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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
UK hacker fined for personnel database mischief
Once again the Media forces miss appropriate the word “Hacker”. This time in an article posted on the IT based site The Register, the article is titled “UK hacker fined for personnel database mischief” and the full article can be read here.
Now this could be fair I guess, lets see what the guy did. According to the article he “gained unauthorised access to staff contracts containing salary details and emailed this to around 400 workers at his ex-employer” Now, I can see why gaining unauthorised access to digital information could be associated to Hacking, Only lets read some more.
How did he manage to bypass the companies security and gain access? When he was sacked he stole his bosses laptop, and emailed out information he found on there. Yes. That’s right! The Mad 1337 h4x0r skillz this guy used was 1)theft of a object, 2)The ability to send an email. Wow.
The title should be X-employees fined for theft and breaking the Data Protection Act. Only the Media likes its word Hacker.
Just when I thought they couldn’t possibly be any dumber…
…..they go and do something like this… and totally redeem themselves!!
I am a true believer of the phrase “Customers are Idiots“, but sometimes they seem to go out of their way to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that this phrase is true.
Recently one of our customers RedBack* ceased trading, and a load of their customers were emailed suggesting they move their hosting & emails over to the Insane Asylum. I was given the pleasure of helping a load across to us. Now some came across with little or no problems, where as others caused a variety of problems. And then there was Zoolander*.
So I copy their website and database from the RedBack server that’s shutting down over to one of ours, I change connection strings and paths accordingly and get it up and running. I recreate email accounts on our system and send them all the details with the instructions to change the nameservers over to ours and they will be up and running.
So a couple of weeks go past and I get a phone call from Zoolander that goes a bit like this.
Z: “We’ve changed the nameserver things like you said and now our email has stopped working!”
WO: “Yes, it will since you moved over to us. you need to use the new email details I previosly sent you.”
Z: “I don’t understand, its all technically, can’t you just do it for me?”
WO: “Well you need to change the setting in whatever email client you use on your computers, but if you need our guys can connect to your machine and do it for you.”
Z: “I dont do email on my computer, just my phone. I just go to the webpage and do mail.”
WO: “You only use webmail? Then you just need to use the webmail address I sent you and you’ll be fine”
Z: “what? so my webpages address will change? it wont be on www.zoolander.com* any more?”
WO: “NO. just the address of the webmail you used has changed.“
The following morning I get into the Asylum to find an email from one of the Zoolander’s Directors home gmail account, all urgent and shouty like. I could tell this as it was all written in CAPS! The basic gist of the email was that they had tried logging into the new webmail address i gave them, and their old username/passwords were not working. So I politely resend them the details I sent before the move with the NEW usernames/passwords and point out the NEW system required NEW details.
Two hours later the phone rings. And its Zoolander.
Z: “Hello, We’ve tried using the new details, only we can’t work out what goes where, so could ou talk us through it?”
WO: “no problems, what problem are you having?”
Z: “Well we need to know what to put in the box that says username, and what goes in the one called password?”
WO: “What did you have in the email I sent you?”
Z: “email address followed by my email address, then username followed by a username, then password followed by password. I just don’t know which ones I’m supposed to use.”
WO: “OK. where it asks for your username, type in your username. and put your password in the one asking for password.”
Z: “That seems to have worked. thanks”
WO: *Unplugs phone for rest of the day*
I know there is a stereotype belief that people in the fashion modelling industry are not known for playing with a full set of cards. But at least try people…..
As normal Names changed to protect me from lawsuits!
I mean to protect the innocent!
Missing: General Common Sense.
There are times when I really despair for the Human Race. When I see acts of such stupidity, or people not using the most basic of common sense, and I have to ask myself “Can we survive as the dominant species here on earth” This morning, on my normal commute to the Insane Asylum was one such moment. Let me share with you dear reader.
