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Vista Hackers Get Busy
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's long-awaited Windows Vista release Thursday for business customers will get more than just the passing attention of network administrators. That's because hackers will be eagerly waiting to do what hackers do best: start some mischief." Some folks on the Black Hat set got a sneak peek at Vista earlier this year, so they've had time to prepare.
Because crackers were obviously waiting until Vista was available in stores.
Make it better. The less piracy of windows there is in the world, the more people will get into free alternatives
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Microsoft software will always be a puzzle game to hackers and such; closed, hidden, and exciting to find.
I don't even have the operating system installed and I'm worrying about the hackers and the virus already.
``Some folks on the Black Hat set got a sneak peek at Vista earlier this year''
It seems to me pretty much everyone got a sneak peek at Vista earlier this year.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
If you are a writer or journalist, don't say or write hacker when you mean cracker. If you work with writers or journalists, educate them on this issue and push them to do the right thing. If you catch a newspaper or magazine abusing the work `hacker', write them and straigten them out (this appendix includes a model letter).
The New Hacker's Dictionary
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
``I give the first verified Vista exploit 90 days from the day they ship to consumers.''
Is that because it takes them 187 days to verify it?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
They were all standing around with their tents in their black hats waiting to crack stuff and make keygens and shit. I asked why they were waiting in line when they could have had the RTM weeks ago on Usenet? They replied, "What's Usenet?" Those black hats must really fuck with the circulation in your head. I wonder if Slashdot editors wear black hats.
o Exploits will be in older code.
o The first "exploits" announced will be simply userland Trojans, as will most that follow.
o Old-style remote exploits will be unusual and dramatically rarer than we're used to.
o Nobody will notice the difference. The media will lump all problems together and the reports will boil down to "LOL V1st4 pwned".
MS has hunted down unsafe APIs and banned crypto algorithms that are damaged (MD5) or that nobody can figure out how to use correctly (RC4). They compile with stack canaries. They've added address space layout randomization. A large number of people in Canada will forever snarl at me in derision for saying this, but Microsoft is beginning to absorb lessons from the success of OpenBSD.
It's never going to be the same, of course. There's not enough money in the world to audit Microsoft's cetacean code base to OpenBSD standards and I can't believe the design of Windows would support privilege separation.
we had to manipulate the bits with our fingers, in the snow, without gloves on!
You had FINGERS? You lucky dog. We used to sit around at night, in the freezing cold, dreaming about what it would be like to have fingers...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Runs a little "You now have Linux. Let us show you why you should keep it" demo at startup.
See that's where your idea falls down - that would require artistic and creative skill along with the ability to - heaven forbid - document something.
Skills that most programmers simply do not posess, unless you are talking about making ASCII porn pictures of anime characters, but I don't think that's going to sell Linux to the average Windows user.