List of Figures

Chapter 1: Finding What You Need—The Magic of Search Engines

Figure 1-1: The Ditto.com website allows you to search the Internet by using pictures.

Figure 1-2: You can find a search engine in any language.

Chapter 2: Alternative Sources of News and Information

Figure 2-1: The Paperboy website provides links to major newspapers from around the world.

Figure 2-2: Sometimes the news can be funny if you just look at the hidden context behind the story.

Figure 2-3: Viewing history through web pages from the past.

Chapter 3: Censoring Information (We Know What's Best for You)

Figure 3-1: Oppression.org can show you how different countries around the world, including your own, are currently oppressing their own citizens.

Chapter 4: Hacktivism—Online Activism

Figure 4-1: Protest.Net lists different types of protests by geographical location, date, and topic so that you can protest around the world at your convenience.

Figure 4-2: The Mari@mm worm promotes the legalization of marijuana.

Figure 4-3: A defaced web page can publicize your message to a worldwide audience, such as this message defacing the website of Microsoft's office in Saudi Arabia.

Figure 4-4: Defaced web pages often display graphic images to promote their messages, such as this web page that defaced the site of the Republic of Cameroon.

Figure 4-5: The Hizbullah website, offering information about their goals.

Chapter 5: Pledging Allegiance—Hatred as Patriotism

Figure 5-1: The National Socialist Movement can help Americans become Nazis.

Figure 5-2: The Holy War site claims that the Bush administration is part of the Jewish Mafia.

Figure 5-3: The God Hates America website is an example of a site that uses religion to justify its hatred of others.

Chapter 6: Where the Hackers Are

Figure 6-1: The InfoSysSec site lists the top ten ports that hackers use to break into a computer.

Figure 6-2: Use a hacker search engine like Startplaza.nu to find the hacking tool you need.

Chapter 7: Viruses and Worms

Figure 7-1: How a parasitic program infector works.

Figure 7-2: How an overwriting file infector works.

Figure 7-3: How a boot virus works.

Chapter 8: Trojan Horses— Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

Figure 8-1: The Feliz Trojan horse displays a threatening image to warn users that the program is about to attack.

Figure 8-2: To trick a victim, many hackers disguise the server file of a Trojan horse as a game for the victim to play.

Figure 8-3: The SubSeven client program lists all the Trojan horse features in a user-friendly interface.

Figure 8-4: A firewall can monitor specific ports and notify you if any are being used without your knowledge.

Figure 8-5: An anti–Trojan horse program knows how to detect and remove dangerous Trojan horses before they have a chance to attack your computer.

Chapter 9: CON Games on the Internet

Figure 9-1: The Mega$Nets program is simply a chain letter in the form of a freely distributable program.

Figure 9-2: Many deluded souls have put up websites in an effort to convince others to download the Mega$Nets software and join in on the online scam.

Figure 9-3: Mega$Hack allows you to crack the Mega$Nets database.

Figure 9-4: Web spoofing tricks you into visiting a phony website masquerading as a legitimate website.

Figure 9-5: Phishing means sending potential victims seemingly legitimate messages, asking for passwords, credit card numbers, or other confidential information.

Chapter 10: Online Stalkers

Figure 10-1: The Yahoo! search engine can help you find the phone number and city of someone you know.

Figure 10-2: You can check to see if a friend, loved one, or enemy's name appears on The World's Most Wanted website.

Figure 10-3: The Google Groups website can help you track down messages left by a particular email address.

Chapter 11: Probing a Target

Figure 11-1: A war-dialer dials a range of telephone numbers and keeps track of all numbers that lead to a computer.

Figure 11-2: A port scanner can search for a range of IP addresses for a computer to attack.

Figure 11-3: Nmap can probe the Internet for vulnerable computers.

Figure 11-4: The Whols command can help you identify the IP address of any website.

Figure 11-5: A North American map showing the location of all known wireless networks found by the NetStumbler program.

Figure 11-6: A wireless sniffer program can help you find and identify wireless networks nearby.

Figure 11-7: War-chalking symbols identify the location and status of a wireless network.

Chapter 12: Sneaking into a Computer

Figure 12-1: You can configure what you want a keystroke logger to capture.

Figure 12-2: A keystroke logger can capture keystrokes so you know what someone typed and what program they used at the time.

Figure 12-3: A desktop-monitoring program can track every program and keystroke used on a specific computer.

Figure 12-4: The Revelation password-recovery program can reveal the password needed to access a user's Internet account.

Figure 12-5: A variety of password-cracking programs are readily available for purchase over the Internet.

Figure 12-6: An ever-growing list of known buffer overflow vulnerabilities.

Chapter 13: Digging In

Figure 13-1: Rootkit.com provides source code for various rootkit tools, including Trojan horses and patches to hide a hacker's activity.

Figure 13-2: The AntiSniff program can check for hidden sniffers on a network.

Chapter 14: Computing on a Shoestring

Figure 14-1: The XPKeyGen program claims it can create valid codes necessary to activate illegal copies of Windows XP.

Figure 14-2: Many websites contain lists of valid keys for a variety of programs.

Chapter 15: Protecting Your Data and Your Privacy

Figure 15-1: The Camera/Shy program can hide messages in GIF images on a web page so other people can read them.

