Kazaa on ResNet

[Pussycat]

[s]Nickel wrote on 15:44, 22nd May 2003:
Wouldnt have thought so. As far as I'm aware, the resnet firewall doesnt allow any incoming connections, only outgoing.

Well it does through port 80 otherwise chat applets wouldn't work and web pages wouldn't work/load. You can't dcc because it uses other ports. Kazaa can work using only port 80 which is in no way blocked by the firewall as far as I'm aware.

[Dj Balloon]

Yup, you can share outwards using port 80.

[James Baster]

[s]Pussycat wrote on 15:48, 22nd May 2003:
[s]Nickel wrote on 15:44, 22nd May 2003:[i]
Wouldnt have thought so. As far as I'm aware, the resnet firewall doesnt allow any incoming connections, only outgoing.

Well it does through port 80 otherwise chat applets wouldn't work and web pages wouldn't work/load. You can't dcc because it uses other ports. Kazaa can work using only port 80 which is in no way blocked by the firewall as far as I'm aware.
[/i]

No, all incoming connections are blocked. The reason that web pages and kazaa work is because you make the initial connection outwards: after that data can flow both ways. But you can't have an incoming connection. Been like that for years.

James "Avoiding revision" Baster

[Pam]

Yup, Dj Balloon has got it right.

I have had people download off of me a few times, though it always makes me nervous because I live in fear of RESnet and their tracking devices!

Someday they will find me and all will be lost.

But until then, I move what I download into another unshared folder, then burn it as quickly as possible and delete. Makes me feel better though I know its still traceable.

[James Baster]

[s]Thackary wrote on 15:24, 22nd May 2003:
You'd be surprised Happy Camper.
A lot of information is retained even after you've formatted...



There are guys in America still analysing the 9 minute gap in the Nixon tape ...

James "No Revision Yet!" Baster

[Blessed Benediction]

I have had people download off of me a few times, though it always makes me nervous because I live in fear of RESnet and their tracking devices!

are those users not just other KaZaA users on the university network? that's what i would presume, especially if it's only the occaisional upload that's taking place.

[hr]watches should have a smiley face on them as it's always time to be happy

[RaphX]

[s]Blessed Benediction wrote on 16:45, 22nd May 2003:are those users not just other KaZaA users on the university network? that's what i would presume, especially if it's only the occaisional upload that's taking place.

I'm pretty sure that I've been uploading stuff to users outwith the network, as well as within. Those within the network can usually be identified as grabbing stuff from you at high-speed.

Plus, if you "Find more from same User", you can see the files of the person you are uploading to, provided they are within the Iron Curtain.

[hr]
IMAGE:audiotracker.bamboozled.org/remote/song.php/RaphX

and on the eighth day, we bulldozed it.

[Blessed Benediction]

good point

[hr]watches should have a smiley face on them as it's always time to be happy

[Valen_gr]

i had a habit of doing a netstat when i used to get an upload(hehe, i don't use kazaa anymore, i been threatened)
and sometimes it was a st-andrews upload, but often it was not, usually people in france and germany.Which makes me wonder how that was possible after what baster said, since i had the same thoughts on the matter as james had. Any ideas?

[hr]where's spoon????
-There is no spoon!!

[anarchy2000]

The NME article can be found online here http://www.nme.com/news/104699.htm . The students in question were sharing around a million files on some random P2P network, this is why RIAA decided it best to shut them down.

[anarchy2000]

No shit. This is about sharing files over the Intranet. Guess its the end for ihatechristians.com.

[RaphX]

/me deals with it.

[hr]IMAGE:audiotracker.bamboozled.org/remote/song.php/RaphX

and on the eighth day, we bulldozed it.

[James Baster]

[s]Valen_gr wrote on 17:39, 22nd May 2003:and sometimes it was a st-andrews upload, but often it was not, usually people in france and germany.Which makes me wonder how that was possible after what baster said, since i had the same thoughts on the matter as james had. Any ideas?

Having no idea about Kazaa but making an educated guess, I imagine the client (guy downloading from you) attempts to connect but on refusal, connects to the server. The Server passes on a message throught the already established connection to you. You then connect to him to make the transfer. Or the transfer is bounced throught the server like a proxy, but seeing as that will greatly increase their bandwidth I doubt it.

