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Here’s a somewhat lengthy post that I’ve been meaning to make for some time. I’ve seen no mention of it on LM_NET yet, so I thought I’d alert you to this hacking experience we had earlier this year at our high school. We had three student hackers wreak havoc on our school network this past year. They were using a program called “WinNuke” which can crash any Mac or Windows 3.11/95/NT computer (a keyword search on any search engine will pull up info on this…). Any media person that has some responsibility for supervision of computers on a Mac/Windows network should be aware of this WinNuke program (which is easily downloadable from the Internet), because any student hacker of modest deviousness is likely aware of it. At its most basic, the ‘nuking’ causes various computers on a network to freeze. A simple reboot usually solves the problem. The student hacker enters an IP address and the WinNuke locks up that computer. Computer freeze-ups are a fact of technology life, but this hacking really intensifies the problem. The ‘nuking’ caused significant loss of data for both students and teachers. The frequency of the crashes accelerated through the 5 or 6 weeks that it took us to narrow the problem down to three students. We first thought the incessant freeze-ups were a problem of our new OS or network (Windows 95/NT 4.0) and/or our new computers. Eventually we determined that the crashes were occurring at certain parts of the day (usually when our two labs were at their busiest – when the hacker could be lost in the crowd). Thus, these ‘blue screens of death’ were especially troublesome for larger numbers of students and teachers, at especially crucial times, and especially for many of the students who were not diligently saving their work. An equally disturbing part of this is that Microsoft was aware of this hack on their systems, and they were very, very slow to first, acknowledge the problem, and secondly, to devise a patch for the problem. Those patches are now available on the Internet for both Mac and Windows computers. If you read further about WinNuke, you’ll find that use of this program can be a federal offense (and the students kept arguing that “all it did was freeze the computer….”). We pursued charges and restitution (for our technician's time and troubles) through the police department. You’ll also read about some other hacking software (OOBNuke, Jolt, SSPING, IceNuke, etc.) that is available for easy download from the net. This was my first exposure to hacking, my first exposure with any involvement in tracking down the perpetrators, and my first subsequent exposure to seeking more information about these programs (programs that can easily be researched by both hackers and hackees on the Internet). As a post script, we weren’t able to discipline one of the student hackers because he soon after moved away to Arizona. We later heard that he was expelled from school there for using this same program. This brings up another interesting issue . . . when students who have been involved in hacking, transfer from one school to the another, should administrators be obligated to share that information with the student's next school? Keith Johnson, Media Director New Prague Senior High School 221 12th St. NE New Prague, MN 56071 Ph. 612-758-1217 kjohnson@np.k12.mn.us =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law. To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST), send email to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST 3) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv For LM_NET Help & Archives see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=