What is DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a group of technologies designed to make
Windows-based computers an ideal platform for running and displaying
applications rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics,
video, 3D animation, and rich audio. DirectX includes security and
performance updates, along with many new features across all
technologies, which can be accessed by applications using the DirectX
APIs.

Adobe Photoshop *CS2 Shortcuts*

Shorcut Action
Ctrl+N नया डोक्युमेंट बनाउनको लागि।
Ctrl+O सेव्ड डोक्युमेंट खोलनको लागि।
Ctrl+Z लास्ट मूवको अन्डू गर्न।
Ctrl+Alt+Z एक स्टेप पछाडी जान।
Ctrl+Shift+Z एक स्टेप अगाडी जान।
Ctrl+X फोटोमा सेलेक्टेड एरिया काटन। (Select first, and then cut)
Ctrl+C फोटोमा सेलेक्टेड एरियाको कपी गर्न। (Select first, then copy)
Ctrl+V कट या कपी गरेको पेस्ट गर्न।
Ctrl+Backspace लेयरमा बैकग्राउंड रंग भर्न।

D कलर पेलेट रिसेट गर्न। (To Black and White)
Ctrl+I ऑब्जेक्टमा कलर इनवर्ट गर्न।
Ctrl+F अंतिम फिल्टर मूव दोहोर्‍याउन।
Ctrl++ इमेजलाई ज़ूम गर्न।
Ctrl+- इमेज से ज़ूम हटाउन।
Ctrl+Alt+I इमेज साइज सानो या ठूलो गर्न।
Ctrl+U सेचुरेशन स्टेज (To colorize an image)
Ctrl+L ब्लेक ग्रे व्हाईट लेवल्स।
Ctrl+A पूरै लेयर सेलेक्ट गर्न।
Ctrl+S सेव गर्न।
Ctrl+Shift+V लेयरमा सेलेक्टेड स्थानमा पेस्ट गर्न।
Alt+T फिल्टर ड्रॉप डाउन मेनू हेर्न।
Ctrl+Shift+O लेयर के ब्लेंडिंग ऑप्शन माथि ल्याउन।
Ctrl+Shift+N नया लेयर बनाउन।
B कर्सरको स्थानमा ब्रश ल्याउन।
E कर्सरको स्थानमा इरेजर ल्याउन।
L कर्सरको स्थानमा लेसो टूल ल्याउन।
P कर्सरको स्थानमा पर टूल ल्याउन।
W कर्सरको स्थानमा मेजिक वेंड टूल ल्याउन।
x फोर ग्राउंड / बेक ग्राउंड कलरको लागि।
G कर्सरको स्थानमा ग्रेडीएंट टूल ल्याउन।

Backdoor Passwords

AMI Passwords:
A.M.I., AAAMMMIII, AMI?SW , AMI_SW, BIOS, CONDO, HEWITT RAND,
LKWPETER, MI, and PASSWORD

Award Passwords:

आठ पटक स्पेसबारको प्रयोग पासवर्डको रुपमा प्रयोग गरिन्छ, अन्य पासवर्ड
हरुमा | 01322222, 589589, 589721, 595595, 598598 , ALFAROME, ALLY,
ALLy, aLLY, aLLy, aPAf, award, AWARD PW, AWARD SW, AWARD?SW, AWARD_PW,
AWARD_SW, AWKWARD, awkward, BIOSTAR, CONCAT, CONDO, Condo, condo,
d8on, djonet, HLT, J256, J262, j262, j322, j332, J64, KDD, LKWPETER,
Lkwpeter, PINT, pint, SER, SKY_FOX, SYXZ, syxz, TTPTHA, ZAAAADA,
ZAAADA, ZBAAACA, and ZJAAADC

Phoenix Passwords:
BIOS, CMOS, phoenix, and PHOENIX

VOBIS & IBM --- merlin
Dell ---Dell
Biostar ---Biostar
Compaq ---Compaq
Enox ---xo11nE
Epox ---central
Freetech ---Posterie
IWill ---iwill
Jetway ---spooml
Packard Bell ---bell9
QDI ---QDI
Siemens ---SKY_FOX
SOYO ---SY_MB
TMC ---BIGO
Toshiba ---Toshiba

Password-Cracking Techniques

Password-Cracking Techniques
Understanding Password-Cracking
Techniques

We get daily tons of requests regarding password cracking,
hereby we present a well researched comprehensive article adressing the same
It may bounce many of ur heads but we are sure a must mug up for Geeks
nour regular visitors!!
so Gear Up! Dont give up before having a look on the entire article!

