Discussion:
Microsoft put NSA backdoor in encryption
(too old to reply)
Free Ed Snowden!
2013-07-12 18:44:12 UTC
Permalink
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the American
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper The
Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft has put a
backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what users think are
confidential communications, passwords, etc. This has long been
suspected, but has never been proven until now.
__________________________________________________


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-
user-data

11 July 2013

"Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to
allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the
National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption,
according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."

"The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-
operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the
last three years."

"Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address
concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the
new Outlook.com portal; The agency already had pre-encryption stage
access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail..."

"In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA
boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls
being collected through Prism; Material collected through Prism is
routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing
the program as a 'team sport.'"

[Note: The Chinese government has been overhauling its computer systems
to use open-source Linux, rightfully distrusting Microsoft's proprietary
closed-source software.]
Matt
2013-07-12 19:49:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the American
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper
The Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft has
put a backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what users
think are confidential communications, passwords, etc. This has long
No, that is not what they did. Read the article, instead of being so
dramatic about it, and you realize they provided the NSA with unencrypted
data before it was sent. Not an especially nice thing to do, but seriously,
if you are sending plain text over the Internet in the form of email, IM
and Usenet, and are worried about someone reading it, you have more serious
issues.

RSA encryption can be beaten, but it takes an awful lot of computing power
dedicated to the process. It is most certainly not something you do for all
messages.

Matt
jeff g.
2013-07-12 20:13:35 UTC
Permalink
<snip>
Matt
Matt, don't feed the trolls...
DanS
2013-07-12 22:38:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by jeff g.
<snip>
Matt
Matt, don't feed the trolls...
By "feed the trolls", you mean provide a more technically accurate
description of [whatever] instead of half-truths?
Aragorn
2013-07-12 20:50:02 UTC
Permalink
[Follow-up rerouted to alt.os.linux.ubuntu because it's the only one of
the listed groups I'm subscribed to, and because we have an undercover
Microsoft astroturfer here - or perhaps I should say: at least one, as I
suspect that there might be two of them.]

On Friday 12 July 2013 21:49, Matt conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Matt
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the American
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper
The Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft
has put a backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what
users think are confidential communications, passwords, etc. [...]
Note to the OP: Although I support Edward Snowden, as far as I know he
_is still_ a free man. A hunted man, no doubt, but he is still free,
and definitely more free than Julian Assange, who has found shelter in
the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but is unable to leave the embassy
because Scotland Yard has been staking out the embassy ever since it was
known that Assange was hiding there, and if he ever leaves, they will
catch him, hand him over to the Swedes, and the Swedes will then hand
him over to the Americans, and then he'd be spending the rest of his
days in Guantanamo Bay.
Post by Matt
No, that is not what they did. Read the article, instead of being so
dramatic about it, and you realize they provided the NSA with
unencrypted data before it was sent. Not an especially nice thing to
do, but seriously, if you are sending plain text over the Internet in
the form of email, IM and Usenet, and are worried about someone
reading it, you have more serious issues.
Yes, but that is not the /complete/ story. The article in question
highlights this particular tidbit, but as was already revealed earlier
on, ...

a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based versions
of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know whether that
was also the case for the DOS-based versions of Microsoft Windows
[2], but those were easy to crack anyway.

b. Microsoft sells zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows to the NSA,
and so do so-called computer security companies - e.g. the anti-
virus industry. In fact, the US government is the biggest buyer
of zero-day exploits, and in whatever software, for that matter;
it's not limited to Microsoft Windows, and these days, Android -
which is for most part written in Java, which is itself a security
nightmare - is also a highly favored target for use as a botnet
slave which can be deployed for conducting DDoS attacks.

c. As of Windows XP onward, Microsoft spies on its users, because
Windows phones home every week with a detailed report on (of
course) your Windows installation, your computer's hardware, what
software is installed on your computer - even if it's not Microsoft
software - and possibly your browser history if you use Internet
Explorer. Microsoft has admitted to this and claims that "the
information will not be stored permanently at Microsoft and is only
used so as to allow Microsoft to improve its service to its
customers." However, Microsoft has a history of lying - in fact,
they are not to be trusted, ever - and they most certainly do store
and save that information on their servers somewhere for at least
a certain amount of time, linked to your WAN-side IP address and
your Windows serial number and activation key. As of Windows 7 on,
the user can disable this "feature" via the Windows Configuration
Panel, but this was not possible in Windows XP. A French developer
- the one who discovered this "feature" of Windows - wrote a
freeware tool which the Windows user can download and which will
then deactivate the spying.

d. Microsoft also spies on its Windows Phone users by sending GPS
coordinates of Windows Phone users to Microsoft. Although
undocumented, Microsoft was caught and has in the meantime also
admitted to doing that, but of course with the same old spin that
they are collecting this data "so as to improve their service
towards their customers."
Post by Matt
RSA encryption can be beaten, but it takes an awful lot of computing
power dedicated to the process. It is most certainly not something you
do for all messages.
That's why the NSA is building a brand-new and multi-million dollar
supercomputer [3], courtesy of the US American taxpayer - note: I myself
am not a US American. Apparently their current contingent of
supercomputers - they have more than one - wasn't up for the job
anymore.


[1] The NT-based Windows versions are...
- Windows NT 3.1
- Windows NT 3.5 and NT 3.51
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows NT 5.0 (i.e. Windows 2000)
- Windows NT 5.1 (i.e. Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server)
- Windows NT 6.0 (i.e. Windows Vista and Windows 2008 Server)
- Windows NT 6.1 (i.e. Windows 7)
- Windows NT 6.2 (i.e. Windows 8)
- Windows NT 6.3 (i.e. the upcoming Windows 8.1)

[2] Windows 1.x, Windows 2.x, Windows 386, Windows 3.xx, Windows 95,
Windows 98 and 98 SE, and Windows Millenium Edition were all still
DOS-based.

[3] Which, like their other supercomputers, will of course be running
GNU/Linux.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Matt
2013-07-12 23:21:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
[Follow-up rerouted to alt.os.linux.ubuntu because it's the only one of
the listed groups I'm subscribed to, and because we have an undercover
Microsoft astroturfer here - or perhaps I should say: at least one, as I
suspect that there might be two of them.]
On Friday 12 July 2013 21:49, Matt conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Matt
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the
American
Post by Aragorn
Post by Matt
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper
The Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft
has put a backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what
users think are confidential communications, passwords, etc. [...]
Note to the OP: Although I support Edward Snowden, as far as I know he
_is still_ a free man. A hunted man, no doubt, but he is still free,
and definitely more free than Julian Assange, who has found shelter in
the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but is unable to leave the embassy
because Scotland Yard has been staking out the embassy ever since it was
known that Assange was hiding there, and if he ever leaves, they will
catch him, hand him over to the Swedes, and the Swedes will then hand
him over to the Americans, and then he'd be spending the rest of his
days in Guantanamo Bay.
Post by Matt
No, that is not what they did. Read the article, instead of being so
dramatic about it, and you realize they provided the NSA with
unencrypted data before it was sent. Not an especially nice thing to
do, but seriously, if you are sending plain text over the Internet in
the form of email, IM and Usenet, and are worried about someone
reading it, you have more serious issues.
Yes, but that is not the /complete/ story. The article in question
highlights this particular tidbit, but as was already revealed earlier
on, ...
a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based versions
of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know whether that
was also the case for the DOS-based versions of Microsoft Windows
[2], but those were easy to crack anyway.
Why would anyone want to? But yes, backdoors were built. This was hardly
a secret.
Post by Aragorn
b. Microsoft sells zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows to the NSA,
and so do so-called computer security companies - e.g. the anti-
virus industry. In fact, the US government is the biggest buyer
of zero-day exploits, and in whatever software, for that matter;
it's not limited to Microsoft Windows, and these days, Android -
which is for most part written in Java, which is itself a
security
Post by Aragorn
nightmare - is also a highly favored target for use as a botnet
slave which can be deployed for conducting DDoS attacks.
Not quite. This is not the /complete/ story either. Microsoft DOES
inform the NSA and most other security agencies of zero day exploits.
Considering it is the job of the NSA to guard against these, this is
hardly a surprise.
Post by Aragorn
c. As of Windows XP onward, Microsoft spies on its users, because
Windows phones home every week with a detailed report on (of
course) your Windows installation, your computer's hardware, what
software is installed on your computer - even if it's not
Microsoft
Post by Aragorn
software - and possibly your browser history if you use Internet
Explorer. Microsoft has admitted to this and claims that "the
information will not be stored permanently at Microsoft and is only
used so as to allow Microsoft to improve its service to its
customers." However, Microsoft has a history of lying - in fact,
they are not to be trusted, ever - and they most certainly do store
and save that information on their servers somewhere for at least
a certain amount of time, linked to your WAN-side IP address and
your Windows serial number and activation key. As of Windows 7 on,
the user can disable this "feature" via the Windows Configuration
Panel, but this was not possible in Windows XP. A French
developer
Post by Aragorn
- the one who discovered this "feature" of Windows - wrote a
freeware tool which the Windows user can download and which will
then deactivate the spying.
Sigh. Can we drop this one already? You know it isn't true.
Post by Aragorn
d. Microsoft also spies on its Windows Phone users by sending GPS
coordinates of Windows Phone users to Microsoft. Although
undocumented, Microsoft was caught and has in the meantime also
admitted to doing that, but of course with the same old spin that
they are collecting this data "so as to improve their service
towards their customers."
As you sign an agreement for this, this is not a surprise either, and
you know why it is so, it is done for advertising, not for spying.
Post by Aragorn
Post by Matt
RSA encryption can be beaten, but it takes an awful lot of computing
power dedicated to the process. It is most certainly not something you
do for all messages.
That's why the NSA is building a brand-new and multi-million dollar
supercomputer [3], courtesy of the US American taxpayer - note: I myself
am not a US American. Apparently their current contingent of
supercomputers - they have more than one - wasn't up for the job
anymore.
And? if you understand RSA, you know it can only be beaten by brute
force, and that takes serious power. To do so for a given person,
breaking his email/chat/etc, fine. To do it for the masses? No chance at
all.

Matt
Aragorn
2013-07-13 01:52:32 UTC
Permalink
On Saturday 13 July 2013 01:21, Matt conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Aragorn
b. Microsoft sells zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows to the
NSA, and so do so-called computer security companies - e.g. the
anti-virus industry. In fact, the US government is the biggest
buyer of zero-day exploits, and in whatever software, for that
matter; it's not limited to Microsoft Windows, and these days,
Android - which is for most part written in Java, which is
itself a security nightmare - is also a highly favored target
for use as a botnet slave which can be deployed for conducting
DDoS attacks.
Not quite. This is not the /complete/ story either. Microsoft DOES
inform the NSA and most other security agencies of zero day exploits.
Considering it is the job of the NSA to guard against these, this is
hardly a surprise.
That's a very naive attitude you have, which will undoubtedly be met
with disillusion after reading the following article...

http://tinyurl.com/m947j6t

Preview: http://preview.tinyurl.com/m947j6t

The NSA does not "guard against zero-day exploits". The NSA seeks to
/use/ zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows and Android for conducing
cyber-warfare.

Or who do you think was behind the DDoS attacks on both Wikileaks and
all organizations which either financially supported or facilitated
financial support to Wikileaks? And who do you think was behind the
Stuxnet worm, which attacked the Iranian nuclear program? (Yes, the
Mossad were also involved, but it was the NSA.)

This is all documented stuff, by the way. Snowden only made it official
by publishing the documents, but everyone already knew long beforehand
that this is how it works.
Post by Aragorn
c. As of Windows XP onward, Microsoft spies on its users, because
Windows phones home every week with a detailed report on (of
course) your Windows installation, your computer's hardware,
what software is installed on your computer - even if it's not
Microsoft software - and possibly your browser history if you
use Internet Explorer. Microsoft has admitted to this and
claims that "the information will not be stored permanently at
Microsoft and is only used so as to allow Microsoft to improve
its service to its customers." However, Microsoft has a history
of lying - in fact, they are not to be trusted, ever - and they
most certainly do store and save that information on their
servers somewhere for at least a certain amount of time, linked
to your WAN-side IP address and your Windows serial number and
activation key. As of Windows 7 on, the user can disable this
"feature" via the Windows Configuration Panel, but this was not
possible in Windows XP. A French developer - the one who
discovered this "feature" of Windows - wrote a freeware tool
which the Windows user can download and which will then
deactivate the spying.
Sigh. Can we drop this one already? You know it isn't true.
I hate to burst your bubble, but it is both true and documented, and the
tool for disabling this "feature" in Windows XP was available for
download at no charge - it was freeware, albeit not Free Software - from
Tucows.

As of Windows 7, this tool is no longer needed, because Windows 7 allows
the user to disable the spying from within the Configuration Panel.
It's documented on Microsoft's website.
Post by Aragorn
d. Microsoft also spies on its Windows Phone users by sending GPS
coordinates of Windows Phone users to Microsoft. Although
undocumented, Microsoft was caught and has in the meantime also
admitted to doing that, but of course with the same old spin
that they are collecting this data "so as to improve their
service towards their customers."
As you sign an agreement for this, this is not a surprise either, and
you know why it is so, it is done for advertising, not for spying.
Spying on people for the sake of determining which advertisements they
might be interested in is still spying. It is a flagrant disregard of
privacy.
Post by Aragorn
Post by Matt
RSA encryption can be beaten, but it takes an awful lot of computing
power dedicated to the process. It is most certainly not something
you do for all messages.
That's why the NSA is building a brand-new and multi-million dollar
supercomputer [3], courtesy of the US American taxpayer - note: I
myself am not a US American. Apparently their current contingent of
supercomputers - they have more than one - wasn't up for the job
anymore.
And? if you understand RSA, you know it can only be beaten by brute
force, and that takes serious power. To do so for a given person,
breaking his email/chat/etc, fine. To do it for the masses? No chance
at all.
Thanks to Microsoft, they don't have to, because they receive the
content _before_ it is encrypted.

--
Jon Danniken
2013-07-19 22:36:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Saturday 13 July 2013 01:21, Matt conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Matt
Post by Aragorn
A French developer - the one who
discovered this "feature" of Windows - wrote a freeware tool
which the Windows user can download and which will then
deactivate the spying.
Sigh. Can we drop this one already? You know it isn't true.
I hate to burst your bubble, but it is both true and documented, and the
tool for disabling this "feature" in Windows XP was available for
download at no charge - it was freeware, albeit not Free Software - from
Tucows.
Do you by any chance remember the name of the applications?

Jon
Aragorn
2013-07-20 02:47:44 UTC
Permalink
On Saturday 20 July 2013 00:36, Jon Danniken conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Jon Danniken
Post by Aragorn
On Saturday 13 July 2013 01:21, Matt conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Matt
A French developer - the one who discovered this "feature" of
Windows - wrote a freeware tool which the Windows user can
download and which will then deactivate the spying.
Sigh. Can we drop this one already? You know it isn't true.
I hate to burst your bubble, but it is both true and documented, and
the tool for disabling this "feature" in Windows XP was available for
download at no charge - it was freeware, albeit not Free Software -
from Tucows.
Do you by any chance remember the name of the applications?
Well, I have never needed it myself, as I've been exclusively running
GNU/Linux for almost 14 years. I only read about the tool in a (hard
copy) computer magazine I used to be subscribed to, and I also read
about it on a few computer-related websites a few times...

