It seems a huge amount of Windows software has been leaked, from an internal source. 32 terabytes of data, including, but not limited to beta copies of Windows 10, developer software, and potentially the most important of them all-- source code. UK news site, The Register, were the ones to initially break the story, claiming that these confidential testing builds and other data came from a source inside Microsoft, back in March 2017. The files were then uploaded on June 19, to Beta Archive, though they were removed shortly after. With the "shared source code kit" being available to the public, this means that users may be able to better customize Windows to their liking, but it also comes with the fact that this leaves users' security vulnerable and compromised, if one manages to use the source code to create a dangerous virus or exploit. The source below contains more intricate details on the matter.

The leaked code is Microsoft's Shared Source Kit: according to people who have seen its contents, it includes the source to the base Windows 10 hardware drivers plus Redmond's PnP code, its USB and Wi-Fi stacks, its storage drivers, and ARM-specific OneCore kernel code.

Anyone who has this information can scour it for security vulnerabilities, which could be exploited to hack Windows systems worldwide. The code runs at the heart of the operating system, at some of its most trusted levels.

This software includes, for example, prerelease Windows 10 "Redstone" builds and unreleased 64-bit ARM flavors of Windows. There are, we think, too many versions now dumped online for Microsoft to revoke via its Secure Boot mechanism, meaning the tech giant can't use its firmware security mechanisms to prevent people booting the prerelease operating systems.

EDIT: response from a Beta Archive admin

First of all let us clear up a few facts. The “Shared Source Kit” folder did exist on the FTP until this article came to light. We have removed it from our FTP and listings pending further review just in case we missed something in our initial release. We currently have no plans to restore it until a full review of its contents is carried out and it is deemed acceptable under our rules.

The folder itself was 1.2GB in size, contained 12 releases each being 100MB. This is far from the claimed “32TB” as stated in The Register’s article, and cannot possibly cover “core source code” as it would be simply too small, not to mention it is against our rules to store such data.

At this time all we can deduct is that The Register refers to the large Windows 10 release we had on March 24th which included a lot of Windows releases provided to us, sourced from various forum members, Windows Insider members, and Microsoft Connect members. All of these we deemed safe for release to BetaArchive as they are all beta releases and defunct builds superseded by newer ones, and they were covered under our rules.

If any of this should change we will remove these builds from the FTP and we will happily comply with any instructions to do so by Microsoft.

Source

 

[MionissNio]

Computing is shit nowadays!

Windows being an adware, malware filled steamy leaky poo!
Mac being overpriced
Linux having the lack of apps
There is nothing you can use on your desktop!
Guess mobile computing is the future.

 

[Seriel]

Mac being overpriced

Hackintosh

 

[leon315]

Ohe finally, I'm tired sick that cortana constantly watches me, can we finally get a tool to completely remove it??

 

[Jayro]

Computing is shit nowadays!

Windows being an adware, malware filled steamy leaky poo!
Mac being overpriced
Linux having the lack of apps
There is nothing you can use on your desktop!
Guess mobile computing is the future.

Linux has the apps, just 90% of them lack a GUI. If I could learn coding, I'd make as many front-end GUIs as I could for terminal apps. You know, for "the rest of us".

 

[SKGleba]

Personally i think its not gud,, Windows after all is a gud os. If someone wants open source os ,there are plenty of them.
But because Windows is closed-source and has got gud security ,big companies are giving us games. Also its used in hospitals/schools.

 

[szymon170]

Again all the beautiful things Linux can get working with Windows now... This will be HUGE for WINE development.

First: it's probably fake
Second: Wine developers won't even see this code, because Microsoft could sue them. The developers said themselves, that when Windows 2000 was leaked, they've agreed that they won't look at it, and were in fear that Microsoft would take down the project.

 

[Clydefrosch]

due to security concerns, microsoft, with a heavy heart, is forced to sell windows 11 now. please update, everyone. its for your own safety.

 

[Gizametalman]

Woah... 32... let's blame North Korea about this.

 

[Deleted User]

Time to rewrite source code, eh?
Windows Distro's, fuck yeah.