[Jos Dad]

[s]Pussycat wrote on 15:30, 22nd May 2003:
But thanks to the wonderful ways of computers...there are programs available for deleting files that not only delete them from the catalogue but delete them from your hard drive. Or you can simply delete the files and then stuff your hard drive full of other files so that any previous is information is written over, but the first method is more effective.


No, Pussy, actually Farwall is correct. Deleting, or even reformatting does not obliterate the information completely, and it can be retrieved. DSS used to insist on hard discs that were no longer in use were dissolved in acid (or in 1 case turned into a coffee table for the Man incharge - discs were BIG in those days).

[fluKe]

James: KaZaA doesn't run through a server like that. When a user tries to upload there is no connection through any server - that way the people who own KaZaA could get into trouble for connecting people to illegal material. The uploader connects to the persons computer they are downloading from. If it fails there isn't any attempt to route any connections through any other way. I'm pretty sure that if the firewall blocked their incoming transmission a KaZaA client on RESnet would not know that an attempt was made so I don't think that our clients would try to re-connect to them. But I'm not 100%


Jo's Dad: Pussycat was correct. WHat you are saying is also correct.
When you delete something on your hard drive the data itself is not removed, the pointer to that information on the discs catalogue is removed and that area of the disc is treated as "blank" however it still contains the data. So if you use a program to retrieve it you can "undelete" the data and get it back. That is correct.

What Pussycat was saying (which is also correct) is that, after deleting the data from the catalogue you then write over the blocks of the disc where that information was stored you will not be able to retrieve the old data, only the new data that is written there. The reason you can retreive deleted information is because it is still physically there. If it is overwritten then it is no longer physically present and can NOT be retreived. This can be done by filling up the disk space as Pussycat suggested or it can be done by using certain programs that delete the data and then physically remove the magnetic data from the disc also. Once this is done the data is lost forever and can NOT be retrieved.

[James Baster]

Its still possible to retrive data even after more data hs been written on top of it. I assume Jo's dad means DSS as in Department of Social Services- I've seen a council tech smash a HD off a table for 5 minutes to shatter all the disks inside before binning it.

James "Really should be revising, ya know" Baster

[James Baster]

P.S. Hello Jo's Dad! Nice to see your still reading. I know what you mean about the big HD's to; my old boss used to keep a couple of ones around the office that where so heavy I had problems lifting them. They held about 20 Megs to.

James "HaHaHaHaHaHa" Baster

[Pussycat]

[s]James Baster wrote on 21:17, 22nd May 2003:
Its still possible to retrive data even after more data hs been written on top of it.

Indeed, but you can make it difficult enough to not be worth their time.

Zero-Fill (also known as level 1 data erasure): Wipes off all data on the drive by filling every sector with zeroes.

This procedure will restore a hard disc drive to the condition it was in when received from the factory. Since the zero-fill cleans all programs and data off the drive you lose everything on the drive.

Using a zero-fill utility will for all intents and purposes eliminate all data from the drive. After successful completion of this level 1 data erasure it is near impossible to recover data on the hard drive. Sector analysis tools would be useless and data recovery would require expensive equipment available to a very limited number of people. The way it can be recovered is through trace residual magnetism. This is the drives ability to partially remember it's previous data.

This brings me to level 1+ data erasure which does the same as zero-fill but multiple times. The more times it does it, the harder to retrieve past data. Do it enough times and it would take so long to retrieve it that anyone would give up.

Not that for mere file-sharing offences they would go to these lengths anyway.

[Moyersy]

[s]Pussycat wrote on 22:49, 22nd May 2003:
Do it enough times and it would take so long to retrieve it that anyone would give up.

Not so, what we are talking about here is the sensitivity of equipment and the technology behind the software operating that equipment.

If the person analysing your hard drive has ideas about what was on your system ie. picture format etc. then they already know parts of what they are looking for and the rest is basic cryptography. The decider will be whether or not their equipment is sensitive enough to detect the minute variances in the makeup of the hard drive.

It is not time that is an issue really, it is more that this sort of equipment and its operators are incredibly expensive.

[Pussycat]

You nit-picker you

Fact is though that it's more trouble than it's worth for something like file-sharing offences.