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Comment by biggestdecision | Hacker News Reader

This bug only applied to grub authentication, which isn't a widely used feature. And you could achieve the same result with boot from disk/USB if that is enabled.

The vuln doesn't give you access to the actual accounts on the computer.

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Let's not forget https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2013-1050/ and https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2015-7496/ and https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-8900/ (to a lesser extent). Check out https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... for more fun.

http://i.imgur.com/rG0p0b2.gif

Oh dear, I remember something similar was possible on iOS lockscreen multiple times. What version of Windows was that?

95. 98 had an even better one... just hitting cancel on some login boxes would let you in.

I believe that was by design: the dialog was an opportunity to authenticate with the domain. If you just wanted local access you could hit cancel. Remember Win9x was not a secure OS itself.

Pretty sure I've seen a similar trick on XP or later as well. (I learned it from someone I didn't meet until long after I last saw a 95/98/2000 machine.)

But the Windows 95 login was just for logging into the network, not the computer

I think that if you hit Cancel there it would work just as well. You wouldn't get it logged into the domain though

Yes - from what I recall there was not even a pretense of security. Everything was just unencrypted FAT (VFAT rather than FAT32) and if you logged in as one user all other user's data was clearly visible - it was just a means to have your own user workspace and customisations applied. Windows 95 and everything up to (not including) XP was a toy OS for home users ... If you wanted "grown up" features you had to go for NT.

This was the worst one for me:

https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-12712/

I remember an article somewhere about these kinds of bugs. A lot of medical hardware/software combos are/can be compromised. And here comes the problem: do you disclose the vulnerabilities since it means potentially killing people? How long do you wait before manufacturers acknowledge and fix the problem (and they often don't)?

So yeah, these types of vulnerabilities are very very scary.

not forgetting https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/04/i-told-you-so-again/

!WARNING! - This now redirects to an image of a hairy testicle. I think the site owner noticed the traffic and put in a redirect.

Heh just saw/posted the same. I think you’re right - jwz being a little trolly.

It's been that way for years (i.e. visitors from HN get redirected).

Ah you are right, should have experimented with that.

wtf. Clicking your link brought me to http://i.imgur.com/rG0p0b2.gif somehow. jwz doing a referrer troll?? Anyone else see this?

Probably Referer check, copy-pasting the URL works.

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