 

[goldensun87]

Microsoft should ask Nintendo for some of that STABILITY ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[migles]

love comming in the morning to gba temp and reading news like this (it's bad news but it's great that the temp provides me the stuff i need to know)

anyway
will this means that plenty of stuff of windows can be more easly ported into some linux distributions to greatly increase compatibility? meaning we will not need wine anymore and linux can support windows executables almost nativly?

i just hope microsoft doesn't rush, release a new OS claim it uses a totally different source code, then hackers find out just 10% percent of code was changed to fix some vulnerabilities while 90% is still exploitable...

really hope microsoft embraces it, and will now make the source public..

 

[death360]

I don't feel like turning on my PC anymore thanks chary.

 

[MionissNio]

Hackintosh

I have that as a matter of fact, also hackintosh my laptop, but I have more brains than an average consumer, from point of view I was thinking.

Their only resort is to pay money to greedy companies.

@Jayro
Substitute for Photoshop, I know gimp but I used it and I'd rather stick with Adobe suite.
Couldn't get vine to run The said program as well.

 

[migles]

Linux has the apps, just 90% of them lack a GUI. If I could learn coding, I'd make as many front-end GUIs as I could for terminal apps. You know, for "the rest of us".

i bet the majority of people that use windows it's because you just double click to open a program (fuck the "apps" word) and having the mainstream stuff developed to it like microsoft office...

linux is great, but trying to install stuff on it isn't as easy as run an installer in a lot of times (either you have to compile, or get a tar and run through terminal)
nowadays with the "app stores" it's a lot easier (even better than windows)


but the fact almost no windows program comes without a GUI is a big pro...

 

[Seriel]

linux is great, but trying to install stuff on it isn't as easy as run an installer in a lot of times (either you have to compile, or get a tar and run through terminal)
nowadays with the "app stores" it's a lot easier (even better than windows)

sudo pacman -S firefox / sudo apt install firefox

...okay not for all software, but shush

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Something something windows 10 is shite, use lunix. It was your own fault trusting Microsoft. This time it is just be source code to the OS, next time it could be account data. Remind you that Windows 10 sends everything you input to it to Microsoft unless you turn it off.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Linux has the apps, just 90% of them lack a GUI. If I could learn coding, I'd make as many front-end GUIs as I could for terminal apps. You know, for "the rest of us".

How about using shell scripts and dialog (in-terminal GUI, looks very dated though). Most systems have dialog installed nowadays. If you want to add something more obscure, try zenity (creates GTK+ GUIs. Still looks dated, but more in the sense of Windows XP dated instead of DOS dated.)

Also, manpages ftw.

 

[smilodon]

sudo pacman -S firefox / sudo apt install firefox

...okay not for all software, but shush

Ask almost anyone in the world to open a terminal window and you have already lost them. Bonus point if you're talking about user rights, repositories and config files.

Sure, it's trivial for all of us on this forum, but you can't expect everybody to have this level of thinking. That's why internet explorer still have 25% of the current web browser market share.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Ask almost anyone in the world to open a terminal window and you have already lost them. Bonus point if you're talking about user rights, repositories and config files.

Sure, it's trivial for all of us on this forum, but you can't expect everybody to have this level of thinking. That's why internet explorer still have 25% of the current web browser market share.

It's possibly to get GUI frontends to package managers (although of questionable quality, Ubuntu Software Center peeks around the corner) and GUIs. Also, ARCH is trash is you are going to advice noobs. It's only a few steps above Install Gentoo in terms of easiness.

 

[Bubsy Bobcat]

I hope this helps with Wine's development. Still a few programs that I wanna run that it can't run yet.

 

[ihaveahax]

I hope this helps with Wine's development. Still a few programs that I wanna run that it can't run yet.

no it won't. the Wine project does not use code from leaked Windows source because that would cause major legal issues. much like the win2k leak they will probably investigate every code contribution made, and who's making it, else something from the leaked source makes it in and the project is sued.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1j5q71/did_the_windows_2000_source_leak_contribute_in/

just reading the source could be dangerous for the project. if they even accepted code from anyone who had access to it that could still cause legal issues. Wine (and ReactOS) devs said they never looked at the win2k leak, and anyone who has is not allowed to contribute code to the project.

so, this does not benefit these projects in any way whatsoever, it just forces them to be extra vigilant on code changes. Wine devs do not want to do anything with the source code leaks.