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anybody know if....?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
hey guys i was wondering does anybody know if its true that your computer records every thing u do?
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Feel free to go to the toilet, think about girls and take drugs, safe in the knoledge that even if the police sieze your 'puter they will be none the wiser.
Do you have something specific that you don't want to be traced?
Hiding your porn hunting missions from mum and dad is one thing, being able to deny port scanning the FBI headquarters is something completly different....
Being sure that deleting files leaves no trace on your hard drive? looking at documents without leaving signposts?
Denying you've been on the internet from dusk til dawn for the last month?
stop people looking at your diary?
If you could let us know what your worried about i'm sure some-one will be able to help.
Also some info on the system you're useing would be helpful.
Think of it in the router type sense, your machine is accessing the internet through another server (which in turn goes on and on) and many of these servers use software such as 'ISA 2000' or 'Proxy Server' and these packages (if set) keep logs of every website you go to, ISA 2000 even gives these results in graph format.. as well as this, when you log onto your ISP your given an IP address (which is either Static or assigned from a list) and on visiting websites/chat channels etc. your IP address can be logged or attained by other users who then can quite easily locate where you are (ie. your ISP) using a few simple DOS commands or by using software such as NeoTrace. If they contacted your ISP they could then file a complaint against you by using your IP address and time of log-on etc.
Of course there are methods of 'spoofing' IP addresses (where you can make people believe you are a different address) and various other methods to discuise who you are, but thats a large topic and you can read more about it via:
http://www.astalavista.com/archive/protocols/TCP_IP/
(Not actually read any of these just posted the link)
Any data can be recovered if you delete it... theres a technique of data reconstruction called 'Magnetic Residence' which is occasionally used by the FBI in certain large high scale digital fraud cases.
Basically whenever you write data to your hard drive your magnitising it and anything which magnitises leaves a trace even if you format it regardless of this resetting the levels, there are still elements retained in memory.
If they wanted to (and had the cash) they could trace back as far as they wanted and pick up anything from day dot, even these programs like 'Evidence Eliminator' which write a series of 0s and 1s repeatidly over the block still don't completely protect you.
The only true way is to completely destroy the hard drive completely by incinderating it, again though like I said these techniques are way too expensive and out of hands of the regular police so unless you piss off the department of defence or are a major international digital cracker these methods won't be used... but they are possible!
vidence Eliminator' which write a series of 0s and 1s repeatidly over the block still don't completely protect you
OK, there is still a chance of some-one managing to recover original data after this is done, but I think this is getting into the bounds of acceptable risk, like 512-bit PGP is crackable by the brute-force method, but i'd still feel safe enough using it to store sensitive files.
For deleting files properly a better tool than evidence eliminator (and the like) is PGP itself, as it comes with a secure Wipe utility. This over-writes the file 7 times with random data. I feel this is safe enough for anything i do. Also WinXP was meant to come with this as standard, although the last I heard (some time ago) they were going to pull that due to it "aiding terrorists".
Go figure.
On the same note : I heard about (went for a job with) an IT forensics company, and the best storys were
1)they got almost 100% recovery from a guy that baked his hdd to make it semi-ceramic, then shatterd it. I was impressed.
2) the guy that destroyed his disk with thermite, then dumped the remaining block of melted metal and plastic off a bridge into a river. The team found his backup CD's still in date order....
(no i didn't get the job, but i blame the fact i was "known to the police")
Cokephreaks right mate; it all depends on what you wanna hide and who you're hidin it from.
its hard to get rid of all your evidence...anything short of blowing your machine to pieces is riskin it with the data recovery programs the "puter archaeologists" have got.
remember that its one thing to be cracking the British Military etc codes, but shit like child porn etc is just WRONG...anyone gets caught with that shit and gets locked up I hope they get butchered in there:mad:
*calms down a bit*
another point i agree on with Cokephreak is the "safe enough for anything i do"
The few attacks on servers I have made have been covered up sufficiently enough...that is to say a thousand pound company has a thousand pound security, therefore requires a thousand pound cover-up for your crime.
obviously as your mischief etc gets bigger so does the need for bigger amounts of waryness and the harder it is to stay anonymous and safe.
... these were basic DoS attacks no doubt? either that or you tried to exploit holes in the Microsoft framework or used 'created' software of one of these 'Haxzor' type sites...
Those are hardly large attacks are they? Proper hacking more relies on a linux box with PHP, C++ and advanced TCP/IP knowledge...
leave those tips for elsewhere, where you won't get banned for them
Susie
SO in effect Justin was saying "no hacking going on here"
Thats how I took it anyway.
Also, to clear things up
I said "safe enough for anything i do" refering to downloading porn and the odd MP3.
I said "know to the police" because i got picked up and cautioned for possession a few years ago.
I have not yet, nor will I tell people how to 'break' into machines
If that's what made you ask the original question I'd suggest you take emails with a fist full of salt.
If you want a good reference site for hacks and security measures (from the prevention side of the fence) maybe check http://astalavista.box.sk
They tend to cover all angles so it's tricky to separate geeky nerdy stuff from stuff that you want to know.
i dont pretend to know everything like a lot of people i know...i just try to teach myself when i got free time.
im more interested in html though...im more of a create-the-best-site-i-can-and-delete-it kinda guy than a hacker or cracker (actually...fuck crackin lol).
nah i didnt use a program off of anyone...i used dos like you said.
its not like im proppa into it or anything...more of a thing to do while im waitin around for my lady;)
no need to go lecturin me on makin out i know what im talkin about...i admit im stupid.
Braidsta.
never said that, I'm not implying that either... I'm just pointing out that those are not real server attacks and therefore clearing the issue that no 'hacking' was going on here