Figure 15-2: You can program your webcam to capture images in secret and email them to you.

Figure 15-3: A desktop-monitoring program can capture screen images so you can see exactly what the other person did on your computer.

Figure 15-4: Changing the way the Windows version of Internet Explorer handles cookies.

Figure 15-5: A program like Cookie Pal can show you all the cookies already stored on your hard disk.

Figure 15-6: You can find the addresses of the last few websites someone visited in the Address Bar list box.

Figure 15-7: Window & Internet Washer Pro can delete all traces of your browsing history.

Chapter 16: Waging War on Spam

Figure 16-1: Bulk email programs can use popular search engines to find websites that list valid email addresses.

Figure 16-2: Anyone can buy a bulk emailing (spamming) program from websites all over the Internet.

Figure 16-3: Spam Buster can help you track down and locate spammers.

Figure 16-4: The UXN Spam Combat website provides plenty of tools for helping you track down an elusive spammer.

Chapter 17: Web Bugs, Adware, Pop-Ups, and Spyware

Figure 17-1: The free Bugnosis tool can identify websites that use web bugs.

Figure 17-2: Adware programs display advertisements every time you run the program.

Figure 17-3: Ad-aware can detect and remove adware programs that may be hidden on your computer.

Figure 17-4: Pop-up ads can keep appearing on your screen faster than you can get rid of them.

Figure 17-5: A pop-up blocker like Stopzilla keeps track of all the pop-up ads it stops.

Figure 17-6: Anti-spyware programs can keep someone from secretly monitoring your activity on the computer.

Chapter 18: Firewalls, Intrusion-Detection Systems, and Honeypots

Figure 18-1: You can define the types of protocols that the firewall allows.

Figure 18-2: A firewall testing program can tell you if your firewall is really protecting your computer or not.

Figure 18-3: NetBuster can create a honeypot to trap hackers trying to access your computer with the NetBus remote access Trojan.

Figure 18-4: With a program like VisualRoute, you can identify the geographical location of a particularly persistent hacker.

Figure 18-5: MyNetWatchman can identify the top ISPs used by hackers around the world.

Chapter 19: Computer Forensics: Recovering and Deleting Data

Figure 19-1: The Deleted File Analysis Utility from Executive Software can reveal all the files you deleted in the past that someone may still be able to undelete and read.

Figure 19-2: A file shredder can offer you different ways to shred your files, giving you a choice between speed and security.

Figure 19-3: Many file shredders offer a panic mode to wipe out your files quickly in an emergency.

Figure 19-4: A hex editor like VEDIT can display the hidden contents of any disk sector or file.

Chapter 20: Protecting Your Computer

Figure 20-1: A restraining cable can lock your computer to an immovable object, such as a desk.

Figure 20-2: The USB Agent can intercept and analyze data sent across a USB cable.

Appendix B: A Hacker's Gallery of Rogue Tools

Figure B-1: AOHell, the first and original online harassment tool.

Figure B-2: Back Orifice 2000 is the latest incarnation of the popular and ground-breaking remote access Trojan horse.

Figure B-3: Crack Whore probes a website for easily-guessed passwords to give a hacker access to a system.

Figure B-4: Death ‘n Destruction can flood a computer with useless data as a primitive, but effective, form of a denial-of-service attack.

Figure B-5: ICQ War 2000 provides multiple features for harassing someone (and protecting yourself) while using ICQ.

Figure B-6: John the Ripper is a command-line program that can find weak passwords on UNIX-based systems.

Figure B-7: NetBus is one of the more popular remote access Trojan horse programs.

Figure B-8: Nmap provides a variety of scanning techniques to help you probe the vulnerabilities of a computer.

Figure B-9: SubSeven has surpassed Back Orifice as the most popular remote access Trojan horse currently in use.

Figure B-10: UpYours was one of the original email bombing programs that provides a variety of options for email bombing a victim.

Figure B-11: Master Credit Card Generator helped hackers create fake Internet accounts at no cost.

Figure B-12: CyberPhreak can make your computer generate tones to trick the telephone company's computers into giving you free phone service.

Figure B-13: Shit Talker can turn your computer into an annoying voice harassment tool.

Figure B-14: ToneLoc is a DOS-based wardialer that can search a range of phone numbers to determine which ones are connected to a modem.

Figure B-15: The AIDS virus attempts to frighten a user after it has infected a computer.

Figure B-16: The Ambulance virus does nothing but make noise and draw an ambulance rushing across your screen.

Figure B-17: The Boza virus does nothing but remind people that it was the first Windows 95 virus in the history of the world.

Figure B-18: The Casino virus threatens to trash a hard disk if the user fails to win at the video slot machine.

Figure B-19: Senna Spy Internet Worm Generator 2000 simplifies the creation of VBScript worms.

Figure B-20: The VBS Monopoly worm displays a picture of Bill Gates after it infects your computer.

Figure B-21: The VBS Worm Generator can mass-produce custom worms to spread to your enemies.

Figure B-22: The Virus Creation Laboratory offered a graphical user interface for mass-producing computer viruses.

Figure B-23: The ScareMaker Project was an attempt to create a Windows version of the Virus Creation Laboratory.