Compsci.ca Wiki - User contributions [en]

LanSchool

2008-08-11T17:10:01Z

Bobrobyn: /* The Packet */ witch -> which (spelling correction)

'''NOTE:''' This page details a proof of concept exploit of the LanSchool program '''which no longer works''' (since versions 7.0 and up). CompSci.ca and [[Hacker Dan]] do not support, condone or recommend the use of it in real life (So don't send us e-mails asking how to get it working or how to hack your schools network). Also since this exploit was found and LanSchooled was created, '''LanSchool has fixed the potential security hole described on this page'''. CompSci.ca and [[Hacker Dan]] will not help you exploit new versions of the software so do not e-mail us asking how. All information is provided as is and is the sole option of Hacker Dan and we are by no means responsible for how you use it or the effects it may have on you, your computer or anything that happens to you as a result of reading this page or using the software on and linked to from it.

'''Disclaimer:''' The content of this page is only the opinion of Hacker Dan and those who edit its content. Nothing on this page should be taken as fact with out checking the validity of the claim.

==What is LanSchool==
[[Image:Taskbar.JPG|thumb|What it looks like]]
LanSchool is type of monitoring program that is used by many school boards in Ontario to keep an eye on their students as well as controlling one or all computers in a given lab. It is seen by some as another example of the school boards spending money on software that they could get for free, with the free version even being of higher quality. Early versions LanSchool had a critical flaw in its design which caused the security hole mentioned below (which is now fixed in versions 7.0 and up).
 
The LanSchool website: http://www.lanschool.com/
 

==The Story==
'''Note:''' LanSchool has since updated there software and fixed the security issue talked about on this page in the below story. '''The bellow is solely the opinion of Hacker Dan''' and should not be taken as anything but just that.

The Story as told by [[Hacker Dan]]:
 
During Grade 12, I changed schools, and the new school that I went to had substantially better computing facilities. I thought this was a good thing, but after playing around for a bit, I noticed a little green icon in the system tray that did not seem to do anything. Looking in to this, I found out that it was a program named LanSchool (http://www.lanschool.com/). What is LanSchool you ask? The name makes it sound innocent enough, maybe something to help students? Well, it may have started out that way but what it has become is basically a Trojan horse program for teachers to use to watch everything that you are doing (inducing watching your screen) as well as giving them the ability to control your computer or all computers in the lab at the same time. As usual, the school board decided to spend money on something they could get for free and got a crappier version than what they could have got for free.
 
So I started looking in to LanSchool more and found a demo version on their site. This demo version could not interact with real versions that the school used and would not allow students to do any damage. 1st, I looked in to how it used the registry of the computers that it was on, and found that every time the teacher application sent a command to the student versions it recorded which windows user sent the command, the computer name of the computer that they were on and the time in all registries of every computer on the network. This meant that finding a full version of the software, although not hard, would end you up in a lot of trouble unless you brought your own computer to school and even then still could.
 
So I began to look at the packets it was sending and to my shock they were UDP and not TCP and they had no encryption or coding to them at all. This means that it is extremely easy to spoof the packets. So I quickly wrote up a simple java program to test out my theory. After some time and experimentation, I decoded what most of the packets meant and was able to control the demo version of LanSchool. After looking more at the packets, I noticed that the differences between the demo version and the real version was that the demo version uses only one channel that is never used by the real version. So it was simple a matter of changing the channel byte to a real channel in the packet to get it to work with most, if not all, versions of LanSchool. Also this allowed me to make the registry logs say what ever I wanted, including blaming other students for the hack.
 
Now being the nice guy that I am, I emailed my findings to LanSchool and suggested several ways to fix this exploit. There responses basically said that they would rather spend their time and effort enforcing the rules of the school and the law than fixing their program. They even made threats of legal action as well as suspensions that I could get were I to use this program. So next, I went to my school and actually demonstrated (with their permission) the exploit and how insecure the product was. Again, nothing happened as a result of my efforts, so a month later, I published how the system worked on compsci.ca.
 
