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PsYcHoLoGiCaL

Rumors are flying around all over the internet that a portion or all of the windows 2000 and windows NT source code has leaked onto the internet, if this is true, and that is a big if, but if it is then there could be huge security concerns. After all, MS has always been about secuirty though obscurity, but what happens when they those their obsurity? It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few days.

Here is an article by www.neowin.net (A bunch of high profile sites just linked to them because of this story so it apears the server has been blinded, try again later if you can't get though.) Another article is here http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news...le.php/3312451 .

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BloodNOil

Big Deal.

Linux is a million times worse! The source code gets leaked EVERY DAY to
almost EVERY hacker in the world!

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It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain!!

CheebaMonkey

Couldn't somebody decompile the Windows files and look at the source code that way?

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BloodNOil

Sure. If you had enough assembly language skill to write an operating system on your own.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

There is a big difference between open source apps and closed source apps. Windows is riddled with security problems, and if the source is exposed it will be hundreds of times if easier to discover them. OSS is designed so that anyone can fix a problem and submit it. Windows does EVERYTHING themselves sometimes it takes them 200 days to fix a problem, their track record, to say the least isn't good.

Plus Microsoft has never really had good secure programing practices, with OSS secure programing is strongly enforced because the source is... well, open and anyone can look at it. As it is now without the source exposed exploits are coming in at a rate that Microsoft's can't handle, i mean come on 200 days to fix a security flaw is rediculas. Just imagine the rate that exploits would be coming in if the source was exposed.

You have to realize that with OSS the public has time to scrutinized the source from the very beginning of the development to find any security flaws, its an on going process. Imagine a 50 million line application that has never been scrutinized by the public for security flaws just being tossed into the public domain, well needless to say they will get their scrutiny but it wont be distrubted over a long period of time like with OSS.

Simply put the ONLY security windows gets is though obscurity, and if the source is revealed they no long have have that luxury.


You can try and decompile it, but it just isnt the same has having the orginal code. You just can't get the same detail from decompiling than you can with the actual source. Having the source and having hex isnt even close to the same thing.

 

CheebaMonkey

They couldn't convert the decompiled information into a different language format, such as C++ (or whichever one is used to write OSs)?

And that's some interesting thoughts there Psy, never thought of it like that.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

Thanks Cheeba, well to answer your question, you could translate assembly back into c++, however it isn't practical to do so, because there is no automated process which will do it for you, if you want to decompile it then you have to do it manually. The semantic distance between x86 machine language and C++ is just to great for decompilation to be successful. Basically assembly is a very low programing language and c++ is very high trying to covert simple applications is possible and if the program is small can be done without to much difficulty.

The problem arises when you have a massive, and extraordinarily complex piece of software (which Windows is), the level of difficultly gets impossible to manage. Someone could, and certainly has decompiled small portions of Windows, but we are talking very, very, very, very, very, very small fractions of a percent. And the starting point was probably nothing more than random. In order for decompiling to be useful you have to be able to say "ok, I want to see data on X (X being a certain function of the OS)" and then being able to access it. But its simply not possible to be able to figure out what section of the assembly pertains to specific functions of the OS, without either stumbling into X or decompiling the whole thing.

To kind of get an idea of how difficult it is, think of programing in c++, actually think of being given 50 million lines of c++, the only catch is that there are no comments (for those who don't know comments are just plain English strings, which is inserted into a programs source which don't actually perform any function other than allowing programmers to better follow what is happening in the program) inserted into the the c++ source. Now this might not be obvious to those who haven't spent time programing before but when you have a large and complex program without any comments in it, its nearly impossible to figure out what the source is saying. I couldn't given begin to imagine having to look over 50 million lines of windows code without comments, it truly would be virtually impossible. Now just imagine trying to convert a very low level programing languages into a high level languages, which I might add, will also have zero comments.

Basically you can see how it is simply impossible to decompile the windows source code. Their isn't a single person on the planet who could do it, its simply to grueling of a processes and way to mathematically complex.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

Well Microsoft has confirmed the a portion of the windows source has been leaked onto the Internet, most websites are reporting that the amount of code leaked totals to about 15%. There has been a lot of speculation about whether or not this will cause large security problems and an increase in exploits, some security experts/firms are saying that it is likely and some are saying that its probably isn't. It really boils down to what that 15% of the source pertains to, if the source belongs to network protocols functions and the like then their will without a doubt be security repercussion's from this leak, if none of the source pertains to the network protocols then the security issues will be less. Here is one of the links http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3486011.stm.

btothejay

While they could (in theory) do that to some of the code (some of the code is actually written in assembly), it'd be worthless because all of the variable names and comments explaining what's going on would be gone.

CheebaMonkey

I'm guessing that it removes the comments when it compiles it. Right?

But what about the variable names? Aren't those defined by the programmer, and thus have to stay the same? It could be converted to a different language, but as long as the meaning stays the same.

So when a program is written, a copy is kept of the original code before it's compiled, with comments and all?