So let's see what Google has to tell us... ;-)

First find: This article here goes /somewhat/ deeper into the "phoning
home" and other bad habits and design traits of Windows XP...:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/298702.html

(Note: I have only skimmed the article as it's pretty long.)

The following link tells you how to manually disable /the/ spying, but
I'm not sure which part of all the things Windows spies on you with are
disabled.

http://tinyurl.com/lry4ea3

(Note: I had to use TinyURL because my newsreader breaks up the link.)

Ah, finally, a link which seems to point to the original tool - I
recognize the developer's name...

http://tinyurl.com/acbpu

(Same thing; URL too long to fit on a single line.)

For future reference, the name of the developer is Christian Taubenheim,
and here is some of his work...:

http://www.softpedia.com/developer/Christian-Taubenheim-26684.html
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Jon Danniken
2013-07-20 05:50:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Saturday 20 July 2013 00:36, Jon Danniken conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Jon Danniken
Do you by any chance remember the name of the applications?
Well, I have never needed it myself, as I've been exclusively running
GNU/Linux for almost 14 years. I only read about the tool in a (hard
copy) computer magazine I used to be subscribed to, and I also read
about it on a few computer-related websites a few times...
So let's see what Google has to tell us... ;-)
First find: This article here goes /somewhat/ deeper into the "phoning
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/298702.html
(Note: I have only skimmed the article as it's pretty long.)
The following link tells you how to manually disable /the/ spying, but
I'm not sure which part of all the things Windows spies on you with are
disabled.
http://tinyurl.com/lry4ea3
(Note: I had to use TinyURL because my newsreader breaks up the link.)
Ah, finally, a link which seems to point to the original tool - I
recognize the developer's name...
http://tinyurl.com/acbpu
(Same thing; URL too long to fit on a single line.)
For future reference, the name of the developer is Christian Taubenheim,
http://www.softpedia.com/developer/Christian-Taubenheim-26684.html
Thanks Aragorn, I appreciate it.

Jon
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-20 08:51:12 UTC
Permalink
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 04:47:44 +0200
Post by Aragorn
http://tinyurl.com/lry4ea3
(Note: I had to use TinyURL because my newsreader breaks up the link.)
Here it is:
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>

The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive even when
the text of same spans two or more lines.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
Aragorn
2013-07-20 16:28:47 UTC
Permalink
On Saturday 20 July 2013 10:51, Cybe R. Wizard conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 04:47:44 +0200
Post by Aragorn
http://tinyurl.com/lry4ea3
(Note: I had to use TinyURL because my newsreader breaks up the link.)
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive even when
the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up the link,
which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Soupe du Jour
2013-07-22 15:11:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive even when
the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up the link,
which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I don't
remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-22 16:08:45 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:11:48 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive even
when the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up the
link, which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I
don't remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Trying it again as I've had a couple of instances wherein it failed:

Most times I type the pointy brackets, then paste the URL inside them.
This time I typed one bracket, pasted the URL then applied the
other bracket. Does it make a difference?

<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>

Here I pasted the URL and then put in both brackets:

<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>

In my Claws-mail they all act the same but I'm told that not all news
readers follow this rule.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
I have seen the future, and it is just like the present, only longer.
Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
Soupe du Jour
2013-07-22 16:08:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:11:48 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive even
when the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up the
link, which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I don't
remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Most times I type the pointy brackets, then paste the URL inside them.
This time I typed one bracket, pasted the URL then applied the other
bracket. Does it make a difference?
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
In my Claws-mail they all act the same but I'm told that not all news
readers follow this rule.
Cybe R. Wizard
They look ok when I read the article. Replying may be a different story.

Here is how Pan posts that URL:

<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-22 16:45:35 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:08:59 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:11:48 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive
even when the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up the
link, which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I
don't remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Most times I type the pointy brackets, then paste the URL inside
them. This time I typed one bracket, pasted the URL then applied
the other bracket. Does it make a difference?
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
In my Claws-mail they all act the same but I'm told that not all
news readers follow this rule.
Cybe R. Wizard
They look ok when I read the article. Replying may be a different story.
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
I spoke too soon. They both looked the same before I posted but
neither work when invoked from my message. The older one where I
first typed the pointy brackets and then pasted the URL between them
worked for me.

Here 'tis again pasted between already existing brackets:

<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-22 16:48:08 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:45:35 -0500
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:08:59 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:11:48 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive
even when the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up
the link, which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I
don't remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Most times I type the pointy brackets, then paste the URL inside
them. This time I typed one bracket, pasted the URL then applied
the other bracket. Does it make a difference?
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
In my Claws-mail they all act the same but I'm told that not all
news readers follow this rule.
Cybe R. Wizard
They look ok when I read the article. Replying may be a different story.
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-
tricks-24489-0.html>
I spoke too soon. They both looked the same before I posted but
neither work when invoked from my message. The older one where I
first typed the pointy brackets and then pasted the URL between them
worked for me.
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>
Cybe
Interesting. For Claws-mail (at least) that one worked. I guess I have
to put the brackets in place first and then paste in the URL. Why on
Earth (or off it) would that make a difference?

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
John F. Morse
2013-07-22 21:56:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:45:35 -0500
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:08:59 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:11:48 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by Aragorn
Post by Cybe R. Wizard
The pointy brackets surrounding it allow the link to survive
even when the text of same spans two or more lines.
Yeah, I had tried that but it didn't work. It still broke up
the link, which is why I prefer using TinyURL.
Same here. Pan seems to be broken in this respect. (Or at least I
don't remember having this issue with other newsreaders I have used.)
Most times I type the pointy brackets, then paste the URL inside
them. This time I typed one bracket, pasted the URL then applied
the other bracket. Does it make a difference?
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>
In my Claws-mail they all act the same but I'm told that not all
news readers follow this rule.
Cybe R. Wizard
They look ok when I read the article. Replying may be a different story.
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>
I spoke too soon. They both looked the same before I posted but
neither work when invoked from my message. The older one where I
first typed the pointy brackets and then pasted the URL between them
worked for me.
<http://us.generation-nt.com/disable-windows-xp-spy-tips-tricks-24489-0.html>
Cybe
Interesting. For Claws-mail (at least) that one worked. I guess I have
to put the brackets in place first and then paste in the URL. Why on
Earth (or off it) would that make a difference?
Cybe R. Wizard
Pan breaks long lines at the hyphen. It doesn't understand the angle brackets (single angle quotes or guillements).

For a test of Pan, I'll click the "Wrap Text" icon (the one with the four lines), and manually "fix" those four URLs in the quoted text above.

We'll see how it looks, and take the wrath of the slrn users who do not know how to wrap their text locally.
--
John

When a person has -- whether they knew it or not -- already
rejected the Truth, by what means do they discern a lie?
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-13 03:43:41 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 23:21:25 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Matt
if you understand RSA, you know it can only be beaten by brute
force, and that takes serious power. To do so for a given person,
breaking his email/chat/etc, fine. To do it for the masses? No chance
at all.
I think you misunderstand the Microsoft/guv'ment collaboration. IIANM,
Microsoft allows the NSA access to your /un/encrypted <stuff> before
encryption. That's what the backdoor is for, after all, to circumvent
encryption which is too hard/expensive to have to bother with cracking.

What else would be the purpose? To access encrypted <stuff>?
That's a Fool's errand when you can get the goods early and first.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-13 03:52:21 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 23:21:25 +0000 (UTC)
Post by Matt
Post by Aragorn
d. Microsoft also spies on its Windows Phone users by sending GPS
coordinates of Windows Phone users to Microsoft. Although
undocumented, Microsoft was caught and has in the meantime also
admitted to doing that, but of course with the same old spin
that they are collecting this data "so as to improve their service
towards their customers."
As you sign an agreement for this, this is not a surprise either, and
you know why it is so, it is done for advertising, not for spying.
I'm minded of the fact that one cannot sign away rights, whatever they
may be and no matter who makes the document, at least here in the USA.
That is the single biggest topic for apartment rental lawsuits in the
US. Many rental agreements have you 'sign away' your rights but the
courts give 'em right back to you no matter your signature.

I can't imagine that the right to privacy should be any different.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
Virus Guy
2013-07-14 12:52:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based versions
of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know whether that
was also the case for the DOS-based versions of Microsoft Windows
[2], but those were easy to crack anyway.
Just to correct your perception of win-9x/me as being "DOS-based" - they
are not.

Win-9x/ME are *booted*, loaded or invoked from DOS as it exists
transiently during the boot process, but once invoked, Win-9x/ME runs
from a kernel that puts i86 CPU in protected mode.

Win-9x/me and all NT-based OS (prior to 7) create virtual DOS
environments for any process or application that needs them, but it's a
complete fallacy to say that Win-9x/me is either "DOS-based" or "runs on
top of DOS".

Win-9x/me is a full Win32 operating system, and with the addition of a
third-party API enhancement known as KernelEx, 9x/me can run many
current "NT-only" programs.
Ernst Oberhammer
2013-07-14 13:38:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/me and all NT-based OS (prior to 7) create virtual DOS
environments for any process or application that needs them, but it's a
complete fallacy to say that Win-9x/me is either "DOS-based" or "runs on
top of DOS".
Win-9x/me is a full Win32 operating system, and with the addition of a
third-party API enhancement known as KernelEx, 9x/me can run many
current "NT-only" programs.
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b without DOS
intervention? None. You start Win from DOS and not the opposite. A Command
Line / DOS-prompt run any DOS- program you may find appropriate. Is NOT a
feature. It is a construction UPON. You see that in programming. You may
allocate pointers anywhere anytime.
Virus Guy
2013-07-14 16:05:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code. So right off the bat, your insistence that
DOS is some sort of necessary component of Win-9x/me is complete
bullshit.

I dare you to explain how a 32-bit protected mode kernel (that win-9x/me
has) can possibly run "on top of" or even concurrent with a 16-bit
real-mode DOS executive.
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
You start Win from DOS and not the opposite.
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.

Why are so stuck on how the win-9x/me kernel is loaded and then invoked?

Once invoked, win-9x/me is a fully 32-bit OS that puts the CPU in
protected mode. The fact that I can interrupt the process or stop the
boot and keep the system in 16-bit real-mode DOS is irrelavent.
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
A Command Line / DOS-prompt run any DOS- program you may find
appropriate. Is NOT a feature.
Any command line / dos prompt I open under win-9x is a virtual DOS
machine.
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
It is a construction UPON. You see that in programming. You may
allocate pointers anywhere anytime.
You confuse the fact that under 9x/me, that 16-bit DOS code has full
access to the BIOS and hardware, so you assume that the native 32-bit
win-9x drivers must somehow also use 16-bit code to perform their
function. Win-9x will thunk down and use 16-bit DOS drivers that
existed as part of the boot-configuration prior to the windows kernel
being loaded, but that was done for legacy reasons as people
transitioned existing systems from DOS/Win3.x to Win-9x. As hardware
vendors came out with 32-bit drivers, the use of legacy DOS-mode drivers
became non-existant.

The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it can't
use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available. This is why
Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because 32-bit
sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-14 16:40:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
You start Win from DOS and not the opposite.
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.
Exactly. Essentially rendered as a boot loader stub to shift the boot
pointer to the kernel and fire.

BANG! No DOS in modern Windows, or more correctly;

"No Windows on top of an old DOS"

That hasn't been for a long time. I hope this kid (the guy you are
schooling) fires whoever his mentor was.
Reed Whitmore
2013-07-14 17:03:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
You start Win from DOS and not the opposite.
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.
Exactly. Essentially rendered as a boot loader stub to shift the boot
pointer to the kernel and fire.
No is not. Nothing is wiped out from the "system RAM". There is no such
thing as "system RAM". Nor "kernel" in Win8x. The dll are loaded
dynamically as needed. The system always defaults to DOS in Win8x. You
both are confusing NT to Win8x and so on. NT yes, win8x no.

All file and I/O access in Win8x are primordially 16b (64kB Code
Segments). You see this clearly when addressing the pointer and
programming.

You two morons are not adequately skilled in computers.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-14 17:43:05 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, 14 Jul 2013 17:03:30 +0000 (UTC), Reed Whitmore
Post by Reed Whitmore
You two morons are not adequately skilled in computers.
Maybe you should read more, Reed, because you are witless.

But I'll bet you've heard that exact remark before. Ever wonder why?
Aragorn
2013-07-14 18:22:45 UTC
Permalink
On Sunday 14 July 2013 18:40, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
You start Win from DOS and not the opposite.
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.
Exactly. Essentially rendered as a boot loader stub to shift the
boot pointer to the kernel and fire.
Uhh, I'm afraid you're mistaken, DLUNU. See my other replies to Virus
Guy. Windows 9x and ME did still run on top of DOS, as DPMI DOS
extenders.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
BANG! No DOS in modern Windows, or more correctly;
"No Windows on top of an old DOS"
Yes, but the modern versions of Windows run on top of the NT kernel, and
NT is itself more of a VMS-style kernel. (Actually, it's a virtual copy
of the VMS kernel, as it was written by the same guy who wrote the VMS
kernel.)
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
That hasn't been for a long time. I hope this kid (the guy you are
schooling) fires whoever his mentor was.
Once again, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Virus Guy is the one who has
his facts wrong, and Ernst Oberhammer is the one who corrected him on
that.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-14 19:57:35 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, 14 Jul 2013 20:22:45 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
Uhh, I'm afraid you're mistaken, DLUNU. See my other replies to Virus
Guy. Windows 9x and ME did still run on top of DOS, as DPMI DOS
extenders.
windows Vista was the first kernel/boot environment rewrite.

You are correct. I have seen this argument before and even have several
of those old machines, but have not ran them in a long time.
Aragorn
2013-07-14 21:00:09 UTC
Permalink
On Sunday 14 July 2013 21:57, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Sun, 14 Jul 2013 20:22:45 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
Uhh, I'm afraid you're mistaken, DLUNU. See my other replies to
Virus Guy. Windows 9x and ME did still run on top of DOS, as DPMI
DOS extenders.
windows Vista was the first kernel/boot environment rewrite.
Yes and no - see below...
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
You are correct. I have seen this argument before and even have
several of those old machines, but have not ran them in a long time.
Windows XP (NT 5.1) was the first offer of Microsoft Windows in which
the "Home Editions" and the "Professional Editions" were merged into a
single release - albeit with different feature sets for the Home,
Professional and Premium Editions. Or to put it differently, up until
Windows XP's predecessor, Windows 2000, Microsoft was selling both DOS-
based and NT-based Windows versions.

DOS-based NT-based

Windows 1.x
Windows 2.x
Windows 386
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1 and 3.11 for Workgroups NT 3.1, NT 3.5(1)
Windows 95 (three releases) NT 4.0 up until SP3
Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE NT 4.0 with SP4 and later
Windows ME NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)

And then the commercial offer was merged into a single branch of
Windows, to be based upon the NT kernel.

NT 5.1 (Window XP and Windows 2003 Server)
NT 6.0 (Windows Vista and Windows 2008 Server)
NT 6.1 (Windows 7)
NT 6.2 (Windows 8)
NT 6.3 (the upcoming Windows 8.1)

You are of course correct in that Windows Vista (NT 6.0) was the first
major kernel update since Windows 2000, because 2000 was NT 5.0 and XP
was still only NT 5.1.