It is now almost 2 years later, so I have rewritten my hack so anyone, even script kiddies can use it, even with a nice GUI and everything. My hope is that by doing this, I will teach people why programming software in the same way that LanSchool has been written is bad from a security and integrity viewpoint and to encourage the school board to buy (if they must use such software) better software from companies that know what they are doing and are willing to keep with the times. BTW, LanSchools website still claims that there are no known bugs with LanSchool.
 
'''Update:''' LanSchool fixed the security issue on May of 2007 and tried to contact Hacker Dan at this time, however due to a mix up with e-mail addresses this news was not received in till August 2008.
 

==Communications with LanSchool==
===Feb. 26th, 2006===
To: LanSchool 
From: [[Hacker Dan]] 
<table border="1"><tr><td>
Hello, I am writing to let you know that you have a security flaw in your software, LanSchool v6.5. As with past versions of LanSchool, the system is not secure and uses a communication mechanism that allows for manipulation by anybody on a network whether they have the teacher version of the software installed or not. This becomes even more concerning when you see that this allows the exploiter to manipulate logs that are stored in the registry to what ever they want by manipulating communication appropriately. This would allow some students to exploit the network and then make it look like another student committed the attack from what ever computer they chose.
 
Also the scope of this exploit would go beyond affecting one computer or on lab at a time. With a little thought the exploiter could affect all computers in a school running the software by rotating threw the channels. Or even worse, the attack vector could be used to affect all LanSchool installs on the network that are not protected by a firewall.
 
My recommendation would be to add some level of security to the UDP packets used to communicate to the computers, like a password that is encrypted (through the use of a digest hashing algorithm, such as MD5) and then validate it on the client end agent using a password that it has been installed with. This would make the system as secure as the password and associated storage mechanism and encryption and would only require the installer of the software to add in one more text field. You could still use the UDP protocol with minimal modification to your code.
</td></tr></table>

===May of 2007===
LanSchool tried to contact Hacker Dan when version 7.0 was released and fixed the security hole, however the messages never made it to him due a mix up with e-mail addresses.

===August 5th, 2008===
Beliving that Hacker Dan has ignored there messages in 2007, LanSchool sent the fallowing legal threat to CompSci.ca:
http://compsci.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lt-d-servos.pdf

[[Tony]], posted a copy of the letter to the CompSci.ca blog with his commentary:
http://compsci.ca/blog/lanschool-threatens-compscica-with-legal-actions/

===August 5th to 7th===
Internet drama ensues as the blog post makes Reddit and users and friends of CompSci.ca E-mail LanSchool.

===August 7th, 2008===
Hacker Dan and CompSci.ca send there official reply:
http://compsci.ca/~dan/LT%20Dana%20Doggett.pdf

Dana Doggett of LanSchool replys:
<table border="1"><tr><td>
Dan,

I’m glad I’m finally talking to you directly. I’m assuming my older e-mails must have gone to a bad address. Data Stream Encryption was one of the main features of LanSchool v7.0 in May of 2007. I e-mailed you when that shipped but I guess it never got through. I feel confident that if we had been able to communicate better, this would never have gone this far.

I’m fine with the four points you listed in your letter, with one modification. Since I fixed this in v7.0 of LanSchool I would like #2 to state that the “potential security flaw” was fixed in v7.0. Since I added that feature specifically for you, I don’t see that as too much to ask.

If you will agree to that clarification, we will instruct our attorney that the issue has been resolved.

My background is in programming, not public relations. I’ve obviously handled this poorly. Were I able to re-run this entire scenario, I would have been MUCH more proactive from the very start. Please accept my apologies and know that when this sort of thing occurs in the future, hopefully I’ll have learned and do it better.

Sincerely,

Dana Doggett
</td></tr></table>

CompSci.ca makes the changes.

Hacker Dan's reply:

<table border="1"><tr><td>
The changes (with your modification to #2) have been made to the pages in question. Also tony will be updating his blog post, stating that the issue has been resolved and was likely due to a miscommunication, in the next few days.

