solutions

+HCU: Academy of reverse engineering

Founded by +ORC in April 1996

1998 courses' opening

"...rrRRRRRrrRRRing... rrRRrrRRRRRrring... rrrRRRrrrRRRRing..."

course one, by +Alistair

Mid January 1998 - ? 1998

How to use alien servers anonymously without being neither noticed nor logged

(well, that's the 'unofficial' title I myself gave to this course after having read +Alistair letter :-)

Below are the letter that +Alistair sent to +Zer0 and info on how to participate

Here are Fravia's thoughts and proposals about the 1998 +HCU There was an high level of guessing, among some of us, about the beginning of this year +HCU. +ORC did not seem much 'in the mood'. Yet it looks like things are starting now, and the irony is that our 'cracking' university begins (judging by +Alistair's starting mysterious messages on our maillists) with some techniques and teachings that seem much more 'hacking' oriented. Anyway this is probably an appropriate starting, since it happens in the same days Micro$oft has bought Hotmail.
Yet I would like to propose to all participants to avoid just "sitting in the classroom" and "listening to the teachers". Lest start together our own 'projects'. The one I would like to propose, if others will agree with me, is to begin developing (i.e. programming) some useful tools.
So I would propose as "project" for 1998 to develop "A basic interceptor": say, a simple (windows) TSR for logging ALL calls to a specific API from a target program and 'his' dlls or other 'floating' parts.
Such tools exist already, of course. Our first task should be to list the existing ones and see if we can 'tweak' one of them to our purposes. But I'm already running too much ahead. I know that Mammon_ would enjoy to work on such a project. What about the other classmates?
Awaiting your contribution: mine is only an example of a possible project, if each one of you will propose a project that he would like to develop during this year courses, we could then choose together the three-four most interesting ones, and work -together- to their success.
This is our university, let's exploit fully the might of our joint forces, my friends: together we will grow and understand.
(fravia+, 8 January 1998, awaiting your comments and suggestions on this)

In order to partecipate:
(restricted admission :-(

All HCUkers that have passed the strainer published by +ORC last April should email as soon as possible +Zer0 and ask him access onto Sergei's list. We are trying to get permission to add some other crackers to the 98 +HCU, they will be contacted directly as soon as a couple of reserves will have been cleared.
Anyway already now ALL HCUKERS that have been listed on the solution page (and that have not already done it, duh) can and should email +Zer0 in order to get access to Sergei's list!

WHATCH IT! +Alistair will begin next week! Hurry up!

Sorry for all those that have to be left out. I'm not very happy with this: all my philosophy is that teaching should be made available to anybody who cares... well, let's hope you'll pass the strainer for 1999 (should be published end April 1998) and that the older ones will allow me to publish at least a part of what we will learn...

And here is the letter that +Alistair sent to +Zer0 on 6 January 1998

Gee! Alistair sends
i have taken +ORC place -can't believe it :)
You will have to call me *master*  -feels nice ;)
Oldred is  far far away ,lost in his nutty projects. 
He asked me to man the ship for a couple of months 
and to give you some tricks or lessons or whatever 
i can ,like a school of sort: he's worried becose 
gates has bought hotmail ,do not worry ,i told 
him ,and he wanted me to explain things ,even 
if i don't have the free time he has.

So he left me saying he wants you to work 
together -fact is he believes in team work ,i 
don't ;) and consequently you will have to understand 
the tricks i am gonna use ,which wont be difficult ,
i bet many among you know them already anyway ,
don't flame me if so ;)
Let us use zero's sergei *secure* list -nothing 
is secure nowadays ,since a couple of you mirror 
it to hotmail and i can intercept it on its route 
to bill's new kingdom.

So ,who am i? You wont know -i'm a friend of Oldred ,
and Alistair is not my real nick -that's all. I'm no 
cracker myself -now i am happy becose should i need 
to crack some proggy i can ask you to do it -no 
i wont -i prefer the real warez ;) anyway i can 
hack a little the net , and help friends ;) that's 
all you should care about...

So a couple of you asked for more people to join 
before starting ,why not? 
Only problem is i don't know you at all ,so i 
dunnow. Let the three of them greythorne ,fravia 
and sync decide who ,I take anyone they say on 
board.

Let's start next week on zero's sergei. 
Smash all people you want on that list. It is up to 
you to keep only friends in there ,i am not gonna 
check much.
Zero: publish everything i will throw to you ,
with header and all -keep your own IPs out if you 
want ,they are not needed. I wont send to your 
other list any more: I mixed a little the two 
until I got it: Sergei = SEcure and Linotype = 
LIst ;) 
I will carry on until you smart personages find 
out how i am doing it ,then we shall pass to 
something else. 
You guys relish all sort of riddles said ORC ,fine , 
i relish riddles too.
Of course people there on the servers i will use 
wont know nutting about it. Wont ever understand 
what's happening either. And in case they do there 
are millions other servers we can use. 
So ,now it is already getting too easy ,i better 
close.

Gee! pupils
Alistair out

Well, we'll soon see, I hope, what all this means :-)