[nylug-talk] [Full-disclosure] Vista Reduced Function mode triggered (fwd)

[Kevin Mark]

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On Mon, Jan 01, 2007 at 02:41:05PM -0500, Jay Sulzberger wrote:
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>   Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:26:52 -0500
>   From: Geo. <geoincidents at nls.net>
>   To: full-disclosure at lists.grok.org.uk
>   Subject: [Full-disclosure] Vista Reduced Function mode triggered
> 
>   The other day I used my router to limit my Vista laptop from talking to
>   anything but one subnet on the internet. 3 days later suddenly some things
>   would not work.
> 
>   Solitaire failed to start, click on it and you get the magic donut showing
>   it's starting up then nothing.
> 
>   Right click on network and pick properties you get the magic donut showing
>   it's starting up then nothing.
> 
>   So I removed the routes so Vista could once again phone home and within a
>   minute or two both solitaire and network properties worked just fine.
> 
>   Now this Vista system is less than 30 days old and has already been
>   activated. So the claims that Reduced Function mode only kicks in if you
>   don't activate within 30 days is bunk if this is Reduced Function mode.
> 
>   So I decided to trigger RF mode on purpose to see how it responds. I stopped
>   the Software License service which claims that doing so will trigger RF
>   mode. 24 hours later solitaire, network properties, and control panel all
>   show the same behavior, the magic donut showing they are starting up then
>   nothing. No events in event log, nothing.
> 
>   I then started the Software License service and presto like magic these
>   functions work again. So I'm convinced that the machine being routed so it
>   can't talk to MS triggered RF mode within a few days. Now to me this seems
>   pretty clear even though it wasn't a real scientific method of testing. And
>   further, this looks to me like an accident waiting to happen. I mean imagine
>   if MS fell off the planet we would have a pretty major problem as the bulk
>   of the worlds computers started shutting down, talk about a security issue?
> 
>   So anyone here with a bit more technical expertise want to pick up this ball
>   and run with it?
> 
>   Geo.
Hi *,
if this is indeed the scenario, then in essence there is single point of
failure for all vista servers. Any concerted effort to DDOS this magic
vista IP address will make billions of computers become useless. Works
for me(tm).
Cheers,
Kev
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