Hacking from Windows 95!
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GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING
Beginners' Series #2, Section One.
Hacking from Windows 95!
______________________________________Important warning: this is a beginners lesson. BEGINNERS. Will all you super k-rad elite haxors out there just skip reading this one, instead reading it and feeling all insulted at how easy it is and then emailing me to bleat "This GTMHH iz 2 ezy your ****** up, wee hate u!!!&$%" Go study something that seriously challenges your intellect such as "Unix for Dummies," OK?
Have you ever seen what happens when someone with an America Online account posts to a hacker news group, email list, or IRC chat session? It gives you a true understanding of what "flame" means, right?
Now you might think that making fun of dumb.newbie@aol.com is just some prejudice. Sort of like how managers in big corporations don't wear dreadlocks and fraternity boys don't drive Yugos.
But the real reason serious hackers would never use AOL is that it doesn't offer Unix shell accounts for its users. AOL fears Unix because it is the most fabulous, exciting, powerful, hacker-friendly operating system in the Solar system... gotta calm down ... anyhow, I'd feel crippled without Unix. So AOL figures offering Unix shell accounts to its users is begging to get hacked.
Unfortunately, this attitude is spreading. Every day more ISPs are deciding to stop offering shell accounts to their users.
But if you don't have a Unix shell account, you can still hack. All you need is a computer that runs Windows 95 and just some really retarded on-line account like America Online or Compuserve.
In this Beginner's Series #2 we cover several fun things to do with Windows and even the most hacker-hostile Online services. And, remember, all these things are really easy. You don't need to be a genius. You don't need to be a computer scientist. You don't need to won an expensive computer. These are things anyone with Windows 95 can do.
- Section One: Customize your Windows 95 visuals. Set up your startup, background and logoff screens so as to amaze and befuddle your non-hacker friends.
- Section Two: Subvert Windows nanny programs such as Surfwatch and the setups many schools use in the hope of keeping kids from using unauthorized programs. Prove to yourself -- and your friends and coworkers -- that Windows 95 passwords are a joke.
- Section Three: Explore other computers -- OK, let's be blatant -- hack -- from your Windows home computer using even just AOL for Internet access.
HOW TO CUSTOMIZE WINDOWS 95 VISUALS
OK, let's say you are hosting a wild party in your home. You decide to show your buddies that you are one of those dread hacker d00dz. So you fire up your computer and what should come up on your screen but the logo for "Windows 95." It's kind of lame looking, isn't it? Your computer looks just like everyone else's box. Just like some boring corporate workstation operated by some guy with an IQ in the 80s.
Now if you are a serious hacker you would be booting up Linux or FreeBSD or some other kind of Unix on your personal computer. But your friends don't know that. So you have an opportunity to social engineer them into thinking you are fabulously elite by just by customizing your bootup screen.
Now let's say you want to boot up with a black screen with orange and yellow flames and the slogan "K-Rad Doomsters of the Apocalypse". This turns out to be super easy.
Now Microsoft wants you to advertise their operating system every time you boot up. In fact, they want this so badly that they have gone to court to try to force computer retailers to keep the Micro$oft bootup screen on the systems these vendors sell.
So Microsoft certainly doesn't want you messing with their bootup screen, either. So M$ has tried to hide the bootup screen software. But they didn't hide it very well. We're going to learn today how to totally thwart their plans.
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Evil Genius tip: One of the rewarding things about hacking is to find hidden files that try to keep you from modifying them -- and then to mess with them anyhow. That's what we're doing today.
The Win95 bootup graphics is hidden in a file named c:\logo.sys. To see this file, open File Manager, click "view", then click "by file type," then check the box for "show hidden/system files." Then, back on "view," click "all file details." To the right of the file logo.sys you will see the letters "rhs." These mean this file is "read-only, hidden, system."
The reason this innocuous graphics file is labeled as a system file -- when it really is just a graphics file -- is because Microsoft is afraid you'll change it to read something like "Welcome to Windoze 95 -- Breakfast of Lusers!" So by making it a read-only file, and hiding it, and calling it a system file as if it were something so darn important it would destroy your computer if you were to mess with it, Microsoft is trying to trick you into leaving it alone.
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Now here's the easy way to thwart Micro$oft and get the startup logo of your choice. We start by finding the MSPaint program. It's probably under the accessories folder. But just in case you're like me and keep on moving things around, here's the fail-safe program finding routine:
1) Click "Start" on the lower left corner of your screen.