What did however also change (as of Windows 2000) was the process for
_installing_ Windows NT onto the hard disk. Up until (and including
Windows NT 4.0, the installer CD would first boot a DOS environment,
because the NT kernel did not fit on a single 1.44 MiB 3.5" floppy disk.
So it would boot to DOS, and then DOS would load the NT kernel into
extended memory in slices via the first two or three floppy disks.
Then, DOS would hand over control of the machine to the NT kernel and
then DOS would be removed from RAM. This particular phase of the
installation was noticeable because at the moment the NT kernel was
booted (by DOS), the screen resolution would change from the typical
80*25 characters to 80*43 characters.

When Windows 2000 was released, most machines were already capable of
booting from the optical drive, and so Microsoft included an bootable NT
kernel on the install CD, and thus the installation would no longer
include the DOS step of NT 4.0. But either way, NT 4.0 itself did not
use DOS for booting once it was installed. The use of DOS as a
bootloader for NT 4.0 and earlier was simply during the installation
only, because the NT kernel itself would not fit on a single 1.44 MiB
3.5" floppy disk.

Windows 3.x, 95, 98, 98 SE and ME did however not simply use DOS as a
boot loader, as Virus Guy so fanatically claimed. They were DPMI (DOS
Protected Mode Interface) DOS extenders with a task scheduler and a
graphical user interface, and MS-DOS was an integral part of the system
itself, needed for most of the I/O operations.

The reason why Microsoft integrated DOS with these versions was so that
someone using Windows 95 and later would not be able to use a DOS from
the competition anymore, such as DR DOS, Novell DOS or even IBM's PC-
DOS. Earlier on, in Windows 3.x, they tried to sabotage the use of DR
DOS by way of deliberately crashing the machine if another DOS version
was detected than Microsoft's MS-DOS. They did this by checking the
internal version string of the underlying DOS - in MSDOS.SYS, not in
COMMAND.COM - and if it said anything other than "Microsoft MS-DOS", it
would start a timer with a randomly chosen value, and upon the timer's
expiry, the system would lock up completely.

This dirty trick was discovered by Digital Research. They sued
Microsoft for anticompetitive behavior, and they made sure that their
next release of DR DOS (6.x) would carry the internal version string
"Microsoft MS-DOS 3.30" in its MSDOS.SYS, which circumvented Microsoft's
deliberate crash timer. So as of DR DOS 6.0, people could reliably use
DR DOS again in combination with Windows 3.x, and in order to push
Digital Research out of the market once again, Bill Gates decided to
integrate DOS into Windows as a single bundle, because Windows 95
initially still carried two different version strings during its beta
phases: the DOS layer was labeled "Microsoft MS-DOS 7.0", and the
Windows layer was "Microsoft Windows 4.0".

When Microsoft broke their deal with IBM to develop OS/2 3.0 NT, Bill
Gates was already quite convinced that a genuine 32-bit operating system
would be key to the future. However, the first release of NT - which
was given version 3.1 to be on par version-wise with the Windows 3.1 for
DOS, with which it shared its graphical user interface design - was not
production-ready yet by the time Microsoft had set forth for its
release, which earned it the moniker "NT is Not There". And neither the
NT 3.x, NT 4.x and NT 5.x offered the user the same level of multimedia
support as did the DOS-based Windows versions.

In addition to that, game developers also favored the DOS-based Windows
versions because it allowed them to directly access the hardware and
pull all kinds of (mutually incompatible) tricks for increasing
performance - not dissimilar to the many mutually incompatible ways of
extending/expanding the available memory in pure DOS applications. Bill
Gates was well-aware of this, and this is why he tried to dissuade the
development of DOS-based application software by making it "harder" to
run DOS applications in Windows ME. He wanted developers to write their
code for the native win32 API instead. But even then still, Windows ME
still existed as a commercial release alongside of the NT-based Windows
2000, and it wasn't until Windows XP that Microsoft finally merged the
two different Windows families into a single, NT-based offer.

On account of the boot sequence, the DOS-based versions of Windows all
did require being installed in an "active" - read: "marked bootable" -
primary partition which had its starting cylinder within the first 32
MiB of the first hard disk approached by the BIOS at machine boot time.
The NT-based Windows versions could be installed in any partition -
primary or logical - but did still require that /part/ of the
installation - namely the Windows bootloader files - resided in an
"active" primary partition on the first hard disk in the system.

However, as I understand it, as of Windows 7 on, Windows now _requires_
a _separate_ boot partition. This was not the case yet in earlier
releases of NT, and it is not unlikely that Microsoft chose to
reorganize Windows internally in this manner to prepare for the UEFI
boot sequence support in Windows 8 and later. Do however note that
Windows 8 itself does not actually require UEFI, nor Secure Boot. It's
the _Windows 8 certification_ which requires that machines which come
pre-installed with Windows 8 must have a UEFI with Secure Boot. But of
course, a Windows 8 installation on a machine with UEFI enabled will not
boot anymore once UEFI is disabled again. This is because the UEFI boot
sequence is quite different from a legacy boot sequence, and the on-disk
Windows 8 will have been installed specifically to boot via the UEFI
method rather than via the "legacy BIOS" method.

The main difference is that UEFI boots to an operating system with the
boot processor already in protected mode, whereas the legacy BIOS leaves
the processor in real mode, and thus the operating system's kernel
bootstrap code must itself set up the pagetables and initiate protected
mode, which on a UEFI-enabled operating system is already all taken care
of by the UEFI itself. An UEFI is actually always part of the runtime
operating system, whereas in the case of a legacy BIOS in combination
with a true protected mode operating system - such as OS/2, NT-based
Windows, GNU/Linux, Solaris x86, *BSD et al - the legacy BIOS is no
longer used once the operating system is booted.

(Letter-spaced readers and their fellow Microsoft fanboys should be
advised that all of the above is very well-documented.)
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Aragorn
2013-07-14 18:18:04 UTC
Permalink
On Sunday 14 July 2013 18:05, Virus Guy conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code.
Not natively, but by way of a DPMI extender, yes, it can. (See my other
reply to you.)
Post by Virus Guy
So right off the bat, your insistence that DOS is some sort of
necessary component of Win-9x/me is complete bullshit.
No, I'm afraid that it is you who is mistaken.
Post by Virus Guy
I dare you to explain how a 32-bit protected mode kernel (that
win-9x/me has) can possibly run "on top of" or even concurrent with a
16-bit real-mode DOS executive.
Once again I refer to my other reply to you.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
You start Win from DOS and not the opposite.
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.
No, I'm afraid you are confusing Windows 9x with the older versions of
Novell Netware, where DOS was only used as the bootloader for Netware
and could then, depending on what the administrator wanted, either be
wiped from the RAM to make room for caching, or kept in RAM to be used
as a DOS virtual machine so that the Netware server could double as a
workstation.
Post by Virus Guy
Why are so stuck on how the win-9x/me kernel is loaded and then invoked?
Because _he_ is right, and _you_ are wrong.
Post by Virus Guy
Once invoked, win-9x/me is a fully 32-bit OS that puts the CPU in
protected mode.
It is most certainly not a _fully_ 32-bit operating system, and its
protected mode is only an extender to DOS. Again, see my other reply to
you, and the Wikipedia link contained therein about the DPMI interface.

DPMI was quite popular among pure DOS applications even outside of
Windows. Think dBASE or AutoCAD, for instance.
Post by Virus Guy
The fact that I can interrupt the process or stop the boot and keep
the system in 16-bit real-mode DOS is irrelavent.
That in itself is, yes. But that's not what he meant.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
A Command Line / DOS-prompt run any DOS- program you may find
appropriate. Is NOT a feature.
Any command line / dos prompt I open under win-9x is a virtual DOS
machine.
Yes and no. From the hardware's point of view, it would be a virtual
machine because it is executed in V86, which is a hardware real mode
emulation from within 32-bit protected mode - albeit that Windows _95_
did also allow for the execution of DOS code in real mode, which was
dropped from Windows 98; see my other reply to you - but the operating
system loaded inside the DOS virtual machine was in essence only a
slimmed-down copy of the underlying DOS of Win 9x/ME.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
It is a construction UPON. You see that in programming. You may
allocate pointers anywhere anytime.
You confuse the fact that under 9x/me, that 16-bit DOS code has full
access to the BIOS and hardware, so you assume that the native 32-bit
win-9x drivers must somehow also use 16-bit code to perform their
function.
60% of all code execution in Windows 9x/ME ran in real mode.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x will thunk down and use 16-bit DOS drivers that existed as part
of the boot-configuration prior to the windows kernel being loaded,
but that was done for legacy reasons as people transitioned existing
systems from DOS/Win3.x to Win-9x.
No, it worked in _exactly the same way_ as in Windows 3.1 and 3.11.
Post by Virus Guy
As hardware vendors came out with 32-bit drivers, the use of legacy
DOS-mode drivers became non-existant.
/Some/ I/O in Windows 9x and ME used 32-bit access, but most of it used
16-bit real mode access via the underlying DOS. Most of the device
drivers for the Windows environment itself were _virtual_ device
drivers. And as I explained in my other reply to you, those virtual
device drivers still do exist in the NT-based Windows versions, but
that's only for compatibility reasons, because in NT, they are actually
translators to the NT-native drivers.
Post by Virus Guy
The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it can't
use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available.
That part is correct.
Post by Virus Guy
This is why Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because
32-bit sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
They /were/ available - at least, for the most prevalent types of sound
adapters - albeit that installing them was pretty much a nightmare. And
AGP support was only available as of NT 4.0 with SP3.

The reason why game developers preferred developing for Win 9x/ME was
that the underlying DOS allowed them to pull all sorts of nifty things
by directly accessing the hardware, which was not possible anymore in
NT. NT imposed a hardware abstraction layer, with rules. Game
developers did not like that, which is why Microsoft forced the
transition to NT with Windows XP by no longer offering DOS-based Windows
versions and providing Windows XP with a 9x/ME compatibility layer.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Dustin
2013-07-16 19:11:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Sunday 14 July 2013 18:05, Virus Guy conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code.
Not natively, but by way of a DPMI extender, yes, it can. (See my other
reply to you.)
DOOM! [G]
Post by Aragorn
No, I'm afraid you are confusing Windows 9x with the older versions of
Novell Netware, where DOS was only used as the bootloader for Netware
and could then, depending on what the administrator wanted, either be
wiped from the RAM to make room for caching, or kept in RAM to be used
as a DOS virtual machine so that the Netware server could double as a
workstation.
Ayep!
Post by Aragorn
Post by Virus Guy
Why are so stuck on how the win-9x/me kernel is loaded and then invoked?
Because _he_ is right, and _you_ are wrong.
Right again.
Post by Aragorn
Post by Virus Guy
Once invoked, win-9x/me is a fully 32-bit OS that puts the CPU in
protected mode.
It is most certainly not a _fully_ 32-bit operating system, and its
protected mode is only an extender to DOS. Again, see my other reply to
you, and the Wikipedia link contained therein about the DPMI interface.
DPMI was quite popular among pure DOS applications even outside of
Windows. Think dBASE or AutoCAD, for instance.
I was thinking about DOOM. [g] DoomII was good too.
Post by Aragorn
Post by Virus Guy
The fact that I can interrupt the process or stop the boot and keep
the system in 16-bit real-mode DOS is irrelavent.
That in itself is, yes. But that's not what he meant.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
A Command Line / DOS-prompt run any DOS- program you may find
appropriate. Is NOT a feature.
Any command line / dos prompt I open under win-9x is a virtual DOS
machine.
Yes and no. From the hardware's point of view, it would be a virtual
machine because it is executed in V86, which is a hardware real mode
emulation from within 32-bit protected mode - albeit that Windows _95_
did also allow for the execution of DOS code in real mode, which was
dropped from Windows 98; see my other reply to you - but the operating
system loaded inside the DOS virtual machine was in essence only a
slimmed-down copy of the underlying DOS of Win 9x/ME.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
It is a construction UPON. You see that in programming. You may
allocate pointers anywhere anytime.
You confuse the fact that under 9x/me, that 16-bit DOS code has full
access to the BIOS and hardware, so you assume that the native 32-bit
win-9x drivers must somehow also use 16-bit code to perform their
function.
60% of all code execution in Windows 9x/ME ran in real mode.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x will thunk down and use 16-bit DOS drivers that existed as part
of the boot-configuration prior to the windows kernel being loaded,
but that was done for legacy reasons as people transitioned existing
systems from DOS/Win3.x to Win-9x.
No, it worked in _exactly the same way_ as in Windows 3.1 and 3.11.
Post by Virus Guy
As hardware vendors came out with 32-bit drivers, the use of legacy
DOS-mode drivers became non-existant.
/Some/ I/O in Windows 9x and ME used 32-bit access, but most of it used
16-bit real mode access via the underlying DOS. Most of the device
drivers for the Windows environment itself were _virtual_ device
drivers. And as I explained in my other reply to you, those virtual
device drivers still do exist in the NT-based Windows versions, but
that's only for compatibility reasons, because in NT, they are actually
translators to the NT-native drivers.
Post by Virus Guy
The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it can't
use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available.
That part is correct.
Post by Virus Guy
This is why Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because
32-bit sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
They /were/ available - at least, for the most prevalent types of sound
adapters - albeit that installing them was pretty much a nightmare. And
AGP support was only available as of NT 4.0 with SP3.
The reason why game developers preferred developing for Win 9x/ME was
that the underlying DOS allowed them to pull all sorts of nifty things
by directly accessing the hardware, which was not possible anymore in
NT. NT imposed a hardware abstraction layer, with rules. Game
developers did not like that, which is why Microsoft forced the
transition to NT with Windows XP by no longer offering DOS-based Windows
versions and providing Windows XP with a 9x/ME compatibility layer.
Rocking. You know your stuff!
--
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
Aragorn
2013-07-16 20:22:18 UTC
Permalink
On Tuesday 16 July 2013 21:11, Dustin conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Dustin
Post by Aragorn
On Sunday 14 July 2013 18:05, Virus Guy conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code.
Not natively, but by way of a DPMI extender, yes, it can. (See my
other reply to you.)
DOOM! [G]
Oh yes, that one too, of course. ;-)
Post by Dustin
Post by Aragorn
The reason why game developers preferred developing for Win 9x/ME was
that the underlying DOS allowed them to pull all sorts of nifty
things by directly accessing the hardware, which was not possible
anymore in NT. NT imposed a hardware abstraction layer, with rules.
Game developers did not like that, which is why Microsoft forced the
transition to NT with Windows XP by no longer offering DOS-based
Windows versions and providing Windows XP with a 9x/ME compatibility
layer.
Rocking. You know your stuff!
Thank you for acknowledging that. Unfortunately, it takes someone who
knows their stuff too to recognize that I know my stuff as well, whereas
especially the Microsoft fanboys like throwing the shroud of
unreliability upon anyone who contradicts the Microsoft marketing talk.
;-)
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Dustin
2013-07-16 19:08:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code. So right off the bat, your insistence that
DOS is some sort of necessary component of Win-9x/me is complete
bullshit.
DOS 7 does, actually.
Post by Virus Guy
I dare you to explain how a 32-bit protected mode kernel (that win-9x/me
has) can possibly run "on top of" or even concurrent with a 16-bit
real-mode DOS executive.
You're confusing things. 16bit code vs 32bit code.
Post by Virus Guy
And DOS is wiped from the system RAM when the 9x kernel is started.
Umm, no it's not.
Post by Virus Guy
Once invoked, win-9x/me is a fully 32-bit OS that puts the CPU in
protected mode. The fact that I can interrupt the process or stop the
boot and keep the system in 16-bit real-mode DOS is irrelavent.
Yes, it is... very relevent.
Post by Virus Guy
Any command line / dos prompt I open under win-9x is a virtual DOS
machine.
It's not a virtual machine under win9x. It's a very real DOS subsystem. Any
changes it makes are real. Not virtualized, but real.
Post by Virus Guy
You confuse the fact that under 9x/me, that 16-bit DOS code has full
access to the BIOS and hardware, so you assume that the native 32-bit
win-9x drivers must somehow also use 16-bit code to perform their
function.
Umm, no...
Post by Virus Guy
The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it can't
use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available. This is why
Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because 32-bit
sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
win2k wasn't designed for gaming in mind. Windows XP solved that.
--
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
Aragorn
2013-07-16 20:40:22 UTC
Permalink
On Tuesday 16 July 2013 21:08, Dustin conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Dustin
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code. So right off the bat, your insistence
that DOS is some sort of necessary component of Win-9x/me is complete
bullshit.
DOS 7 does, actually.
So does FreeDOS. ;-)
Post by Dustin
It's not a virtual machine under win9x. It's a very real DOS
subsystem. Any changes it makes are real. Not virtualized, but real.
True, albeit that a DOS window inside Windows 98 and ME did run in the
processor's V86 mode so that the DOS session could be run under
multitasking control from the win32 component. In Windows 95, it could
run either in V86 mode or in real mode.

