21–30 of 291 posts
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2522017/microsoft-admi...
Interesting, but I’d really like it if they actually pointed out some examples. There may in fact be stolen source code or at least it is possible some stolen source code was referenced in ReactOS - there’s virtually no way to prove that it didn’t happen - but one human’s observation could be very flawed and represent a view extrapolated from a small subset of stolen code. How much of the code could they have possibl…
I was curious, and since the author of this answer provided links to what they called leaks [1], it's not difficult to download both the leak and ReactOS source [2] and look for similarities. So, out of curiosity, that's what I did. I started poking at some source files at random in ntoskernel, and it only took a minute to get some "hits" from the ReactOS source: $ rg InitializeContextThread ./ntoskrnl/ke/thrdobj.c:8…
That said, KiInitializeContextThread isn't 'secret' enough to not appear, it is a well-known bit of internals. Here you can find some docs about it on Microsoft's own website, albeit I have no idea if this is present anywhere on there anymore.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151214014944/http://www.micros...
From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentation. I can easily see how this would result in identical structures and naming.
Many internal symbol and function names are available with debug symbols that have been released by Microsoft over the years.
Lots of undocumented internals you can learn about from this book: https://amzn.to/2XHhSFF
If the book doesn't match what you see (which isn't that often), then you just single-step and see what's happening.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a book on my shelf somewhere about NT internal APIs; I forget the title or publisher as ive not looked at in nearly 20 years (thought it was interesting at the time, in practice I've hardly done more than glance at it). It's not officially sanctioned, and IIRC, there were notices that these were not considered public APIs and could change at any time without warning. It was from the Win2000 era, so who knows h…
ReactOS only officially allows clean-room reverse engineering. Sadly I don't know the best canonical documentation for this, so here's a blog post from 2006. https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an...
There is also a difference between stated policy and what actually ends up happening (not that I'm making any accusations, because I'm not). But what happens publicly isn't necessarily representative of what happens privately.
I mean, I can't contribute to it, because I have seen some source or disassembled components of Windows over the years. But excepting my public declaration of that here and now, who is to know?
It would be interesting to see this engineer's statements tested in court. Microsoft are highly motivated to protect their source code so there would have to be a reason why they haven't. ReactOS is definitely NOT a mosquito to an elephant in violation terms if this engineers comments have validity. I'm thinking patents, copyrights etc. The fact that Microsoft haven't acted for all this time is by itself evidence tha…
Maybe it's a sign of the relationship between Azure and Windows teams?
I have always been confused as to what level of reverse engineering is legally acceptable in this case. Is having a sneak peak at one of the win32 dlls with IDA or Radare allowed? Or, are you expected to re-invent the wheel based on documentation and observed behaviour? In the case of the former, how can it be conclusively legally proven that it was not reverse engineered (from machine code)?
In the U.S. it is perfectly legal to reverse anything that you obtained legally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
ReactOS only officially allows clean-room reverse engineering. Sadly I don't know the best canonical documentation for this, so here's a blog post from 2006. https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an...
Sadly that link is currently erroring out for me with a database error. There is also a difference between stated policy and what actually ends up happening (not that I'm making any accusations, because I'm not). But what happens publicly isn't necessarily representative of what happens privately. I mean, I can't contribute to it, because I have seen some source or disassembled components of Windows over the years. B…
I tried ReactOS recently. Got a BSOD trying to eject a CD. Lost interest.
What goes around, comes around. Stealing code is on Microsoft records, as a simple "Microsoft admits stealing code" search shows. One can only wonder how much code the company stole that did not come to public knowledge. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2522017/microsoft-admi...