[GLLUG] Realtek silent data corruption
Richard Houser
rick at divinesymphony.net
Mon Jul 30 17:35:04 EDT 2007
This type of error SHOULD have been detected at the IP layer (that's one
of its duties). It sounds a lot like this article is just pointing out
the problem of a buggy Windows IP stack AND buggy device drivers.
Any application protocol entrusted to transfer data without modification
should have flagged this problem as well (unless relying on a protocol
like TCP which would just mean the Windows TCP stack is broken).
Bittorrent is definitely designed to account for this, as that is a very
common DOS attack vector; the Bittorrent protocol uses cryptographic
hashing to verify each chunk, so those transfers should always be safe.
Thanks for pointing this out Michael,
If a family member comes to me with such a problem, I'll suggest looking
for this driver version on the system.
Michael Rudas wrote:
> Although this covers Windows drivers, I mention it here for several reasons:
>
> * Many of us are forced to use possibly-affected Windows PCs in the
> workplace or at home.
> * The Realtek-supplied Linux driver (if there IS one) may be affected.
> * The corrupted data may wind up on our Linux machines.
> * It may affect torrent transfers for all of us.
>
> "Realtek network driver silently corrupts data"
> <http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=639>
>
> Which also begs the question, "How did this driver get
> WHQL-certified?" It shows real sloppiness on the part of MS and
> Realtek (I admit, no surprises there).
>
> -- Mikey
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