In the latter case, the Windows-specific code and all the other
applications were halted until the processor returned from real mode -
or otherwise put: after the DOS session was closed - because an x86
processor in real mode and running DOS doesn't support multitasking.
Post by Dustin
Post by Virus Guy
The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it
can't use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available.
This is why Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because
32-bit sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
win2k wasn't designed for gaming in mind. Windows XP solved that.
Windows 2000 was actually Windows NT 5.0 - Bill Gates chose to change
the name to Windows 2000 when NT 5.0 was still in beta stage - and as
such it was the third generation of NT.

The NT-based Windows versions were intended to take over from the DOS-
based Windows versions eventually, but they were too different to
properly support multimedia and gaming, and they were always considered
too business-oriented. Gates recognized the problem with NT's adoption,
which is why Windows ME was the last of the DOS-based versions, and XP
merged the two Windows families into one.

And it didn't go well right away, because although Windows XP did
contain the so-called "Windows on Windows" emulators for mimicking
earlier Windows versions in XP, they weren't fully compatible with those
earlier Windows versions for the simple reason that XP didn't run off a
DOS/DPMI kernel anymore. But given that from there on all Windows
versions were based upon NT, the game developers were forced to adapt
their code base to the NT-based win32 API, and they did, because
Microsoft left them no other choice.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Dustin
2013-07-17 23:38:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Tuesday 16 July 2013 21:08, Dustin conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Dustin
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ernst Oberhammer
Does not matter. What file/code you say does run directly 32b
without DOS intervention? None.
DOS can't run 32-bit code. So right off the bat, your insistence
that DOS is some sort of necessary component of Win-9x/me is complete
bullshit.
DOS 7 does, actually.
So does FreeDOS. ;-)
Post by Dustin
It's not a virtual machine under win9x. It's a very real DOS
subsystem. Any changes it makes are real. Not virtualized, but real.
True, albeit that a DOS window inside Windows 98 and ME did run in the
processor's V86 mode so that the DOS session could be run under
multitasking control from the win32 component. In Windows 95, it could
run either in V86 mode or in real mode.
In the latter case, the Windows-specific code and all the other
applications were halted until the processor returned from real mode -
or otherwise put: after the DOS session was closed - because an x86
processor in real mode and running DOS doesn't support multitasking.
Post by Dustin
Post by Virus Guy
The kernel of the NT line prevents direct hardware access, so it
can't use 16-bit DOS drivers if no 32-bit drivers are available.
This is why Win-2k wasn't adopted early by game enthusiasts, because
32-bit sound-card drivers took a while to become available.
win2k wasn't designed for gaming in mind. Windows XP solved that.
Windows 2000 was actually Windows NT 5.0 - Bill Gates chose to change
the name to Windows 2000 when NT 5.0 was still in beta stage - and as
such it was the third generation of NT.
The NT-based Windows versions were intended to take over from the DOS-
based Windows versions eventually, but they were too different to
properly support multimedia and gaming, and they were always considered
too business-oriented. Gates recognized the problem with NT's adoption,
which is why Windows ME was the last of the DOS-based versions, and XP
merged the two Windows families into one.
And it didn't go well right away, because although Windows XP did
contain the so-called "Windows on Windows" emulators for mimicking
earlier Windows versions in XP, they weren't fully compatible with those
earlier Windows versions for the simple reason that XP didn't run off a
DOS/DPMI kernel anymore. But given that from there on all Windows
versions were based upon NT, the game developers were forced to adapt
their code base to the NT-based win32 API, and they did, because
Microsoft left them no other choice.
Absolutely true. Rockin!
--
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-17 02:59:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dustin
Yes, it is... very relevent.
It would probably help if you could spell it.
Aragorn
2013-07-14 17:40:54 UTC
Permalink
On Sunday 14 July 2013 14:52, Virus Guy conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Aragorn
a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based
versions of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know
whether that was also the case for the DOS-based versions of
Microsoft Windows [2], but those were easy to crack anyway.
Just to correct your perception of win-9x/me as being "DOS-based" -
they are not.
Uhh, I'm afraid they are, and very much so. I will explain below.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/ME are *booted*, loaded or invoked from DOS as it exists
transiently during the boot process, but once invoked, Win-9x/ME runs
from a kernel that puts i86 CPU in protected mode.
No, DOS does not exist "transiently during the boot process" in Windows
9x/ME. There is indeed a so-called Win-kernel, and the Win-kernel runs
in protected mode, that much is true. However, that Win-kernel is only
a _DPMI-based DOS extender_ with the addition of a task scheduler -
cooperative in Windows versions before 95, and (mainly) preemptive from
Win95 on.

The protected mode component of Win 3.x, 9x and ME also only uses ring
0, so there is no privilege separation between kernel processes and
userspace processes. There is only a single address space, and any
misbehaving process can grab hold of another process's memory, including
that of the system itself, plus that even so-called userspace processes
have full control of the processor, since they run in ring 0, which is
the kernel ring.

Furthermore, some 60% (at best) of all CPU time on a running Win
3.x/9x/ME system was spent in _real mode_ because although Win 9x/ME
(and Win 3.1/3.11, but not Win 3.0) offered direct 32-bit access for _a
limited subset of_ the I/O operations (such as filesystem access and
swapping), _all of its other_ I/O operations were still happening via
DOS-style real mode access and legacy BIOS calls. There was no
protected mode abstraction layer for the underlying hardware, and the
virtual device drivers (.vxd?) were all hooks into the underlying DOS
and its interface with the legacy BIOS.

Now, the NT-based Windows versions also do have virtual device drivers
for backward compatibility, but they work similar to how Wine works in
UNIX, i.e. by /translating/ the DOS-specific I/O requests into NT-
compatible I/O requests. NT doesn't use real mode and provides for a
complete abstraction layer of the hardware, similar to how other modern
operating systems do that. (The Windows NT kernel was modeled after VMS
and the Windows NT win32/win64 subsystem was largely based upon
Microsoft's contributions to OS/2, which is also a fully protected mode
operating system.) But this was definitely not the case in Windows 3.x,
Windows 9x and Windows ME.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/me and all NT-based OS (prior to 7) create virtual DOS
environments for any process or application that needs them, but it's
a complete fallacy to say that Win-9x/me is either "DOS-based" or
"runs on top of DOS".
Windows NT creates a virtual DOS environment by using the V86 ("virtual
8086") mode of the IA32 processor architecture and by loading a DOS-
compatible command interpreter and DOS-compatible I/O abstraction layer
into the V86 session - which then essentially becomes a virtual machine
- but Win 9x/ME did not actually do it that way.

In Windows 386, 3.0, 3.1/3.11, 95, 98, 98 SE and ME, the DOS sessions
would also run in a V86 session (and could thus be multi-tasked), but
instead of loading a DOS-compatible command interpreter, it simply
loaded a copy of the underlying DOS into the V86 session. Windows 95
also offered the ability of actually switching to real mode for the
execution of DOS programs - in which case it would be like in Windows
3.x on an i286 processor, or even a "DOS box" session in the 16-bit
versions of OS/2, with all protected mode code being halted until the
real mode session had ended - but this was abandoned from Windows 98
onward because it made the system too unstable. Misbehaving software
could, while the processor was in real mode, hang the entire system,
because real mode offers full unmitigated access to all of the
processor's registers and to the BIOS, and with a 1:1 mapping of the
RAM.

You mention "prior to Windows 7" in the above paragraph of yours, and I
do not know whether Windows 7 has dropped DOS support altogether (even
in its 32-bit versions), but what I do know is that all 64-bit versions
of the NT-based Windows releases - and this included the experimental
64-bit XP release and the 64-bit release of Vista - do not support DOS
anymore - or at least, not without any third-party add-ons - because
when the x86-64 processor is in long mode (i.e. 64-bit mode), it no
longer features a V86 submode, which means that in order to offer DOS
and real mode compatibility, a real mode processor must be emulated in
software, which is slow. x86-64 does /have/ a V86 submode, but it is
only accessible from within its "32-bit legacy mode", i.e. when it is
running a 32-bit operating system natively - see the footnote [*].

Rationale: x86-64 has two 32-bit modes: legacy mode - which is
essentially IA32-compatibility mode - and the 32-bit compatibility mode
of long mode. When the processor is running a 64-bit operating system,
then it can still run 32-bit code and even 16-bit protected mode code,
but not real mode code. Real mode emulators for x86-64 long mode do
exist, but they perform a complete emulation in software of an IA32
processor in real mode. In UNIX systems, the 64-bit version of dosemu
does this as well, while the 32-bit version just uses the underlying
processor's V86 mode.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/me is a full Win32 operating system, [...
I'm afraid not. It's a DPMI-based DOS extender with a tasker scheduler
added on.

Here you can read how DPMI works...:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPMI
Post by Virus Guy
...] and with the addition of a third-party API enhancement known as
KernelEx, 9x/me can run many current "NT-only" programs.
KernelEx was indeed a third-party add-on which provided for the ability
to make use of ring 3 for NT-based userspace applications, but as such,
it wasn't part of the Win 9x/ME kernel natively.

Similarly, Cygwin offers a complete UNIX/POSIX-like subsystem for the
NT-based Windows versions - including GNU Bash and the X.Org display
server - but that doesn't mean that NT itself would be POSIX-compliant
or even POSIX-compatible, let alone that anyone could possibly suspect
NT to be a UNIX. And another similarity was the NT kernel hack called
WinFrame, written by Citrix Systems, which allowed for NT to become a
genuine multi-user operating system - in the sense of being multi-seat-
capable - and which was later on sold by Citrix to Microsoft, and then
re-marketed by Microsoft as Windows Terminal Server.

The bottom line is that these are bolted-on subsystems, and that they're
not part of the base kernel design. KernelEx was not part of Win 9x/ME,
and neither Cygwin nor the Citrix-developed Terminal Server add-on are
part of the NT kernel. (As of NT 6.0 (Windows Vista and 2008 Server)
on, Microsoft does offer its own Services For Unix subsystem which is
similar to Cygwin, but which - at least, to my knowledge - does not
include a complete and ready-to-use POSIX-like environment. As far as I
know, it's still only a compatibility layer without any userland
software - similar to Wine on UNIX - and a 32-bit/64-bit evolution of
the formerly 16-bit-only POSIX subsystem - think "Microsoft Xenix" - in
NT 3.x and NT 4.0, which was dropped as standard issue from NT 5.x
(Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server) on.)


[*] x86-64 operation modes:

° Legacy mode
- 16-bit real mode
- 16-bit protected mode, segmented memory model
- 32-bit protected mode, flat memory model
- 32-bit protected mode with PAE pagetables
- V86 mode (16-bit real mode emulation from within 32-bit
protected mode)

° Long mode
* Compatibility mode
- supports 16-bit protected mode code
- 32-bit protected mode with PAE
° Native 64-bit mode

° Systems Management Mode: This is a special 16-bit mode which
was introduced on the i386SL and which uses a feature called
"unreal mode". In this mode, the pagetables are set up, but
the processor then switches back to real mode without a reset,
so that the pagetables remain active. This allows for 16-bit
real mode code to access the complete RAM capacity. Systems
Management Mode is triggered by the hardware, and while the
processor is in Systems Management Mode, all execution of the
operating system and its processes is temporarily halted. It
is mainly used for switching between power savings modes and
for switching fans on and off. The operating system itself
cannot trigger Systems Management Mode, but it will define a
timeout within which SMM must do whatever it was called to do.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
David H. Lipman
2013-07-14 19:23:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Aragorn
a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based versions
of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know whether that
was also the case for the DOS-based versions of Microsoft Windows
[2], but those were easy to crack anyway.
Just to correct your perception of win-9x/me as being "DOS-based" - they
are not.
Win-9x/ME are *booted*, loaded or invoked from DOS as it exists
transiently during the boot process, but once invoked, Win-9x/ME runs
from a kernel that puts i86 CPU in protected mode.
Win-9x/me and all NT-based OS (prior to 7) create virtual DOS
environments for any process or application that needs them, but it's a
complete fallacy to say that Win-9x/me is either "DOS-based" or "runs on
top of DOS".
Win-9x/me is a full Win32 operating system, and with the addition of a
third-party API enhancement known as KernelEx, 9x/me can run many
current "NT-only" programs.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...................

You are addicted to Win9x and you don't even understand is architecture.
--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp
Reed Whitmore
2013-07-14 19:27:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by David H. Lipman
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...................
You are addicted to Win9x and you don't even understand is architecture.
Correct. You start Win95 from DOS prompt, close Win95 and return back to
DOS (6.2 I guess).
Dustin
2013-07-16 19:05:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Aragorn
a. Microsoft did build deliberate backdoors into all NT-based versions
of Microsoft Windows [1] from day one. I don't know whether that
was also the case for the DOS-based versions of Microsoft Windows
[2], but those were easy to crack anyway.
Just to correct your perception of win-9x/me as being "DOS-based" - they
are not.
Actually, they are.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/ME are *booted*, loaded or invoked from DOS as it exists
transiently during the boot process, but once invoked, Win-9x/ME runs
from a kernel that puts i86 CPU in protected mode.
Partially. ME did a slightly better job of trying to hide the DOS 7
subsystem, but still relied very much on DOS.
Post by Virus Guy
Win-9x/me and all NT-based OS (prior to 7) create virtual DOS
environments for any process or application that needs them, but it's a
complete fallacy to say that Win-9x/me is either "DOS-based" or "runs on
top of DOS".
No, it's not. Windows 7 also creates an NTVDM, I don't know why you didn't
think it did...
--
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-17 02:53:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dustin
Actually, they are.
Actually, you were misinformed. Then you took it as gospel.