If i had know of your attempts to contact me, i would have likely suggested and made the changes at that time.

I am glad this matter could be resolved reasonably with an agreement by both sides and i hope any dealings between us in the future will be positive.

Sincerely,
Dan
</td></tr></table>

 

==The Packet==
'''Note:''' Lanschool's packet was changed in v7.0 in May 2007 and added Data Stream Encryption which fixed the potential security flaw.

This is what the UDP packet looks like:
 
'''Mode | Version | Channel |00 or DF |DA | D1| ___data here__|__log info__|'''
 
Mode is basically the command that you are send. So far, I have found a lot of them. Here are some examples:
 
*00 - Start broadcast of screens
*04 - Restore computer screens
*07 - Black all screens
*08 - Unload Lanschool or just make it lock.
 
The verson corresponds to the verson of Lanschool that you are running. Versons 5.x seem to like 01, 02 seems to be for 6.x
 
The channel area is prity simple, it is the channel number. The demo verson uses channel FF in hex or 255 in decimal.
 
The next 3 bytes are kind of hard to figgure out, but seem to always be the same for the same verson of Lanschool. For 5.x and the low 6.x's the 1st byte here should be 00 for 6.5 and some others it should be DF in hex. The other 2 seem to always be the same.
 
The data area is data for that command, some commands do not need this, for example, black all screens.
 
The log area is where Lanschool puts the name of your computer and then your account username. This area also has a lot of useless 00 bytes that just take up space.
 

==Application of the packet==
'''Note:''' This application will not work with new versions of LanSchool as the '''flaw was fixed in version 7.0.'''

The following is a very simple Java application that will take advantage of the above information to black screens for the demo version of 6.5 of Lanschool only on the computer that you are using. To send it to all computers in a network you would need to use a destination mask that broadcasts to a subnet.
 
<code>
public class LanHack
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
try
{
InetAddress ipaddr=InetAddress.getByName("120.0.0.1");
DatagramSocket mysocket=new DatagramSocket();
byte sendbuf2[] = {(byte)0x07,(byte)0x02,(byte)0xff,(byte)0x3f,(byte)0xda, (byte)0xd1};
DatagramPacket sendPacket2 = new DatagramPacket( sendbuf2, sendbuf2.length, ipaddr, 796);
mysocket.send(sendPacket2);
}catch(Exception e){}
}
}</code>
 
Note that for a lesser verson of Lanschool, you would have to chage the 0x3f to 0x00 and possibly 0x02 to 0x01 or another number. Also, this is set to the demo channel 0xff and if you wanted to send to a real verson, then you would have to set it to 0xChannelNumberInHex.
 

==LanSchooled==
[[Image:Lanschooled.JPG|thumb|300px|LanSchooled Screen Shot]]
'''Note:''' "LanSchooled" is the name of the proof of conspect program to demonstrait a '''security flaw in LanSchool witch has since been fixed'''. "LanSchooled" should not be confused with the software it tried exploited, LanSchool."LanSchooled" in no way is ment to replace or do the same thing as LanSchool and should not be used as such, in fact "Lanschooled" does not work at all now that LanSchool has been updated. CompSci.ca nor Hacker Dan support "LanSchooled", sell it, or give advice on how to use it.

I used all this knowledge to make a point-and-click Lanschool hacking tool that can help you understand how the attack works. Remember that this is only for educational use and should not be used for evil purposes. I therefore take no responsibility for what you do with it. With that aside, I only tested it on the demo verson but i would like to hear from people who got it to work on other versions.
 
===How to use===
The top frame shows the packet that will be sent, you can use the easy set up buttons below it to set the packet to do what you want. The times bar will let you say how many times that you want to send out the packet.
 
Setting the channel to "ALL" will send to all possible Lanschool channels, including the demo one. Seting the version to "9" will send verson 2, but with 0x00 rather then 0xdf. Setting to "2" will send verson 2 but with 0xdf. All other verson numbers send their respective verson and 0x00.
 