Many hacking attempts start with attempting to crack passwords.
Passwords are the key piece
of information needed to access a system. Users, when creating
passwords, often select passwords
that are prone to being cracked. Many reuse passwords or choose one
that's simple—such
as a pet's name—to help them remember it. Because of this human
factor, most password cracking
is successful; it can be the launching point for escalating
privileges, executing applications,
hiding files, and covering tracks. Passwords may be cracked manually
or with automated tools
such as a dictionary or brute-force method, each of which are covered
later in this chapter.
Manual password cracking involves attempting to log on with different
passwords. The
hacker follows these steps:
1.
Find a valid user account (such as Administrator or Guest).
2.
Create a list of possible passwords.
3.
Rank the passwords from high to low probability.
4.
Key in each password.
5.
Try again until a successful password is found.
A hacker can also create a script file that tries each password in a
list. This is still considered
manual cracking, but it's time consuming and not usually effective.

Boring!! isnt it!! A more efficient way of cracking a password is to
gain access to the password file on a system.
Most systems

hash
(one-way encrypt) a password for storage on a system. During the
logon process, the password entered by the user is hashed using the
same algorithm and then
compared to the hashed passwords stored in the file. A hacker can
attempt to gain access to
the hashing algorithm stored on the server instead of trying to guess
or otherwise identify the
password. If the hacker is successful, they can decrypt the passwords
stored on the server.
Passwords are stored in the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) file on a
Windows system and in a password shadow file on a Linux system.

Understanding the LanManager Hash
Windows 2000 uses NT Lan Manager (NTLM) hashing to secure passwords in
transit on the
network. Depending on the password, NTLM hashing can be weak and easy
to break. For
example, let's say that the password is
123456abcdef
. When this password is encrypted with
the NTLM algorithm, it's first converted to all uppercase:
123456ABCDEF
. The password is
padded with null (blank) characters to make it 14 characters long:
123456ABCDEF__
. Before
the password is encrypted, the 14-character string is split in half:
123456A and BCDEF__.
Each string is individually encrypted, and the results are concatenated:
123456A = 6BF11E04AFAB197F
BCDEF__ = F1E9FFDCC75575B15
The hash is
6BF11E04AFAB197FF1E9FFDCC75575B15

Hacking Tools
Legion automates the password guessing in NetBIOS sessions. Legion
scans multiple
IP address ranges for Windows shares and also offers a manual
dictionary attack tool.
NTInfoScan is a security scanner for NT 4.0. This vulnerability
scanner produces an HTMLbased
report of security issues found on the target system and other information.
L0phtCrack is a password auditing and recovery package distributed by
@stake software,
which is now owned by Symantec. It performs Server Message Block (SMB)
packet captures
on the local network segment and captures individual login sessions.
L0phtCrack contains
dictionary, brute-force, and hybrid attack capabilities.
John the Ripper is a command-line tool designed to crack both Unix and
NT passwords. The
cracked passwords are case insensitive and may not represent the real
mixed-case password.
KerbCrack consists of two programs: kerbsniff and kerbcrack. The
sniffer listens on the network
and captures Windows 2000/XP Kerberos logins. The cracker can be used
to find the
passwords from the capture file using a brute force attack or a
dictionary attack.

Cracking Windows 2000 Passwords
The SAM file in Windows contains the usernames and hashed passwords.
It's located in the
Windows\system32\config
directory. The file is locked when the operating system is running
so a hacker can't attempt to copy the file while the machine is booted
to Windows.
One option for copying the SAM file is to boot to an alternate
operating system such as
DOS or Linux with a boot CD. Alternately, the file can be copied from the
repair
directory.
If a systems administrator uses the RDISK feature of Windows to back
up the system, then a
compressed copy of the SAM file called
SAM._
is created in
C:\windows\repair
. To expand
this file, use the following command at the command prompt:
C:\>expand sam._ sam
After the file is uncompressed, a dictionary, hybrid, or brute-force
attack can be run against
the SAM file using a tool like L0phtCrack.

Redirecting the SMB Logon to the Attacker
Another way to discover passwords on a network is to redirect the
Server Message Block
(SMB) logon to an attacker's computer so that the passwords are sent
to the hacker. In order
to do this, the hacker must sniff the NTLM responses from the
authentication server and trick
the victim into attempting Windows authentication with the attacker's
computer. A common
technique is to send the victim an e-mail message with an embedded
hyperlink to a fraudulent
Hacking Tools
Win32CreateLocalAdminUser is a program that creates a new user with
the username and
password
X
and adds the user to the local administrator's group. This action is part of the
Metasploit Project and can be launched with the Metasploit framework on Windows.
Offline NT Password Resetter is a method of resetting the password to
the administrator's
account when the system isn't booted to Windows. The most common
method is to boot to
a Linux boot CD and then access the NTFS partition, which is no longer
protected, and change
the password.
SMB server. When the hyperlink is clicked, the user unwittingly sends
their credentials over
the network.

