all 17 comments

[–]magnora7 8 insightful - 6 fun8 insightful - 5 fun9 insightful - 6 fun -  (15 children)

They still use windows? Holy cow.

No wonder Bill Gates is so confident. He knows every Chinese state secret. Windows has so many built-in backdoors, especially after partnering with intelligence agencies. Bill Gates probably has enough info from Windows to blackmail every government in the whole world... I've never really thought about how big a deal that is.

It's also probably part of why he is a billionaire, and why so many governments are marching lockstep to his vaccine orders despite him having no real power... except of course access to every classified document in basically every world government... "If you don't want your secrets leaked, you will play along" could be an implicit threat from Gates to basically every government.

I'm just surprised they still use windows... that honestly blows my mind. They ban Nintendo across all of China for decades, but they use windows for gov't computers. Great priorities guys.

[–]Canbot 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

It really is amazing that a government as wealthy and powerful as the CCP can't manage to build it's own secure operating system and chipset. There are literally people building thier own motherboards from scratch for fun. This shit is not that hard when you don't have a 9-5 to worry about.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

Exactly. It highlights the lack of creativeness of the CCP, that they couldn't even make their own OS. It highlights the laziness and slowness of the CCP that they're still using windows in 2022 when there's a hundred perfectly viable versions of open-source linux.

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Switching to Linux is amateur as shit too. No doubt there are lots of ways to hack in that have been developed over the years. It can't be secured because the source code is open source. The only potentially secure software is proprietary software. And the processors are built with back doors too.

Give me a million dollars and 2 years and I can build a basic system that would work and can be progressively improved on.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

It can't be secured because the source code is open source

No, that's why it's secure. You can actually have people look at the code. And bugs are quickly patched because so many people are working on the source code constantly.

It's better than windows by a mile. But of course like you said a proprietary OS would probably be best, but would take a lot of time investment by the CCP compared to just using linux.

And as soon as the CCP comes out with a proprietary system it will begin to be hacked, just like windows which is also proprietary (but also has built-in back doors, unlike linux). So even a proprietary OS probably wouldn't be much more secure than windows, at least after a few years have passed. They won't have the benefit of "security through obscurity" that is typically provided by proprietary software

[–]binaryblob 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I can build an unhackable operating system just fine; it's just that the CCP would be too stupid to use it, because they literally have nobody within their borders with even a remote understanding of what would be required to do that.

This is also why I stopped being afraid of thermonuclear war; humanity can barely function as it is right now. We have to care about food prices already. Imagine an alien civilization observing us and seeing that we have difficulty with even feeding everyone. They would think "What a fucking losers down there!" and they would be right.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I can build an unhackable operating system just fine;

One that has a browser that is compliant with all modern internet standards? One that can load every image type and file type like a regular computer?

It's easy to make a new command line OS that does basic stuff, but to make a fully-functioning modern operating system is a gargantuan task. Literally hundreds of thousands of man-hours of careful coding and testing. You have to make video players, build TCP/IP/HTTPS protocols from scratch so they work with other computers on the internet, build graphics rendering systems, and on and on and on.

And that's also assuming you're using non-backdoored hardware, which would probably have to be designed from scratch too. Since all intel chips have been shown to have a built-in backdoor, and probably AMD too

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I didn't say how long it would take me, but if you want something like that done in 15 years with three billion dollars it can probably be done if you hand me the cash for just the software part (I don't think that would include a web-browser, because what a web-browser should do is not exactly written in a useful way). I would not write every line of code myself. The hardware stack would likely be at least an order of magnitude more expensive and whether or how hardware can be shielded against any time of remote sensing are likely state secrets. If some alien civilization wanted to read my screen from space, I think they would probably be able to do that. The cost for such infrastructure would probably be in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I think the reason windows is so leaky is the fact that Microsoft wants it to be. If the back doors are obviously engineered then Microsoft risks being sued for espionage and hacking. By making it look like faulty code they maintain plausible deniability.

I also suspect that they write viruses in order to sell anti virus software.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If the back doors are obviously engineered then Microsoft risks being sued for espionage and hacking.

Lol by who? The same courts and intelligence agencies that paid him to install the back doors? Get real. This stuff has been known for a while and no one has enough teeth to do anything about it.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

By literally anyone. It is naive to think that the US government has more control over windows back doors than Microsoft. It is naive to think they don't also spy on the US government.

Knowing something and proving it in court are two very different things. Those who have teeth also need evidence. You can't claim it hasn't happened only because no-one has teeth. If the evidence was there then there would be lots of lawyers willing to go for that jackpot.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You can't claim it hasn't happened only because no-one has teeth. If the evidence was there then there would be lots of lawyers willing to go for that jackpot.

Ahhh how I wish it worked like that. I deeply wish that were the case. Unfortunately you're not accounting for the high degree of corruption and greased palms that are paid to turn a blind eye.

People have known with definitive proof for over 20 years now... https://ninjagambleyen.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/the-nsas-backdoor-in-microsoft-windows-we-knew-in-1999/

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Too bad PCEM doesn't work on Linux at least I don't think it does if it does I bet it's a pain in the arse compared to Windows where the hardest part is setting up your VHD and boot disks. :( I mainly use Windows 10 to emulate older Windows on PCEM as my host can emulate Pentium MMX or the lower end of Pentium II depending on software use. Too bad Sarah whatever her name is abandoned the project. 😒 And they just got Voodoo 3 emulated too. Perfect timing! 😡🤮

[–]monkeymagic 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

nintendo isn’t banned in china. never has been. much of their content is heavily censored 🤬 but that’s about it.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

All video game consoles were banned in china until 2014: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/chinese-games-developers-eye-a-slice-of-49-billion-console-market.html

Almost no one in China has a nintendo. It very much was banned in China.

[–]portace 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's closer to like how VPN is banned, but a lot of ppl still use it. Or like banning porn, but lots of ppl still get around it. Or like pirating movies.

Gamers can pretty much still game if they want to. The CCP will be stricter on certain games due to either cultural or political reasons, but there are ways to get around it.

[–]asterias 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Maybe they can fund a few open source projects as well.