Google L33T Browsing Part 2

This article is a continuation of Google-ing the Wikipedia, Uber 1337 Browsing Steeze, Which can be found at the following:

http://ren3g4de.blogspot.com/2007/03/google-ing-wikipedia-uber-1337-browing.html

In this artile I will cover different fun and useful examples of how these syntaxes covered in the above article can be used. First we will start out with a fun trick to gain access to certain webcams that have online control panels. Some of these you can even control the pan, tilt, zoom, and focus on. Most of these webcams are used as security cameras. They are the Axis series webcams. To access these we will be using the 'inurl'command as follows:

inurl:view/index:shtml

Just by typing in this simple statement you will have access to all of these webcams. I usually pull up over 10,000 of these webcams with this search.



Now we all know how much limewire and other pvp downloading tools are just inefficent and usually result in too much spyware and viruses. Torrents are great if you want everything by an artist or an entire album. If you want 1 song, there's a google goodie for that too. This can be used for all sorts of media, including videos and movies. This is done by using the 'intitle' command while search for 'index.of' which is a common trick with google.

intitle:"index.of" (mp3|mp4|avi) SEARCH.FOR.THIS -html -htm -php -asp -cf -jsp

All you have to do is replace SEARCH.FOR.THIS with what you want to find. The reason for the periods is because it stands for a space, underscore, backslash, ect., in google searches. The reason for the | between the mp3, mp4, and avi is because it is the symbol for OR on google. This will make it search for mp3, mp4, or avi. The -html -htm -php -asp -cf -jsp is to rule out any other type of media from being found in the search.



Another good 'intitle' 'index.of' trick is to find some cookies, and everyone loves cookies.

intitle:"index.of" cookies.txt


Another commonly seen google goodie is the 'inurl' command to find vulnerable websites. There is a file called service.pwd found in the _vti_pvt file on websites made with microsoft frontpage.

inurl:_vti_pvt "service.pwd"

Although this is a common vulnerablity, the password located in this file is encrypted. The encryption is in DES, and I will not be discussing this in this article. However, I will be writing a seperate article on DES cracking through brute forcing.


Another good 'inurl' trick is used to access PHPhotoalbum control panels. Which can be quite fun if you want to tag your logo into other peoples photo albums.

inurl:"phphotoalbum/upload"


There are pages that websites disallow from being pulled up by a search engine. Fortunately a list of these sites can be found by google. Using the following:

"robots.txt" "disallow:" filetype:txt

robots.txt contains a list of the pages that the domain disallows search engines from pulling up.


Some printer control panels can be accessed online through google using the following:

intext:"UAA (MSB)" Lexmark -ext:pdf


Hopefully this gives you a little bit better understanding of how the google advanced syntax works. Have fun.

REN3G4DE

The Open Source Movement

What is open source? "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code."^¹ The open source software license must additionally not restrict anyone from selling or giving away the software. The software must include the source code and allow for modifications and derived works. The license can restrict the source code from being distributed only if the license allows patch files to be distributed as well. An open source software license must not discriminate against any person, group of persons, or field of endeavor. The license must not be specific to a product or restrict any other software from being used along with the source code. Lastly, the license must allow the source code to be used with any technology style.

There are both advantages and disadvantages of the open source movement. A very beneficial quality of the open source movement is that it allows technology to develop much faster and with fewer bugs than if source code and distribution is limited. However, this has a double-edged sword effect, in that the source code could be used for something completely different than what may have been intended by the original code author. This, in turn, may lead to several moral issues, given that open source software must not restrict any software from being used for any field of endeavor. Fortunately the open source license rules protect the original code writer by stating that he/she cannot be put to blame for how the source code is used after it is distributed.

The controversy over the open source movement is apparent in the different stances taken by computer companies. Microsoft is one company that does not appear to appreciate the idea of the open source movement, which may result in many problems in the future. BBC News reported an article on Microsoft and open source formats. The article elaborated upon the issue of file formats changing. With Windows Vista coming out, all of the older file formats will become unreadable. At present, Microsoft dominates ninety percent of the desktop and office market.^¹ The UK National Archives is the house to a large amount of electronic documents. With Microsoft switching file formats, these will all very shortly become unreadable. Microsoft offers two main solutions to this problem, both giving the appearance that they are trying to help. The first solution is to emulate the older versions of their operating systems so these files can be read, which is a workable solution but not a very effective one. Their other solution is a new format called MS-OOXML, which wraps together all sorts of older formats like “Word 95” and “Word6”. Though this seems to be a good answer, there is a catch. These formats will only be able to be read on Microsoft systems and none of the completely open source companies. If Microsoft were to have used open standards then this would not be a problem today.

Another issue arising in the open source movement is that the Asian society is being left out of the process. “The open source community risks leaving Asian users and developers behind, thanks to cultural differences and western business's tendency to treat programmers there as code monkeys rather than software designers”^² Presently the western countries(i.e. USA, Europe, Russia) are doing the majority of the software designing, while Asia contains most of the people programming the ideas that are sent to them from the designers. Since open source stipulates not to discriminate against any person or groups of persons, the Asian community should be part of the open source process. If the Asian community is included, we would not only have better designed software, but more software ideas for new projects would emerge faster as well.

Some say that the open source movement is a negative cause because it limits the ability to make money. However, this could not be further from the truth. The open source movement can lead to businesses flourishing. Consider the company Digium for example. Digium created Asterisk, a voice-over IP program, which they made open source.^¹ Since they were offering a service and open sourced the code that makes it work, the code can only become more streamlined as people use and improve the code. This is possible because the license was open source to begin with, and any redistribution of the code would be under the same license guidelines. Therefore, when the code is improved and redistributed, then Digium can look at the redistributed code and use the improvements for themselves as well. Since the income of Digium is based upon the service being used and not upon keeping the code secret, they continue to make money.

Another open source company is Sun Microsystems, which offers services such as Java, an online language which has revolutionized how the Internet works. Sun Microsystems also offers a software program suite called OpenOffice, which can be found at OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice is an alternative to Microsoft Office. OpenOffice looks identical to Microsoft Office, but because it has been open sourced, it is not as problematic. In fact, this paper was written using OpenOffice. However, one would never be able to tell simply by looking at it, and it can be opened in Microsoft Office with no complications.

The open source movement has moved more into the mainstream in recent years. A prime example of this is Ernie Ball, a guitar strings company. In 2000, Ernie Ball was put through an electronic audit which turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of software. They were fined $65,000 plus $35,000 in legal fees.^¹ Subsequent to this entire ordeal, Ernie Ball switched to Red Hat Linux, OpenOffice.org Suite, and Mozilla Firefox, all of which are open source software. Ernie Ball recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show, and is now a strong advocate of the open source movement.

The open source movement's benefits to society far outweigh its negative social implications. Money-hungry companies such as Microsoft would have us believe that the open source movement has no future. If this were true, they would continue to monopolize the market. Fortunately this is not the case. The open source movement has gained sufficient momentum that will allow it continue to prosper and enhance technology and society as a whole.

¹OpenSource.org. Fri, 2006-07-07 15:49. Opensource.org. 7/12/07 .

¹BBC News. Wed, 2007-07-11 10:02. BBC. 7/11/07

²Open source 'leaving Asia behind'. Tue, 2007-06-26 16:22. Reg Developer. 7/12/07

¹Making Money With Open Source. Tue, 2005-06-28. SearchEnterpriseLinux. 7/15/07.

¹Rockin' On Without Microsoft. Wed, 2003-08-20. CNET News. 7/15/07.

REN3G4DE