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Regendans (regendans@toot.community)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Jan-2025 21:04:26 JST Regendans
in reply to
- nixCraft 🐧
@nixCraft Microsoft has been the most well-known long lasting and unpunished criminal in computer history ever in my opinion.
Ultimate and cursed greed is with them. 🤑
Here's a really old example of their hostile behavior : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
May their Trash bin icons rot forever in /dev/null bitbuckets on fire. 🔥
In conversation about a month ago from toot.community permalink
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  AARD code
  
  The AARD code was a segment of code in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 that would issue a cryptic error message when run on the DR DOS operating system rather than the Microsoft-affiliated MS-DOS or PC DOS. Microsoft inserted the code in an attempt to manipulate people into not using competing operating systems; it is an example of the company's fear-uncertainty-doubt tactics. Description This XOR-encrypted, self-modifying, and deliberately obfuscated x86 assembly code used a variety of undocumented MS-DOS structures and functions to detect if a machine was running DR DOS. The code was present in the installer, in the WIN.COM file used to load Windows, and in several other EXE and COM files within Windows 3.1. The AARD code was discovered by Geoff Chappell on 17 April 1992 and further analyzed and documented in a joint research effort with Andrew Schulman. The name "AARD code" came from the letters "AARD" that were found in a hex dump of the Windows 3.1 installer; this turned out to be the signature of Microsoft programmer Aaron R. Reynolds (1955–2008). Microsoft disabled the...
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  nixCraft 🐧 (nixcraft@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Jan-2025 21:04:27 JST nixCraft 🐧
  
  I have been saying for years that Microsoft is a bully. But people will say they changed and are now friends with Linux and Open Source. Now, news is out that Microsoft and OpenAI are accusing Deepseek of stealing their intellectual property. So I ask, where did OpenAI get its data? Did they pay for it? Now, they are asking the government to look into it. A pathetic and greedy corporation only loves open source when they profit from it. 😂 Don’t trust Microsoft and its spyware software.
  
  In conversation about a month ago permalink
  
  Janneke repeated this.

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