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What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

etherrotmutex.blogspot.com

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Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#131

Post by honkdaddy »

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #48
iKlsR wrote: post #13

From the comments on the blog. > This is a comment made in a software called InstallShield, version X at last, a software intent to create installers, so it probably will appear in many other products. > Found in a InstallShield sample that I was reversing to check if it's a malware. The line made me chuckle, and it's so heartwarming to see someone actually made a blog on it and the fact the line has been around sinc…

Good old InstallShield. At one point it was everywhere, and then... it wasn't. I keep all the bundled installers I've ever had in a folder. Currently there are files there from 2009 onwards (older ones are archived somewhere). I didn't bother looking for the older ones, but running grep -a ether-rot-mutex quickly yielded a match containing the entire snippet! The culprit is the installer for Ulead (now Corel) PhotoIm…

13 years of installers.. That's some impressive digital pack-ratting!

What's the idea? Just in case you ever need the installer again and it's no longer hosted online?

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#132

Post by honkdaddy »

nunez wrote: post #61

This brought me back to college and me learning about steganography. I wonder how many images are floating around with secret messages in them! Also reminds me of people who immortalized themselves by putting their initials or a favorite phrase in the header of a file format that got popular (like Mike did at Microsoft for .exe's; every exe header starts with MZ, which is really friggin cool) Or the "Don't Steal MacO…

Ahhh DSMOS.kext - that's a throwback!

> The extension contains a kernel function called page_transform() that performs AES decryption of "apple-protected" programs. A system lacking a proper key will not be able to run the Apple-restricted binaries, which include Dock, Finder, loginwindow, SystemUIServer, mds, ATSServer, backupd, fontd, translate, or translated.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#133

Post by e40 »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #72
pteraspidomorph wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old InstallShield. At one point it was everywhere, and then... it wasn't. I keep all the bundled installers I've ever had in a folder. Currently there are files there from 2009 onwards (older ones are archived somewhere). I didn't bother looking for the older ones, but running grep -a ether-rot-mutex quickly yielded a match containing the entire snippet! The culprit is the installer for Ulead (now Corel) PhotoIm…

Installshield as a product had... (has?) absolutely incredible incidental complexity. It's really hard to communicate the scars, if you never dealt with it, you dodged a bullet. Under the next -> next -> finish you saw, was basically a fountain of tears. That software directly relished and consumed the salty tears of engineers. It demanded them as sacrifice, to make the installs keep happening. You would think that a…

Ah, yes, I remember it well. The day I jumped to NSIS was a good day.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#134

Post by lupire »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #87
iamwil wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was whiteboarding with a fellow (girl) student in college. We were sketching out a client/server architecture, and I abbreviated server as "srvr". When it came to the client, I thought I should also make it four letters, so I wrote "clit". I stood back and looked at it. After a couple seconds pause, it dawned on my brain that was probably a terrible shortening. I wordlessly erased my gaffe, and just wrote out the w…

I once forgot that calling a solution "quick and dirty" is a raunchy double entendre until the lady I was demoing something to said "kinky". But your example is far more embarrassing.

Everything is a raunchy double entendre, so don't worry about it. The lady was flirting with you.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#135

Post by lupire »

lights0123 wrote: post #59
cossatot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matlab and SciPy both have ‘cumtrapz’ for trapezoidal integration.

Although SciPy retains an alias for compatibility, the preferred name has changed: https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/12924

> *, 3/4 of the sample based integrated method names are, or are very close to, popular sexual-ish diminutives or slurs:

That's magical.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#136

Post by lupire »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #16
sprior wrote: post #7

Back when I was in high school and programming on the original IBM PCs I wrote a program that would graph "solids of rotation" (a function rotated around the X axis). Well I chose the obvious name based on the 8.3 filename limitations. One day someone looked over my shoulder and said "you named your program solid rot???" Oops.

Is/was "solid rot" slang for something somewhere?

"rot" means "decayed/decomposed". It's got a negative connotation.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#137

Post by jaywalk »

greenhorn123 wrote: post #73
nunez wrote: post #61

This brought me back to college and me learning about steganography. I wonder how many images are floating around with secret messages in them! Also reminds me of people who immortalized themselves by putting their initials or a favorite phrase in the header of a file format that got popular (like Mike did at Microsoft for .exe's; every exe header starts with MZ, which is really friggin cool) Or the "Don't Steal MacO…

Hackintoshes did not necessarily steal MacOS, you could buy legit copies of MacOS.

You could purchase a DVD containing MacOS, but calling them "legit" (as far as installing on a Hackintosh) is a stretch. You're paying for the physical disc, not a license to the OS. The only way to get a license to use MacOS is to purchase a Mac.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#138

Post by grishka »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #72
pteraspidomorph wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old InstallShield. At one point it was everywhere, and then... it wasn't. I keep all the bundled installers I've ever had in a folder. Currently there are files there from 2009 onwards (older ones are archived somewhere). I didn't bother looking for the older ones, but running grep -a ether-rot-mutex quickly yielded a match containing the entire snippet! The culprit is the installer for Ulead (now Corel) PhotoIm…

Installshield as a product had... (has?) absolutely incredible incidental complexity. It's really hard to communicate the scars, if you never dealt with it, you dodged a bullet. Under the next -> next -> finish you saw, was basically a fountain of tears. That software directly relished and consumed the salty tears of engineers. It demanded them as sacrifice, to make the installs keep happening. You would think that a…

Probably a good thing that when I built a Windows app in 2010 and needed an installer for it, I used InnoSetup. It was surprisingly easy to get something decently working out of it.

But yes, I remember that a lot of installers were InstallShield, and the thought that it might be a mess on the inside has never once crossed my mind.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#139

Post by thedanbob »

honkdaddy wrote: post #131
pteraspidomorph wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old InstallShield. At one point it was everywhere, and then... it wasn't. I keep all the bundled installers I've ever had in a folder. Currently there are files there from 2009 onwards (older ones are archived somewhere). I didn't bother looking for the older ones, but running grep -a ether-rot-mutex quickly yielded a match containing the entire snippet! The culprit is the installer for Ulead (now Corel) PhotoIm…

13 years of installers.. That's some impressive digital pack-ratting! What's the idea? Just in case you ever need the installer again and it's no longer hosted online?

You never know! Not the OP but I encountered a situation recently where my wife needed an old version of some software that was no longer available to download anywhere. (It pairs with an "smart" embroidery machine of hers.) Luckily I managed to find a copy of the installer in the temporary internet files directory of her old PC.

Re: What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex (2017)

#140

Post by schmeckleberg »

classified wrote: post #119

"ether-rot-mutex" could be the name of a cryptocurrency for all I know.

i seriously wondered if this post was related to ethereum and solidity and was amused that it was actually more to do with installshield.

solidity programs can be hosted on? run on? ethereum. people can and do implement mutexes in solidity. (e.g.: https://medium.com/coinmonks/protect-your-solidity-smart-con...)

what would happen if somebody, in their solidity-based smart contract, called a mutex "ether-rot-mutex". ether is one shortening of ethereum so it's not hard to guess. neither is mutex. rot is frequently short for rotation. also German for red.

if it's easy enough to get scope wrong or cause leaky namespaces in solidity (disclaimer: i do not know enough about solidity to guess at this) then could somebody calling a mutex "ether-rot-mutex" little-bobby-tables themselves into exploiting your smart contract?

i don't know. i don't even know what i don't know in this particular field. i'm just letting my apophenia out to play :)

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