that become available too...
Why do you think there's people getting "vaccine induced" diseases within weeks of them being completely eradicated in the wild???
Embrace... Extend... Extinguish...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:01PM
> Isn't this a re-run? If I recall correctly, many years ago some similar code was circulated claiming to be XP or NT code.
Kind of... In 2004 partial source code for Windows 2000/NT was leaked. Reference:
https://archive.org/download/NFO_Collection_2000-2004_Compilation/NFO_COLLECTION_UNPACKED/2004/02-2004/NF_DAILY_NFO_COLLECTION-13-02-2004.zip/_NUKED_MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.2000.AND.NT4.SOURCE.CODE-SCENELEADER.nfo [archive.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:39PM
No, but this [wikipedia.org] is a Rerun.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:46PM (2 children)
Code for all the Windows versions is available if you're willing to pay. Many governments have it.
The problem is that you can't do anything with it legally, and you can do even less with this legally.
All it means is that people have to be ULTRA careful about what they let into Wine, Samba, FAT modules, etc. - basically anything that does something Windows-style.
Same as the Win2000 leaks - the code was no surprise, it's available to governments, security researchers, and people who write certain things that integrate into the OS... at a cost. But it's useless and even hindering to any open-source effort.
The source to a 20-year-old OS isn't any use to anyone except maybe for backwards compatibility with that OS... and everything from Samba to LDAP to FAT wouldn't care about it at this point even if it was legal. The OS is obsolete, the compatibility and support removed from the modern OS, and nobody WANTS to map an SMBv1 drive any more as it's inherently insecure when in use.
If we could have had this, legally, even 15 years ago it might have been useful. But we don't have it legally, and this is not 15 years ago.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Saturday September 26 2020, @08:53PM (1 child)
And I'm sure they haven't shared it with their spy agencies. Especially since the code comments sometimes say things like "WARNING: This is susceptible to buffer overflow!" You wouldn't want the spooks seeing that!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday September 26 2020, @09:31PM
comments are more likely to say "issue #983247438790A/5478, resolved 21687673/2009"
then you'd need the fault log tracking system to know what it was and what the fix actually does..
realistically, the comments will say 'fixed to deal with issue raised 4/5/2004"
and no one has minutes for a meeting between two devs over coffee..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @12:09PM (9 children)
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
Stop eating food from the popular brands, usually they have an occult type of logo which will tip you off.
I believe a certain amount of human flesh is in most foods. Then, when it is discovered... OOPS! Our bad.
I believe it is in there because the aliens need it to regenerate their human form. These "aliens" all
smell the same. If you're in the right state of mind, you will smell them. Of course, you may find
another way of detecting them, who knows, but this is one. A lot of them will try to coax you
into the occult or some other degenerate hobby like gambling. Anything to tear down your
humanity and lessen the chance of you going to God and allowing His Holy Spirit to dwell
inside you.
Shows like THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN are desensitization methods.
Do not eat prepared food in public. Always buy canned food or food which has been
properly sealed.
This is not a drill.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by MIRV888 on Saturday September 26 2020, @01:39PM (1 child)
This is serious.
I'm off to buy several cases of Starkist.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by EETech1 on Sunday September 27 2020, @02:10AM
Why not Bumble Bee Tuna?
Because they don't support Trump's tariffs?
And Starkist does?
Now Bumble Bee tuna is a weapon of anarchists and looters, used to take down the police!
Too bad Goya didn't make tuna!
Source:
https://www.seafoodsource.com/premium/global-bulletin/starkist-backs-tariffs-while-bumble-bee-says-they-are-devastating [seafoodsource.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:30PM (5 children)
My Aztec ancestors also ate people, they turned out ok.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:11PM (3 children)
People or Hearts? Did you inherit some kind of superpowers? or bloodlust? Or are your offspring all scaly and such?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:12PM (2 children)
People, for religious purposes. My sister has eczema, so maybe some scaliness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @09:35PM (1 child)
How much do you want for her?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @10:51PM
lol
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 26 2020, @10:53PM
Donner kebab: because you are what you eat! :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Reziac on Sunday September 27 2020, @02:22AM
Did the Zombie Apocalypse happen while I wasn't looking??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:36PM (3 children)
It's not like you can do what a lot of people would really want--patch it and release it legally.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @12:29AM (1 child)
But you could patch it and release it illegally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @01:49AM
Be my guest. Give me a call when the lawyers show up, I'll bring popcorn to watch your sorry end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @06:15PM
Never stopped anyone from running out of support windus versions with KernelEx or other hacked kernels.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Sunday September 27 2020, @12:52AM (1 child)
It's filled with tons of extra garbage like anti MS videos and ebooks and whatever else. The actual source code contained is less than 1Gb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @08:19PM
At this point, I'm surprised if more than half the people read the summary. And now you want people to find and read the original source? Get out of here.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday October 01 2020, @01:58PM
Saw some news tidbit today. Apparently it seem to be the source, it just wasn't complete so some core components was missing such as being able to login to the system. But it, XP and Server2003, have been installed in/on VMs.