SMB Redirection
Several automated hacking tools can implement SMB redirection:

SMB Relay MITM Attacks and Countermeasures
An SMB relay MITM attack is when the attacker sets up a fraudulent
server with a relay
address. When a victim client connects to the fraudulent server, the
MITM server intercepts
the call, hashes the password, and passes the connection to the victim server.
Figure 4.1 illustrates an example of such an attack.

Hacking Tools
SMBRelay is an SMB server that captures usernames and password hashes
from incoming
SMB traffic. SMBRelay can also perform man-in-the-middle attacks.
SMBRelay2 is similar to SMBRelay but uses NetBIOS names instead of IP
addresses to
capture usernames and passwords.
pwdump2 is a program that extracts the password hashes from a SAM file
on a Windows system.
The extracted password hashes can then be run through L0phtCrack to
break the passwords.
Samdump is another program to extract NTLM hashed passwords from a SAM file.
C2MYAZZ is a spyware program that makes Windows clients send their
passwords as clear
text. It displays usernames and their passwords as users attach to
server resources.

SMB relay countermeasures include configuring Windows 2000 to use SMB
signing, which
causes it to cryptographically sign each block of SMB communications.
These settings are
found under Security Policies/Security Options.

NetBIOS DoS Attacks
A NetBIOS Denial of Service (DoS) attack sends a NetBIOS Name Release
message to the NetBIOS
Name Service on a target Windows systems and forces the system to
place its name in conflict
so that the name can no longer be used. This essentially blocks the
client from participating in the
NetBIOS network and creates a network DoS for that system.

Password-Cracking Countermeasures
The strongest passwords possible should be implemented to protect
against password cracking.
Systems should enforce 8–12 character alphanumeric passwords. The
length of time the same
password should be used is discussed in the next section.
To protect against cracking of the hashing algorithm for passwords
stored on the server,
you must take care to physically isolate and protect the server. The
systems administrator can
use the SYSKEY utility in Windows to further protect hashes stored on
the server hard disk.
The server logs should also be monitored for brute-force attacks on
user accounts.
A systems administrator can implement the following security
precautions to decrease the
effectiveness of a brute-force password-cracking attempt:
1.
Never leave a default password.
2.
Never use a password that can be found in a dictionary.

Hacking Tools
SMBGrind increases the speed of L0phtCrack sessions on sniffer dumps
by removing duplication
and providing a way to target specific users without having to edit
the dump files manually.
The SMBDie tool crashes computers running Windows 2000/XP/NT by
sending specially
crafted SMB requests.
NBTdeputy can register a NetBIOS computer name on a network and
respond to NetBIOS
over TCP/IP (NetBT) name-query requests. It simplifies the use of
SMBRelay. The relay can be
referred to by computer name instead of IP address.

Hacking Tools

NBName can disable entire LANs and prevent machines from rejoining
them. Nodes on a Net-
BIOS network infected by the tool think that their names are already
in use by other machines.
3.
Never use a password related to the host name, domain name, or
anything else that can
be found with whois.
4.
Never use a password related to your hobbies, pets, relatives, or date of birth.
5.
Use a word that has more than 21 characters from a dictionary as a password.
This subject is discussed further in the section "Monitoring Event Viewer Logs."
In the following sections, we'll look at two measures you can take to
strengthen passwords
and prevent password-cracking.

Password Change Interval
Passwords should expire after a certain amount of time so that users
are forced to change
their passwords. If the password interval is set too low, then users
will forget their current
passwords; as a result, a systems administrator will have to reset
users' passwords frequently.
On the other hand, if passwords are allowed to be used for too long,
then security
may be compromised. The recommended password-change interval is every
30 days. In
addition, it's recommended that users not be allowed to reuse the last
three passwords.
You cannot completely block brute-force password attacks if the hacker
switches the proxy server where the source packet is generated. A systems
administrator can only add security features to decrease the likelihood that
brute-force password attacks will be useful.

Monitoring Event Viewer Logs
Administrators should monitor Event Viewer logs to recognize any
intrusion attempts either
before they take place or while they're occurring. Generally, several
failed attempts are logged
in the system logs before a successful intrusion or password attack.
The security logs are only
as good as the systems administrators who monitor them.
Tools such as VisualLast aid a network administrator in deciphering
and analyzing the
security log files. VisualLast provides greater insight into the NT
event logs so the administrator
can assess the activity of the network more accurately and
efficiently. The program is
designed to allow network administrators to view and report individual
users' logon and
logoff times; these events may be searched according to time frame,
which is invaluable to
security analysts who are looking for intrusion details.
The event log located at
c:\\windows\system32\config\Sec.Event.Evt
contains the
trace of an attacker's brute-force attempts.

