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XP/Vista IGMP Buffer Overflow — Explained
HalvarFlake writes "With all the hoopla about the remotely exploitable, kernel-level buffer overflow discussed in today's security bulletin MS08-0001, what is the actual bug that triggers this? The bulletin doesn't give all that much information. This movie (Flash required) goes through the process of examining the 'pre-patch' version of tcpip.sys and comparing it against the 'post-patch' version of tcpip.sys. This comparison yields the actual code that causes the overflow: A mistake in the calculation of the required size in a dynamic allocation."
>This comparison yields the actual code that causes the overflow:
>A mistake in the calculation of the required size in a dynamic allocation
I hope no one else makes this mistake.
Darn pesky kids and their fancy buffer overflows. I outta HEAP on the insults, but I'll try to stick to my PROGRAM of keeping my smoke STACK cool.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
so? He did something (some) people consider cool.. why shouldn't he stand to gain from telling people about it?
Slashvertisment used to mean that you were claiming Slashdot was taking money to advertise something as a story. You seem to be using it to refer to anyone who submits their own website to Slashdot. Attention whore? Yes. Slashvertisment? No.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Because TCP and UDP headers aren't of fixed sizes and as such are incredibly difficult to handle in hardware. Hardware switching has been tried - ATM for instance - but it's not that simple. TCP/IP was designed as a software protocol, and it's an unfortunate reality that some protocols are easily handled in hardware and others are not.
IPv6 makes some steps towards having simpler hardware handling, but as long as IPv4 is still around, we won't see hardware switching become commonplace.
Actually, there's one more comparison they've screwed up. Anyone who has installed the Event ID 4226 patch to increase the allowed number of half-open connections so their BitTorrent speeds don't suck ass just had that patch undone by this new version of TCPIP.SYS.
:-] Oh, and I'll add one more detail not mentioned here. According to F-Secure, there haven't been any exploits for this found in the wild--yet.
The only good thing is that, while the page hasn't been updated since 2006, the patch seems to work on the new TCPIP.SYS (I just tested it on my own machine).
I realize I'm sort of hijacking the first post, but given how many of us are probably downloading Linux ISOs right now, I figured it's important enough that people wouldn't mind a reminder...
While I don't necessarily disagree with you... feel free to release your patch to tcpip.c and give us a link to the updated source file as soon as you get a chance ;)
Sometimes, if a closed-source vendor isn't going to release an update/fix/tweak, the community has to do what they can to do it. Given what many people use Bittorrent for, I suspect getting a rootkit from this patch is the least of their worries. The rest of us will either just have to trust it, use BT on a non-Windows platform, or deal with the slower speeds.
This does bring up an interesting possibility - rather than completely reimplement Windows through something like ReactOS, or translate the API like WINE, how about replacing components of a real Windows install with F/OSS replacements? Drop in a workalike, but open source tcpip.sys and know where it's coming from.
There is a real point to his argument. It also happens to be the real flaw in his argument...
The only real reason to "upgrade" something is if you need something more. For business, need should be defined as something that will do a business function that will make money, replace labor, acquire additional business related information of value, etc... It has to do something you truly need. If all you any business need for is a computer that runs a word processor then he has a genuine point. It assumes that there is no other piece of software that serves a valid business need that anyone else might need.
A number of pieces of software have been written that require a later OS that fulfill a number of very valuable ($$$) tasks. Also Win 95 is only stable if you have hardware with extremely good drivers under it, a limited number of processes/programs on top of it, and your continuous up-time requirements are somewhat limited. This makes 95 a long way from being the one-size-fits-all solution. (I have one Win 95B station at my desk just to do drive data recovery and to do a few file tasks that XP doesn't want to let you do...)
Using that same logic there isn't a valid reason for almost anyone to use Vista instead of XP. Plus there is the "Business downside" of the end users having to relearn how to use computers that they already knew how to use.
Vista's big offerings are two fold:
- One is what I call the "raccoon" factor. Give people something bright and shiny and their eyes will roll back in their head as they start to murmur, "Gimme, gimme, gimme..." as you can hear the words, "It is new!" echoing softly in the background. This offers them nothing that is real but it does drive people amazingly hard. Look at the number of people that paid $100+ premiums to have an iPhone in the first week of release. A month later no one including themselves remember that they got their phone early and it certainly didn't pay any dividend for the expense but they will do it again: They are raccoons!
- Two, Vista includes huge DRM underpinnings. After XP was released Bill Gates publicly stated they the next version of Windows wouldn't be an OS but instead it would be a Digital Rights Management Platform. This does nothing for us but does plenty for Mickeysoft and the big media companies. I notice they aren't mentioning that fact any more either!
Basically Microsoft wrote a new OS for themselves instead of us and they made it really visually flashy so the raccoon in all of us will want to roll our eyes back in our head and buy it. The fact that they forgot to put anything we actually need in it has made its adoption really tank. The only real reason they have sold any volume of it is that you almost can't buy a computer without it. To help the process along Microsoft has pushed for new hardware that doesn't have XP driver support and you will start to see programming tools with limited or missing XP support.
We are coming up to a point where we are looking at a future where we could lose control of what is on our own computers! Vista is already trying to decide if you should be able to access your own files that are already on your computer! Take this fact and combine it with the whole limitations being rammed down our throat with HDTV and we are looking at being consumers that are buying things that we have no control over. A computer could easily act as a HDTV 'VCR' because that is an amazingly simple function but we have been forced to buy into a system where that isn't allowed. The only HDTV VCR like devices are subscription ($$) based!
You are being quietly guided into a world where you will tithe endlessly to corporations for simple things that in the past you could buy once and be done with. MS has tried to make the OS subscription based. (tithe) Limited number of play media files are subscription based. (tithe) Buying a cell with an MP3 player in it that you will just replace in a year or two is ano
Or, come to think of it, without supervision.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.