Any REAL computer science education behind your claims?
Aragorn
2013-07-17 04:21:57 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 04:53, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:05:54 +0000 (UTC), Dustin
Post by Dustin
Actually, they are.
Actually, you were misinformed. Then you took it as gospel.
Any REAL computer science education behind your claims?
Uh, DLUNU, he /is/ right. See my elaboration elsewhere. They /were/
indeed DOS-based, but running as DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface)
with a bolted-on task scheduler and the Windows 4.0 graphical user
interface.

Almost all of the I/O even ran through the real mode DOS drivers, via
the /virtual device drivers/ of Windows itself, which presented virtual
device driver APIs to the Windows applications, but served as an
abstraction layer for the DOS device drivers, which themselves were
still running in real mode and using legacy real mode BIOS calls.

Windows 3.x, 9x and ME spent approximately 60% of their CPU time in real
mode, and the remaining 40% was running in ring 0 of protected mode,
even for application-level software. There was no privilege separation,
and everything running in protected mode all ran within the same address
space. Any Windows application could (and often did) crash the entire
system.

Dustin is right, and Virus Guy is the one who was wrong.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Thad Floryan
2013-07-17 05:18:06 UTC
Permalink
[...]
I'm responding solely based on "NSA" appearing in the "Subject:" line
of this thread. Those interested in what the NSA can do may be very
interested in what I posted to the comp.dcom.telecom and comp.sys.3b1
groups earlier today:

I posted what's copy'n'pasted below to the Usenet comp.dcom.telecom
group earlier today for its long-term archiving at:

http://telecom-digest.org/
aka
http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/

because that group is one of the oldest on Usenet.

But, first, you need to gain a perspective of the scale of things.

The absolute best and easiest way to visualize that is by interacting
with what NASA posted on 12 March 2012 on their "Astronomy Picture Of
the Day" (APOD) site entitled "The Scale of the Universe" (noting it
requires Flash so you can move the graphic's cursor left and right):

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html

That SWF interactive animation can also be easily downloaded for local
playback; if interested, reply to this here in the group and I'll post
the URLs. etc.

That "Scale" should give you an appreciation of the extremes between the
smallest and largest things in the Universe which is important to keep
in mind for the following article I posted in comp.dcom.telecom.

First, note this "table" I cobbled-up; the size of a Yottabyte is
important to know for what follows below:

Byte (8 bits): 1 byte
Kilobyte: 1,000 bytes
Megabyte: 1,000,000 bytes
Gigabyte: 1,000,000,000 bytes
Terabyte: 1,000,000,000,000 bytes
Petabyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Exabyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Zettabyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Yottabyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Xenottabyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Shilentnobyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
Domegemegrottebyte: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

A 50 Petabyte filesystem hardly larger than the refrigerator in my home
kitchen can be seen here at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL):

http://zfsonlinux.org/llnl-zfs-lustre.html

Note a single ZFS filesystem can hold 2^60 bytes (16 Exabytes):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

I actually have a ZFS filesystem on my OpenIndiana system but it's more
modest at "only" 1TB.

And here's my copy'n'pasted article from comp.dcom.telecom today:

Subject: Capability to examine all worldwide data in motion exists today

Over the years I've posted articles to comp.dcom.telecom about Carnivore,
Echelon, and the Russian's SORM programs which includes using fiber optic
splitters (aka "PRISMs") on all the Internet backbones.

Several years ago at a tech meeting that I can't reveal I heard en passant
the NSA had made a "breakthrough" in computing and decryption capabilities
circa a few years earlier. My immediate thought was "quantum computing".

Turns out now that I was correct per all available current evidence.

Back when I worked at the GTE/Sylvania Electronic Defense Labs in Silicon
Valley during the 1960s, we were doing "things" on diamond and sapphire
substrates at frequencies which might seem unbelievable, but they weren't,
and there still is nothing in the commercial marketplace today, 47 years
later, that even pretends to approach what we did then for the 3-letter
and other US government agencies.

Today's "zinger" pertains to quantum computing. But before that I wish to
introduce two important newsletters to which you may wish to subscribe so
you can can keep an "ear to the ground" as to what's really and truly
happening worldwide noting the FAS provides full access to the taxpayer-paid
Congressional Research Reports which the US government denies to us:

1. Federation of American Scientists -- Secrecy News

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_American_Scientists

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/subscribe/

Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html

2. Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier

http://www.schneier.com

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html subscribe, back issues

http://www.schneier.com/blog

Following Slashdot and WIRED magazine is a good idea nowadays, too:

http://slashdot.org/ subscribe for daily & weekly emails

http://www.wired.com/

So, quantum computing. Here are some backgrounders and quick starters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

Google's and Lockheed-Martin's quantum computers:
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/06/d-wave-quantum-computer-usc/

http://www.howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer.htm

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/a-quantum-computing-problem-solved/

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-07/quantum-computer-gets-double-check

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Canadian+quantum+computers+better+than+humans+everything/8602142/story.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/040859_skynet_quantum_computing_d-wave_systems.html

Center for Quantum Computing:
http://www.qubit.org/

http://scienceblog.com/64622/size-and-memory-both-matter-in-quantum-computing/

If you only have time to read one article, the NaturalNews article should
be the one per this short extract:

" [...]
" Google acquires "Skynet" quantum computers from D-Wave
"
" According to an article published in Scientific American, Google
" and NASA have now teamed up to purchase a 512-qubit quantum
" computer from D-Wave. The computer is called "D-Wave Two" because
" it's the second generation of the system. The first system was a
" 128-qubit computer. Gen two is now a 512-qubit computer.
"
" This does not mean the gen two system is merely four times more
" powerful than the gen one system. Thanks to the nature of qubits,
" it's actually 2 to the power of 384 times more powerful (2^384)
" than the gen one system. In other words, it out-computes the
" first D-Wave computer by a factor so large that you can't even
" imagine it in your human brain.
" [...]

The SciAM article is this one:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=google-nasa-snap-up-quantum-computer-dwave-two

The above abstract from NaturalNews reveals what is now commercially
available today with quantum computing. I now firmly believe the NSA
did achieve the breakthrough circa 2010 and is capable of easily and
quickly decrypting anything in realtime from anywhere in the world and
will be storing that data and everyone's email and cellphone/telephone
calls in their new Utah data center with yottabytes of storage.

Thad
Chris F.A. Johnson
2013-07-17 05:57:31 UTC
Permalink
On 2013-07-17, Thad Floryan wrote:
...
Post by Thad Floryan
The above abstract from NaturalNews reveals what is now commercially
available today with quantum computing. I now firmly believe the NSA
did achieve the breakthrough circa 2010 and is capable of easily and
quickly decrypting anything in realtime from anywhere in the world and
will be storing that data and everyone's email and cellphone/telephone
calls in their new Utah data center with yottabytes of storage.
But can they decipher the Voynich manuscript?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript>
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, <http://cfajohnson.com>
Author:
Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell (2009, Apress)
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
Thad Floryan
2013-07-17 06:29:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chris F.A. Johnson
...
Post by Thad Floryan
The above abstract from NaturalNews reveals what is now commercially
available today with quantum computing. I now firmly believe the NSA
did achieve the breakthrough circa 2010 and is capable of easily and
quickly decrypting anything in realtime from anywhere in the world and
will be storing that data and everyone's email and cellphone/telephone
calls in their new Utah data center with yottabytes of storage.
But can they decipher the Voynich manuscript?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript>
Hi Chris,

I sincerely wish they could. I have nearly everything available worldwide
about the Voynich Manuscript in my archives including color copies of the
Yale "masters" and it's piqued my interest for decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

You may remember some of my posts to the Yahoo linux group about it noting
the NSA has been "interested" in it for a l-o-n-g time.

Some of my articles there are long and definitely off-topic for a.o.l.u
so I'll simply reference them since they "should" be publicly readable
given that Google "spiders" and trawls the linux group archives daily:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/57031
Tue Feb 2, 2010 9:25 pm
Re: Samba Oddity
URLs to NSA and other sites re: Voynich Manuscript

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/60034
Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:57 pm
Install TrueType Fonts on Ubuntu and other distros
URL to TrueType Voynich fonts

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/60035
Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:10 pm
Re: Install TrueType Fonts on Ubuntu and other distros
==> http://xkcd.com/593/

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/62509
Thu Mar 7, 2013 10:41 pm
Re: Bad news for Ubuntu desktop users: Canonical abandoning X
contains Voynich URL links to the NSA website

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/62527
Sat Mar 9, 2013 8:08 pm
Re: Bad news for Ubuntu desktop users: Canonical abandoning X
contains three URLs to NASA's APOD website about Voynich per:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100131.html 31-JAN-2010
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050122.html 22-JAN-2005
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020826.html 26-AUG-2002

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux/message/62827
Fri May 10, 2013 11:43 pm
Semi-OT: NSA reveals its Internet search secrets after an FOIA request

Thad
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-17 08:39:51 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 06:21:57 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 04:53, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:05:54 +0000 (UTC), Dustin
Post by Dustin
Actually, they are.
Actually, you were misinformed. Then you took it as gospel.
Any REAL computer science education behind your claims?
Uh, DLUNU, he /is/ right. See my elaboration elsewhere. They /were/
indeed DOS-based, but running as DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface)
with a bolted-on task scheduler and the Windows 4.0 graphical user
interface.
You're right. It was a GUI on a "DOS" framework, as was previous
Windows versions. The first one without was Win2k, right?

That "DOS" version, however, was not the same as the previous (as in an
"MS-DOS" one could buy stand alone, and by rights should have some
moniker included when mentioning it that keeps lay folks reading such a
discussion as this to understand that it is not nor was never intended to
be called "a DOS" separate from the declared OS name "Windows" by that
time.

---------------------------------------
I know.. JUST NOT HERE!!!

I agree with that, BTW, and this will be my last windows thread
participation in a Linux group

---------------------------------------

Back to our regularly (too damned regular) scheduled programming...

I do not recall many folks running things from the command line in
those days where they were not doing it from an older, true "DOS" (MS-DOS
actually). So it really is just semantics and the need to make sure that
in our discussions, we illuminate readers where the breakpoint was
between hard DOS users and the new stub (hehehe) that mounts the new, 32
bit windows memory management schema.

I do not recall booting to it when I had that version of Windows, but I
cannot say for sure. I may well have. I used to do things in labs back
then. Gots lots better gear these days. Electronics has been good to us
all. Most "advanced lab gear", even recent models run Windows 2000 as
their underlying control OS. Maybe it is embedded. more likely flash
or other stored media method. Embedded would not be updateable as
easily.
They'll probably move to Win 8 next. Damn. nice to see Redhat or
something the businesses trust in there. Kinda like what cisco did.with
their routers and switches.
Post by Aragorn
Almost all of the I/O even ran through the real mode DOS drivers,
One could still install things in config.sys as well, IIRC during the
boot process, prior to Windows popping up (a full minute later) :-(.
Post by Aragorn
via
the /virtual device drivers/ of Windows itself, which presented virtual
device driver APIs to the Windows applications, but served as an
abstraction layer for the DOS device drivers, which themselves were
still running in real mode and using legacy real mode BIOS calls.
Which is where he (Bill) formed his ideas about the NT HAL he
subsequently had engineered into what became NT. That was "New
Technology".

I remember running Quarterdeck memory management when I ran DesqViewX
That managed things as both expanded and extended memory. DesqViewX had
to have it to run. I think it utilized protected mode as well.
Post by Aragorn
Windows 3.x, 9x and ME spent approximately 60% of their CPU time in real
mode, and the remaining 40% was running in ring 0 of protected mode,
even for application-level software. There was no privilege separation,
And therein lies the problem. He (Bill) could never get it through his
head that one cannot allow a crash to run down into that lev...
Post by Aragorn
and everything running in protected mode all ran within the same address
space. Any Windows application could (and often did) crash the entire
system.
Yet another reason he should have done a full rewrite from early on.
but noooooo. Took him a while. Things moved slower then too though
guys... circuit board form factors... hardware layer stuff, and the
glue. And he had money to make and projected schedules keep track with
and accelerate (or insure endurance of) current sales to clear
inventories. He had discs to reproduce and sell! What a life!
Post by Aragorn
Dustin is right, and Virus Guy is the one who was wrong.
I am wrong a lot too, but I was there, and understand the position.
not exactly just semantics but I do not recall ever calling it a DOS,
as in the previous moniker, not the literal acronym. Of course they are
all that.

So, "the stub" remains and doesn't get kicked out, But is there then a
"quit to DOS" "feature"? OK... I was "wrong" already. :-)
Aragorn
2013-07-17 17:27:52 UTC
Permalink
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 10:39, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 06:21:57 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 04:53, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed
the following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:05:54 +0000 (UTC), Dustin
Post by Dustin
Actually, they are.
Actually, you were misinformed. Then you took it as gospel.
Any REAL computer science education behind your claims?
Uh, DLUNU, he /is/ right. See my elaboration elsewhere. They /were/
indeed DOS-based, but running as DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface)
with a bolted-on task scheduler and the Windows 4.0 graphical user
interface.
You're right. It was a GUI on a "DOS" framework, as was previous
Windows versions. The first one without was Win2k, right?
Well, no, it's more complicated than that. You had the NT-based Windows
family on the one hand and you had the DOS-based Windows family on the
other hand.

Both were marketed side by side, but the first Windows generation where
they were not marketed side by side anymore was Windows XP, because when
Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) was being marketed, Microsoft was still selling
Windows Millenium Edition, which was a continuation of Windows 9x.

So, Windows XP was the first consumer-based Windows version which ran
off an NT kernel instead of off a DPMI base.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
That "DOS" version, however, was not the same as the previous (as in
an "MS-DOS" one could buy stand alone, and by rights should have some
moniker included when mentioning it that keeps lay folks reading such
a discussion as this to understand that it is not nor was never
intended to be called "a DOS" separate from the declared OS name
"Windows" by that time.
One could indeed not purchase a separate license for the DOS in Windows
9x and ME anymore, but that was Microsoft's intent all along. See, by
integrating DOS into Windows 9x/ME, Microsoft could prevent that people
would be using DR DOS, Novell DOS or any of the other standalone DOS
versions in combination with Windows.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
[...]
I do not recall many folks running things from the command line in
those days where they were not doing it from an older, true "DOS"
(MS-DOS actually). So it really is just semantics and the need to
make sure that in our discussions, we illuminate readers where the
breakpoint was between hard DOS users and the new stub (hehehe) that
mounts the new, 32 bit windows memory management schema.
Well, the first commercially viable graphical user interface was of
course that of the Apple MacIntosh machines, and both Microsoft and IBM
were well aware of that.

As MS-DOS/PC-DOS could not make full use of the extra power of the Intel
80286 and later processors, IBM took the initiative of developing a
successor to MS-DOS/PC-DOS, which would be backward-compatible with DOS
and which would maintain the look & feel of DOS, but with protected mode
operation and multitasking. Because of their cooperation with Microsoft
on DOS, IBM involved Microsoft in the development of this new system,
and this was when OS/2 was born, but the first version of OS/2, version
1.0, did not have an actual graphical user interface. It could display
applications in windows on the screen, but it was still in character
mode. The next version however, OS/2 1.1, made use of true pixel-
oriented graphics mode.

Microsoft had already released early versions of Windows, which also
more or less used pixel-oriented graphics, but didn't really offer
anything more, and as such, Bill Gates decided to give Windows 3.x the
look & feel of OS/2, and to give it multitasking abilities, but all
while still based upon MS-DOS.

