First and foremost, I suggest all of you who listen to music regularly go and download the new Winamp 5.0.... it's slick - it really is. For all of you who used the Winamp 2.x series forever because 3.x blew goats, you're going to be impressed by 5.0. Even Nullsoft, the parent company to winamp, knew that 3.x was horrible. So much so that they completely skipped over the 4.x generation of versions and debuted with 5.0 a few short months ago... Very nice interface, some nice changes (included web-tv!)... hey try it! if you dont like it, uninstall it...
One feature I liked in 3.x was that when you stopped a tune, or skipped ahead or the like, that it fadded in and out... it didn't do the hard cut like the 2.x series did... it's the little things i know. :)
~ warning: geekish post ahead ~
OK... onto the point of the post.
I've got the hacking bug. I admit it. No, I'm not talking about coughing so badly my voice goes raw - I'm talkin' hardcore hacking here.. computer hacking... hax0r stuff.. (haha.. I'm such a geek).
Since my last major entry (Jan 14th) I've been very uptight in the security department when it comes to my computer... I knew there was unauthorized traffic on my computer... I just felt it, you know? like... nothing told me, I just felt it... it's like if you've been driving the same car for a while. It's very apparent to you when something isn't *quite* right. So I decided to get myself a software firewall. Now, Windows XP comes with a pretty decent firewall already, but it doesn't actually let you keep tabs on not only the number of connection attempts but the IP addresses from where those connection attempts are coming from. (an IP address (Internet Protocol address) is like a phone number for your computer. It's unique, and oftentimes stays the same.. so if someone knows that, they can *potentially* find you.)
I wanted something that let me see my net traffic... I wanted to know just how many connections were open, so I downloaded Zone Alarm, a popular software firewall program that would do the job quite nicely. I like to think that my computer is now tighter than a nun.
In the first night alone, I blocked nearly 400 connection attempts. 400.
That's not to say that there are 400 people out there trying to get into my computer, that's not the case at all. Most of the traffic was most likely my Service Provider (Rogers, in this case) just checking to see if I was still online by pinging me (picture you as my computer, and me as rogers. To see if you're still there I'm going to throw a ball to you (the ping) and if you throw it back, I know you're still there.. if not, then I know you're not). But not only Rogers, there were actually a large number of legit people trying to connect too... But again, not anything high risk, just people scanning my computer to see if I had any ports open and such...
ANYWAY back on topic... 400 attempts, 9 of wich were high risk. I figured 'ok.. that's nice, I'm blocking them now, but what else can I do?'
I decided to try to connect to them right back...
I downloaded a program which I'm going to keep nameless for the sake of all of you.. Just as easily as it was for me to get their IP addresses, it would be just as simple for someone else to get your IP address and attack you with something much more malicious... so it's for your own safety! lol
Do you all remember NetBus? Patch.exe? Think back like 5 years ago... That silly program that was going around where if I gave you a disk or a file (patch.exe) and got you to double-click on it, then I could gain full control of your system.. remember that? Well this program does exactly the same thing, except I dont need you to install anything. All I need is your IP address and BOOM right there, I'm in complete control.. Scary, huh?
Anyway I tried that, but out of futility because if they're computer geeks who know how to port scan, they're probably computer geeks who know how to use a firewall to prevent me from doing such things.
So I thought... what else can I learn how to do?
We're actually learning in one of my classes how to hack... now, the teacher isn't calling it that. What he's basically doing is saying that if we're ever network administrators and need to know everything that is going on on a network, we'll have the knowledge to do so... But what is Rogers? just one giant network, no? What is Reznet? A smaller, yet still a network right? *evil grin*
So I am now researching and learning just how to find out what someone in say.. Room R231.. likes to surf for... Or maybe even read emails to and from someone in S375...
Scary that someone is able to do stuff like this, isn't it? All you've got to do is want to know how...
I'm up to 1770 blocked connection attempts into my computer....
Friday, February 13, 2004 ::
11:52:00 AM