Part of my route is currently impeded by traffic light controlled road works. They have been there for a few months now, slowly working their way along. It was scary for a while as the light was just behind a speed camera, so when you saw the lights turn AMBER and you were tempted to speed up a bit to catch them before they turned RED you would be speeding into a speed trap. Anyway it currently cover’s a large stretch of road, the length of which is down to single lane.
So driving along and I get stuck behind several cars waiting at the red light, while traffic coming from the other direction get to go. After a while the traffic flow stops, and the lights change to GREEN, so we then proceed to continue our trip. Only half way through the traffic controlled area we are forced to stop by the Bin Wagon parked in front of us blocking the road as bin men load up the bins.
behind the bin wagon are all the other cars that had driven through the GREEN light and had got stuck when the wagon stopped. And now you had another long train of vehicles stopped in front of the wagon. So the single lane of traffic was now blocked by dozens of vehicles trying to dive opposite ways.
Ah.. I know what you are all thinking, and what that guy there is actually saying loudly at the computer screen. Yes YOU. I can see and hear you, Nope, there’s no use looking for the hidden camera, you’ll never find it. You are thinking. “But its their job to collect the bins, there’s not much they could do about it?”
I would agree in principle with you apart from an extra fact I have not imparted to you yet, and that is the bus stop lay-by that was a hundred yards behind the wagon. If they had any common sense and thought, “the lights will change soon and traffic will start coming from the other direction and we will all get stuck!” then they would have pulled their wagon off the road into the bus stop area, letting the cars behind them past, and then the oncoming traffic past until they had collected the bins, and traffic was again flowing in their direction and they could join it without hassle.
But NO. instead they caused chaos. and dozens of drivers had to play the worlds largest game of Tetris with their vehicles, and the binmen had to drive onto the roadworks. It was chaos and people were stuck for a lot longer than they needed to be, all for the sake of some common sense.
P.S. This is not a dig at bin men & women, they do a fantastic job and do not get the thanks they deserve, its a dig at the stupidity of people in general.
Getting More from Your Wii
There are many things you normally do with your Wii. You can play with it, Sing with it, Get fit with it. Lots of things. But have you ever wanted to do MORE. get more fun with your Wii?
This is the kind of questions a “Hacker” will often ask. “How can I do more with X bit of equipment?“.
NOTE: Anyone here looking for water sports, please go away now. Unless you are a Good looking Female with an ENTP personality, who should send me her Photo + CV.
This post is about the Nintendo Wii, and how to get more from it. I got a Wii last weekend. Mainly to get Wii Fit and play the fun looking games with the Balance Board. The only thing is, I have not yet got the board, only the Wii. Within Twenty four hours of receiving the Wii in the post the immortal words were uttered. “Hummmmm! I wonder if I could use this as a media server to stream films/tv from the network?”
After these words were uttered all other projects were dropped and the Wii was studied and hacked/jailbroke/improved. Here’s the process that was used, in case anyone else out there wants to play media files on a Wii.
NOTE: This is only a “soft mod” you do not open the Wii at any point, or do any physical modifications to the device.
For this you will need 1xSD Card. (I used two cards to save time, but you only really need one).
You need your Wii connected to your wireless network. (You can do this with a none networked Wii, But networked is easier)
You will also need to download a few files off the internet and unzip them.
Phase 1: (Getting the Homebrew Channel)
The HomeBrew channel is a Wii channel that lets you run Applications & Software written by third party’s, extra applications, and games that are made available for you to use by people other than Nintendo. It also helps for you launching Linux apps, or distro’s. So before we can have fun we need to get this on the Wii.
FILE Pack 1: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, and extract the files onto your SD Card. (There should be three folders & four files)
- Place the SD Card into the Wii (The slots under the cover at the front.)
- Click on the SD Card Icon (Bottom Left), You should get a warning screen (Press OK), You get a black screen with disclaimer (Press 1 )
- You now should have a screen with three lines. Homebrew channel, which can be isntalled, DVDx, also can be installed, Bootmii, which possibly will give you an error. Install Homebrew Channel, DVDX. On bootmii option, select “prepare SD card“. After it finishes, install it as boot2 (if possible) or as an IOS.