Now, OS/2 1.x was developed for the Intel 80286 processor, and Intel had
already released the 80386 and shortly after that, the 80486. Those
were 32-bit processors. IBM and Microsoft then came to an agreement
that IBM would be developing the 2.x generation of OS/2, and that
Microsoft would be developing the 3.x NT generation of OS/2, which would
share the same 32-bit underpinnings as Microsoft's own Windows 3.x NT.
These underpinnings were to be the Mach 2.5 kernel.

However, due to the success of Windows 3.x for DOS, which came pre-
installed /with/ DOS on many brand-name computers, Bill Gates decided to
focus his efforts on Windows only, and he broke the agreement with IBM
for the development of OS/2 3.x NT. Also, instead of going with the
UNIX-style Mach kernel, he hired Dave Cutler at DEC to write the NT
kernel on a VMS base - Cutler had co-written the VMS kernel and he hated
UNIX.

As such, the foundations for Windows NT had been cemented, but NT was
definitely a work in progress, because Gates wanted to be as compatible
with the DOS-based Windows 3.x versions as possible, whereas the NT
kernel was a VMS-clone and thus quite a different thing. This is why
Gates decided to continue marketing and further developing DOS-based
Windows versions for the consumer market until NT was fully ready to
take over.

Gates's idea was to have developers use the Windows-native API of
course, rather than have them continue to develop applications for MS-
DOS. But DOS allowed developers to pull all sorts of tricks due to its
primitive nature and the fact that it offered direct access to the
hardware, so not all developers were eager to jump on the Win API
bandwagon, and due to the DOS-based nature of Windows 9x and ME, even
those developers who did write for the Win32 API still amply made use of
the underlying DOS layer, which enabled them to do things that the NT-
based version of Windows would not allow.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
I do not recall booting to it when I had that version of Windows,
but I cannot say for sure. I may well have. I used to do things in
labs back then. Gots lots better gear these days. Electronics has
been good to us all. Most "advanced lab gear", even recent models run
Windows 2000 as their underlying control OS. Maybe it is embedded.
more likely flash or other stored media method. Embedded would not be
updateable as easily. They'll probably move to Win 8 next. Damn.
nice to see Redhat or something the businesses trust in there. Kinda
like what cisco did.with their routers and switches.
Well, Linux is by far the most prevalent embedded system these days, and
then there's also QNX, which is also a UNIX variant. I don't think
Windows 2000 was ever used as an embedded system, but it was definitely
more popular for enterprise-grade stuff than the later Windows versions.
Enterprises don't upgrade as often as desktop users do, and Windows 2000
was considered more stable/reliable than NT 4.0, whereas later Windows
versions such as XP and Vista (and their respective 2003 and 2008 Server
versions) were perceived as less reliable and more bloated.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
Almost all of the I/O even ran through the real mode DOS drivers,
[...
One could still install things in config.sys as well, IIRC during
the boot process, prior to Windows popping up (a full minute later)
:-(.
Yes, that is correct.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
...] via the /virtual device drivers/ of Windows itself, which
presented virtual device driver APIs to the Windows applications, but
served as an abstraction layer for the DOS device drivers, which
themselves were still running in real mode and using legacy real mode
BIOS calls.
Which is where he (Bill) formed his ideas about the NT HAL he
subsequently had engineered into what became NT. That was "New
Technology".
Well, no, NT and HAL are already a lot older - the first NT release was
3.1 and appeared in 1993 - and the ideas for the HAL came from VMS. And
the NT moniker was something which was destined from the start to be the
future 3.x generations of both Windows and OS/2, back when IBM and
Microsoft were still working together. NT was even still supposed to be
based on a UNIX-style Mach kernel back, rather than on a clone of the
VMS kernel as it is now.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
I remember running Quarterdeck memory management when I ran
DesqViewX That managed things as both expanded and extended memory.
DesqViewX had to have it to run. I think it utilized protected mode
as well.
Well, yes and no. DesqView itself did not use protected mode. It used
EMS (Expanded Memory Specification) via Quarterdeck's QEMM, but QEMM
itself was a technology which made use of protected mode to simulate
real mode expanded memory.

To cut a long story short, EMS provided for a "movable memory address
window", and when either QEMM or the DOS-native EMM386.SYS/EMM386.EXE
drivers were used as the memory manager, the memory addresses this
window would point to were situated in what would normally be the
protected mode address range. So the processor had to switch to
protected mode to access that memory, and then remap it to a real mode
location within the EMS window, and then switch back to real mode so
that DOS could use those memory contents.

A similar technology was XMS (eXtended Memory Specification), which,
instead of using a movable address window, would simply copy 64 KiB
segments back and forth between the real mode memory range and the
protected mode memory range. To DOS, it was in essence a similar
technology to swapping, except that instead of storing a swapped out
segment on a slow disk, it would store it in protected mode memory.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
Windows 3.x, 9x and ME spent approximately 60% of their CPU time in
real mode, and the remaining 40% was running in ring 0 of protected
mode, even for application-level software. There was no privilege
separation,
And therein lies the problem. He (Bill) could never get it through
his head that one cannot allow a crash to run down into that lev...
As I recall, he referred to the crashes afterwards as "a feature", and
neither he personally nor Microsoft as a company ever took crashes
seriously. They consider crashes to be "acceptable behavior".
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
and everything running in protected mode all ran within the same
address space. Any Windows application could (and often did) crash
the entire system.
Yet another reason he should have done a full rewrite from early on.
but noooooo. Took him a while. Things moved slower then too though
guys... circuit board form factors... hardware layer stuff, and the
glue. And he had money to make and projected schedules keep track
with and accelerate (or insure endurance of) current sales to clear
inventories. He had discs to reproduce and sell! What a life!
Post by Aragorn
Dustin is right, and Virus Guy is the one who was wrong.
I am wrong a lot too, but I was there, and understand the position.
not exactly just semantics but I do not recall ever calling it a DOS,
as in the previous moniker, not the literal acronym. Of course they
are all that.
So, "the stub" remains and doesn't get kicked out, But is there
then a "quit to DOS" "feature"?
Yes, it was possible to quit the Windows session and fall back to DOS.
And it was also possible to boot up in DOS-only mode. Usually, the
installed versions of Windows 9x and ME booted straight into the Windows
GUI, but it was possible to get it to boot into DOS only by way of a
shortcut key - F8, if I'm not mistaken - or to even create a boot-up
menu, which was called from CONFIG.SYS and which worked in conjunction
with AUTOEXEC.BAT
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
mike
2013-07-18 00:05:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 10:39, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 06:21:57 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
On Wednesday 17 July 2013 04:53, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno conveyed
the following to alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:05:54 +0000 (UTC), Dustin
Post by Dustin
Actually, they are.
Actually, you were misinformed. Then you took it as gospel.
Any REAL computer science education behind your claims?
Uh, DLUNU, he /is/ right. See my elaboration elsewhere. They /were/
indeed DOS-based, but running as DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface)
with a bolted-on task scheduler and the Windows 4.0 graphical user
interface.
You're right. It was a GUI on a "DOS" framework, as was previous
Windows versions. The first one without was Win2k, right?
Well, no, it's more complicated than that. You had the NT-based Windows
family on the one hand and you had the DOS-based Windows family on the
other hand.
Both were marketed side by side, but the first Windows generation where
they were not marketed side by side anymore was Windows XP, because when
Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) was being marketed, Microsoft was still selling
Windows Millenium Edition, which was a continuation of Windows 9x.
So, Windows XP was the first consumer-based Windows version which ran
off an NT kernel instead of off a DPMI base.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
That "DOS" version, however, was not the same as the previous (as in
an "MS-DOS" one could buy stand alone, and by rights should have some
moniker included when mentioning it that keeps lay folks reading such
a discussion as this to understand that it is not nor was never
intended to be called "a DOS" separate from the declared OS name
"Windows" by that time.
One could indeed not purchase a separate license for the DOS in Windows
9x and ME anymore, but that was Microsoft's intent all along. See, by
integrating DOS into Windows 9x/ME, Microsoft could prevent that people
would be using DR DOS, Novell DOS or any of the other standalone DOS
versions in combination with Windows.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
[...]
I do not recall many folks running things from the command line in
those days where they were not doing it from an older, true "DOS"
(MS-DOS actually). So it really is just semantics and the need to
make sure that in our discussions, we illuminate readers where the
breakpoint was between hard DOS users and the new stub (hehehe) that
mounts the new, 32 bit windows memory management schema.
Well, the first commercially viable graphical user interface was of
course that of the Apple MacIntosh machines, and both Microsoft and IBM
were well aware of that.
Of course?
I did project PERT charts on a Lisa.
To quote your bible...
The Lisa is a personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during
the early 1980s. It was the first personal computer to offer a graphical
user interface in an inexpensive machine aimed at individual business users.

Development of the Lisa began in 1978[1] as a powerful personal computer
with a graphical user interface (GUI) targeted toward business customers.

In 1982, Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project,[2] so he joined
the Macintosh project instead. The Macintosh is not a direct descendant
of Lisa, although there are obvious similarities between the systems and
the final revision, the Lisa 2/10, was modified and sold as the
Macintosh XL.
Post by Aragorn
As MS-DOS/PC-DOS could not make full use of the extra power of the Intel
80286 and later processors, IBM took the initiative of developing a
successor to MS-DOS/PC-DOS, which would be backward-compatible with DOS
and which would maintain the look & feel of DOS, but with protected mode
operation and multitasking. Because of their cooperation with Microsoft
on DOS, IBM involved Microsoft in the development of this new system,
and this was when OS/2 was born, but the first version of OS/2, version
1.0, did not have an actual graphical user interface. It could display
applications in windows on the screen, but it was still in character
mode. The next version however, OS/2 1.1, made use of true pixel-
oriented graphics mode.
Microsoft had already released early versions of Windows, which also
more or less used pixel-oriented graphics, but didn't really offer
anything more, and as such, Bill Gates decided to give Windows 3.x the
look & feel of OS/2, and to give it multitasking abilities, but all
while still based upon MS-DOS.
Now, OS/2 1.x was developed for the Intel 80286 processor, and Intel had
already released the 80386 and shortly after that, the 80486. Those
were 32-bit processors. IBM and Microsoft then came to an agreement
that IBM would be developing the 2.x generation of OS/2, and that
Microsoft would be developing the 3.x NT generation of OS/2, which would
share the same 32-bit underpinnings as Microsoft's own Windows 3.x NT.
These underpinnings were to be the Mach 2.5 kernel.
However, due to the success of Windows 3.x for DOS, which came pre-
installed /with/ DOS on many brand-name computers, Bill Gates decided to
focus his efforts on Windows only, and he broke the agreement with IBM
for the development of OS/2 3.x NT. Also, instead of going with the
UNIX-style Mach kernel, he hired Dave Cutler at DEC to write the NT
kernel on a VMS base - Cutler had co-written the VMS kernel and he hated
UNIX.
As such, the foundations for Windows NT had been cemented, but NT was
definitely a work in progress, because Gates wanted to be as compatible
with the DOS-based Windows 3.x versions as possible, whereas the NT
kernel was a VMS-clone and thus quite a different thing. This is why
Gates decided to continue marketing and further developing DOS-based
Windows versions for the consumer market until NT was fully ready to
take over.
Gates's idea was to have developers use the Windows-native API of
course, rather than have them continue to develop applications for MS-
DOS. But DOS allowed developers to pull all sorts of tricks due to its
primitive nature and the fact that it offered direct access to the
hardware, so not all developers were eager to jump on the Win API
bandwagon, and due to the DOS-based nature of Windows 9x and ME, even
those developers who did write for the Win32 API still amply made use of
the underlying DOS layer, which enabled them to do things that the NT-
based version of Windows would not allow.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
I do not recall booting to it when I had that version of Windows,
but I cannot say for sure. I may well have. I used to do things in
labs back then. Gots lots better gear these days. Electronics has
been good to us all. Most "advanced lab gear", even recent models run
Windows 2000 as their underlying control OS. Maybe it is embedded.
more likely flash or other stored media method. Embedded would not be
updateable as easily. They'll probably move to Win 8 next. Damn.
nice to see Redhat or something the businesses trust in there. Kinda
like what cisco did.with their routers and switches.
Well, Linux is by far the most prevalent embedded system these days, and
then there's also QNX, which is also a UNIX variant. I don't think
Windows 2000 was ever used as an embedded system, but it was definitely
more popular for enterprise-grade stuff than the later Windows versions.
Enterprises don't upgrade as often as desktop users do, and Windows 2000
was considered more stable/reliable than NT 4.0, whereas later Windows
versions such as XP and Vista (and their respective 2003 and 2008 Server
versions) were perceived as less reliable and more bloated.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
Almost all of the I/O even ran through the real mode DOS drivers,
[...
One could still install things in config.sys as well, IIRC during
the boot process, prior to Windows popping up (a full minute later)
:-(.
Yes, that is correct.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
...] via the /virtual device drivers/ of Windows itself, which
presented virtual device driver APIs to the Windows applications, but
served as an abstraction layer for the DOS device drivers, which
themselves were still running in real mode and using legacy real mode
BIOS calls.
Which is where he (Bill) formed his ideas about the NT HAL he
subsequently had engineered into what became NT. That was "New
Technology".
Well, no, NT and HAL are already a lot older - the first NT release was
3.1 and appeared in 1993 - and the ideas for the HAL came from VMS. And
the NT moniker was something which was destined from the start to be the
future 3.x generations of both Windows and OS/2, back when IBM and
Microsoft were still working together. NT was even still supposed to be
based on a UNIX-style Mach kernel back, rather than on a clone of the
VMS kernel as it is now.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
I remember running Quarterdeck memory management when I ran
DesqViewX That managed things as both expanded and extended memory.
DesqViewX had to have it to run. I think it utilized protected mode
as well.
Well, yes and no. DesqView itself did not use protected mode. It used
EMS (Expanded Memory Specification) via Quarterdeck's QEMM, but QEMM
itself was a technology which made use of protected mode to simulate
real mode expanded memory.
To cut a long story short, EMS provided for a "movable memory address
window", and when either QEMM or the DOS-native EMM386.SYS/EMM386.EXE
drivers were used as the memory manager, the memory addresses this
window would point to were situated in what would normally be the
protected mode address range. So the processor had to switch to
protected mode to access that memory, and then remap it to a real mode
location within the EMS window, and then switch back to real mode so
that DOS could use those memory contents.
A similar technology was XMS (eXtended Memory Specification), which,
instead of using a movable address window, would simply copy 64 KiB
segments back and forth between the real mode memory range and the
protected mode memory range. To DOS, it was in essence a similar
technology to swapping, except that instead of storing a swapped out
segment on a slow disk, it would store it in protected mode memory.
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
Windows 3.x, 9x and ME spent approximately 60% of their CPU time in
real mode, and the remaining 40% was running in ring 0 of protected
mode, even for application-level software. There was no privilege
separation,
And therein lies the problem. He (Bill) could never get it through
his head that one cannot allow a crash to run down into that lev...
As I recall, he referred to the crashes afterwards as "a feature", and
neither he personally nor Microsoft as a company ever took crashes
seriously. They consider crashes to be "acceptable behavior".
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Aragorn
and everything running in protected mode all ran within the same
address space. Any Windows application could (and often did) crash
the entire system.
Yet another reason he should have done a full rewrite from early on.
but noooooo. Took him a while. Things moved slower then too though
guys... circuit board form factors... hardware layer stuff, and the
glue. And he had money to make and projected schedules keep track
with and accelerate (or insure endurance of) current sales to clear
inventories. He had discs to reproduce and sell! What a life!
Post by Aragorn
Dustin is right, and Virus Guy is the one who was wrong.
I am wrong a lot too, but I was there, and understand the position.
not exactly just semantics but I do not recall ever calling it a DOS,
as in the previous moniker, not the literal acronym. Of course they
are all that.
So, "the stub" remains and doesn't get kicked out, But is there
then a "quit to DOS" "feature"?
Yes, it was possible to quit the Windows session and fall back to DOS.
And it was also possible to boot up in DOS-only mode. Usually, the
installed versions of Windows 9x and ME booted straight into the Windows
GUI, but it was possible to get it to boot into DOS only by way of a
shortcut key - F8, if I'm not mistaken - or to even create a boot-up
menu, which was called from CONFIG.SYS and which worked in conjunction
with AUTOEXEC.BAT
Aragorn
2013-07-18 04:30:57 UTC
Permalink
On Thursday 18 July 2013 02:05, mike conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by mike
Post by Aragorn
Well, the first commercially viable graphical user interface was of
course that of the Apple MacIntosh machines, and both Microsoft and
IBM were well aware of that.
Of course?
I did project PERT charts on a Lisa.
To quote your bible...
You didn't mention a source by link, but since you're following the
trolling habits of the other Win-droids here, I presume that you mean
Wikipedia, because that's what the other trolls consider to be my bible.

