5 ms·

I recall a story of how the windows 95 team (or the like) was crazy dedicated to backwards compatibility, so they had a check to see if the user was running Rol

I recall a story of how the windows 95 team (or the like) was crazy dedicated to backwards compatibility, so they had a check to see if the user was running Roller Coaster Tycoon and if so, disabled virtual memory so the game would run. Though I'd like to know more details, like: * Why does blizzard need to run in the sandbox on Mac OS X? The app sandbox is opt-in (though required for App Store apps) * Can anyone set their team ID to blizzard's? * Are blizzard games attack vectors?

Negative1 10y ago
Interesting point. Never heard of any program impersonating 'Warden' for malicious purposes but it seems possible.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  Warden isn't particularly widespread, and impersonating it wouldn't gain you any extra privileges. Seems pretty unlikely.
mschuster91 10y ago
> * Can anyone set their team ID to blizzard's? No, at least not for apps that are distributed on the official channels and signed with an official developer cert. > * Are blizzard games attack vectors? All games are, savegame manipulation is often the first step towards jailbreaking a game console.
- ionforce 10y ago
  What if your game sucks/isn't mechanically complicated and doesn't read saves? Checkmate.
gutigen 10y ago
Apparently Steam games are favourite attack vector of NSA, they love exploiting Steam games on sysadmin machines. https://www.wired.com/2016/01/nsa-hacker-chief-explains-how-to-keep-him-out-of-your-system/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/nsa-hacker-chief-explains-how-...
- ryanlol 10y ago
  The steam uri handler probably has lots of avenues of easy RCE.
- spacecowboy_lon 10y ago
  No Sysadmin shoud be playing games on the systems he/she uses for admin work.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Oh, I so wish that were true. Heck, back in the day I caught someone (thankfully not at the place I worked) running a game (some FPS) server on their exchange server box. Running Steam is well within the realm of possibilities.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      At one building, friends and I rigged every machine to have hidden copies of Alien vs Predator and Everquest. I modified the system software to intercept keystrokes before they got to the game. One command crashed video, audio, and then whole system. I also set others to randomly crash around same time people walked in to supervise what was going on. Friends and I griped our machines were down about every day. Person in charge ordered us to keep using them and get no replacements because that served wiseasses like us. Oh, yes it did. Served us well. (evil grin) Note: Also embedded web browser into our business application in development-mode only. The GUI forms and such. Policy had IE locked down but embedded browser still worked lol. So, fast coders got the job done quickly then were bullshitting around on Internet till someone approached. One key stroke and back to boring UI testing. ;)
      - protomyth 10y ago
        Since I alternate between developer and system admin jobs[1], you message hits me both as "Righteous" and "Dammit you $^%& developer". I am so conflicted. 1) welcome to the wonderful and horrible world of a journeyman in the middle
AimHere 10y ago
Okay, nitpick time. Your story about the game is surely wrong. Rollercoaster Tycoon was developed for Windows 95/98. Perhaps you meant it's a later version of Windows, or the game's spiritual predecessor, Theme Park, which ran in DOS.
- Maxious 10y ago
  This seems to mention the virtual memory but not any specific game https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160328-00/?p=93204 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160328-00/?p=...
- brynedwards 10y ago
  Probably SimCity, there's a bit about Microsoft adding a workaround for a bug in the game in this article http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html Edit: Maybe not this since it's unrelated to virtual memory but it's along the same lines, going to some lengths to keep software compatible
  - chillacy 10y ago
    You're right that's the story I was thinking of. I didn't remember all the details though, I guess I knew some old version of windows, some simulation game, and something involving memory. Turns out the actual details got mixed up in my head!
- Nr7 10y ago
  Could've been Transport Tycoon (Deluxe) which was the previous game from the developer of RCT
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mikeash 10y ago
It could be that this was done for Blizzard's iOS games, and OS X just happens to share the code.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
no_news_is 10y ago
I remember that backward compatibility story, but when I search for it I keep finding this post. :)
reymus 10y ago
Here's the story Joel Spolsky wrote some time ago[1]: > Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here's the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn't free memory right away. That's the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html

Negative1 10y ago

Interesting point. Never heard of any program impersonating 'Warden' for malicious purposes but it seems possible.

ryanlol 10y ago
Warden isn't particularly widespread, and impersonating it wouldn't gain you any extra privileges. Seems pretty unlikely.

mschuster91 10y ago

> * Can anyone set their team ID to blizzard's? No, at least not for apps that are distributed on the official channels and signed with an official developer cert. > * Are blizzard games attack vectors? All games are, savegame manipulation is often the first step towards jailbreaking a game console.

ionforce 10y ago
What if your game sucks/isn't mechanically complicated and doesn't read saves? Checkmate.

gutigen 10y ago

Apparently Steam games are favourite attack vector of NSA, they love exploiting Steam games on sysadmin machines. https://www.wired.com/2016/01/nsa-hacker-chief-explains-how-to-keep-him-out-of-your-system/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/nsa-hacker-chief-explains-how-...

ryanlol 10y ago
The steam uri handler probably has lots of avenues of easy RCE.
spacecowboy_lon 10y ago
No Sysadmin shoud be playing games on the systems he/she uses for admin work.
- protomyth 10y ago
  Oh, I so wish that were true. Heck, back in the day I caught someone (thankfully not at the place I worked) running a game (some FPS) server on their exchange server box. Running Steam is well within the realm of possibilities.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    At one building, friends and I rigged every machine to have hidden copies of Alien vs Predator and Everquest. I modified the system software to intercept keystrokes before they got to the game. One command crashed video, audio, and then whole system. I also set others to randomly crash around same time people walked in to supervise what was going on. Friends and I griped our machines were down about every day. Person in charge ordered us to keep using them and get no replacements because that served wiseasses like us. Oh, yes it did. Served us well. (evil grin) Note: Also embedded web browser into our business application in development-mode only. The GUI forms and such. Policy had IE locked down but embedded browser still worked lol. So, fast coders got the job done quickly then were bullshitting around on Internet till someone approached. One key stroke and back to boring UI testing. ;)
    - protomyth 10y ago
      Since I alternate between developer and system admin jobs[1], you message hits me both as "Righteous" and "Dammit you $^%& developer". I am so conflicted. 1) welcome to the wonderful and horrible world of a journeyman in the middle

AimHere 10y ago

Okay, nitpick time. Your story about the game is surely wrong. Rollercoaster Tycoon was developed for Windows 95/98. Perhaps you meant it's a later version of Windows, or the game's spiritual predecessor, Theme Park, which ran in DOS.

Maxious 10y ago
This seems to mention the virtual memory but not any specific game https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160328-00/?p=93204 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160328-00/?p=...
brynedwards 10y ago
Probably SimCity, there's a bit about Microsoft adding a workaround for a bug in the game in this article http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html Edit: Maybe not this since it's unrelated to virtual memory but it's along the same lines, going to some lengths to keep software compatible
- chillacy 10y ago
  You're right that's the story I was thinking of. I didn't remember all the details though, I guess I knew some old version of windows, some simulation game, and something involving memory. Turns out the actual details got mixed up in my head!
Nr7 10y ago
Could've been Transport Tycoon (Deluxe) which was the previous game from the developer of RCT
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mikeash 10y ago

It could be that this was done for Blizzard's iOS games, and OS X just happens to share the code.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

no_news_is 10y ago

I remember that backward compatibility story, but when I search for it I keep finding this post. :)

reymus 10y ago

Here's the story Joel Spolsky wrote some time ago[1]: > Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here's the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn't free memory right away. That's the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html