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 2: (Fixing the Nintendo Fix to Stop people doing what were doing)
You see, Nintendo did not like people getting full use of their Wii’s so the put a fake empty bit of code in the area most programmers use, this prevents “Other” code being fully run on the Wii. Well we say “Hack The Planet!” and fix this fix. :0)
FILE Pack 2: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
- Place the SD Card into the Wii
- Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
- Wadmanager should start.(On ios select, select ios36
- Select SD card and (Press A).
- Select ios249 from wad folder and (Press A).
- change the action to “uninstall wad“, (Press A).
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 3: (Adding cios)
You need this fix if you want to stream media over the Wii’s WiFi. or if you should want to play “Backup Games”
FILE Pack 3: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
- Place the SD Card into the Wii
- Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
- At the beginning you should see ios249 highlighted. Keep pressing left on the wii pad until you see “Do not reload IOS” at the ios select screen, press A.
- If you have internet connection, select “Network install“, else select “SD card“, (Press A).
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 4: (Setting up the final Card)
You are all finished now. You just need to set yourself up for day to day running of Apps. Oh and to add a media player. Basically you can place apps in a folder called apps on the SD Card and they become runnable from the HomeBrew Channel. To get you started :-
Format the SD Card and extract File Pack 1 back onto it. This one has a few applications already on it for Playing Back up Games and fixing a few bugs.
To get a media server on there, Just download and extract to the apps folder. I tried and liked two applications.
1) Geexbox Which is a multi platform media server. The only downside is that it can not access the Wii’s WiFi drivers so will only play of USB harddrives, or using a Wired Network connection. There is a Lite version that can use WiFi.
2)MPlayer CE Which is the one I’m using, It works from the box over the Wii’s WiFi. and plays a good amount of different file formats. And connects to local media, or network media using ftp, Windows Shares, SMB Shares. You do have to edit the smb.conf in the MPlayer_CE folder to add up to 5 network shares (and optional passwords)
And its as easy as that. You can go from Taking a Wii out the box, to having it up and running as a full media server in less than an hour.
Happy Hacking.
P.S. The password for the files listed is: www.wiihacks.com
Captain America: A strange symbol of liberty and justice
Monday night I was in the mood for some good old fashioned cheesy superhero action, so I watched the 1990’s film “Captain America”
Plot Synopsis from IMDB
During World War II, a brave, patriotic American Soldier undergoes experiments to become a new supersoldier, “Captain America.” Racing to Germany to sabotage the rockets of Nazi baddie “Red Skull”, Captain America winds up frozen until the 1990s. He reawakens to find that the Red Skull has changed identities and is now planning to kidnap the President of the United States
Sounds good right. Bit of action with good ole Cap’ the symbol of Liberty & Justice & The American Way? A beacon light to lead the way, an inspiration to generations of Impressionable American Teens? Only. Watching the movie, The Captain was shown in a rather different light, and I wonder how many people saw past the Red, White & Blue and saw the Dark evil beneath?
Let me explain. Film starts with the Nazi’s making a super warrior with augmented strength, speed, agility, intelligence (AKA The Red Skull), The Yanks countered with their own SuperSoldier program and made a Soldier with augmented strength, speed, agility, intelligence (AKA Captain America). Now both are about 18 to 20 years old at the start of the film. They meet up in Germany, get into a fight and Cap is beaten and fixed to a ICBM, just as it fires he grabs the hand of the Red Skull forcing the Skull to cut off his own hand to escape. The missile fires, crashes into an ice field in Alaska and stays there undisturbed for 50 years.