Sadly enough, I don't have all that much confidence in Wikipedia, so
it's definitely not my bible, but as I pointed out earlier already, it's
a /convenient/ source of information.
Post by mike
The Lisa is a personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc.
during the early 1980s. It was the first personal computer to offer a
graphical user interface in an inexpensive machine aimed at individual
business users.
Development of the Lisa began in 1978[1] as a powerful personal
computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) targeted toward
business customers.
In 1982, Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project,[2] so he
joined the Macintosh project instead. The Macintosh is not a direct
descendant of Lisa, although there are obvious similarities between
the systems and the final revision, the Lisa 2/10, was modified and
sold as the Macintosh XL.
Okay, so the Lisa, which came before the MacIntosh, was distinct /from/
the MacIntosh, my bad. I guess I should have been more careful with my
exact wording, because I refer to all Apple computers with a GUI as
MacIntoshes.

If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces, then I
should point out that the first GUI was that of Xerox PARC, and that
both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their inspiration from that one.

So now that we have that sorted out, perhaps you can be a little more
pedantic about your own wording, and also about your snipping - or lack
thereof, in this particular matter.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Bruce Sinclair
2013-07-18 04:10:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
On Thursday 18 July 2013 02:05, mike conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by mike
Post by Aragorn
Well, the first commercially viable graphical user interface was of
course that of the Apple MacIntosh machines, and both Microsoft and
IBM were well aware of that.
<buzz> wrong. The //gs had a fine graphical interface (in colour) before the
broken mac one. :)
Post by Aragorn
Post by mike
The Lisa is a personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc.
during the early 1980s. It was the first personal computer to offer a
graphical user interface in an inexpensive machine aimed at individual
business users.
Lisa was an expensive dog with very little software. That's why they sold so
few of them. :)
Post by Aragorn
Okay, so the Lisa, which came before the MacIntosh, was distinct /from/
the MacIntosh, my bad. I guess I should have been more careful with my
exact wording, because I refer to all Apple computers with a GUI as
MacIntoshes.
<buzz> sorry ... see above. :)
Post by Aragorn
If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces, then I
should point out that the first GUI was that of Xerox PARC, and that
both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their inspiration from that one.
Well said. :)
Post by Aragorn
So now that we have that sorted out, perhaps you can be a little more
pedantic about your own wording, and also about your snipping - or lack
thereof, in this particular matter.
.. and again. :)
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-18 05:56:24 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 04:10:09 GMT,
Post by Bruce Sinclair
Lisa was an expensive dog with very little software. That's why they sold so
few of them. :)
And they saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and knew that things
were leaning toward the Mac developments becoming the winner.

AIUI, the last 'Lisa' was released under a Mac XL moniker, and likely
had a lot of co-development in it.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-18 06:42:44 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 04:10:09 GMT,
Post by Bruce Sinclair
Post by Aragorn
If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces, then I
should point out that the first GUI was that of Xerox PARC, and that
both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their inspiration from that one.
Well said. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_Inc._products

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_II_Family

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_Macintosh_models
mike
2013-07-18 13:53:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
Okay, so the Lisa, which came before the MacIntosh, was distinct /from/
the MacIntosh, my bad. I guess I should have been more careful with my
exact wording, because I refer to all Apple computers with a GUI as
MacIntoshes.
Interesting for someone who is so picky about the details of other
people's posts. Go ahead...give yourself a free pass...
Post by Aragorn
If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces,
Actually, you're the one being pedantic...
then I
Post by Aragorn
should point out that the first GUI was that of Xerox PARC, and that
both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their inspiration from that one.
I had the chance to visit Xerox to play with one of the early prototype
mice. Been a long time, and I don't have a perfect memory. Biggest
impression was the amount of security we had to go thru to get into the
lab. Was instantly obvious that the mouse would be a game changer.
Post by Aragorn
So now that we have that sorted out,
You maen now that YOU have it sorted out.
perhaps you can be a little more
Post by Aragorn
pedantic about your own wording, and also about your snipping - or lack
thereof, in this particular matter.
This snipped enough for you?
Aragorn
2013-07-18 17:50:34 UTC
Permalink
On Thursday 18 July 2013 15:53, mike conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...
Post by mike
Post by Aragorn
Okay, so the Lisa, which came before the MacIntosh, was distinct
/from/ the MacIntosh, my bad. I guess I should have been more
careful with my exact wording, because I refer to all Apple computers
with a GUI as MacIntoshes.
Interesting for someone who is so picky about the details of other
people's posts.
Which I am not. You are making that up.
Post by mike
Go ahead...give yourself a free pass...
That which I /might/ be "picky" on, here in alt.os.linux.ubuntu, and
with regard to what _you_ post, is that your posts are full of
misinformation about GNU/Linux, the operating system on topic for this
newsgroup.
Post by mike
Post by Aragorn
If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces,
Actually, you're the one being pedantic...
Only when and where I need to be. And if I correct people when they
make mistakes, then it's only fair that they would correct me if/when I
make a mistake.

There /is/ however a substantial difference between using incorrect
nomenclature on the one hand and deliberately spreading misinformation
on the other hand.
--
= Aragorn =
GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net
Soupe du Jour
2013-07-18 15:14:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Aragorn
Okay, so the Lisa, which came before the MacIntosh, was distinct /from/
the MacIntosh, my bad. I guess I should have been more careful with my
exact wording, because I refer to all Apple computers with a GUI as
MacIntoshes.
Andy Hertzfeld has some interesting stories to tell about those days.

http://www.folklore.org
Post by Aragorn
If you're going to be pedantic about graphical user interfaces, then I
should point out that the first GUI was that of Xerox PARC, and that
both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their inspiration from that one.
Andy has an essay by Bruce Horn that talks about some of this.

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?
project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt&sortOrder=Sort%
20by%20Date&detail=medium
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-18 01:15:28 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 19:27:52 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
Well, Linux is by far the most prevalent embedded system these days, and
then there's also QNX,
Of course it is in commercial products like routers, satellite modems,
etc.

In commercial products like LAB test gear (network analyzers and such)
it was Win 2000.

That was HP, and Agilent, etc.
Soupe du Jour
2013-07-18 13:40:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 19:27:52 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
Well, Linux is by far the most prevalent embedded system these days, and
then there's also QNX,
Of course it is in commercial products like routers, satellite modems,
etc.
In commercial products like LAB test gear (network analyzers and such)
it was Win 2000.
EMC uses a 1U PC running Embedded XP for the controller/service processor
on their Symmetrix V-Max storage arrays. I always laughed when a tech
showed up and wanted to reboot it because it had hung, and then I would
suggest that they use a real OS.
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-19 02:46:50 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:40:37 +0000 (UTC), Soupe du Jour
Post by Soupe du Jour
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 19:27:52 +0200, Aragorn
Post by Aragorn
Well, Linux is by far the most prevalent embedded system these days, and
then there's also QNX,
Of course it is in commercial products like routers, satellite modems,
etc.
In commercial products like LAB test gear (network analyzers and such)
it was Win 2000.
EMC uses a 1U PC running Embedded XP for the controller/service processor
on their Symmetrix V-Max storage arrays. I always laughed when a tech
showed up and wanted to reboot it because it had hung, and then I would
suggest that they use a real OS.
OMG! HOW did that "product" sell as such a critical hardware
management component!?

It should have been prosecuted as false advertising.
Soupe du Jour
2013-07-19 13:47:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:40:37 +0000 (UTC), Soupe du Jour
<snip>
Post by DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
Post by Soupe du Jour
EMC uses a 1U PC running Embedded XP for the controller/service
processor on their Symmetrix V-Max storage arrays. I always laughed when
a tech showed up and wanted to reboot it because it had hung, and then I
would suggest that they use a real OS.
OMG! HOW did that "product" sell as such a critical hardware
management component!?
It should have been prosecuted as false advertising.
Several of us complained about it at the time, but the boss was a dolt
and thought it would be just fine. Up until the time that I left there,
it had never interrupted operation of the SAN, but it did make things
inconvenient from time to time. (We later got better bosses and they were
talking about getting rid of EMC completely because it's way over-priced
for what you actually get.)
Virus Guy
2013-07-14 13:13:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
"Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to
allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the
National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption,
according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."
It was pointed out as long ago as 1999 that a debugging symbol (_NSAKEY)
existed in ADVAPI32.DLL (security
and encryption driver) when it released Service Pack 5 for Windows NT
4.0.

"Microsoft's operating systems require all cryptography suites that
work with its operating systems to have a digital signature. Since
only Microsoft-approved cryptography suites can be installed or
used as a component of Windows it is possible to keep export copies
of this operating system (and products with Windows installed) in
compliance with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which
are enforced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry
and Security (BIS).

It was already known that Microsoft used two keys, a primary and a
spare, either of which can create valid signatures."

(the above from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY)

It's not clear to me how the presence of a second public key within
ADVAPI32.DLL (regardless who owns the private key) could constitute a
"back door" to a windows system.

It's not clear how data being handled by ADVAPI32.dll can leave a
windows computer and be signed by a specific key (or any key other than
Microsoft's primary key) without some sort of back-channel communication
with ADVAPI32.dll, and without the wider software community becoming
aware of this at some point over the past 15 years.

It seems to me that the only way (technically) that this NSAkey could be
used (by the NSA) is if they are able to intercept the data stream from
a target PC and insert their own system between the target and the
destination, and thus they can act as a "man in the middle" and handle
encrypted traffic between the target and the destination without either
of them knowing there is a system between them decrypting and then
re-encrypting the data stream.

To do that, the NSA would either (a) need to know Microsoft's private
key, or (b) have their own key embedded inside ADVAPI32.DLL (which they
seem to have). But how does ADVAPI32.dll know which key to use at any
given time? Both keys can't be used simultaneously - can they? If they
could, then theoretically an encrypted data stream could be decoded by
either key, but again the wider software community would have noticed
that.
David W. Hodgins
2013-07-15 01:34:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
It was already known that Microsoft used two keys, a primary and a
spare, either of which can create valid signatures."
(the above from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY)
It's not clear to me how the presence of a second public key within
ADVAPI32.DLL (regardless who owns the private key) could constitute a
"back door" to a windows system.
The wiki article is not written well.

In asymmetric (aka public key) encryption, the public key can be used
in one of two ways.

The public key can be used to verify a signature of a file, where the
signature was created by the holder of the private key. If the NSA
really has the private key, they could use it to sign a modified
version of a microsoft program, and it would pass the signature test,
on the target client's computer. The signature, is just a hash (like
sha512), that's been encrypted with the private key.

The public key can also be used, to encrypt a file, such that the
owner of the private key, is the only one who can decrypt the file.

The public key is not used to create signatures.

Since asymmetric encryption, is really slow, most cryptographic systems,
including ssl, use both asymmetric encryption, and symmetric encryption
(same passphrase used to encrypt, and decrypt), which is much faster.

For the symmetric encryption, a random number is generated. Since it's
fast, a large key has to be used, in order to prevent a brute force
attack. Most systems will use a 512 bit (64 byte key), made up using
pseudo random numbers. As long as a reasonably good pseudo random
number generation method is used, trying 2 to the power 512 keys, using
every computer that has ever existed on earth, would take billions, if
not trillions, of years. The random key used, is called a session key.

The problem with using symmetric encryption, is that you have to have
some way of getting the session key, to the person who has to be able
to decrypt the file. That's where the asymmetric encryption comes in.

The session key is encrypted using the public key(s) of the intended
recipient(s).

It would be quite easy to hide the extra copy of the session key,
encrypted with the nsa's public key, in an encrypted file. For the
recipient, who can decrypt the file/message, using their private
key, there would be nothing in the output, to suggest that there
was extra data, in the encrypted stream.

It would be very difficult to detect, and even if analysis of the
encrypted file showed some data that didn't need to be there, without
a copy of the nsa private key, there would be no way to prove that
the extra data was an encrypted copy of the session key.

The only way to confirm it, would be to disassemble, not only the
module that contains the key, but every module that calls it.

Regards, Dave Hodgins
--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)
Timothy Daniels
2013-07-15 04:24:09 UTC
Permalink
[ . . . ]
The problem with using symmetric encryption, is that you have to have
some way of getting the session key, to the person who has to be able
to decrypt the file. That's where the asymmetric encryption comes in.
The session key is encrypted using the public key(s) of the intended
recipient(s).
It would be quite easy to hide the extra copy of the session key,
encrypted with the nsa's public key, in an encrypted file. For the
recipient, who can decrypt the file/message, using their private
key, there would be nothing in the output, to suggest that there
was extra data, in the encrypted stream.
It would be very difficult to detect, and even if analysis of the
encrypted file showed some data that didn't need to be there, without
a copy of the nsa private key, there would be no way to prove that
the extra data was an encrypted copy of the session key.
The only way to confirm it, would be to disassemble, not only the
module that contains the key, but every module that calls it.
Regards, Dave Hodgins
I'm having trouble following this. Who would be hiding the extra
copy of the session key - the sender who is evading the NSA, or the
software that has been modified for the NSA's use as a peephole?

*TimDaniels*
David W. Hodgins
2013-07-15 05:27:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Timothy Daniels
I'm having trouble following this. Who would be hiding the extra
copy of the session key - the sender who is evading the NSA, or the
software that has been modified for the NSA's use as a peephole?
The software that has been modified (if true, by microsoft), for the
NSA to use.

Regards, Dave Hodgins
--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)
Ignoramus26578
2013-07-27 14:02:30 UTC
Permalink
My understanding of that old _NSAKEY story is as follows.

When encrypting a data stream, a random encryption key is generated to
be used by the stream cypher.

That is not the same as public and private keys, and is used to
encrypt the specific data stream. That cipher key is encrypted with
the recipient's public key. The recipient uses its private key to
decrypt the cipher key, and then to decrypt the data. This is
legitimate use of public key encryption.

Microsoft also encrypts that cipher stream key with NSA's key and
therefore, if NSA is able to intercent encrypted data, it can decrypt
the key used to encrypt the data stream, and then decrypt the data
stream. That is NSA's backdoor to Microsoft encryption.

