Would be interesting if it can actually be compiled into a usable ISO - possible implications for digital preservation.
Windows XP source code has leaked
121–130 of 485 posts
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#122Creator of the torrent posted on reddit about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/iz46du/the_windo...
Wait, so is this something new, or just a re-release of whatever was going around on the net for years that was called the WinXP source?
Oh there's a lot of stuff like this floating around.
Important source code acquired and leaked by a script kiddie who has zero clue how valuable it is. Probably uploading and posting it to some small forum, where everybody else has even less clue.
Then it can take years until an actually knowledgeable person stumbles upon it and makes it known to the world.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows 10 telemetry, secretly turning on auto updates even after you turn it off and correct me if I am wrong, even if you disable the update service or add the urls to the hosts file it now "mysteriously" undoes that stuff over time. Windows 10X will probably have some more goodies.
I believe auto updates aren't malicious. Microsoft had a huge problem with worms infecting millions of computers that used outdated Windows version. It made Windows less secure in public opinion, even though these issues had often been fixed a long time. Forcing people to update was probably the only way to stop that. I'm also not a fan, I got burned at least once by a Windows 10 computer restarting in the middle of…
Unfortunately, Microsoft also has a trust problem with updates. Back in Windows XP era, there was no question about whether you wanted to upgrade to SP2 or not -- you'd maybe wait for a few days/weeks to make sure no major bugs were in, but there was no need to force anything.
Today, you might run an upgrade and reboot to find a more secure operating system -- or a full-screen Edge ad, with Edge being immediately auto-started afterwards and re-pinned on the taskbar. (Guess who had to drive across town in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown because one of their parents had to teach an online class and couldn't open Firefox anymore. Yep.)
It's a hole that Microsoft dug themselves in, and long before Windows 10, and instead of doing anything to dig themselves out of it, they just dragged everyone else down.
It solves the problem -- nobody's claiming it doesn't -- but it's not something that should be defended for technical or usability reasons, it's the worst solution that happens to still work, more or less.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another interesting question to ask may be: Would downloading/seeding this torrent be considered a worse offence than if it were, say, a movie?
I can't see why Microsoft would bother pursuing people for downloading or seeding this. The cat is out of the bag. And people will use this in ways MS don't want regardless of what they do. It is not like a movie where there is a loss of hypothetical revenue. Source code is not exactly an easy was to install a pirated OS!
Plus it's not like someone's gonna run XP SP1 on their main machine. It's been 18 years.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#125Creator of the torrent posted on reddit about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/iz46du/the_windo...
Wait, so is this something new, or just a re-release of whatever was going around on the net for years that was called the WinXP source?
One can get a list of files included without ever downloading any content (e.g. from the command line) and based on that, it looks like a troll trying to ride on the current interest. Happens all the time.
It seems that the list of files doesn't include anything that appears new (there were reports about the older sources leaked before and the list matches these), but includes the high troll insanity material about prominent "control" via "vaccinating the world".
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then Windows 7 came along and nobody said Vista was the good one.
i think the consensus is that windows 95, XP, 7 were the least troublesome versions. I still think 7 > 10
> I still think 7 > 10
Me too, for a simple reason: Windows 7 can be made to look and behave almost identically as Windows 95 did in terms of UI - which is, to this day, widely praised: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21878006
Windows 8 and 10? Not at all. It's a wild, wild mixture of the good old UI and... an abomination of stuff clearly "designed" for touch screens. Not to mention all the privacy and advertising issues.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Industrial equipment control computers mostly - the computer is part of the machine and cannot be upgraded. You see this quite a lot outside China too.
Honest question: Would using Linux have been a better idea then? An old unpatched Win XP has tons of vulnerabilities but so does an unpatched 20 year old Linux Kernel. Using Windows XP on those devices often gets very bad rep but is there a viable alternative for machines that are air gapped and technically won't be upgradable for several decades?
Remote vulnerabilities don't really matter for air-gapped machines.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
They won't. Such backdoors would have to be hidden from Joe Average Coder at Microsoft first and foremost. Coding for MS is not a livelong thing, you know? So any backdoor would a) be obfuscated and b) have some form of plausible deniability. If I would have to make them, they would look like strings of two or three bugs.
Likely you're right, but let's see if anything can become plausibly demonstrable after obsessive scrutiny. Like many situations in life, it may depend on whether someone determined / resourceful enough wants to do this. There may be no one with sufficient motivation. Also, it's not just (allegedly) all of XP source that's been leaked: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/the-windows-... It's also Windows S…
It would be nice to have a Github repo where you can browse the history like for Unix at https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo . Not going to happen, of course.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#129Forgeting about legality for a moment, this is great. Windows XP is probably the greatest operating system if you factor usability and how many people it has reached. It was also from a time where people still did not expect proprietary operating systems to be actively working against you. So it's great that this source will not be forever lost.
> did not expect proprietary operating > systems to be actively working against you. What did I miss? I've last used Windows in 2005, I'm pretty sure that was XP Service Pack 2. What does it do now to actively work against you?
If I remember correctly, the trend of anti-consumer features was already well underway with windows XP. Integrated DRM was there. The limited activation count was there. Creating themes without signing was not possible, and the 'fisherprice' theme was rolled out even if a lot of users hated it.
Things were still overridable, but XP started the trend where the end user was not an allmighty sysadmin responsible for its own deeds good or wrong, but a consumer that should follow the vision of Microsoft and not touch the holy internals.
I can partially defend microsoft here. Everybody and their dog was messing around in the registry, was installing all kinds of system-breaking software, etc... But it also signifies a point where Microsoft realised it got powerfull enough to ignore the wishes of its own clients.
Re: Windows XP source code has leaked
#130My immediate thought is whether researchers or investigative journalists will find cold hard US government backdoors. This is potentially big.
They won't. Such backdoors would have to be hidden from Joe Average Coder at Microsoft first and foremost. Coding for MS is not a livelong thing, you know? So any backdoor would a) be obfuscated and b) have some form of plausible deniability. If I would have to make them, they would look like strings of two or three bugs.
There's always Ken Thompson's hack of the compiler to insert a backdoor into the login program on Unix. See Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/thompson/trust.html .