Am asking the pros

[realnovice]

Am not a hacker, but am working on a plot to a story that involves hacking, if somewhat briefly, so thought I would ask the experts. If someone goes to a game room with chat and has no firewall in place, is it relatively easy for a hacker to hack in, particularly if a person's been stupid enough to give some personal details? Once a firewall such as zonealarm is in place can a good hacker still get passed it?

[Ennis]

Yeah it is relatively easy for a good hacker [not a script kiddie] to bypass firewalls. Their purpose is to block ports and log attack attempts.

By the way, I would use the term cracker and not hacker in your story if you want to use the real phrase.

If youre story is going to be based on fact and not "made up hacking techniques" then yes it is possible to bypass a firewall.
If you are going to use the media perception then its possible to do anything with viruses.

Anyway I expect you will recieve numouras posts in reply to this message.

[tripstone]

No one can break through my "firewall", it's called ImNotConnectedToTheNet.exe...someone will always find a way around any firewall...the people who write them know...and why not just write a fictitious hacking novel...something like "hackers" was...fake as hell...but it started a bunch of script kiddie groups...

[petemcevoy]

That sounds like a great firewall tripstone, do you hand deliver your posts to this forum?
Realnovice - if someone is stupid enough to give out thier personal details in a chat room, then yes, chances are thier windows box isn't too tightly locked down and very open to s'kiddies.

[Terr]

Originally posted by realnovice
Am not a hacker, but am working on a plot to a story that involves hacking, if somewhat briefly, so thought I would ask the experts. If someone goes to a game room with chat and has no firewall in place, is it relatively easy for a hacker to hack in, particularly if a person's been stupid enough to give some personal details? Once a firewall such as zonealarm is in place can a good hacker still get passed it?

Asking the pros? Wrong forumn!

Well, let's see. If it is something like Yahoo chat, probably not, but IRC is a possibility, because the attacker can get the victim's IP address. As for it being 'relatively easy', that really depends. Even non-firewalled computers can be tough in certain configurations.

If you want the attacker to get in, then write that the victim used PCAnywhere, or had 'unsecured windows shares' or something along those lines.(PCAnywhere being a remote-control tool so you can do things on your computer from somewhere else, some people use it in their jobs...)

[faust]

Some tactics would include social engineering.
No system is safe. If someone is determined enough they will eventually find a backdoor. Some of the best intrusions go undetected!

btw firewall is a HARDWARE device, if you're using a software firewall then its only a matter of time before an exploit is found...

[Negative]

Originally posted by faust
btw firewall is a HARDWARE device, if you're using a software firewall then its only a matter of time before an exploit is found...

So there are no exploits for hardware firewalls?

Allow me to quote from Goethe's masterpiece:


Reproof like this leaves me quite unoffended!
A man who does his work, effectively intended,
Must stick to tools that are the best for it.

from 'Faust' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
translated by George Madison Priest.
Prelude on the stage

[magic1]

i have heard anything about hackers ,finding passwords ,crashing firewalls and things like this . but this is my opinion :

It s hard to build and very easy to destroy

i saw people on the net saying that they are hackers because
they had break into a webserver or in a network with stupid administrators but let me explain

a hacker is somebody with very good knowledge in

assembler
python
networks
c
psycology
.......

and you really think that this person will spend the time to enter in a chat room a hacking your computer ??????????????

i dont think so

maybe somebody else but not a hacker


A protected computer is the one bared 30 m under ground
without network adapter ,floppy ,or cd rom (and with windows screensaver password )

[realnovice]

Thanks for your help guys. I just wanted confirmation, at this point, that my plot was feasible. I am NOT writng a story on hacking, per se, but rather a romance mystery that involves a hacker (sorry ennis..cracker). Can see by reading your general chit chat that I will need to bring more sex into the story..hehe..
Am still working out details of the plot, but sadly I suspect the "cracker" is going to meet an untimely death

[JP]

Greetings:

At least come up with some interesting way to kill him off! Oh, and be sure to send us a review copy of your book when it's done