The log info lets you set what you want the name and computer name to be in the registry logs of the computers affected. I would strongly recommend that people do not expoit this to get others in trouble since that is morally wrong.
 
You must hit send to transmit the packet. The easy set up buttons just configure the packet that you are going to send.
 

===Where to get===
'''Note:''' "LanSchooled" does not work since the '''flaw was fixed in v7.0''' and is ONLY here for historical reffernce. '''It won't work''', and it won't do anything.

*Latest Versons of files: http://compsci.ca/dan/LanSchooled/
*Sorce Code: http://compsci.ca/dan/LanSchooled/LanSchooled.java
*Class File: http://compsci.ca/dan/LanSchooled/LanSchooled.class
*Excutbale Jar: http://compsci.ca/dan/LanSchooled/LanSchooled.jar
*EXE Verson: http://compsci.ca/dan/LanSchooled/LanSchooled.exe

Hacker Dan

2008-06-04T03:41:23Z

Bobrobyn: /* Who is Hacker Dan? */

[[Image:danspic.gif|thumb|120px|right|Curent Avatar]]

== Who is Hacker Dan? ==
Hacker Dan is one of [http://compsci.ca/ CompSci.ca] administrators. Together with [[Tony]], the admin duo keeps things in order. Dan is in charge of maintaing the site and keeping order as well as helping to set policy with the help of [[Tony]] and the [[CompSci.ca Board of Directors]]. Dan is also in charge of the secuity of the site, and if need be, defending it from the enemies at the gate (or others that would try to harm us).

Hacker Dan is believed to be one of the [[CompSci Gods]] and holds the power for the Book of Typos AKA The Old [[Dictionary of Dan]]. It is rummered that he got his cyborgo face in a battle with [[Bill Gates]] and his [[M$ Pirates]], though on the upside, it seems to give him more powers like shooting laser beams out his cyborg eye.

== Is Hacker Dan really a hacker? ==
Yes, see [[LanSchool]] for example.

== Projects ==
=== CompSci.ca V3 ===
The next verson of CompSci.ca. See [[v3]].

This project now in matince phase and is live.

=== DWITE ===
CompSci.ca will be taking over the DWITE progaming contest in either the 2007/2008 school year. The old DWITE site can be found at http://www.dwite.ca and CompSci.ca will be remaking it all with a new front and bank end.

=== CompSci.ca IRC ===
The old [[IRC channel]] is expanding to it's own server at [[irc.CompSci.ca]]. I am runing the hub and should be fixing up the services like [[ChanServ]] and [[NickServ]] and our verson of x3 named [[Chi]].

This project is now dead and we have moved back to affternet irc server. However i am still the owner of the #compsci.ca channel.

=== Lain ===
[[Lain]] is an IRC info bot that will help in teaching peoleop how to progame on the [[IRC channel]]] by provding links to tutorals and other infomation as well as other helpfull comands.

=== The Gaea Project ===
UNKNOW.

=== WiFi For LU ===
I am working on geting [[Wi-Fi]] internet access in [[Lakehead]] Univserity. The persendt of LU blives WiFi to be dangures and that it will harm peoleop in the long run. I strong disagrea and am trying to get WiFi at least installed in [[LUSU]] spaces such as the [[Outpost]].

This project is now dead, i gave up.

===Web Cams of the World===
A cloection of webcams from all over the world and placed on a google map system. Fun way to see the world from your home. Curently in beta and is slowy geting more cams and bug fixes. Can be found at www.HackerDan.com for now.

This project is now dead, no one understood it, sadly.

===CompSci.ca themed RPG or MMORPG===
Making a online RPG game based on the charitchers in the comic.compsci.ca site and the users of compsci.ca.

Currently i am working on the art for such a project.

== History of the name ==
Though there are many theories as to why Dan's name is Hacker Dan and not just Dan, only one has been give by Dan himself. The name dose not come from him thinking him self all 1337 but was rather a nick name that was give to him and was used on the forums as almost a joke at first, but as the site got bigger he did not want to chage it due to the fact that there are serveral users named Dan, and Hacker Dan looks nicer then just Dan. Many stories and interesting topics had been starting relating to the name and it whould be a shame to ruin them.

