Actually, I did RTFA, and several related articles elsewhere (which I didn't keep track of, but I'm sure you could google up a bunch). Information posted by *other programmers* is what convinced me that Gibson is blowing smoke about it being a "backdoor".
Then explain why it's never been seen in the wild? Show me some systems compromised by this?? Gibson isn't the only one who goes poking around in obscure places.
I'm as ready to believe ill of M$ as the next person, and have seen enough of their shenannigans myself to be sure they do sometimes code with malice aforethought -- but this just isn't FUNCTIONAL enough to be a backdoor. The world doesn't run on WMFs (I've actually MADE and USED them, yet I only have half a dozen on this very old box), and as an AC and I discuss elsewhere, there are easier, more-certain ways to accomplish the same objective.
Conspiracy theorists might do better to examine... oh, say the Visual Basic runtimes, which are historically just as old as WMFs, but vastly more widely-used, and offer far more scope for malicious behaviour. After all, how much do you know about those VB compilers??
For that matter, how much do you know about SpinRite? for all you know, it might be dropping a rootkit in an unused part of your boot sector.;)
I did RTFA, or to be accurate TFTranscript, in which Gibson says the tool is "only for listeners". It wasn't linked from there that I saw, and I didn't go pawing thru the rest of his site looking for it.
As to Gibson bashing, I've been watching him for a long time (I remember what happened with Spinrite vs IDE HDs), and while sometimes he has useful info, far too often he blows stuff out of proportion or ignores inconvenient facts, to the point that now I take all his rantings with plenty of salt (and reached this point all by myself, without knowing grcsucks.com existed).
IOW, from long observation I'm aware that while his pointers are often sound and may be worth a look, his data handling is highly suspect.
An AC says, "if Microsoft wants to own your box, all they have to do is put code to give them control into a service pack, and distribute it through Windows Update."
Exactly. Or have IE download it thru some ActiveX control. Either would be a whole lot more reliable than some obscure and difficult-to-ensure bit of WMF functionality that was coded back in 1991, before the notion of pwn3d PCs had entered anyone's head.
Which is yet another reason why it's pretty clear this was sheer happenstance, not a deliberate backdoor. There are lots of better ways to achieve a backdoor, with vastly greater reliability and desktop penetration. After all, when did you last use the Fax viewer? For that matter, when did you last view a.WMF, for ANY reason?
And notice on one of the sites where this is discussed, how a number of people tried to view a random.WMF, and ALL got cranky "WTF am I supposed to do with this unknown file??" messages from Windows.
I'd hazard a guess that before this incident, 90+% of/. readers had never heard of the format, and then only if you were using one of the image editing or page-layout programs for Win3.x -- which was the last time.WMFs had any market significance.
But that's true of anything. Just because it was designed for X doesn't mean someone can't modify it to do Y. So why the WMF function in particular? What ADVANTAGE does it have as a back door, that other more-convenient exploits can't offer?
And considering how old is the code in question, why hasn't any exploit for it ever been seen in the wild? Surely Gibson is not the only person poking into obscure corners of Windows.
I'm reminded of how malicious code can be embedded in the comment field of GIFs, and executed by an accomplice program... that exploit was never seen in the wild either, but has been known about for as long as GIFs have existed. Was it part of a grand conspiracy to force us all to subscribe to Compu$erve??;)
Not only that, but in Those Olden Times, Windows wasn't yet the dominant OS, nor was there yet any particular reason to believe Windows (rather than OS/2, or GeoWorks, or GEM, or Some Other Desktop) was going to take over the world. And M$ just doesn't plan that far ahead when it comes to this sort of stuff (if they did, they wouldn't be always scramblng to patch the latest unwanted vulnerability!)
I think the reason Gibson jumped on this one is because the vulnerability is very specific, and therefore amenable to his species of special-case logic. Somehow this makes it more likely to be a "back door" than any of the vastly-more-convenient ways to exploit a modern Windows machine...?!!
LIS above, methinks Gibson's tinfoil hat is too tight.
Not only that, but my understanding is that the relevant WMF functions date back to the Win3.0 era (maybe Win2.0, not sure -- the earliest date I've seen was 1991) and in any event, long before M$ had much of a clue about the internet. And long before OS "back doors" became a common worry, too. M$ simply doesn't plan that well when it comes to how stuff is used/affected by an OS, and in fact tends to come late to the bandwagon.