2) Click "Windows Explorer"
3) Click "Tools"
4) Click "Find"
5) Click "files or folders"
6) After "named" type in "MSPaint"
7) After "Look in" type in 'C:"
8) Check the box that says "include subfolders"
9) Click "find now"
10) Double click on the icon of a paint bucket that turns up in a window. This loads the paint program.
11) Within the paint program, click "file"
12) Click "open"
OK, now you have MSPaint. Now you have a super easy way to create your new bootup screen:
13) After "file name" type in c:\windows\logos.sys. This brings up the graphic you get when your computer is ready to shut down saying "It's now safe to turn off your computer." This graphic has exactly the right format to be used for your startup graphic. So you can play with it any way you want (so long as you don't do anything on the Attributes screen under the Images menu) and use it for your startup graphic.
14) Now we play with this picture. Just experiment with the controls of MSPaint and try out fun stuff.
15) When you decide you really like your picture (fill it with frightening hacker stuph, right?), save it as c:\logo.sys. This will overwrite the Windows startup logo file. From now on, any time you want to change your startup logo, you will be able to both read and write the file logo.sys.
16. If you want to change the shut down screens, they are easy to find and modify using MSPaint. The beginning shutdown screen is named c:\windows\logow.sys. As we saw above, the final "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen graphic is named c:\windows\logos.sys.
17. To make graphics that will be available for your wallpaper, name them something like c:\windows\evilhaxor.bmp (substituting your filename for "exilhaxor" -- unless you like to name your wallpaper "evilhaxor.")
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Evil Genius tip: The Microsoft Windows 95 startup screen has an animated bar at the bottom. But once you replace it with your own graphic, that animation is gone. However, you can make your own animated startup screen using the shareware program BMP Wizard. Some download sites for this goodie include:
http://www.pippin.com/English/ComputersSoftware/Software/Windows95/graphic.htm
http://search.windows95.com/apps/editors.html
http://www.windows95.com/apps/editors.html
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Now the trouble with using one of the existing Win95 logo files is that they only allow you to use their original colors. If you really want to go wild, open MSPaint again. First click "Image," then click "attributes." Set width 320 and height to 400. Make sure under Units that Pels is selected. Now you are free to use any color combination available in this program. Remember to save the file as c:\logo.sys for your startup logo, or c:\windows\logow.sys and or c:\windows\logos.sys for your shutdown screens.
But if you want some really fabulous stuff for your starting screen, you can steal graphics from your favorite hacker page on the Web and import them into Win95's startup and shutdown screens. Here's how you do it.
- Wow, kewl graphics! Stop your browsing on that Web page and hit the "print screen" button.
- Open MSPaint and set width to 320 and height to 400 with units Pels.
- Click edit, then click paste. Bam, that image is now in your MSPaint program.
- When you save it, make sure attributes are still 320X400 Pels. Name it c:\logo.sys, c:\windows\logow.sys, c:\windows\logos.sys, or c:\winodws\evilhaxor.bmp depending on which screen or wallpaper you want to display it on.
Of course you can do the same thing by opening any graphics file you choose in MSPaint or any other graphics program, so long as you save it with the right file name in the right directory and size it 320X400 Pels.
Oh, no, stuffy Auntie Suzie is coming to visit and she wants to use my computer to read her email! I'll never hear the end of it if she sees my K-Rad Doomsters of the Apocalypse startup screen!!!
Here's what you can do to get your boring Micro$oft startup logo back. Just change the name of c:logo.sys to something innocuous that Aunt Suzie won't see while snooping with file manager. Something like logo.bak. Guess what happens? Those Microsoft guys figured we'd be doing things like this and hid a copy of their boring bootup screen in a file named "io.sys." So if you rename or delete their original logo.sys, and there is no file by that name left, on bootup your computer displays their same old Windows 95 bootup screen.
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Evil genius tip: Want to mess with io.sys or logo.sys? Here's how to get into them. And, guess what, this is a great thing to learn in case you ever need to break into a Windows computer -- something we'll look at in detail in the next section.
Click "Start" then "Programs" then "MS-DOS." At the MS_DOS prompt enter the commands:
ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\IO.SYS
ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\LOGO.SYSNow they are totally at your mercy, muhahaha!
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OK, that's it for now. You 31337 hackers who are feeling insulted by reading this because it was too easy, tough cookies. I warned you. But I'll bet my box has a happier hacker logon graphic than yours does. K-Rad Doomsters of the apocalypse, yesss!
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Copyright 1997 Carolyn P. Meinel. You may forward or post on your Web site this GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING as long as you leave this notice at the end..
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Carolyn Meinel
M/B Research -- The Technology Brokers
