From: http://weseetips.com/tag/pseudo-handle/
For getting our thread handle, we usually call GetCurrentThread() api. But actually it returns a pseudo handle. A pseudo handle, is a special handle which represents the handle of current thread which uses it. Please see the following e.g. for more clarify.
1) Thread A gets its threadID by calling GetCurrentThread and Passed to Thread B.
2) Thread B needs to terminate Thread A. So it calls TerminateThread( handle passed by Thread A ).
3) But instead of terminating Thread A, Thread B will be terminated, because the handle passed by Thread A was pseudo and it will become Thread B’s handle when Thread B uses it.
Debug one GetCurrentThread() call and GetCurrentProcess() call and watch its return values. You can see what they returns are follows,
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GetCurrentThread() – 0xfffffffe
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GetCurrentProcess() – 0xffffffff
Ofcourse pseudo… isn’t it ?
For getting a real handle which represents your thread, create a duplicate handle by calling DuplicateHandle(). Please see the code block below.