Furthermore, if Gibson is so sure of himself, why isn't his own test utility available to everyone? (Apparently it was only available to Laporte's listeners... not likely to be the most unbiased audience.)
Net result: I knew Gibson's tinfoil hat was a trifle snug, but now I'm sure it needs a complete refitting.
Sometimes it's a matter of what you're tuned and/or trained to respond to. I can and usually do ignore irrelevant noise while asleep, but anything affecting my own property wakes me immediately. New parents often discover the same thing -- the neighbours' kids can scream all night and it doesn't bother 'em, but let their own kid cough in his sleep and the parent is instantly awake.
Also interesting how selective one can be even to apparently-identical stimuli... when I heated with a wood stove, the least hint of smoke from my own stove would wake me immediately. But considerably MORE-smokey air from an inversion (trapping smoke from thousands of other folks) didn't attract my sleeping mind's notice.
Re:Maybe not declining, but simply changing
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[goes to look] EEEK!! Good example of why I *prefer* using old Netscape 3, with no plug-ins, and with both javascript and images disabled. That site tried to foist 6 MEGS of Flash ads on me... yeah, that's real pleasant on dialup, good thing I didn't go there with all the bells and whistles active, eh?
So I'll never see their ads. But if they'd put the same info in a text box, I'd probably see it, maybe even read it, and possibly even follow any included links.
Same for spam. Most tries to get my attention by either poking me in the eye or clogging my inbox, no wonder it's unwelcome. But maybe once a month I get one from some legit Chinese manufacturer, in plain text with nothing but a polite "Hi, we make this" and a link to their product site. They never send more than one such message, and the message itself is very small. No reason to block those, in fact some are actually interesting or useful. If all unsolicited email, indeed if all advertising was this polite, we'd have nothing to complain of.
Re:Technical Solutions solves all problems
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That's actually a pretty good parallel to the notion that if only some ubertechfix were forcibly applied to every compromised system, all the ills of the internet would magically go away.
As I've sometimes put it, "Enough duct tape silences anyone."
Re:you can solve all the problems in the world
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"No population -- no popular unrest!!" -- Groachi saying [Keith Laumer]
Re:Maybe not declining, but simply changing
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This is why I don't "foe" anyone. Who knows what they might have to say later on that I want to read? even one of my freaks, I occasionally think has worthy comments. He may not see my replies, but others will, and maybe find something there to discuss.
(I gave up marking friends early on, except as tracking for a few special cases, because there are thousands of people here that I find worth reading, and befriending 'em all was a hopeless task!)
Spam is sorta like our friend/foe/mod system. An occasional shotgun ad (contrary-opinion post) that doesn't try to be deceptive is okay, and may even be informative. Even moronic spams (annoying or just-plain-wrong posts) wouldn't be annoying if they only came ONCE. It's the 10,000-times repeated stupidity (trolling) that makes me want 'em out of my mailbox!!
And here you thought we were off-topic.:)
Re:Maybe not declining, but simply changing
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It's not the ads I mind. It's the ads that sing and dance, hang up the proceedings while being called from some remote server, jump in front of my face, or are too large thus a waste of MY limited resources (being stuck on dialup). Any of that ilk, I block just to keep from putting my fist thru the monitor. But text ads, small banners, and the like are unlikely to get blocked... why bother if they're not annoying me?
Way back in the early days of banner ads, ISTM there were more interesting ads and fewer obnoxious ones. I even saved a few of the more clever banners.
I probably would not only awakened in the first instant the fire alarm went off, but spent 15 minutes hustling laggards out of the building before realizing I was awake.:)
As one who learned to drive in and spent many years in Montana, which (acto my sister, who lived in Alaska for several years) has much worse and more variable winter road conditions than Alaska, I stand by my statements... even if you did post AC (what's that about a conversation not worth having?)
Electrodes... I had this weird vision of someone with a cattle prod informing you that your sleep cycle ends NOW... ooops, not the desired technique!!