===Evolution of the name===
'''''Daniel -> Dan'''''

The natural nick name for Daniel, though Dan objected to this for many years until he realized that it was less to write down and took up less memory on a computer system.

'''''Dan -> Computer Dan'''''

Due to the fact that he could never be found with out his [[Old Dell Laptop]], this name started to catch on with thos that new him in real life. Again Dan was not so happy over this one at first.

'''''Computer Dan -> Crazy Hacker Dued'''''

After going on a quest to destroy some one on an IRC server and a case jumping through many channels which he was banned from or not, people started to referring to him as this since even though he was banned he whould still come back and keep crashing his poor victims until he was wiped off the IRC server. Oddly this atack made him many enemies on this server as well as a few firends who where not so happy about the guy he was chasing.

'''''Crazy Hacker Dued -> Crazy Hacker Dan'''''

Once people started to get know Dan more from the IRC server as well as other online places, the dued part was dropped and replaced with Dan, the crazy part was left due to the rampages he used to go on after a user would mass spam his sites or do somthing that he did not agree with. It is rummered that during this times he could have had somthing to due with the disappearance of serveral poorly made truing forums that where trying to get ride off what was the start of [http://www.compsci.ca/v2/ CompSci.ca], then known as [[SWAT]]. However, none of this has ever been prooven.

'''''Crazy Hacker Dan -> Hacker Dan'''''

Crazy Hacker Dan is just too long to type or say so it was shorten to Hacker Dan and was used in the creation of [http://www.compsci.ca/v2/ CompSci.ca], so has been stuck this way since. Though he is definitely still crazy and is why he used to have the [[Crazy Admin]] rank until it was replaced by [[pwn3d Admin]] due to a lost bet.

There where some intermediate steps and going back and forth inbetween these but this in the general evolution. Dan did not actually come up with any of these and was actually assigned a lot of them, but in time it started to catch on and he decided to go with it.

'''Update:''' Hacker Dan has since changed his name back to Dan due to a high nummber of peoleop asking him to "hack" things, however the Hacker Dan avatar still remains the same.

== Profile ==
I am one of the administrators of CompSci.ca. I have been runing and maintaining it for about 4~5 years (too lazy to look it up right now). I have been progamming for about 13~14 years now and am very intrested in computer security matters as well as metaphysics and other philosophical matters. I am well versed in many langues and topics of computer science and am currently majoring in it at [[Lakehead University]] (in [[Thunder Bay]]) in the honours program. As you can probably see from this profile, my spelling is not the best, but if you have a problem with this, there are many other sites on the net you can go to that will match your spelling needs.

== Hacker Danish ==
[[Image:thebook.gif|thumb|75px|right|The Book]]
Ever notice Hacker Dan's spelling? Seems a bit off? Well that's only beacuse it is not English he speaks, rather Hacker Danish, a mystical language known only to a select few. The only documents relating to this language known to be in existance are the Old [[Dictionary of Dan]] and the New [[Dictionary of Dan]]. Unfortunately the Old book was lost due to a dimensional rift serveral 1000 years ago. The New book is an attempt to reconstruct the old. More info can be found on Hacker Danish and the Books on the [[Dictionary of Dan]] page.

== What is realy up with the spelling? ==
[http://compsci.ca/v2/viewtopic.php?t=12897 I am dyslexic.]

