* Dale Holmes news
For all you people who have been wondering why the Digest hasn't come out
for two weeks -- sorry, our fearless editor, Dale Holmes, has been busy with
some health problems of his wife. She's only seven weeks away from her due
date for delivering twins, which is not an easy job. Meanwhile, your Grand
Pooh-bah, Carolyn Meinel, is expecting twin granddaughters this spring ..
what is it about the Happy Hacker scene that is making all these twins happen?

* New, up-to-date web site!
Check out http://www.happyhacker.org for archives of recent GTMHHs and
Digests, and lots of great links and Wargame information. Not only have we
finally revamped the Happy Hacker Web site, it's on a new server,
fishbone.happyhacker.org. Our beloved fishbone is an OpenBSD box just like
its predecessor zlliks.505.org. (OpenBSD is a form of Unix.) Because
zlliks has performed so well in the hacker wars, it is soon going to work
for our sponsor Rt66 Internet doing, let's just say, cool stuff.

* Wargame news!
All you folks who wanted an easy to attack computer, where were you the last
several weeks when we had a relatively vulnerable fishbone.happyhacker.org
lurking on the Happy Hacker T1? Take heart, fishbone is still much more
open that zlliks -- time to study the archives at http://www.rootshell.com
and http://www.netspace.org/lsv-archive/bugtraq.html for exploits! For your
best shot at taking over fishbone, install OpenBSD on your own computer (it
runs on most varieties of computers). You can download OpenBSD for free at
http://www.openbsd.com. Then try out whatever you plan to do to fishbone on
your own computer first. That way, if something you try doesn't work, you
can figure out what went wrong from your own OpenBSD box while logged in as
root. Expert hackers say this is a much faster way to learn how to break in
than attacking an uncooperating box like fishbone. Plus -- remember, to win
the Wargame, you need to keep control after you break in. To make sure you
know in advance how to fix whatever hole you use to get in, you need to
practice on your own OpenBSD box first.

* How do you find out what Wargame computers are on the Happy Hacker LAN?
Actually, soon after fishbone went up on the T1, I (Carolyn) was delighted
to see a number of people already trying to break into it. That means some
of you Wargame players are keeping track of what we have on the Happy Hacker
LAN. For the rest of you, here's how to spot a new Wargame box.

1) The only way to break into one of our Wargame boxes is to use a Unix type
computer for the attack. The best attack Unix is probably Linux. One
reason for this is that the majority of the attack programs (exploits) you
find at Rootshell etc. were written for Linux. So first install Linux and
get on-line with it. OK, maybe you really need two or more computers to
learn to be a great hacker, one to practice using for attacks, and the other
being your defender computer.

2) To keep track of what is on our Wargame, use your Linux box (or a Unix
shell account at an ISP of your choice) to give the nslookup command on a
box you already know is in the game. For example:

~ > nslookup fishbone.happyhacker.org
Server: chili.rt66.com
Address: 198.59.162.6

Name: fishbone.happyhacker.org
Address: 198.59.118.60

2) Now try nslookup on nearby IP addresses, for example:
~ > nslookup 198.59.118.61
Server: chili.rt66.com
Address: 198.59.162.6

Name: unused61.happyhacker.org
Address: 198.59.118.61

4) Wowie, is "unused61.happyhacker.org" a newbie box on the Wargame? Don't
get all excited yet. The Wargame is run by the 505 gang, and they like to
fool people. So the next step is to use the ping command see if there
really is a computer named unused.happyhacker.org in the game:

~ > ping unused61.happyhacker.org
ping: unknown host unused61.happyhacker.org

See, they were just faking you out. However, if there really is a computer
at an address on our LAN, you will get:

~ > ping koan.happyhacker.org
koan.happyhacker.org is alive

Or depending on your ping program, something similar, for example:

Pinging koan.happyhacker.org [198.59.118.51] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 198.59.118.51: bytes=32 time=149ms TTL=252
Reply from 198.59.118.51: bytes=32 time=141ms TTL=252
Reply from 198.59.118.51: bytes=32 time=126ms TTL=252
Reply from 198.59.118.51: bytes=32 time=129ms TTL=252

5) Now suppose you find a live computer while checking out nearby IP
addresses. How do you know it is really in the game, instead of a computer
that you can get into trouble for attacking? Nslookup comes to the rescue
again:

~ > nslookup 198.59.118.62
Server: chili.rt66.com
Address: 198.59.162.6

Name: knight.505.org
Address: 198.59.118.62

Notice this is a 505.org box instead of a Happy Hacker computer. That means
it isn't in the Wargame. Only computers with "happyhacker.org" in their
name are OK to attack.