Time moves on, To hide from the forces of good the Red Skull has plastic surgery and changes his name from the give-away name of Red Skull. He is the head of an international organisation of bad guys, and planning on kidnapping the President of the USA and implanting a brain control chip in him. Luckily the good ole boy The Cap is found in Alaska and revives from his frozen sleep. After sever Adventures we come to the climatic end of the film, the fight between the evil Red Skull and the Heroic symbol of all the Good in America, Captain America! The captain beats up the Red Skull, and finishes by smashing him out to his death of the top of a cliff with a full on smash from his shield. Woo Hoo, Chalk up a victory for America!
Only…. There’s something niggling at my mind. You have Captain America, a man of 20 in the peak of his abilities. Abilities which have been expanded by secret techniques. And he is fighting the Red Skull, a man of 70ish, who has only 1 hand. Its not really much of a fair fight is it? The best champion of America fighting to the death against a geriatric amputee?
Come on America, Pick better a better Hero to represent your colours. You’d never catch Captain Britain doing something like that!
RTL – Sherlock – Bringing the classic into the Modern age
The BBC have just finished showing a new three part mini-series call “Sherlock” which brings the Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective stories into the modern day, with modern technology. You have Holmes armed with smartphones, the Internet, modern forensic labs and all the benefits of modern technology. While Watson who’s just back from serving in Afghanistan no longer writes in leather bound journal, but instead has an online blog. Even the famous phrases from the books have been updated, Holmes’s statement when struggling with a hard problem of “This is a three pipe problem” now calmly states “This is a three patch problem” London is mostly no-smoking these days.
Episode 1: “A Study in Pink”
The first episode in any series (even a mini-series) is basically all about introducing the characters, and setting everything up. This can occasionally lead to a slightly slower “starter”. This was not the case with Sherlock, Yes they introduced the characters of Holmes & Watson, and showed their meeting for the first time, and moving into 221b Baker Street. While that was going on they also had time to show shadowy groups, secret criminal masterminds, and one of the best games of Russians roulette you could imagine. (With strong leanings to the princess bride)
Episode 2: “The Blind Banker”
Another brilliant episode that’s starts simply with Watson making Holmes take a simple case (They need the money) from Holmes’ old school friend. A simple “how did someone break into a secure room” case. It’s not long before the case expands into hidden codes, Chinese Triad assassins, Ancient Artifacts, Murder & Romance. With a very tense ending. There’s no relaxing in the middle episode.
Episode 3: “The Great Game”
WOW. What can I say about the season finally that will not give away any spoilers? It starts with a double case, Mycroft Holmes requests help investigating a suspicious suicide and some missing top top secret plans. Meanwhile after a suspected gas explosion across from Holmes flat a locked strong box is found with a letter addressed to Holmes inside. This leads Holmes on a series of challenges set by some mysterious person. Holmes gets less and less time to solve cases before some innocent gets blown up. This all leads to a climatic meeting in a swimming pool, and the most annoying “I NEED to see how it ends” endings you could hate to witness.
Basically this show is one of the best things I’ve seen on BBC for a long time, and the way they have brought such a classic character into the modern day is amazing. And I am now waiting for a Second and longer series to begin filming.
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com
CyberSecurityChallenge Cipher – Walkthrough
After seeing all the people posting on Twitter/Facebook/Blogs how they have solved the cipher challenge on the CyberSecurityChallenge website when all they have done is take the first step, I thought it might be nice to post a small walkthrough to give some pointers, help, and show them that first impressions are not always correct.
Only read on if you have stopped trying to solve the puzzle yourself, or if you just need a push in the right direction. AKA, here be spoilers.
Step 1: The starting line.
So you went to https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/cipher.html and looked at the big pile of gibberish. While wondering how to start you noticed the gibberish had a familiar look & feel. Kind of like images in emails. You have an eureka moment and base64 decrypt the gibberish and get an image. When you stop cheering, please pay attention to the Image. You are not at the end of the rabbit hole yet.
Step 2: Into the Rabbit Hole.