Remote operating system detection

Now a days we invite the so called victim to a webpage/blog
and with the help of a free web traker servive get all his details
as in browser/operating system and other details
but still i would like to share the traditional method as well

Detecting OS (operating system) is another most important step towards
hacking into a system. We can even say that after tracing the IP of
the system it is the most prior thing that should be done to get the
root on a system cause without having knowledge about the OS running
by the target system you cannot execute any system commands on the
target system and thus your mission wont be accomplished. In here I
have figure out the basics of detecting OS remotely without having
physical access to the system. There are various method of detecting
OS like by trace routing the victim's IP , by pinging the IP , by
using telnet and also by using a terminal. But from my research I have
concluded that detecting OS through ping or tracerout is the most
simplest but effective way of determining the operating system running
in the remote computer without having physical access to the system.
Since my aim of writing articles is to make things clear for beginners
and intermediate so I will explain remote os detecting through ping
method which is very easy to understand even for peoples totally new
to computers.. yeah yeah.. I know you call them newbies..right ?? J J
J

REMOTE OS DETECTION USING PING METHOD

What is PING and what is its utility ?

Ping is an MSDOS utility provided for windows version of DOS and for
Unix and operating systems having UNIX as the core kernel. It runs in
dos box in windows and directly in UNIX platform. In this manual I
will give more stress on the MSDOS version of ping.

Ping is an utility used for sending and receiving packets of data to a
target system using its IP and thus from the outputs you can figure
out many information about the target system.
In remote os detection we are mainly concerned with the TTL values of
the received data packets.

Note: When you send or receive a file over the internet it is not send
at once. Instead it is broken down at the source system and these
broken fragments of data know as data packets are send through the
internet and these data packets are gathered together by the target
system according to an algorithm constructed by the source system.
For example if I send a picture of size 400 KB to my girl friend (hey
girls out there remember I don't yet have a gf in reality) then what
actually happens is that my system breaks the data into data packets,
say the file of 400 KB has been broken down into 4 data packets each
having a size of 100 KB and having a name. These data packets are
assigned a code known as the TTL value of the data packets by my
operating system. Then these data packets are gathered and the
original file is formed from these data packets at the target system.

Example:

C:\windows>ping/?

Usage: ping [-t] [-a] [-n count] [-l size] [-f] [-i TTL] [-v TOS]

[-r count] [-s count] [[-j host-list] | [-k host-list]]

[-w timeout] target_name

Options:
-t Ping the specified host until stopped.
To see statistics and continue - type Control-Break;
-a Resolve addresses to hostnames.
-n count Number of echo requests to send.
-l size Send buffer size.
-f Set Don't Fragment flag in packet.
-i TTL Time To Live.
-v TOS Type Of Service.
-r count Record route for count hops.
-s count Timestamp for count hops.
-j host-list Loose source route along host-list.
-k host-list Strict source route along host-list.
-w timeout Timeout in milliseconds to wait for each reply.

there are various switches available for ping. Above I have given a
list of all the switches available in the DOS version of ping. Using
the –t switch you can continuously ping a target until it is crashed
down. I am sure you are probably wondering how will it crash down the
remote system. The answer is quite simple. If you ping the remote
system continuously then what happens is that slowly the RAM of the
target system is overloaded with these stack data and compels the
system to restart or crashes it. You can also use the –l switch to
specify the amount of data packet to be send at a time.

But in this article I am not concerned with crashing down a remote
system cause its not that easy as it seems to be, there are many other
tricks for it and its not possible to crash down a system of present
technology just by simple ping. I am concerned with the TTL values of
the output that you will get after pinging a system. You can use –n
switch with ping to specify the number of echo (ie data packets) to be
send to the target system. The default number is 4.

Example:

C:\windows> ping –n 10 127.0.0.1

This command will ping 127.0.0.1 with 10 packets of data and after
that will give you an output.

Now I think its time for a real example which I have executed on my system.

C:\windows>ping 127.0.0.1

Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
(or check http://members.cox.net/~ndav1/self_published/TTL_values.html)

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Here I have pinged the IP 127.0.0.1 (offline ip of any system) with
default ping. Here I am getting TTL value as 128. This is the thing
what we need for remote os detection.

What is TTL value ?

TTL value is nothing but a simple code assigned to the out going data
packets by the operating system of a computer. The TTL value assigned
to the out going data packets depends on the operating system and it
is the same for a particular operating system. As for example if you
ping a system running windows 98 or earlier versions of windows NT
with service packs (I don't know exactly about the TTL values of
recent versions of Windows NT but from my research I think it's the
same as previous versions cause the TTL value even in Windows XP is
128) you will get the TTL value as 128, thus from this TTL value you
can easily say that the target system is running Microsoft Windows.

