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Why you don't steal from a hacker.

infosec20.blogspot.com

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Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#31

Post by icebraining »

notaddicted wrote: post #14
icebraining wrote: post #11

>Luckily the thief was a smart little bugger and he was able to bypass the password by using an OSX install CD to create a new admin account. So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the machine? >I cranked up the frequency of reports to one in every five minutes to try to get a screen capture of him using gmail or facebook so I could snag a name or login credentials. Hmm, start a keyl…

Consumer routers will typically have port 22 firewalled for incoming trafic.

Ok, I'll rewrite: Why wouldn't he use his reverse SSH connection* to do that stuff?

* Reverse SSH: if wget http://myserver.com/sshreverse; then ssh -R 2900:localhost:22 User@myserver.com; fi

Stick this in a file, chmod +x, then add an entry in cron to run it every hour or so. After that, you just need to create a file in your web server called "sshreverse" and you'll have an SSH tunnel to your laptop.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#34

Post by rajpaul »

"took a report and dusted for prints, performed typical forensics"

I'm impressed that the police dust for prints in England. I've never heard of someone getting that kind of thoroughness for a domestic burglary where I live.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#35

Post by icebraining »

blhack wrote: post #26
icebraining wrote: post #11

>Luckily the thief was a smart little bugger and he was able to bypass the password by using an OSX install CD to create a new admin account. So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the machine? >I cranked up the frequency of reports to one in every five minutes to try to get a screen capture of him using gmail or facebook so I could snag a name or login credentials. Hmm, start a keyl…

>So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the machine? I don't know of a single person who directly connects their laptop to the internet. This would have been sitting behind a NAT device which, unless port 22 was explicitly forwarded to the IP address that his laptop happened to get via DHCP, would have stopped him from SSHing in :)

That's why I have a two line shell script that creates an SSH tunnel to my server if I put a file called 'reversessh' on my webserver.

I mean, basically doing what Prey does, but without relying on a third-party service and having much more control over the machine.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#38

Post by icebraining »

wheels wrote: post #23
nikcub wrote: post #4

the word 'hacker' has been diluted to a new low first to 'somebody who can write a web app', to now 'somebody who can install software'

Reading comprehension fail. Just because the title asserts that the poster is a hacker doesn't mean that the post justifies why he is one. If I write something about "Why you don't steal from a Texan" I'm going to talk about you digging lead out of your derriere, not about where I was born.

If the title was "You don't steal from a hacker," you might have a point, but "Why you don't steal from a hacker" implies the reason for that is exposed in the post.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#39

Post by giberson »

Glad the person got their Mac back, but why does this story and ones like it always end at the recovery of the property? Could we get an update on the punishment of the criminal? I'd like to know what kind of repercussions the criminals suffer--do they get prosecuted? I'm just curious if these software tracking systems have been used in court as evidence to convict any of these criminals.
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