Look at the picture above, does anything look a bit Hinky? What about that odd looking border to the image? Do the pixels give you any ideas? (Nope its not Morse, but good thinking) What if I Say the pixels are lengths 1-7? That’s right they are binary 1’s and 0’s. Here is the binary output going from top, right, bottom, left:
0100001101111001011100100110111001100110011100100010000001110 0110110001001111001011110010110001001101010001000000110011101 1101010111011001100110001000000111100101110110011000010111100 000111010001000000010000000100000001000000010000000100000 01110101011001110110011101100011011001100011101000101111001011 11011100000110110001101111011100100110010101100110011100100111 0000011010000110010101110110011001110110110001110000011101010 11011100111100101111001011100100110000101110100011100100010111 0011000100110010101110100001011100110100001111000001011110011 10000011001100110100011101110110011101100011001011100111010101 10011101111010011110010010000001110101011001110110011101100011 01100110001110100010111100101111011100000110110001101111011100 1001100101011001100111001001110000011010000110010101110110011 00111011011000111000001110101011011100111100101111001011100100 1100001011101000111001000101110011000100110010101110100001011 1001101000011110000010111100111000001100110011010001110111011 00111011000110010111001110101011001110111101001111001000000
So a quick conversion to ASCII using one of the many free online app’s gives us :-
Cyrnfr sbyybj guvf yvax: uggcf://plorefrphevglpunyyratr.bet.hx/834wgc.ugzy uggcf://plorefrphevglpunyyratr.bet.hx/834wgc.ugzy
Step 3: That’s almost readable.
Gibberish right? did you guess the binary thing wrong? But, uggcf:// looks very much like https://, in fact the characters are just 13 apart from each other? Yes, it really could be that simple. a ROT13 cipher.
we now have. :-
Please follow this link: https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/834jtp.html https://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/834jtp.html
Step 4: The New Code.
68edcdec4e2c8eae8d2c8e2dedcd6e04d2042fedae52ceac04ccedaecd8c042ccd 8c046cedad0e8dac8eac8c048e0dac044aa82889046c0d2c8d8daccdecacc504 2bedae4e04ee2dcd046ced8cac042d6e04046c2f4c664ea76e666cae4e268e2f4 56c0d088d8d66cdecac6546c6a506e6a546062606c504a141a1410a8dac2c6ea c04acad2c2d8d048e0d2d6e046ced8cac048eed04edae4e048eac2cad042c8e0 4adac8c2d2c086c2f4cac4e6eac6cae4e2d8e2f6c0d2c8d8daccdecacc5ed4eecc5 ae6dc50429cc042fedae524eac048e0dac04cc2d4e6e8e040eac4e6eedcd048ee d048ced046eed85042ccd8c046c2ccd040e4eedceac042fedae04adacac8e048 e0dac04ac8d2dec2d4c2d8d2d8e2f046c4e2d8eac4e2d2c0405484e2d8e2d6e0 d046c2d8e2d4faccd046cae4e4eaccd8e8d2f044eac6e2d8caccd8e042dcd048 e0dac04aa692504eeac04ee2d8d8d044cac042dcd048eedae6c0d048eed042c 8cce2d6eac040dedee048eed046c8d2c2dad042fedae4e040e4e2d4facc504eaa c8d8d048cedcdac042ccd8c04eceded8c048dae6c6d042dcd048e0dac04682f4 cac4e046aac6cae4e2d8e2f04680d2c8d8daccdecac046cedad0eac8e2d8e2ded cd6e048e2c6d2dcdec040e8d2c6cac048e0d4eedaeec0dedae8e048e0dac044e ac6e8e04edcc048e0dac042fac2c4ec5
I added the carriage returns to make the code fit on the page better. So are you wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel yet? and if there is, will it turn out to be a train?
Do not worry, you are just one step away from completing the challenge. there is nothing fancy about this last code, its a simple text substitution code, swamping letters, numbers, & symbols with two bit hex values. So using simple Number frequency analysis you can work out most the text in the message. (A clue to start you off, 04 appears 77 times so lets say space. c5 is the last character so lets say . Adding the next 4 most popular characters will give you enough of a URL to get more characters)
Now using this method you will solve the message telling you how to report your success. You will just not get the actual code to use. But come on, you have the substituted vales for a, b, c, d, e, f, etc. You should be able to realise the system they used to pick the substitutions.