No other explanations made sense to me at the time.

i
Cybe R. Wizard
2013-07-27 14:49:43 UTC
Permalink
On Sat, 27 Jul 2013 09:02:30 -0500
Post by Ignoramus26578
My understanding of that old _NSAKEY story is as follows.
When encrypting a data stream, a random encryption key is generated to
be used by the stream cypher.
That is not the same as public and private keys, and is used to
encrypt the specific data stream. That cipher key is encrypted with
the recipient's public key. The recipient uses its private key to
decrypt the cipher key, and then to decrypt the data. This is
legitimate use of public key encryption.
Microsoft also encrypts that cipher stream key with NSA's key and
therefore, if NSA is able to intercent encrypted data, it can decrypt
the key used to encrypt the data stream, and then decrypt the data
stream. That is NSA's backdoor to Microsoft encryption.
No other explanations made sense to me at the time.
i
While that may be on topic for alt.privacy.spyware, you are off topic
on, and, therefore, spamming the other two groups.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
T i m non cogitat, ergo dumb
Virus Guy
2013-07-27 17:13:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ignoramus26578
Microsoft also encrypts that cipher stream key with NSA's key and
therefore, if NSA is able to intercent encrypted data, it can
decrypt the key used to encrypt the data stream, and then decrypt
the data stream. That is NSA's backdoor to Microsoft encryption.
No other explanations made sense to me at the time.
Can a data stream be encrypted by two different keys simultaneously,
such that either key can decrypt the stream?

Wouldn't that be necessary if a target is communicating with a
third-party machine using encryption and the NSA has access to the data
stream, and both the NSA and the third-party machine can decrypt the
stream?

And are we talking about anything other than https or vpn? If not, what
other commonly-used windoze-based applications or protocals (circa
year-2000) made use of encryption?
Ignoramus26578
2013-07-27 19:19:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ignoramus26578
Microsoft also encrypts that cipher stream key with NSA's key and
therefore, if NSA is able to intercent encrypted data, it can
decrypt the key used to encrypt the data stream, and then decrypt
the data stream. That is NSA's backdoor to Microsoft encryption.
No other explanations made sense to me at the time.
Can a data stream be encrypted by two different keys simultaneously,
such that either key can decrypt the stream?
This is not how it works. The stream key is encrypted with the
recipient's public key, and the encrypted key is sent with the
encrypted data. THis is how public key encryption works. With the
Microsoft software, the stream cipher key is also encrypted with NSA's
public key, and that is sent along with the rest of the data. So, if
NSA intercepts the encrypted data, they cat decrypt the streak key
with their private key.

Read up on public key cryptoraphy.
Post by Virus Guy
Wouldn't that be necessary if a target is communicating with a
third-party machine using encryption and the NSA has access to the data
stream, and both the NSA and the third-party machine can decrypt the
stream?
And are we talking about anything other than https or vpn? If not, what
other commonly-used windoze-based applications or protocals (circa
year-2000) made use of encryption?
Virus Guy
2013-07-27 19:47:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ignoramus26578
Post by Virus Guy
Can a data stream be encrypted by two different keys
simultaneously, such that either key can decrypt the stream?
This is not how it works.
The NSA is the NSA. Presumably it has access to the data stream.
The data stream is Data leaving the Target and going to the Recipient.
The Target is a person of interest (to the NSA)
The Recipient could be an individual, but is probably a web-server.
Post by Ignoramus26578
The stream key is encrypted with the recipient's public key
The Target is sending Data to the Recipient, but the Data is scrambled
with the Recipient's public key, which is no secret to anyone. Anyone
looking at the data stream can theoretically not decipher it without
knowing the Recipient's private key. Naturally the Recipient can
decipher the Data.
Post by Ignoramus26578
and the encrypted key is sent with the encrypted data.
Not sure where that fits into this. What key is encrypted?
Post by Ignoramus26578
With the Microsoft software, the stream cipher key is also
encrypted with NSA's public key, and that is sent along with
the rest of the data.
If the Data leaving the Target is encrypted with the NSA's public key
(the one being identified as _NSAKEY) then the Recipient will not be
able to decrypt the Data - but the NSA will (naturally) be able to do so
(if they have access to the data stream - presumably real-time access).

Since the Recipient will not be able to decrypt the Data, the
communication between the Target and Recipient will break down and both
parties will suspect something is wrong and further surveilence by the
NSA during that session will not be possible.

How ADVAPI32.DLL determines/decides when to use the NSA key is another
question that I haven't seen anyone discuss.
Ignoramus8874
2013-07-28 17:32:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ignoramus26578
Post by Virus Guy
Can a data stream be encrypted by two different keys
simultaneously, such that either key can decrypt the stream?
This is not how it works.
The NSA is the NSA. Presumably it has access to the data stream.
The data stream is Data leaving the Target and going to the Recipient.
The Target is a person of interest (to the NSA)
The Recipient could be an individual, but is probably a web-server.
Post by Ignoramus26578
The stream key is encrypted with the recipient's public key
The Target is sending Data to the Recipient, but the Data is scrambled
with the Recipient's public key, which is no secret to anyone. Anyone
looking at the data stream can theoretically not decipher it without
knowing the Recipient's private key. Naturally the Recipient can
decipher the Data.
Your post reveals intelligence, but at the same time, lack of
knowledge of this important subject. So, please, read some articles on
public key cryptography.

The data stream is not encrypted with the recipient's public key. It
is encrypted with a faster stream cypher, such as IDEA. The key for
that stream cypher is picked at random, and that key is what is
encrypted with the recipient's public key, and sent along with the
encrypted data. This makes encryption much faster.
Post by Virus Guy
Post by Ignoramus26578
and the encrypted key is sent with the encrypted data.
Not sure where that fits into this. What key is encrypted?
Post by Ignoramus26578
With the Microsoft software, the stream cipher key is also
encrypted with NSA's public key, and that is sent along with
the rest of the data.
If the Data leaving the Target is encrypted with the NSA's public key
(the one being identified as _NSAKEY) then the Recipient will not be
able to decrypt the Data - but the NSA will (naturally) be able to do so
(if they have access to the data stream - presumably real-time access).
Since the Recipient will not be able to decrypt the Data, the
communication between the Target and Recipient will break down and both
parties will suspect something is wrong and further surveilence by the
NSA during that session will not be possible.
How ADVAPI32.DLL determines/decides when to use the NSA key is another
question that I haven't seen anyone discuss.
What Microsoft did, I believe, is to provide two copies of the stream
cipher key: one encrypted with the recipient's public key, and one
encrypted with NSA's public key.

i
Big Bad Bob
2013-07-17 08:44:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
It was pointed out as long ago as 1999 that a debugging symbol (_NSAKEY)
existed in ADVAPI32.DLL (security
and encryption driver) when it released Service Pack 5 for Windows NT
4.0.
sorry, I call 'FUD' on that.

I remember seeing that symbol (or one like it) exported in other
NT-based OS's as well, such as pre-release versions of XP. It does
raise an eyebrow, and maybe was placed there originally due to actual
requirements of having that kind of "feature". The 90's was a time when
data encryption was treated the same as a military style weapon.
Fortunately the laws were changed to something a bit more sane [NOW you
basically register your algorithm with some gummint agency before you
can export it, or at least the last time I checked that's what it was].
Before that, only 60-DES equivalent could be exported, and that's as
much of a joke as WEP.

I doubt the NSA has a back door into windows. but if you want to use
that potential as a reason to run Linux and/or use open source
encryption like TrueCrypt, go for it.

on a related note, Korea's reaction to the data encryption fiasco was to
mandate their own closed-source encryption library for ALL! BANKING!
TRANSACTIONS! and it requires an ActiveX! PLUGIN! for INTERNET!
EXPLORER! and they are STILL! USING! IT! in spite of the obvious
security craters involved.

https://blog.mozilla.org/gen/2010/04/28/the-security-of-internet-banking-in-south-korea/
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno
2013-07-17 14:35:51 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 01:44:56 -0700, Big Bad Bob
Post by Big Bad Bob
Post by Virus Guy
It was pointed out as long ago as 1999 that a debugging symbol (_NSAKEY)
existed in ADVAPI32.DLL (security
and encryption driver) when it released Service Pack 5 for Windows NT
4.0.
sorry, I call 'FUD' on that.
I remember seeing that symbol (or one like it) exported in other
NT-based OS's as well, such as pre-release versions of XP. It does
raise an eyebrow, and maybe was placed there originally due to actual
requirements of having that kind of "feature". The 90's was a time when
data encryption was treated the same as a military style weapon.
Yep. Export of ANY PC to Russia was illegal all the way up until the
486 hit the market, then they started getting 286s and 386s.

Export controls were a HUGE thing for all allied nations back then.
Post by Big Bad Bob
Fortunately the laws were changed to something a bit more sane [NOW you
basically register your algorithm with some gummint agency before you
can export it, or at least the last time I checked that's what it was].
Before that, only 60-DES equivalent could be exported, and that's as
much of a joke as WEP.
I doubt the NSA has a back door into windows. but if you want to use
that potential as a reason to run Linux and/or use open source
encryption like TrueCrypt, go for it.
on a related note, Korea's reaction to the data encryption fiasco was to
mandate their own closed-source encryption library for ALL! BANKING!
TRANSACTIONS! and it requires an ActiveX! PLUGIN! for INTERNET!
EXPLORER! and they are STILL! USING! IT! in spite of the obvious
security craters involved.
https://blog.mozilla.org/gen/2010/04/28/the-security-of-internet-banking-in-south-korea/
mike
2014-03-03 18:35:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the American
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper The
Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft has put a
backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what users think are
confidential communications, passwords, etc. This has long been
suspected, but has never been proven until now.
__________________________________________________
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-
user-data
11 July 2013
"Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to
allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the
National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption,
according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."
"The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-
operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the
last three years."
"Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address
concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the
new Outlook.com portal; The agency already had pre-encryption stage
access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail..."
"In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA
boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls
being collected through Prism; Material collected through Prism is
routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing
the program as a 'team sport.'"
[Note: The Chinese government has been overhauling its computer systems
to use open-source Linux, rightfully distrusting Microsoft's proprietary
closed-source software.]
Microsoft is imperialistic and anti-democratic. they ar gansters, like
nazis, the windows-logo is simular like a hook-cross. But you have the
choice between linux and apple, but never windows, the crap of bill
gates, there is a agabage-deponie, full with windows-cds and books, and
gates is also gabage, bee free, the fachists in europe blocket my
textes, but i now, the true will win, and the evil like windoes will loose.
When's the last time you visited the slaughterhouse to inspect the
source of the meat you eat.
Ever visited a farm and demanded to see what chemicals they used?
How often have you sent your tap water in for chemical/biological analysis?
Ever visited your bank and demanded to examine their source code?
Ever been online?

Of all the things we have to be angry about, linux seems to be the
least of our solutions.
Virus Guy
2014-03-04 03:06:46 UTC
Permalink
mike wrote:

(...)

Mike directly quoted this post:

news://nntp.aioe.org/legcdb%244b0%241%40online.de

Which seems to have been posted on Feb 24/2014 (about a week ago).

Yet that post doesn't seem to be present on the AIOE server.

Any ideas as to why that is?
Norm X
2014-03-04 06:11:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Virus Guy
(...)
news://nntp.aioe.org/legcdb%244b0%241%40online.de
Which seems to have been posted on Feb 24/2014 (about a week ago).
Yet that post doesn't seem to be present on the AIOE server.
Any ideas as to why that is?
You get what you pay for. AIOE is free. If you want better service use a
commercial usenet NNTP server.
Bruce Sinclair
2014-03-05 00:04:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Norm X
Post by Virus Guy
(...)
news://nntp.aioe.org/legcdb%244b0%241%40online.de
Which seems to have been posted on Feb 24/2014 (about a week ago).
Yet that post doesn't seem to be present on the AIOE server.
Any ideas as to why that is?
You get what you pay for. AIOE is free. If you want better service use a
commercial usenet NNTP server.
.. but that typed, AIOE and the other free nntp servers like ES are
outstanding. :)
Jihad Jeffy
2014-03-04 21:39:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by mike
Post by Free Ed Snowden!
Here is an extremely important and disturbing story that the American
media are conveniently ignoring. According to the British newspaper The
Guardian, documents leaked by Ed Snowden reveal that Microsoft has put a
backdoor in its encryption to allow the NSA access what users think are
confidential communications, passwords, etc. This has long been
suspected, but has never been proven until now.
__________________________________________________
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-
user-data
11 July 2013
"Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to
allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the
National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption,
according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."
"The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-
operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the
last three years."
"Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address
concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the
new Outlook.com portal; The agency already had pre-encryption stage
access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail..."
"In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA
boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls
being collected through Prism; Material collected through Prism is
routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing
the program as a 'team sport.'"
[Note: The Chinese government has been overhauling its computer systems
to use open-source Linux, rightfully distrusting Microsoft's proprietary
closed-source software.]
Microsoft is imperialistic and anti-democratic. they ar gansters, like
nazis, the windows-logo is simular like a hook-cross. But you have the
choice between linux and apple, but never windows, the crap of bill
gates, there is a agabage-deponie, full with windows-cds and books, and
gates is also gabage, bee free, the fachists in europe blocket my
textes, but i now, the true will win, and the evil like windoes will loose.
When's the last time you visited the slaughterhouse to inspect the
source of the meat you eat.
Ever visited a farm and demanded to see what chemicals they used?
How often have you sent your tap water in for chemical/biological analysis?
Ever visited your bank and demanded to examine their source code?
Ever been online?
Of all the things we have to be angry about, linux seems to be the
least of our solutions.
I'm using Linux right now and love it. There is no way to prove there
is no backdoor in it, but millions of computer geeks have examined the
source code and no serious weakness has been discovered yet. The
slaughterhouse is something else entirely -- we know what'g going on is
disgusting but tolerate it because we're too cheap to patronize
open-source farms (reputable farms give free tours).

Microsoft is an agent of the U.S. government. Just ten or fifteen years
ago the American government was always threatening antitrust action
against the company, now nothing. Looking back at my DOS/Windows
childhood, I can't believe I just blindly installed the constant
"updates," never really knowing whether they were to correct some
security flaw or create a new one for the government to exploit. As a
global company, Microsoft really shot itself in the foot with this one.
John Bokma
2014-03-05 01:30:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jihad Jeffy
I'm using Linux right now and love it. There is no way to prove there
is no backdoor in it, but millions of computer geeks have examined the
source code and no serious weakness has been discovered yet.
According to this article at Ars Technica, '[A] bug in the GnuTLS
library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets
layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available
on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial
estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate
that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely
on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it
wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web
applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library
are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring
connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end
users and servers.' The coding error may have been present since
2005.

via http://slashdot.org/story/198965

so much for millions of computer geeks yada yada

https://www.gitorious.org/gnutls/gnutls/commit/6aa26f78150ccbdf0aec1878a41c17c41d358a3b

Stuff like this is extremely easy to overlook. That's one reason why I
write /tests/ to test my code. Stuff like this should come with tests
that test each and every branch.
--
John Bokma j3b

Blog: http://johnbokma.com/ Perl Consultancy: http://castleamber.com/
Perl for books: http://johnbokma.com/perl/help-in-exchange-for-books.html
Loading...