==Likes & Dislikes==
===Likes===
*[[Anime]] - [[NGE]], [[Lain]], and [[.Hack//]] best.
*[[Programming]] - [[Java]], [[C]], [[CPP]], [[Ruby]] and more.
*[[Coke]] but [[Sobe]] best.
*[[Nintendo]], [[Wii]]
*[[wifi]] - Even if it will kill us all, it still provides hours of fun.
*[[Popcorn]] - Especially flavoured kinds.
*[[Linux]] - Gotta love [[Tux]], [[Gentoo]]
*[[Open Source]]
*[[Firefox]]
*[[Lakehead University]] - [[Thunder Bay]], although not always the people in it.
*[[LUSU]] - And some times all of [[Lakehead]].
*[[Digg]]
*Free Speech, Civil Rights and Human Rights

===Dislikes===
*Anyone using [[1337 Speak]], the "word" pwned or noob more then once per day.
*[[Microsoft]] - And their little [[Xbox]] too.
*Spammers
*The IP [[207.236.126.85]]
*[[University of Waterloo]]
*[[El Comandante]] and [[Pwned]]
*Censorship
*Grammar and Spelling natzis

==World Views==
===Politics===
I vote [[NDP]] but even that may not be as socialist as i like. I am very agisted the [[Conservative Party of Canada]] and the [[Republican Party]] in the US.

===Religion===
My religous blifes do not curently conform to any religion i know, mostly beuces i do not blive in orgainised religion. The closest ones i know to my own are [[Buddhism]] and [[Jainism]] but niether are quite right for me. I am very story optioned about my morals witch seem to be more extream in others in some areas and offten confict with the wester ways and socical pratices. I could write serveral pages about my personal blifes so i will leave it at this and you can ask me about them if you have questions.

== Bio Data ==
'''Real Name:''' Daniel Servos

'''Birth Place:''' Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

'''Age:''' 21

'''Eye Color:''' Green

'''Hair Color:''' Dark Blonde

'''Skin Color:''' White

'''Background:''' Italian/English

'''Speaks:''' Hacker Danish, English (some times)

'''Location:''' Thunder Bay, Ontario

'''Job:''' Student

==Education==
*Elementary School - [[Vineland Public Elementary School]]
*High School (2000 - 2003) - [[Beamsville District Secondary School]]
*College Courses (2002 - 2003) - [[Niagara College]]
*High School (2003 - 2004) - [[Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School]]
*University (2004 - presnt) - [[Lakehead University]]

==Work History==
*[[Canadian Water Network]](Summer 2005) - Assistance Programer, worked on a CMS in ruby on rails, curenting and improving php scripts to ruby, election systems, GPS maping and other programing and web devlopment work.
*[[Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce]] (Summer 2006) - Technology Officer, worked on devloping, mainting and proving suport for all aspects of the Thunder Bay NOW project.

== Contact Info ==
'''E-mail:''' Dan@CompSci.ca

'''MSN:''' dan@compsci.ca

'''Google:''' danofthewired@gmail.com

'''Phone:''' (807)-472-7236

'''SMS:''' 18074727236

'''E-Mail to SMS:''' dan@cell.compsci.ca

'''Live Journal:''' [http://www.livejournal.com/users/danofthewired danofthewired]

== Quotes ==
"I call it Danish."

"[Talking about coke] I call it black gold."

"Will code for food!!"

== Avatars and Pics ==
You can set my curent avatar!!! More info at [[Set Dans Avatar]].

[[Image:Dan.gif|thumb|100px|left|Hacker Dan]][[Image:Hackerduck.jpg|thumb|100px|left|Hacker Duck]][[Image:Voodoo3.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Voodoo Dan]][[Image:Voodoo1.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Voodoo Tony and Dan]][[Image:Comicdan.jpg|thumb|100px|left|Comic Dan]][[Image:Dan2.gif|thumb|75px|left|Dan]][[Image:hellodan.jpg|thumb|75px|left|Cyborg Kitty]]

Anime

2006-05-05T01:17:49Z

Bobrobyn:

Anime is Japanese animation or Japanese "cartoons". Most of the storylines tend to be influenced by manga, or Japanese "comic books" and are generally fictional. There are many types of anime out there, involving different names for different audiences or genres. These names tend to also refer to manga types, as well. For example, Shōnen is anime targeted for boys, Mecha is anime that involves "giant robots" called mechs, Seinen is for men, and Kodomo is for little children.

File:Simple Dan Yay.gif

2006-05-04T00:50:20Z

Bobrobyn: