5 ms·

Very cool that he found a flaw in the algorithm But this is really the antithesis of what a zero-day originally was, which was a crack circulated on or even be

Very cool that he found a flaw in the algorithm But this is really the antithesis of what a zero-day originally was, which was a crack circulated on or even before the release day of software[0]. The Alto is 45 years old :) Odd how words and phrases can change so much over a short period of time that they invert their meaning. [0] that's what it meant in the early / mid 1990s when I was peripherally involved. Now it seems to mean 'zero days of notification to the vendor'.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
How did people get access to unreleased software?
- gfosco 9y ago
  The way it used to work in the old #warez days, was that people in the testing or supply chains (think cd packaging, for one) would leak things early. Groups like Razor1911 had suppliers, couriers, crackers, designers.. a wide network of people working on acquiring and spreading software.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    An important thing you didn't mention is why these people participated in leaking software for no credit. It is because they got something in return: access to the private FTP servers used by the group, which means they get to download their releases before they appear anywhere else. This is especially attractive to people who manage DDL or streaming sites which earn a lot of $$$ from intrusive/malicious ads... It is also a big deal for private torrent tracker operators and/or uploaders. If you get Razor1911 releases before any other tracker, people will want to get in ;)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dogma1138 9y ago
  Back then games had to be gold to be sent to the CD/Disk manufacturer, then you had to receive the copies and send them to be packed or directly to the distributors if they handled the finale packaging. This meant that a golden sample could circulate for as much as 6 months (and even longer) before the game would go on sale. Also as all support was pretty much phone support which also included some basic gameplay support you would have support staff often at 3rd party call centers who would require access to the game before it goes on sale (for large games at least, small companies tended to have support in house). Today with digital distribution even if it's for patches only you don't care about the game going gold the DVD could contain a build that is utterly irrelevant pretty much every new install from disk requires a day 1 patch that can be often as large as downloading the whole from scratch (pretty much every console owner knows this, PC games also get a day one patch but digital distribution is a given for the PC market these days). So zero-day for games at least isn't that important anymore, also DRM is harder to crack these games some games take months to crack, some don't get cracked at all, some rely on a weaken DRM version to be released (e.g. STEAM) down the line that can be cracked more easily. For DVDs/BR today this also often happens you have full BR rips often weeks before the official release date, sometimes months just because they are already ready just waiting on the right time to go on sale or for some online distribution exclusivity deal to end.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    I work for a large games publisher and we still do that in fact! I've recently been on a trip to our customer service centre, and the guys and girls there have access to early builds of nearly all of our games so that when the game comes out they can provide advice on day one. And yes, I too was surprised to find out that they do provide actual gameplay advice if someone calls with a question - every desk had several massive game guides for our games just in case.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      It doesn't surprises me that they still do that but with how easy it is to track builds these days and the fact that games today are released broken with "we'll fix it after launch" mentality it's not really that much of a source anymore. Early builds that might not function outside of the internal environment aren't much of a deal the last leak I remember that got a scene release was probably the Doom 3 Alpha.
- amatecha 9y ago
  Check out this article about music piracy -- I believe the process for game piracy was pretty much identical around that time: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-br...
dec0dedab0de 9y ago
Now it seems to mean 'zero days of notification to the vendor'. I think 'zero days since a patch has been released' is probably more accurate. And those old (~1995) WaReZ sites are the reason I distrusted javascript from the beginning
- godzillabrennus 9y ago
  Just seeing the word WaReZ reminded me of the day I read about bit torrent. My first reaction was that the days of FXP for distributing scene releases were numbered.
  - chx 9y ago
    That number never reached zero. Or do you think topsites went torrent?
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      If anything, they went further underground, with the masses preferring the ease and availability of torrents. Personally, torrents fulfill my needs these days, I can't be bothered to Sneakernet, DDC or FXP anymore.
msla 9y ago
Maybe it's a XeroDay?
kristopolous 9y ago
Alright then, it's a 16,425-day vulnerability. That's an even more impressive thing, call up Guinness.
- chrismorgan 9y ago
  I perceive you are not a respecter of leap years. Let’s just call it 2¹⁴ days and be done with it.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
I can just imagine some IRC battle on Dalnet channel #hackersunite where people are arguing about the appropriate use of zero-day, and then a netsplit occurs and half the arguers are lost in the abyss forever and this is how the word came to being what it is now
chrismorgan 9y ago
My general impression of “zero-day” was that it meant the vulnerability had been there (and still was present) since day zero. This fuzzy definition in my head doesn’t really make a great deal of sense in the presence of regressions, though: if the vulnerability was only introduced in version 1.2.3 which was released three years after the first release, calling it “day zero” seems decidedly odd.
vidarh 9y ago
I remember when the Commodore 64 scene got so serious that people started complaining if you didn't have -7 to -14 day releases... Some games were even released in "cracked" versions before all the levels were complete ("cracked" because I doubt they had to circumvent much copy protection when they clearly got their stuff from internal sources). As someone who was a kid who actually cared about the games, it just seemed pointlessly tiresome to be worth it at that point.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago

