Live data from Hacker News

Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

retrocomputing.stackexchange.com

51–60 of 111 posts

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#51
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have forgotten them, but there were also books printed on paper.

H4x0r doesn't need book. H4x0r try 4nd err0r. Books were just knowledge. Debugging was skill. At certain point in knowledge-gain, you develop a good skill and after that point, you don't need books anymore. Maybe from time to time. I still have a suse6 printed manual.. I can't see it in the cellar, but It've been HUUGE

This is just macho bravado, and it can be fun, but definitely not the most efficient use of time for someone.

If you have access, why would you debug machine code without using the reference manuals for a particular processor and OS and whatever else you're dealing with? You could spend hours chasing a "impossible" problem that could be easily be found in the errata for a giving stepping.

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#53
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Win95 could be crashed or even rooted just by pinging it the right way? We really have come a long way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_of_death I also remember SMB vulnerabilities that stayed unpatched for years on some machines. That was already when Metasploit existed, so you could inject VNC into most Windows hosts on local network with just a few commands. These days at least the patching is sup…

I remember when CdC released Back Orifice to remote control Windows machines, like ejecting CDROM and such [1]. We really did come a long way, where 0-days go for 20 million dollars. [2]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Orifice 2: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/27/russian-zero-day-seller-of...

I was managing a few labs full of machines used for training on NT4 which meant I was frequently re-imaging and could use effective remote control capability. Back Orifice was, at the time, the absolute best remote admin solution available for free. I could deploy it in the image and then use it to kick off reimage process, reboot, log out a student, or monitor their screen from the teacher's desk to share on the attached TV. It really was a handy tool for remote admin tasks.

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#55
post #44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember those days. Even into the late 90s early 2000, modems (including ADSL) didn't come with a router, you had to establish a PPPoE connection from your computer, which also means your home machine was directly on the WAN with no firewall protection. I can't remember which version of windows but it must have been 98 or ME, you had to rush to download and install a patch when you connected it first to the intern…

IIRC Windows XP up to SP2 was vulnerable to this. Basically if you ran the install with the DSL modem attached, your PC was compromised even before the end of setup.

LSASS.exe would crash with about 5 minutes of IBR (Internet Background Radiation). I cant remember the name of the worm. XP SP3 fixed this.

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#56
post #44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember those days. Even into the late 90s early 2000, modems (including ADSL) didn't come with a router, you had to establish a PPPoE connection from your computer, which also means your home machine was directly on the WAN with no firewall protection. I can't remember which version of windows but it must have been 98 or ME, you had to rush to download and install a patch when you connected it first to the intern…

IIRC Windows XP up to SP2 was vulnerable to this. Basically if you ran the install with the DSL modem attached, your PC was compromised even before the end of setup.

When W32/Blaster[0] came out I worked at a small ISP doing tech support and computer repair. A tech and I imaged an old box we had in the corner with a clean XP, assigned it a static IP in our /24, plugged it in and started a stopwatch. It didn’t even make it two minutes before it was infected.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm)

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier versions of Windows (98? 95?) also used to share things like drives (C$, D$) and printers with the dial-up connection by default. I remember connecting to a printer of a classmate over the internet and printing a page, to his surprise. All you needed was the IP, which was trivial to get from ICQ, back in the days.

Yeah, running an SMB/NFS scan gave you lots of fun on Modem/DSL connections.

What was more fun when the spammers figured out 'net send'. I showed that to one guy I worked with and that thing had a nasty bug. If you got one of the parameters wrong it would send a message to every computer on the domain. He had to explain to the top guys why they had funny messages on their screen.

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#58
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Windows XP up to SP2 was vulnerable to this. Basically if you ran the install with the DSL modem attached, your PC was compromised even before the end of setup.

LSASS.exe would crash with about 5 minutes of IBR (Internet Background Radiation). I cant remember the name of the worm. XP SP3 fixed this.

> IBR (Internet Background Radiation)

that is really unpleasant.. engineers worked, companies worked and volunteers also worked to make the modern Internet, then selfish-clever, thieving, control-oriented militaristic jerks from WINDOWS filled the content with WINDOWS virus activity to play cheap stealing tricks on unsuspecting people. And you call it "the Internet" .. it has nothing to do with "the Internet" as much as the cheap and aggressive culture of BS from WINDOWS at that time

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#59
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Troubleshooting was different when we came up. Just your wits and maybe some gurus you could call on a landline as backup. No fancy internet with tons of answers of varying degrees of usefulness.

You might have forgotten them, but there were also books printed on paper.

[deleted]

Re: Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?

#60
post #2

Is it bad that I knew that one without opening it? ... never mind I'll be over yelling at these young kids to get off my lawn :)

Troubleshooting was different when we came up. Just your wits and maybe some gurus you could call on a landline as backup. No fancy internet with tons of answers of varying degrees of usefulness.

FidoNet and WWIVNet were also pretty good places to find people to ask questions.
Post reply on HN