As to how to determine it -- go to bed at a reasonable hour (so you're not disrupted by sleep deficiency), and take note of when you wake *by yourself*, and do so fully awake, not groggy. After a few iterations you should notice a pattern -- you'll find that left to yourself, you generally sleep some multiple of NN-long, and that NN is your sleep cycle.
IOW, trial and error and observation. But expect it to be in the 2 to 3 hour range.
That's exactly the situation I was thinking of -- going up a slippery hill, you can get away with gearing down with an automatic. Not so with a stick, even with a very expert driver. I very clearly remember my uncle demonstrating that fact to my grandmother, on the long hill just outside of Minot. Thanks to that momentary loss of traction, we wound up having to stop entirely and put chains on.
Not all automatics are created equal, tho (and doubtless it's the same for sticks). My 63 Olds F85 was better at horsing itself out of trouble than my 78 Ford pickup, in part because the shift layout was different. IIRC it was PN321R, vs the Ford's PRN321. Having first and reverse adjacent makes it easier to rock the vehicle up and out of an icy trench. Also serves as an emergency brake on ice, where you don't dare touch the brake pedal but traction in reverse still works. (Maybe not the best thing for the transmission, but it withstood a lot of years of winter use. And it beats a wreck. Saved my ass a few times when someone ahead of me spun out.)
One of our silly amusements in Montana was to find a vacant icy parking lot, then play spin-the-car: crank the wheel all the way to one side, then stand on the gas. The rear end stays more or less put, but the front end spins round and round. Great fun (and does teach car-feel in an ice-induced skid).
Then I put four studded snow tires on my '63 Olds F-85, and discovered it was now impossible to spin, skid, or slide, no matter what I did. It clung to icy roads like it was wearing spiked boots.
And in winter conditions, I'll stake my automatic against anyone's stick. The big thing is that a stick has a small loss of traction at each shift, and an automatic doesn't, so you can downshift more safely with an automatic (contrary to popular belief, there is nothing that prevents you from gearing down with an automatic). Makes a huge difference on ice, especially on slopes.
Another problem I've observed is that many stick-only-dammit! types are control freaks who can't stand it when anyone else gets in their way, and drive accordingly.
My sister got into the "sticks are better cuz you have more control" thing in her youth, but in later years got a car with an automatic -- and she said, I quote, "I can't believe I worked that hard to drive all those years!"
Actually, I knew someone who had a VW like that, no shit. To stop it he'd gear down hard, then open a door and drag a boot. It also had a rope tied to the windshield wipers (you yanked it back and forth), a long stick replacing the gas pedal, and some other, er, creative parts. Needless to say it hadn't been inspected in a while:)
Good article. Reflects pretty much what I learned on my own when a 10-speed was my sole transportation, even in the Montana winters -- boils down to front brake is for stopping (even panic stops), and rear brake is for stability and control, especially on bad surfaces.
Towing a heavy trailer is rather similar to riding a bike on ice, in that you have to use the rear (trailer) brakes to create drag which is greater than the stopping power of the front (towing vehicle) brakes -- cuz if you do it the other way around, you'll wind up at best fishtailing, worse jackknifed, or at worst flip yourself into the ditch, trailer and all.
I got this lesson in one, when I jackknifed my bicycle on glare ice.:) Quite helpful when I had to tow a heavy trailer cross-country, with not quite enough truck.
Another factor is likely that every few years, people have to learn to drive all over again, as they replace their old vehicle and discover that the new one drives and feels entirely different. So there is a period of adjustment, which may be a permanent condition for people who replace cars often enough.
I drive a 1978 Ford pickup. This isn't exactly a finesse vehicle (tho it is VERY surefooted), but after so many years, it's like an extension of my body. I know its every little quirk and I feel everything the road does under me. So it's easy to make only the necessary input. People comment on how easy and natural my driving is. Well, it oughta be, after 28 years in the same seat.
But watch me or anyone in a strange vehicle -- there's an initial period of over-input and over-correction, followed by some adjustment but continued discomfort. Going from a poor-handling vehicle to a better one naturally helps, but even then you still gotta get used to how it handles.
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Actually, I did RTFA, and several related articles elsewhere (which I didn't keep track of, but I'm sure you could google up a bunch). Information posted by *other programmers* is what convinced me that Gibson is blowing smoke about it being a "backdoor".