How did people get access to unreleased software?

gfosco 9y ago
The way it used to work in the old #warez days, was that people in the testing or supply chains (think cd packaging, for one) would leak things early. Groups like Razor1911 had suppliers, couriers, crackers, designers.. a wide network of people working on acquiring and spreading software.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  An important thing you didn't mention is why these people participated in leaking software for no credit. It is because they got something in return: access to the private FTP servers used by the group, which means they get to download their releases before they appear anywhere else. This is especially attractive to people who manage DDL or streaming sites which earn a lot of $$$ from intrusive/malicious ads... It is also a big deal for private torrent tracker operators and/or uploaders. If you get Razor1911 releases before any other tracker, people will want to get in ;)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dogma1138 9y ago
Back then games had to be gold to be sent to the CD/Disk manufacturer, then you had to receive the copies and send them to be packed or directly to the distributors if they handled the finale packaging. This meant that a golden sample could circulate for as much as 6 months (and even longer) before the game would go on sale. Also as all support was pretty much phone support which also included some basic gameplay support you would have support staff often at 3rd party call centers who would require access to the game before it goes on sale (for large games at least, small companies tended to have support in house). Today with digital distribution even if it's for patches only you don't care about the game going gold the DVD could contain a build that is utterly irrelevant pretty much every new install from disk requires a day 1 patch that can be often as large as downloading the whole from scratch (pretty much every console owner knows this, PC games also get a day one patch but digital distribution is a given for the PC market these days). So zero-day for games at least isn't that important anymore, also DRM is harder to crack these games some games take months to crack, some don't get cracked at all, some rely on a weaken DRM version to be released (e.g. STEAM) down the line that can be cracked more easily. For DVDs/BR today this also often happens you have full BR rips often weeks before the official release date, sometimes months just because they are already ready just waiting on the right time to go on sale or for some online distribution exclusivity deal to end.
- gambiting 9y ago
  I work for a large games publisher and we still do that in fact! I've recently been on a trip to our customer service centre, and the guys and girls there have access to early builds of nearly all of our games so that when the game comes out they can provide advice on day one. And yes, I too was surprised to find out that they do provide actual gameplay advice if someone calls with a question - every desk had several massive game guides for our games just in case.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    It doesn't surprises me that they still do that but with how easy it is to track builds these days and the fact that games today are released broken with "we'll fix it after launch" mentality it's not really that much of a source anymore. Early builds that might not function outside of the internal environment aren't much of a deal the last leak I remember that got a scene release was probably the Doom 3 Alpha.
amatecha 9y ago
Check out this article about music piracy -- I believe the process for game piracy was pretty much identical around that time: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-br...

dec0dedab0de 9y ago

Now it seems to mean 'zero days of notification to the vendor'. I think 'zero days since a patch has been released' is probably more accurate. And those old (~1995) WaReZ sites are the reason I distrusted javascript from the beginning

godzillabrennus 9y ago
Just seeing the word WaReZ reminded me of the day I read about bit torrent. My first reaction was that the days of FXP for distributing scene releases were numbered.
- chx 9y ago
  That number never reached zero. Or do you think topsites went torrent?
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    If anything, they went further underground, with the masses preferring the ease and availability of torrents. Personally, torrents fulfill my needs these days, I can't be bothered to Sneakernet, DDC or FXP anymore.

msla 9y ago

Maybe it's a XeroDay?

kristopolous 9y ago

Alright then, it's a 16,425-day vulnerability. That's an even more impressive thing, call up Guinness.

chrismorgan 9y ago
I perceive you are not a respecter of leap years. Let’s just call it 2¹⁴ days and be done with it.

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

I can just imagine some IRC battle on Dalnet channel #hackersunite where people are arguing about the appropriate use of zero-day, and then a netsplit occurs and half the arguers are lost in the abyss forever and this is how the word came to being what it is now

chrismorgan 9y ago

My general impression of “zero-day” was that it meant the vulnerability had been there (and still was present) since day zero. This fuzzy definition in my head doesn’t really make a great deal of sense in the presence of regressions, though: if the vulnerability was only introduced in version 1.2.3 which was released three years after the first release, calling it “day zero” seems decidedly odd.

vidarh 9y ago

I remember when the Commodore 64 scene got so serious that people started complaining if you didn't have -7 to -14 day releases... Some games were even released in "cracked" versions before all the levels were complete ("cracked" because I doubt they had to circumvent much copy protection when they clearly got their stuff from internal sources). As someone who was a kid who actually cared about the games, it just seemed pointlessly tiresome to be worth it at that point.