TTL values of commonly used Operating Systems

OS VERSION PLATFORM TTL

Windows 9x/NT Intel 32
Windows 9x/NT Intel 128
Windows 2000 Intel 128
DigitalUnix 4.0 Alpha 60
Unisys x Mainframe 64
Linux 2.2.x Intel 64
FTX(UNIX) 3.3 STRATUS 64
SCO R5 Compaq 64
Netware 4.11 Intel 128
AIX 4.3.x IBM/RS6000 60
AIX 4.2.x IBM/RS6000 60
Cisco 11.2 7507 60
Cisco 12.0 2514 255
IRIX 6.x SGI 60
FreeBSD 3.x Intel 64
OpenBSD 2.x Intel 64
Solaris 8 Intel/Sparc 64
Solaris 2.x Intel/Sparc 255

Well these are not all. There are many more TTL values of many other
operating systems. But generally most systems lies within this list.

Now lets try this manual practically and find out the operating system
running by the IP 202.178.64.19.

C:\windows>ping 202.178.64.19

Pinging 202.178.64.19 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 202.178.64.19: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 202.178.64.19: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 202.178.64.19: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 202.178.64.19: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 202.178.64.19:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Well from the output you can figure out many informations. First 4
packets of data each of 32 bytes has been send to 202.178.64.19. In
response the target system has responded with data packets of TTL
value as 128.
Now we can easily say that the system 202.178.64.19 is running windows.

ERROR CORRECTION IN SOME CASES

There is a possibility of error in TTL values that you receive. Even
though the source system send a TTL value of 128 you may receive the
TTL value as 120. Well nothing to worry cause its due to the fact that
routers reduce the TTL value by 1.
Don't worry I'll explain and made things much clearer for you.

It's a fact that some times routers may reduce the TTL value assigned
to the data packets by the source OS by 1.
In that case you have to find out how many routers are there in
between your system and the target system and then simply add the
number of routers to the received TTL values and you will get the
original TTL value.

To find out how many routers there are in between your system and the
target system just perform a normal and simple tracert to that IP.
For more information about tracing an IP read my article 'TRACING IP" in
After tracing the IP using tracert tool of dos suppose you find that
there are 10 routers between you and the target system then just
simply add 10 to the TTL value that you have received and you will get
the original TTL value.

And once you get the original TTL value then its as simple as changing
girl friend to find out the operating system running by the remote
computer. Just match the TTL value with the above chart and you will
find out the operating system info.

How to trace an IP of remote system

How to trace an IP of remote system (web+messenger)
Introduction::

Welcome to another rahulhackingarticles tutorial.
In here I have figure out some very easy but cool ways to trace out
the geographical location and various other infos like ISP details etc
of a remote computer using its IP.
Well I guess its one of the most important must learn manul for boys
out there if you want to impress your friends particularly gals whom
you'll meet online in a chat room and tell them their geographical
locations and ISP details and make them surprised and impressed J.
In the practical execution of this manual you don't have to work much
as it is very simple only you have to use your brain to understand
some symbols and some format of expressions and use your IQ to execute
things the right way.

What is IP and how to get the IP of a remote system::

Getting the IP or Internet Protocol of a remote system is the most
important and the first step of hacking into it. Probably it is the
first thing a hacker do to get info for researching on a system. Well
IP is a unique number assigned to each computer on a network. It is
this unique address which represents the system on the network.
Generally the IP of a particular system changes each time you log on
to the network by dialing to your ISP and it is assigned to you by
your ISP. IP of a system which is always on the network remains
generally the same. Generally those kind of systems are most likely to
suffer a hacking attack because of its stable IP. Using IP you can
even execute system commands on the victim's computer.
Lets take the example of the following IP address: 202.144.49.110 Now
the first part, the numbers before the first decimal i.e. 209 is the
Network number or the Network Prefix.. This means that it identifies
the number of the network in which the host is. The second part i.e.
144 is the Host Number that is it identifies the number of the host
within the Network. This means that in the same Network, the network
number is same. In order to provide flexibility in the size of the
Network, here are different classes of IP addresses:

Address Class Dotted Decimal Notation Ranges
Class A ( /8 Prefixes) 1.xxx.xxx.xxx through 126.xxx.xxx.xxx
Class B ( /16 Prefixes) 128.0.xxx.xxx through 191.255.xxx.xxx
Class C ( /24 Prefixes) 192.0.0.xxx through 223.255.255.xxx

The various classes will be clearer after reading the next few lines.

Each Class A Network Address contains a 8 bit Network Prefix followed
by a 24-bit host number. They are considered to be primitive. They are
referred to as "/8''s" or just "8's" as they have an 8-bit Network
prefix.
In a Class B Network Address there is a 16 bit Network Prefix followed
by a 16-bit Host number. It is referred to as "16's".

A class C Network address contains a 24-bit Network Prefix and a 8 bit
Host number. It is referred to as
"24's" and is commonly used by most ISP's.

Due to the growing size of the Internet the Network Administrators
faced many problems. The Internet routing tables were beginning to
grow and now the administrators had to request another network number
from the Internet before a new network could be installed at their
site. This is where sub-netting came in.

