Executive Summary

At some point in the last few days a bit error has appeared in the Windows installer for version 0.10.11 on the main server. If the error is present, the installer itself will detect it and refuse to proceed, displaying the following dialog:

If you encounter this error, please download a fresh copy of the installer.

Detailed Information

The error occurs at offset 8267545 (0x7e2719). The value at that offset is 0x8a in the original installer and 0x8b in the corrupted installer. Making a hex dump of each file and diffing each hex dump generates the following output:

    --- ethereal-setup-0.10.11-bad.hex 2005-05-25 10:17:18.000000000 -0500
    +++ ethereal-setup-0.10.11-good.hex 2005-05-25 10:17:59.000000000 -0500
    @@ -516657,7 +516657,7 @@
     007e26e0  3e 54 9c e8 18 f5 c6 cf  33 48 d3 95 b1 d9 b4 18  |>T......3H......|
     007e26f0  60 b6 3a 26 d7 5d d0 41  aa 9a 51 35 ed 9c 81 83  |`.:&.].A..Q5....|
     007e2700  51 c1 ed 38 3c 4b f8 08  e4 ce 41 f9 cd d2 c7 b9  |Q..8<K....A.....|
    -007e2710  c9 cd 3c 16 7d 40 71 66  35 8b 4c ce f0 8a 33 83  |..<.}@qf5.L...3.|
    +007e2710  c9 cd 3c 16 7d 40 71 66  35 8a 4c ce f0 8a 33 83  |..<.}@qf5.L...3.|
     007e2720  47 a5 05 fb 49 43 bf 71  27 68 68 7e 2f 32 87 0a  |G...IC.q'hh~/2..|
     007e2730  63 ce 7d 41 30 74 a8 3a  0e 31 95 ab a6 18 99 37  |c.}A0t.:.1.....7|
     007e2740  dd 6e f6 92 13 fe 35 cd  44 f9 91 3a a4 b0 30 74  |.n....5.D..:..0t|

The MD5 sum of the corrupted installer is 1625fd9123553cbee8534316f1ebff5e. The MD5 sum of the original installer is 6e9503aab51a30e88d311e90aa32fb8e. For the paranoid this MD5 sum was included in the 0.10.11 release announcement and was PGP-signed.

It appears that the error is limited to the main site only, and that the mirror sites were not affected.