Then explain why it's never been seen in the wild? Show me some systems compromised by this?? Gibson isn't the only one who goes poking around in obscure places.
;)
I'm as ready to believe ill of M$ as the next person, and have seen enough of their shenannigans myself to be sure they do sometimes code with malice aforethought -- but this just isn't FUNCTIONAL enough to be a backdoor. The world doesn't run on WMFs (I've actually MADE and USED them, yet I only have half a dozen on this very old box), and as an AC and I discuss elsewhere, there are easier, more-certain ways to accomplish the same objective.
Conspiracy theorists might do better to examine... oh, say the Visual Basic runtimes, which are historically just as old as WMFs, but vastly more widely-used, and offer far more scope for malicious behaviour. After all, how much do you know about those VB compilers??
For that matter, how much do you know about SpinRite? for all you know, it might be dropping a rootkit in an unused part of your boot sector.
I did RTFA, or to be accurate TFTranscript, in which Gibson says the tool is "only for listeners". It wasn't linked from there that I saw, and I didn't go pawing thru the rest of his site looking for it.
As to Gibson bashing, I've been watching him for a long time (I remember what happened with Spinrite vs IDE HDs), and while sometimes he has useful info, far too often he blows stuff out of proportion or ignores inconvenient facts, to the point that now I take all his rantings with plenty of salt (and reached this point all by myself, without knowing grcsucks.com existed).
IOW, from long observation I'm aware that while his pointers are often sound and may be worth a look, his data handling is highly suspect.
An AC says, "if Microsoft wants to own your box, all they have to do is put code to give them control into a service pack, and distribute it through Windows Update."
.WMF, for ANY reason?
.WMF, and ALL got cranky "WTF am I supposed to do with this unknown file??" messages from Windows.
/. readers had never heard of the format, and then only if you were using one of the image editing or page-layout programs for Win3.x -- which was the last time .WMFs had any market significance.
Exactly. Or have IE download it thru some ActiveX control. Either would be a whole lot more reliable than some obscure and difficult-to-ensure bit of WMF functionality that was coded back in 1991, before the notion of pwn3d PCs had entered anyone's head.
Which is yet another reason why it's pretty clear this was sheer happenstance, not a deliberate backdoor. There are lots of better ways to achieve a backdoor, with vastly greater reliability and desktop penetration. After all, when did you last use the Fax viewer? For that matter, when did you last view a
And notice on one of the sites where this is discussed, how a number of people tried to view a random
I'd hazard a guess that before this incident, 90+% of
Thanks, it wasn't linked from TFA page, far as I saw (tho by then my brain was glazing over :)
But that's true of anything. Just because it was designed for X doesn't mean someone can't modify it to do Y. So why the WMF function in particular? What ADVANTAGE does it have as a back door, that other more-convenient exploits can't offer?
;)
And considering how old is the code in question, why hasn't any exploit for it ever been seen in the wild? Surely Gibson is not the only person poking into obscure corners of Windows.
I'm reminded of how malicious code can be embedded in the comment field of GIFs, and executed by an accomplice program... that exploit was never seen in the wild either, but has been known about for as long as GIFs have existed. Was it part of a grand conspiracy to force us all to subscribe to Compu$erve??
Not only that, but in Those Olden Times, Windows wasn't yet the dominant OS, nor was there yet any particular reason to believe Windows (rather than OS/2, or GeoWorks, or GEM, or Some Other Desktop) was going to take over the world. And M$ just doesn't plan that far ahead when it comes to this sort of stuff (if they did, they wouldn't be always scramblng to patch the latest unwanted vulnerability!)
I think the reason Gibson jumped on this one is because the vulnerability is very specific, and therefore amenable to his species of special-case logic. Somehow this makes it more likely to be a "back door" than any of the vastly-more-convenient ways to exploit a modern Windows machine...?!!
LIS above, methinks Gibson's tinfoil hat is too tight.
Not only that, but my understanding is that the relevant WMF functions date back to the Win3.0 era (maybe Win2.0, not sure -- the earliest date I've seen was 1991) and in any event, long before M$ had much of a clue about the internet. And long before OS "back doors" became a common worry, too. M$ simply doesn't plan that well when it comes to how stuff is used/affected by an OS, and in fact tends to come late to the bandwagon.