Now if your ISP is a big one and if it provides you with dynamic IP
addresses then you will most probably see that whenever you log on to
the net, your IP address will have the same first 24 bits and only the
last 8 bits will keep changing. This is due to the fact that when
sub-netting comes in then the IP Addresses structure becomes:

xxx.xxx.zzz.yyy

where the first 2 parts are Network Prefix numbers and the zzz is the
Subnet number and the yyy is the host number. So you are always
connected to the same Subnet within the same Network. As a result the
first 3 parts will remain the same and only the last part i.e. yyy is
variable.
***********************

For Example, if say an ISP xyz is given the IP: 203.98.12.xx Network
address then you can be awarded any IP, whose first three fields are
203.98.12. Get it?

So, basically this means that each ISP has a particular range in which
to allocate all its subscribers. Or in other words, all subscribers or
all people connected to the internet using the same ISP, will have to
be in this range. This in effect would mean that all people using the
same ISP are likely to have the same first three fields of their IP
Addresses.

This means that if you have done a lot of (By this I really mean a
lot) of research, then you could figure out which ISP a person is
using by simply looking at his IP. The ISP name could then be used to
figure out the city and the country of the person. Right? Let me take
an example to stress as to how cumbersome but easy (once the research
is done) the above method can be.

In my country, say there are three main ISP's:

ISP Name Network Address Allotted

ISP I 203.94.47.xx
ISP II 202.92.12.xx
ISP III 203.91.35.xx

Now, if I get to know the IP of an e-pal of mine, and it reads:
203.91.35.12, then I can pretty easily figure out that he uses ISP III
to connect to the internet. Right? You might say that any idiot would
be able to do this. Well, yes and no. You see, the above method of
finding out the ISP of a person was successful only because we already
had the ISP and Network Address Allotted list with us. So, what my
point is, that the above method can be successful only after a lot of
research and experimentation. And, I do think such research can be
helpful sometimes.

Also, this would not work, if you take it all on in larger scale. What
if the IP that you have belongs to someone living in a remote igloo in
the North Pole? You could not possibly get the Network Addresses of
all the ISP's in the world, could you? If yes please send it to me J.

Well now I guess you have pretty good knowledge about what an IP is
and what you can do by knowing the IP of a remote system. Now lets
come to the point of finding out the IP of remote system.
Well you can easily figure out the IP of a remote system using the
netstat utility available in the microsoft's version of DOS. The
netstat command shows the connections in which your system is engaged
to and the ports they are using. Suppose you are checking your mail in
hotmail and you want to find out the IP of msn. All you need to do is
to open a dos window (command.com) and type netstat. You will see all
the open connections of your system. There you will see something :

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP rahul:1031 64.4.xx.xx:80 ESTABLISHED

Now you got the IP address of hotmail ass 64.4.xx.xx .
Similarly you can figure out the IP address of most http or ftp connections.

To know your own IP type the following command in a dos windows
C:\netstat –n
[this commands converts the IP name into IP addresses]
this is what you will probably see on typing the above command :

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1031 194.1.129.227:21 ESTABLISHED
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1043 207.138.41.181:80 FIN_WAIT_2
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1053 203.94.243.71:110 TIME_WAIT
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1058 194.1.129.227:20 TIME_WAIT
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1069 203.94.243.71:110 TIME_WAIT
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1071 194.98.93.244:80 ESTABLISHED
TCP 203.xx.251.161:1078 203.94.243.71:110 TIME_WAIT

Here 203.xx.251.161 is your IP address.

Now lets clarify the format used by netstat :

Proto : It shows the type of protocol the connection with the remote
system is using.
Here TCP (transmission control protocol) is the protocol used by my
system to connect to other systems.

Local Address : It shows the local address ie the local IP. When the
netstat command is executed without –n switch then the name of the
local system is displayed and when the netstat is executed with –n
switch then the IP of the local system is displayed. Here you can also
find out the port used by the connection.
xxx.yyy.zzz.aaa:1024
in this format you will see the local address. Here 1024 is the port
to which the remote system is connected in your system

Foreign Address :: It shows the IP address of the remote system to
which your system is connected. In this case also if the netstat
command is excuted with –n switch then you directly get the IP of the
victim but if the netstat is executed without –n switch then you will
get the address of the remote system. Something like

C:\netstat
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP rahul:1031 msgr.lw4.gs681.hotmail.com:80 ESTABLISHED

Here msgr.lw4.gs681.hotmail.com is the address of the foreign system .
putting this address in any IP lookup program and doing a whois lookup
will reveal the IP of the remote system.