Step 4: The end
Congratulations d2 you’ve found and completed the REAL challenge. Your win code is REDACTED.
Please email this code to our team at REDACTED. If you’re the first person to do so, and can prove you meet the eligibility criteria (British citizen currently resident in the UK) we will be in touch to advise how to claim your prize. well done and good luck in the Cyber Security Challenge competitions taking place throughout the rest of the year.
Well you did not expect me to just give you the code/email address so you could claim you solved it without doing some of the work?
Britain’s Got Computer Talent.
On Monday the 26th July 2010 the UK Minister for Security Declares Cyber Security Challenge UK Open.
The Cyber Security Challenge is a series of national online games and competitions that will test the cyber security abilities of individuals and teams from every walk of life. It is designed to excite and inspire anyone considering a career in the cyber security industry.
The Challenge will identify talented individuals capable of becoming part of the UK’s cyber security profession now and in the future.
Why should I participate?
Participation in the Challenge offers three fantastic opportunities:
- The Challenge will award more than 30 superb prizes. These will include:
- Places on the Detica Academy
- Funded or part-funded places for masters-level university security courses
- Funded security courses provided by SANS Institute.
- Memberships of trade bodies and professional associations
- Professional mentoring sessions
- Time on the CREST penetration test rig
- Delegate passes to industry conferences
- An internship at one of the UK’s premier security companies
- Prizes will be allocated based on individuals’ ambitions and the stage they are at in their career.
- The Challenge will provide participants with the opportunity to use world-class technology and facilities that would otherwise be inaccessible.
- It will also provide a way for individuals to meet with, work with, and learn from some of the UK’s most prominent organisations in cyber security, education and politics.
Those who demonstrate excellent levels of skill and talent will be exposed to potential employers who will look favourably on anyone who can perform well throughout the Challenge. - The Challenge offers an opportunity for all participants to publicly demonstrate their cyber security skills and build their reputation with peers and potential employers as the UK’s most talented security experts.
The first challenge to get yourself started with is up here
Get playing!.
And Now for Something Completely Different
Time seems to be flowing a lot faster than normal these days, I swear I only have to blink and several days have flown past. For example I was considering writing this post Monday, I blinked, made myself a cup of Coffee and its now Thursday Friday? Anyway, here goes the actual post :-
Its been a few years now since I have done a “what I did the Weekend” style post. And I’m feeling nostalgic for reasons you will discover by the time you finish reading this post, so here goes for old time sake.
What I did The Weekend.
Saturday.
Got up slightly earlier than I would normally so that I could do the packing I had been putting off all week. Yes I know I should not put things off till the last-last-leaving the door now moment. I filled up the car with diesel thinking I would need many pit stops (This was 1st time I was doing a long trip in my car, and it is a mid size 4×4), stocked up the car with wine gums and left Wales and its torrential rain. Several miles into my trip I realised a bottle of water would probably have been a good idea as well.
The further I got into England the sunnier & hotter it got until I decided dressing in a black t-shirt was not my cleverest idea. Also, has anyone else noticed that the bit of M6 that runs past Birmingham has had road works on it for about 10 years now? and the only bit finished are the speed cameras, the lanes, signs etc are all unfinished but the speed cameras are all sorted? Also have you noticed how FLAT huge chunks of England are? I mean I drove through miles and miles of just open spaces, What’s wrong with mountains people?
So most of Sat was spent driving to Sussex, Suffolk, err Some place beginning with S. Errrr, where did I go? ::Quick check of emails:: Suffolk. The trip itself was not so bad, apart from towards the end when I was getting into arguments with my SatNav.
SatNav: “In .4 miles turn right“
Me: “No! Shant!“
SatNav: “Turn Right“
Me: “No, not going to, and you cant make me!“
SatNav: “Turn right… Turn right…. Recalculating!”
