4 ms·

That is the least impressive thing on X11 backwads compatibility. And this is the sole reason why everyone hates X11. sadly. X11 is always a server (which sho

by gcb0 13y ago

That is the least impressive thing on X11 backwads compatibility. And this is the sole reason why everyone hates X11. sadly. X11 is always a server (which show things on the screen) and a client (which handles windows and send what to show on screen to the server... or something like that). So any X11 instance in a desktop is a server+client. Hence, anywhere you have any X graphical interface, you can either receive windows from some other client, or send your windows to another server (since you have both server and client running, remember). So the only thing that device did was send the X client windows to some TCP socket instead of the local one. Not taking credit for it having X at all... that is awesome. but what this post describe couldn't be more banal.

wmf 13y ago
Sure, remote display is no big deal if you're already using X11. But most embedded devices were not farsighted enough to use X11 in the first place; it's much more common to see the wheel being reinvented poorly.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  The Tektronix logic analyzer from the time used an embedded copies of Windows and had no 'remote' capability. No doubt if you hook it up to a modern network with Internet access it would become compromised immediately.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I am sure the X client running on the oscilloscope has plenty of security bugs too.
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      I agree and don't doubt that it did, but few things were both as vulnerable and as targeted as an unpatched Win95/98 system attached to the Internet (capital I). The reason was simply that embedded versions rarely got patched, and when a vulnerability was found that was in the embedded version as well, malware could find it and use it long after everything else was safe. There were a couple of EMC storage management consoles that got hit by this problem and ATM terminals as well. The scary part would be having your 15 year old piece of test equipment be rendered unusable by such an event. The odds were small but decidedly non-zero.
- gcb0 13y ago
  agreed. that is why i ended with "Not taking credit for it having X at all... that is awesome. but what this post describe couldn't be more banal." also, remember this device probably cost more than 7x a average PC. and it was already the 90's...

by gcb0 13y ago

wmf 13y ago

Sure, remote display is no big deal if you're already using X11. But most embedded devices were not farsighted enough to use X11 in the first place; it's much more common to see the wheel being reinvented poorly.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
The Tektronix logic analyzer from the time used an embedded copies of Windows and had no 'remote' capability. No doubt if you hook it up to a modern network with Internet access it would become compromised immediately.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I am sure the X client running on the oscilloscope has plenty of security bugs too.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I agree and don't doubt that it did, but few things were both as vulnerable and as targeted as an unpatched Win95/98 system attached to the Internet (capital I). The reason was simply that embedded versions rarely got patched, and when a vulnerability was found that was in the embedded version as well, malware could find it and use it long after everything else was safe. There were a couple of EMC storage management consoles that got hit by this problem and ATM terminals as well. The scary part would be having your 15 year old piece of test equipment be rendered unusable by such an event. The odds were small but decidedly non-zero.
gcb0 13y ago
agreed. that is why i ended with "Not taking credit for it having X at all... that is awesome. but what this post describe couldn't be more banal." also, remember this device probably cost more than 7x a average PC. and it was already the 90's...