DOS and DDOS: An article on Hacking using Denial of Service Attacks

A very common term in the field of hacking and Security is DoS Attack. Hackers employ a number of techniques to attack and disrupt computer systems and networks. There is an important point here, to understand the two flavors of DOS attacks. Attacks can be of different types depending on the aim and speciality of the attacker. Some just want to disrupt computer systems but there are some hackers who intend to infiltrate the computers and steal sensitive information for drastic and really crazy purposes.

DOS or Denial of Service attack: This is a common way to attack a computer network. The main intention of a DOS attack is to disrupt the activities of the server through overloading it with unwanted requests. The attacker usually sends large number of requests to the server which leads to overloading. When the server gets overloaded, it is unable to answer to normal requests. DOS attacks are usually directed at websites. It is very easy to prevent and stop DOS attacks. In very plain words it should be noted that DOS attack if properly done can bring server on knees. Users and some scripts and functions would be starved of some services. These services may be among some of the crucial ones.

As said on the Symantec Website:
“ DoS is a Denial of Service to a victim trying to access a resource. In many cases it can be safey said that the attack requires a protocol flaw as well as some kind of network amplification.
Denial of Services is also an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services through the the consumption of bandwidth of the victim network, or the overloading the computational resources of the victim system.
The motivation for DoS attacks is not to break into a system. Instead, it is to deny the legitimate use of the system or network to others who need its services. One can say that this will typically happen through one of the following means:
1. Crashing the system.
2. Deny communication between systems.
3. Bring the network or the system down or have it operate at a reduced speed which affects productivity.
4. Hang the system, which is more dangerous than crashing since there is no automatic reboot. Productivity can be disrupted indefinitely.”


There is yet another but more advanced form of denial of service attack. Here, a large number of zombie computers are used to send requests to the server which is being attacked. This is popularly known as DDOS or Distributed Denial of Service Attack. This attack causes the server to get overburdened within a short span of time. The zombie computers are controlled by hackers by means of malware. Because of the large number of computers involved in the attack, the power of the attacker gets magnified thousands of times. The best way to protect against distributed denial of service attacks is to use a traffic filter. A traffic filter is a device that prevents traffic from the IPs from where the malicious requests are originating.
Again it is worth to mention what Symantec website says about this:
“A Distributed DoS (DDoS) is the combined effort of several machines to bring down victim. In many cases there is a master machine that launches the attack to zombie machines that are part of a bot network, as shown below in Figure 1. Some bot networks contain many thousands of machines used to launch an attack.”

-Mohd Anwar Jamal Faiz
Software Engineer (White Box API and Security) at Leading Software Product Company

Changing location of %temp% folder

As we all know that Windows maintains a location where programs can put temporary files. But at times you might want to change that location. Changing this location might cause some installed Application to behave abnormally. But who the geek like you cares!!

The step is pretty simple. And really this is of help to Testing guys who want to test what is its impact over their applications. Although this can be done manually too using a simple batch script, I am telling the manual method. This clearly explains the method.

Go to Windows Command Prompt, (Start->Run->Type cmd and press Enter).Type SET followed by the Enter key. Windows will list a number of what are called "environment variables" that make various types of information available to running programs. Two of them will look much like this:
TEMP=C:\DOCUME~1\Anwar\LOCALS~1\Temp
TMP=C:\DOCUME~1\Anwar\LOCALS~1\Temp
The DOCUME~1 represents the Documents and Settings folder.
TMP and TEMP both specify the directory to be used for temporary files. Both TMP and TEMP are used for compatibility reasons. You can even edit it here or can change by following method.

Right click on My Computer and click on Properties. In the resulting dialog click on the Advanced tab. Click on the button abeled Environment Variables. The TMP and TEMP is listed in the section labeled User variables. You can edit these path to any desired location and Apply this setting.

Two methods for Accepting User Input in Windows Command Line Prompt

Recently there was a task in Adobe that involved automation of entire Code Coverage Automation System. This involved calling one script after other. As the whole task involved some 100 number of scripts and I had to check the status of system say after execution of script number 56. So I had to interrupt in between in such a way that this interruption does not cause any data loss and we can continue from where we paused. For this I employed user input trick.

Method 1:

You can interact with a user and ask for any data to be entered. The traditional DOS O[perating System had a "Choice" command for a limited interaction. It is now superceded in Windows XP/Vista by the more versatile "set /p".

The syntax is:
set /p variable= [some string]

Here "variable" is the name of the variable that will be assigned to the data that you want the user to input. "some string" is the message that the user will see as a prompt. If desired, the string can be omitted.

Here is an example that asks the user to enter his or her id:
set /p u_id= What is your UserId?

This will create a variable %u_id% whose value is whatever the user enters. Note that the user must press the "Enter' key after typing the input.

You can also access this variable using following syntax:
%variable%

For example to print what was entered earlier just pass following command on command prompt: echo %u_id%


Method 2:

You can use "copy con" command to achieve somewhat similar goal. The syntax is:

copy con

This command accepts user input (including commas and enter keys) and dumps it into a file specified by the given file name. The reading continues till it is stopeed by Ctrl+z key combination. From there it can be read thereafter.

For example, if you have to prompt user to enter his user id, you can do the following:

echo Please enter your UserId
copy con abc.txt

I tested both the methods and personally found method 2 to be more satisfying. Though I find both methods to be error free, easy and enjoyable, yet you may have your own taste!!

So Happy Tasting (Not Happy Testing ;)

You can write me at toughjamy@yahoo.com.
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Read jokes at ..Jokes Limitless..
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Bewitched Apps using the Genie Effect or Slow Motion Effect in Mac OS X

Have you heard about famous Genie Effect in Mac. It is also regarded as Slow down effect.

You can see this by holding down shift when clicking on the window minus button or documents in the dock. As discussed, I am showing another use of this Genie effect that would make UI of apps in Mac distorted yet perform well.


The trick is to Open up any App or say Safari browser and navigate to a nice long web page.

For instance you can visit MeOnShow.Com or even open one of my another blog Jokes Limitless


Now Launch up a Terminal and type “Killall Dock”. Do not press enter at this time. Also make sure that your App or Safari window is in the background and Terminal is your active window. Now Hold down the shift key and click the minimize button on your App or Safari window. Now in midway of minimizing window press the enter key on terminal to execute your Terminal command. You will be amazed to see that your application, or Safari window in this case, would stuck in a distorted shape. You can scroll through webpage or App, navigate and use your App, Click On buttons, do interaction, in a distorted shaped window. This is the secret logic and trick behind my famous Bewitched Apps Trick that has amazed many of my colleagues in TCS, CSC, Patni, HCL, Adobe and Amazon.


You can write me at toughjamy@yahoo.com.
To Know me professionally visit ..Linked In..
You can befriend me at ..FaceBook..
Read jokes at ..Jokes Limitless..
You can also know more about me at ToughJamy : An Informal Me!!

Happy Programming and Happy Hacking.

How to remove Thumb.db file

We all know that Thumb.db file is a cache of the current picture in that directory. But sometimes it become necessary to remove it. In order to remove it go for following step:

1--> open "WINDOWS EXPLORER".
2--> go to "TOOLS".
3--> open "FOLDER OPTIONS".
4--> go to "VIEW".
5--> see 1st section "FILES & FOLDERS".
6--> click on the "DO NOT CACHE THUMBNAILS".

Now the thumbnail file will be removed from the computer system. And once you do this the file will be never created.