From: John Fricker <jfricker@vertexgroup.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 15:01:20 +0800
To: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Subject: RE: WINDOWS NT ????
Message-ID: <19961005003845132.AAA82@dev.vertexgroup.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>Bill Stewart (stewarts@ix.netcom.com) said something about Re: WINDOWS NT ???? on or about 10/4/96 7:44 AM

>At 07:47 PM 10/3/96 +1030, you wrote:
>>hi,
>> is Windows NT secured system ?
>

>Windows 4.x moves the graphics/windowing system into Ring 0,
>where the "secure" parts of the kernel are.  Bad.
>This means graphics bugs can make the kernel insecure or crash.
>I don't trust it, especially because Windows 3.1 crashes all the time
>for me, and stupid bugs make Windows 3.1 behave badly for me.
>So if they put the window system in the kernel, I don't trust it.
>End of message

Graphics bugs will not crash the system since graphics bugs still run in protected mode. (ie bugs in applications that screw up GDI).

Buggy video drivers though can bring the system down. 

But this does not affect security, only stability.

Security in NT can be defeated by any clever, out of work, bored, NT device driver author who brews up a stealth device driver replacement (perhaps a COM port improvement) that could run amok on the file system or basically do anything. Of course, any clever device driver developer is making enough money to not be bored nor even consider writing a backdoor into a driver. Right?

--j