According to /., the Windows 2000 and NT source code has been leaked. So, what does this mean? Well, (if true) it means that a hell of a lot more virii will probably spring up, as the virus writers can see exactly how Windows works, and more specifically where the holes are. Could be an interesting next few months in the IT world...
Note: In case anyone doesn't understand what the source code is; it is basically the 'recipe' for a computer program; if you have it you can 'make' Windows, or more importantly, find out how it works and change it. Think of it as Microsoft's equivalent of Coca-Cola's secret recipe.
I wonder if MS will do a Valve and push back Longhorn to 2007 because of those evil hackers and what they'll do to the code. Not that I have no respect for Valve or anything...
BTW, amusing fact for the day, Windows 666 + 1337 = Windows 2003, thus demonstrating it was made by the evil 1337 ;)
Two things:
1) Damn this code is buggy - grep -r -i 'BUGBUG' source
7101
2) The people at Wine are gonna be more than quite chuffed with this... it's gonna make their life a whole lot easier.
Bob
Don't be stupid Tom. Nobody with any sense is going to go anywhere near that source code.
With comments like these, what hope is there for the code ?
No Darren, they aren't going to use it to work out exactly what stupid assed thing windows actually does rather than what is published... Sure they aren't going to use any of the code (unless they're particularly stupid), but they sure as hell will be trawling through it.
Bob
No, Tom, they won't because they're not stupid. There's no way in Hell anyone on the Wine team is going to be stupid enough to put themselves at risk by even having access to a copy of the Windows source code.
Ahh, the wonders of prescience...