So I finally arrived at my destination, and noticed that instead of having to stop when almost there to topup my tank, I still had a load of diesel left, meaning my cars not as fuel-thirsty as I suspected. Then the fun began, I got to meet some friends I have known for 15/16 years but had never gotten around to meeting in real life. (What was I saying about time flying).
It was good to finally meet them, there was chilli, talking, Wii playing, Working out how to inflate Beds, Toy showing, And all round chilling out. And more snacks/drinks options than you could shake a stick at.
Sunday.
This day was mostly taken up with a Hog-Roast, Fish do type thing. In simple terms Loads of Meat & Fish & Strawberries, Nice Ale in wooden casks, and a blazing hot sun. Oh and decent live music. Was a damn fine event!
Then more chilling out, Wii sword fighting, TV Watching. I also saw part of the film “Cars” for the first time, and what I would like to know is. Why are there human sized houses & shops with human sized door when there are no humans? And was this film based on the Stephen King story “Maximum Overdrive”??
Monday
This was a day off work so I could travel home. So I got up early so I could spend time with the people I was staying with before leaving, and packed up ready to leave. My usual uselessness was countered by my friends who supplied me with fresh baked muffins, packets of crisps, and a bottle of water for the trip back. (and by the time I got home that water was a life saver, Blazing hot sun + black t-shirt + car = HOT)
The trip home seemed to take a hour or two less than the trip there. Mainly since the M6 in the direction I was travelling was not a car park. Also I only needed to stop off for petrol as I was about half way home, and I only did it then because services are far apart on the route I was taking home.
I got home, Made huge fuss of my dog who was feeling abandoned. and crashed out on the sofa watching the shows I had missed over the weekend.
So all in all, I had a great relaxing weekend in the sun, with good company, good food, and a brilliant chance to refresh my batteries.
Hackers 1 : Network Admin 0
I forget exactly when this incident happened. I do remember it was towards the end of the University season (either the year end, or midway). It was in my second to last year in University, and everyone was rushing about trying to finish papers, coursework and get everything handed in on time.
Of course the Lords of Chaos were out in force, and the Universities Network was down, and had been for about a week, people were seriously starting to panic. The network at the time was Windows 95 running of a Novell network. Now somehow (no info was ever posted) the windows image had become corrupted. You could log onto the network, and it would copy the global copy of windows to your workstation ok, only winsock, and several other network important files/libs were corrupt meaning windows could not talk to the network. This had a knock-on problem of all the program files & user data were stored on network drives. Basically you were left with a corrupt and damaged version of windows that was of no use to anyone.
Now some of the computer labs had computers that also had local copies of windows on them, for specific software/applications. Unfortunately these were not set up to use the network, or the internet, in fact they had been set up specifically to be unable to use the network. (for security and to help prevent the pirating of specialised software)
After a few days of no net-access a friend and myself got fed up and decided to do something about it. We found one of the small labs with local copy windows machines, and using some of the libraries off the corrupt net-work versions, plus manually rewriting sever config files we were able to get two machines fully running on the uni’s network, and hence the internet. So there we were happily using the internet to plan the weekends fun when a Lecturer wandered into the lab.
“What are you guys doing in here?”
“err, just finishing some coursework to email in”
“What, do you think I’m stupid? The network is down”
I pointed at my screen and invited her to come look, pointing at a couple of websites to show it was working, and pointed out since we were desperate to finish our coursework we “fixed” the two machines we were using. She looked thoughtful for a while, then asked could we do the same to all the others in the lab, since she had an important lesson that afternoon that she had already put off once due to the broken network.
It was another week and a half before they fixed the network and all the universities computers were usable. But for that week and a half there was one small computer lab that was fully functional, and its location was spread about like a secret. After all, if everyone knew about it, you’d never get a free computer.
I like to think we helped a few people be a little less stressed in the run up to exams.