Furthermore, if Gibson is so sure of himself, why isn't his own test utility available to everyone? (Apparently it was only available to Laporte's listeners... not likely to be the most unbiased audience.)
Net result: I knew Gibson's tinfoil hat was a trifle snug, but now I'm sure it needs a complete refitting.
Sometimes it's a matter of what you're tuned and/or trained to respond to. I can and usually do ignore irrelevant noise while asleep, but anything affecting my own property wakes me immediately. New parents often discover the same thing -- the neighbours' kids can scream all night and it doesn't bother 'em, but let their own kid cough in his sleep and the parent is instantly awake.
Also interesting how selective one can be even to apparently-identical stimuli... when I heated with a wood stove, the least hint of smoke from my own stove would wake me immediately. But considerably MORE-smokey air from an inversion (trapping smoke from thousands of other folks) didn't attract my sleeping mind's notice.
[goes to look] EEEK!! Good example of why I *prefer* using old Netscape 3, with no plug-ins, and with both javascript and images disabled. That site tried to foist 6 MEGS of Flash ads on me... yeah, that's real pleasant on dialup, good thing I didn't go there with all the bells and whistles active, eh?
So I'll never see their ads. But if they'd put the same info in a text box, I'd probably see it, maybe even read it, and possibly even follow any included links.
Same for spam. Most tries to get my attention by either poking me in the eye or clogging my inbox, no wonder it's unwelcome. But maybe once a month I get one from some legit Chinese manufacturer, in plain text with nothing but a polite "Hi, we make this" and a link to their product site. They never send more than one such message, and the message itself is very small. No reason to block those, in fact some are actually interesting or useful. If all unsolicited email, indeed if all advertising was this polite, we'd have nothing to complain of.
That's actually a pretty good parallel to the notion that if only some ubertechfix were forcibly applied to every compromised system, all the ills of the internet would magically go away.
As I've sometimes put it, "Enough duct tape silences anyone."
"No population -- no popular unrest!!" -- Groachi saying [Keith Laumer]
This is why I don't "foe" anyone. Who knows what they might have to say later on that I want to read? even one of my freaks, I occasionally think has worthy comments. He may not see my replies, but others will, and maybe find something there to discuss.
:)
(I gave up marking friends early on, except as tracking for a few special cases, because there are thousands of people here that I find worth reading, and befriending 'em all was a hopeless task!)
Spam is sorta like our friend/foe/mod system. An occasional shotgun ad (contrary-opinion post) that doesn't try to be deceptive is okay, and may even be informative. Even moronic spams (annoying or just-plain-wrong posts) wouldn't be annoying if they only came ONCE. It's the 10,000-times repeated stupidity (trolling) that makes me want 'em out of my mailbox!!
And here you thought we were off-topic.
It's not the ads I mind. It's the ads that sing and dance, hang up the proceedings while being called from some remote server, jump in front of my face, or are too large thus a waste of MY limited resources (being stuck on dialup). Any of that ilk, I block just to keep from putting my fist thru the monitor. But text ads, small banners, and the like are unlikely to get blocked... why bother if they're not annoying me?
Way back in the early days of banner ads, ISTM there were more interesting ads and fewer obnoxious ones. I even saved a few of the more clever banners.
I probably would not only awakened in the first instant the fire alarm went off, but spent 15 minutes hustling laggards out of the building before realizing I was awake. :)
LOL!! I vote for the wolves. :)
As one who learned to drive in and spent many years in Montana, which (acto my sister, who lived in Alaska for several years) has much worse and more variable winter road conditions than Alaska, I stand by my statements... even if you did post AC (what's that about a conversation not worth having?)
Electrodes... I had this weird vision of someone with a cattle prod informing you that your sleep cycle ends NOW ... ooops, not the desired technique!!
As to how to determine it -- go to bed at a reasonable hour (so you're not disrupted by sleep deficiency), and take note of when you wake *by yourself*, and do so fully awake, not groggy. After a few iterations you should notice a pattern -- you'll find that left to yourself, you generally sleep some multiple of NN-long, and that NN is your sleep cycle.
