My immediate thought is whether researchers or investigative journalists will find cold hard US government backdoors. This is potentially big.
Windows XP source code has leaked
31–40 of 485 posts
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#32I'm actually not familiar with the legality of downloading this torrent. Is this considered legal, or is it like stolen goods, where the mere possession is a crime, even lacking evidence of the actual theft?
Also, what would be the legality a group of people "maintaining" this code? (developing security patches, etc)
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#33> Would you believe more than 1% of computers worldwide are still using Windows XP? Probably higher -- XP is still popular in China and supported by third party companies there.
Are these airgapped machines or machines with networking? Internet connection?
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#34This will be interesting. I learned a lot from the mainsoft leak.
Back when Slashdot was still somewhat popular (early '00s), the source code of Windows NT and Windows 2000 was leaked.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#35I'm actually not familiar with the legality of downloading this torrent. Is this considered legal, or is it like stolen goods, where the mere possession is a crime, even lacking evidence of the actual theft? Also, what would be the legality a group of people "maintaining" this code? (developing security patches, etc)
A simple rule of thumb from someone who is not a lawyer. Is the thing you wish to download the property of someone else, and have they granted you the right to view/use it. I think the answer is pretty clear here.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#36I'm actually not familiar with the legality of downloading this torrent. Is this considered legal, or is it like stolen goods, where the mere possession is a crime, even lacking evidence of the actual theft? Also, what would be the legality a group of people "maintaining" this code? (developing security patches, etc)
The first answer probably depends on where you live. In the US, I would not bet on it. In Germany, I could at least argue that you legally cannot steal source code.
For the second part: that's probably legally impossible world wide due to trade secret protection agreements.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Governments, Universities, and large corporations have had ongoing source licenses for Windows back to the 95 days. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/
Worth noting that "open-source" doesn't imply a license to use the software in any way. You can put up a project on Github with "all rights reserved" (though you obviously grant Github rights to distribute it when you upload it).
You are mistaking "source code available" for open source, which means a specific set of things, and does ensure you can compile and run the code.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#38I'm actually not familiar with the legality of downloading this torrent. Is this considered legal, or is it like stolen goods, where the mere possession is a crime, even lacking evidence of the actual theft? Also, what would be the legality a group of people "maintaining" this code? (developing security patches, etc)
Another interesting question to ask may be: Would downloading/seeding this torrent be considered a worse offence than if it were, say, a movie?
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#39> Would you believe more than 1% of computers worldwide are still using Windows XP? Probably higher -- XP is still popular in China and supported by third party companies there.
What's the demographic that's using XP in China? I find this super interesting...
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#40I still keep my 12 year old legal copy of Windows XP available to be run as a VM via VirtualBox for occasions when I need to try out some Windows/DOS stuff - works pretty well :)