Note: The port to which your system is connected can be found from
this in the same way as I have shown in the case of local address. The
difference is that, this is the port of the remote system to which
your computer is connected to.
Below I have produced a list of ports and popular services generally
found to be running.
21 :: FTP port
80 :: http port
23 :: Telnet port

Note: If your execute the netstat command and find ports like
12345,27374 are open and are in use then make it sure that your sweat
heart computer is infected with her boyfriend.. J J J J I mean your
computer is infected with some sort of Trojan.
Below I have produced a list of commonly known Trojans and the ports
they use by default. So if you find these ports open then get a good
virus buster and get these stupid servers of the Trojans kicked out.
Well if you want to play with these Trojan by keeping them in your
computer but not letting them ruin your system performance then just
disble it from the system registry run and they wont be loaded to
memory each time when windows starts up[This trick doesn't work for
all Trojans].

Netbus :: 12345(TCP)
Subseven :: 27374(TCP)
Girl Friend :: 21554(TCP)
Back Oriface :: 31337 (UDP)

Well guys and gals I hope you are now well familiar with the term IP
and what is the utility of IP in cyber world and how to get the IP of
a remote system to which you are connected. I hope you find my
writings very easy to undertstand. I know I lack the capacity of
explaining myself but I try my level best to make things very easy and
clear for you'll.

How to get the IP of a remote system while chatting through msn messenger ::

This is a tutorial on how to get IP address from MSN messenger. This is actually
a really easy thing to do. It is not like going through the hard time
and reversing
MSN messenger like many people think.
The IP address is only given when you accept or are sending a file through MSN
messenger. When you send IM's, the message is sent through the server
thus hiding
your victims IP and your. But when you send a file or recieve a file,
it is direct
connection between the two computers.
To obtain the IP accept a file transfer or send a file to the victim,
when the file
sending is under way from the dos prompt type "netstat" without the
quotation marks.
You should get a table like this:
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP kick:1033 msgr-ns29.msgr.hotmail.com:1863 ESTABLISHED
TCP kick:1040 msgr-sb36.msgr.hotmail.com:1863 ESTABLISHED
TCP kick: <REMOTE HOST> ESTABLISHED
The top name in the list is the server's address for IMing. There
could be many of
the second name in the list, as a new connection is made to the server
for every
room you are IMing to. You are looking for the address of the remote host in
this table it may be something similar to
"host63-7-102-226.ppp.cal.vsnl.com" or "203..64.90.6".
without the quotation marks.
All you need to do now is to put this address in you IP lookup
programe and get the IP of the remote system.

Well 50%of the work is done now. Now you know how to get the IP of a
remote system, so its time to trace it down and find some details
about the IP.

Tracing an IP is quite simple. You can do it the easy way by using
some sweet softwares like Visual Trace 6.0b
[ftp://ftp.visualware.com/pub/vr/vr.exe]
Neotrace
[http://www.neoworx.com/download/NTX325.exe]
or by our way ie. Using MS DOS or any other version of DOS.
Well I suggest you to use DOS and its tracert tool for tracing the IP
cause using it will give you a clear conception about the art of
tracing an IP and I guarantee that you will feel much satisfied on
success than using a silly software. Furthur you will know how things
work and how the IP is traced down and the different networks
associated in this tracing process.

Let us take a look at tracert tool provided for DOS by Microsoft.
It is a very handy tool for peoples need to trace down an IP.
Just open any DOS windows and type tracert.

C:\windows>tracert

Usage: tracert [-d] [-h maximum_hops] [-j host-list] [-w timeout] target_name

Options:
-d Do not resolve addresses to hostnames.
-h maximum_hops Maximum number of hops to search for target.
-j host-list Loose source route along host-list.
-w timeout Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply.

You will now see a description of the tracert command and the switches
associated with it.
Well these switches doesn't makes much difference. All you can do is
to increase the timeout in milliseconds by using –w switch if you are
using a slow connection and the –d switch if you wish not resolve
address to hostnames by default.
By default tracert performs a maximum of 30 hops trace. Using the –h
switch you can specify the number of hops to perform.
Now its time for execution.
Let us trace down the IP yahoo.com [216.115.108.243]

TIP: If you have done a long research (I mean a lot) then simply
looking at the IP you can figure out some info from it. For example
the IP 203.90.68.8 indicates that the system is in India. In India IPs
generally begin with 203 and 202