IOW, trial and error and observation. But expect it to be in the 2 to 3 hour range.
That's exactly the situation I was thinking of -- going up a slippery hill, you can get away with gearing down with an automatic. Not so with a stick, even with a very expert driver. I very clearly remember my uncle demonstrating that fact to my grandmother, on the long hill just outside of Minot. Thanks to that momentary loss of traction, we wound up having to stop entirely and put chains on.
Not all automatics are created equal, tho (and doubtless it's the same for sticks). My 63 Olds F85 was better at horsing itself out of trouble than my 78 Ford pickup, in part because the shift layout was different. IIRC it was PN321R, vs the Ford's PRN321. Having first and reverse adjacent makes it easier to rock the vehicle up and out of an icy trench. Also serves as an emergency brake on ice, where you don't dare touch the brake pedal but traction in reverse still works. (Maybe not the best thing for the transmission, but it withstood a lot of years of winter use. And it beats a wreck. Saved my ass a few times when someone ahead of me spun out.)
One of our silly amusements in Montana was to find a vacant icy parking lot, then play spin-the-car: crank the wheel all the way to one side, then stand on the gas. The rear end stays more or less put, but the front end spins round and round. Great fun (and does teach car-feel in an ice-induced skid).
Then I put four studded snow tires on my '63 Olds F-85, and discovered it was now impossible to spin, skid, or slide, no matter what I did. It clung to icy roads like it was wearing spiked boots.
Such is my experience and observation as well.
:)
And in winter conditions, I'll stake my automatic against anyone's stick. The big thing is that a stick has a small loss of traction at each shift, and an automatic doesn't, so you can downshift more safely with an automatic (contrary to popular belief, there is nothing that prevents you from gearing down with an automatic). Makes a huge difference on ice, especially on slopes.
Another problem I've observed is that many stick-only-dammit! types are control freaks who can't stand it when anyone else gets in their way, and drive accordingly.
My sister got into the "sticks are better cuz you have more control" thing in her youth, but in later years got a car with an automatic -- and she said, I quote, "I can't believe I worked that hard to drive all those years!"
Hell, I knew that.
Actually, I knew someone who had a VW like that, no shit. To stop it he'd gear down hard, then open a door and drag a boot. It also had a rope tied to the windshield wipers (you yanked it back and forth), a long stick replacing the gas pedal, and some other, er, creative parts. Needless to say it hadn't been inspected in a while :)
Good article. Reflects pretty much what I learned on my own when a 10-speed was my sole transportation, even in the Montana winters -- boils down to front brake is for stopping (even panic stops), and rear brake is for stability and control, especially on bad surfaces.
:) Quite helpful when I had to tow a heavy trailer cross-country, with not quite enough truck.
:)
Towing a heavy trailer is rather similar to riding a bike on ice, in that you have to use the rear (trailer) brakes to create drag which is greater than the stopping power of the front (towing vehicle) brakes -- cuz if you do it the other way around, you'll wind up at best fishtailing, worse jackknifed, or at worst flip yourself into the ditch, trailer and all.
I got this lesson in one, when I jackknifed my bicycle on glare ice.
Never went over the handlebars, tho
Another factor is likely that every few years, people have to learn to drive all over again, as they replace their old vehicle and discover that the new one drives and feels entirely different. So there is a period of adjustment, which may be a permanent condition for people who replace cars often enough.
I drive a 1978 Ford pickup. This isn't exactly a finesse vehicle (tho it is VERY surefooted), but after so many years, it's like an extension of my body. I know its every little quirk and I feel everything the road does under me. So it's easy to make only the necessary input. People comment on how easy and natural my driving is. Well, it oughta be, after 28 years in the same seat.
But watch me or anyone in a strange vehicle -- there's an initial period of over-input and over-correction, followed by some adjustment but continued discomfort. Going from a poor-handling vehicle to a better one naturally helps, but even then you still gotta get used to how it handles.
Dunno about now, but parts of Wyoming used to have a 45mph nighttime limit on 2-lane roads, thanks to all the deer competing for pavement space.
Makes me wonder what the per-capita deer-vs-motorist incident level is (considering there's an assload more folks in PA than in WY).