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Google denies disassembling Vista software |
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Written by Daniel
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Friday, 19 September 2008 |
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Google denies disassembling Vista software September 19, 2008 8:17 AM PDT
Posted by Stephen Shankland The source code underlying Google's Chrome Web browser suggests that Google used a reverse-engineering technique called disassembly to figure out how to employ a useful Windows Vista security feature, but the company said it didn't, in fact, do so.
The Chrome source code said a particular security feature available on Vista, Data Execution Prevention, can be used on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1, though it's not documented for the older operating systems. The source code also said the feature can be understood with a disassembler, a method of reverse-engineering that deconstructs a binary file--such as Windows--into instructions more easily understood by a human.
An explanatory comment in the Chrome source code mentions use of a disassembler to figure out the security feature. "Completely undocumented from Microsoft. You can find this information by disassembling Vista's SP1 kernel32.dll with your favorite disassembler," the comment says. [C/Net News...] [Comments...] |