C:\WINDOWS>tracert yahoo.com

Tracing route to yahoo.com [216.115.108.243] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 308 ms 142 ms 127 ms 203.94.246.35
2 140 ms 135 ms * 203.94.246.1
3 213 ms 134 ms 132 ms 203.94.255.33
4 134 ms 130 ms 129 ms 203.200.64.29
5 122 ms 135 ms 131 ms 203.200.87.75
6 141 ms 137 ms 121 ms 203.200.87.15
7 143 ms 170 ms 154 ms vsb-delhi-stm1.Bbone.vsnl.net.in [202.54.2.241]
8 565 ms 589 ms 568 ms if-7-0.bb8.NewYork.Teleglobe.net [207.45.198.65]
9 596 ms 584 ms 600 ms if-3-0.core2.NewYork.teleglobe.net [207.45.221.66]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 703 ms 701 ms 719 ms if-3-0.core2.PaloAlto.Teleglobe.net [64.86.83.205]
12 694 ms 683 ms 681 ms if-6-1.core1.PaloAlto.Teleglobe.net [207.45.202.33]
13 656 ms 677 ms 700 ms ix-5-0.core1.PaloAlto.Teleglobe.net [207.45.196.90]
14 667 ms 673 ms 673 ms ge-1-3-0.msr1.pao.yahoo.com [216.115.100.150]
15 653 ms 673 ms 673 ms vl20.bas1.snv.yahoo.com [216.115.100.225]
16 666 ms 676 ms 674 ms yahoo.com [216.115.108.243]
Trace complete.

Note: Here I have traced yahoo.com. In place of yahoo.com you can give
the IP of yahoo or any other IP you want to trace, the result will be
the same.

Now carefully looking at the results you can figure out many
information about yahoo's server [216.115.108.243]
First packets of data leave my ISP which is at 203.94.246.35
.Similarly you can find out the different routers through which the
packets of data are send and received to and from the target system.
Now take a look at the 13th line you'll see that the router is in
PaloAlto.Teleglobe.net from this you can easily figure out that the
router is in Palo Alto. Now finally look at the target system ie.
Yahoo's server vl20.bas1.snv.yahoo.com . Now you got the address of
yahoo's server. Now put this address in any IP lookup programe and
perform and reverse DNS lookup and you will get most of the info about
this address,like the place where it is in.
Well another thing you can find out using the tracert tool is that the
number of hops (routers) the target system is away from you. In case
of tracerouting yahoo.com we find that the target system ie yahoo's
server is 16 hops away from my system. This indicates that there are
16 routers between my system and yahoo's server.

Apart from tracing an IP you can find out many usefull details about
the target system using the tracert tool.

Firewall Detection

While tracerouting a target system, if you get * as an output then it
indicates timeout error. Now if you peform another tracerout to the
same taeget system at some other time with a good connection and in
this way few times more and if you always get * as the output then
take it for sure that the target system is running a firewall which
prevents sending of data packets from the target system.

Example

Some days ago I tried to tracert hotmail's server in plain and simple
way using tracert without any trick.This is what I found out :

c:\windows>tracert 64.4.53.7

Tracing route to lc2.law5.hotmail.com [64.4.53.7]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 161 ms 147 ms 85 ms 203.90.69.81
3 126 ms 261 ms 219 ms 203.90.66.9
4 121 ms 115 ms 228 ms delswp2.hclinfinet.com [203.90.66.133]
5 727 ms 725 ms 711 ms 203-195-147-250.now-india.net.in [203.195.147.250]
6 1006 ms 794 ms 952 ms core-fae-0-0.now-india.net.in [203.195.147.3]
7 826 ms 731 ms 819 ms 213.232.106.9
8 885 ms 744 ms 930 ms 213.166.3.209
9 851 ms 1020 ms 1080 ms 213.232.64.54
10 1448 ms 765 ms 1114 ms pos8-0.core2.London1.Level3.net [212.113.0.118]
11 748 ms 789 ms 750 ms ge-4-2-1.mp2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.146]
12 719 ms 733 ms 846 ms so-3-0-0.mp1.London2.Level3.net [212.187.128.46]
13 775 ms 890 ms 829 ms so-1-0-0.mp2.Weehawken1.Level3.net [212.187.128.138]
14 853 ms 852 ms 823 ms so-3-0-0.mp1.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.1.129]
15 889 ms 816 ms 803 ms so-7-0-0.gar1.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.1.74]
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.
Trace complete.

I performed the same tracert many times a day but concluded with the
same result. This indicates that the systems after the router
SanJose1.Level3.net has firewalls installed which prevents the
outgoing of data packets.

Detecting Traceroute Attempts on your System

You can detect that an attacker is performing a traceroute on your
system, if you see the following symptoms:

1. If you observe port scans on very high UDP ports. This symptom
means that the attacker has performed a traceroute on your system.
However, it could also mean a simply port scan. Either way, it
signifies the fact that your system is being scanned.

2. If the packet-monitoring tool installed in your network, picks up
several outgoing TTL-exceeding messages, then it is yet another sign
that someone is doing a traceroute on your system.

3. If in these log files, you also observer an outgoing ICMP port
unreachable error message, then it means that since a traceroute was
done on your system and as the target system i.e. your system, was
reached, it responded with this error message.

You can also find our more information on the attacker (if he performs
a traceroute on your system) by simply studying the sniffer log files.
If you observer the TTL values, then we can easily figure out the
following information on the attacker by making use of OS detection
techniques discussed earlier in this white paper:
The Operating System running on the attacker's target system.
Number of hops away, the attacker is from you.