* Rules for fishbone.happyhacker.org
OK, suppose you get root on fishbone. What can you get away with doing to
her? Obviously, if you want to keep control, you'd better leave the Happy
Hacker website there. We work on it in the home/cmeinel directory, which
has a symbolic link to var/www/htdocs/ where the actual web page files
reside. If you are good enough to take over fishbone, you'll be good enough
to figure out how to put your own Web site up at
http://fishbone.happyhacker.org while leaving it so requests for
http://www.happyhacker.org go to var/www/htdocs/.

Other than that, the general Wargame rules apply, as posted at
http://www.happyhacker.org/hwgstart.html. Most important, you can't use
fishbone for any illegal activities. Also, our firewall, knight.505.org,
will prevent you from making telnet or ftp connections to any computer
outside the Wargame.

How do we enforce the rules? Ask anyone who has spent much time on
koan.happyhacker.org. Hint: while on koan's guest account, give the command
"man lart".

How do you get into koan.happyhacker.org's guest account? Hint: the
password is really stupid. Even a stupid person can guess it. To see what
the people who have broken into the guest account have to say, check out
http://koan.happyhacker.org/~guest/. If you break in, you get to add your
say to this Web page.

* How to break into koan.happyhacker.org?
Koan is a FreeBSD box (a kind of Unix). Your first step in getting root on
koan is to install FreeBSD on your own computer. You can download FreeBSD
from http://www.freebsd.org. Then -- sorry, you won't find exploit programs
for koan anywhere. You have to create your own! This is a tough box -- it
has been up since mid-September and no one has rooted it! It will probably
take a team effort to win the game. To meet others who are trying to root
koan, go to the IRC channel #koan on Undernet.

If you really want fun, when you break into koan's guest account, try this:
koan% who
guest ttyp0 Nov 16 22:44 (208.250.172.216)
guest ttyp3 Nov 16 22:56 (152.203.210.91)
guest ttyp4 Nov 16 22:58 (shell.rt66.com)
koan% w
10:59PM up 1 day, 7:39, 3 users, load averages: 0.27, 0.13, 0.05
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
guest p0 1Cust216.tnt40.d 10:44PM - vi any-erect.c
guest p3 203-210-91.ipt.a 10:56PM - -tcsh (tcsh)
guest p4 shell.rt66.com 10:58PM - w

That tells you where the other players are and what they are doing. In this
case, the fellow on "tty0" is using the vi editor to write a C program (vi
any-erect.c). Since vi is a somewhat advanced editor program, we hope this
fellow may know a thing or two. So.. you want to meet this guy, huh? Just
give the command "talk tty0" and if he or she wants to talk with you, you
will soon have a private conversation going.

* How are people doing on koan?
Satori is doing a magnificent job maintaining root on koan.happyhcker.org.
Normally, by allowing people easy access to a guest account, Satori should
have quickly lost koan to someone else. There are many more ways to get
root starting from inside a shell account than there are from outside a
computer. However, as anyone who has played with the koan guest account has
discovered, Satori has figured out many ways to keep control. Even so, one
player did manage to at least get telnet going from the guest account.
Cryptik (who ran the first Wargame computer cyrptotek.happyhacker.org)
looked in the file usr/bin/telnet and saw:

-r-xr-xr-- 1 bin wheel 69632 Sep 17 15:08 telnet*

The last three spaces of that "-r-xr-xr--" means that people who are
ordinary users such as "guest" could "r" (read) this file but not "x"
(execute, which means run) the telnet program. Oh, yes, we know it is a
program because of the asterisk after the word "telnet".

So Cryptik copied that file into the guest directory and got it to run and
was telneting around our LAN -- until Satori caught him. Now that trick
won't work any more. Satori, you are a tough man to try to beat!

* Big news is coming up soon with Happy Hacker. You may have been hearing
rumors about Happy Hacker Grand Pooh-bah Carolyn Meinel (yes, me). Stay
tuned for interesting revelations:):)

* The second edition of The Happy Hacker book was shipped from the printer
(after much delay) Friday 13, 1998 -- a truly auspicious day! The second
edition is a 400 pages, large format paperback book, up from 262 pages in
the first edition. For more details see
http://www.happyhacker.org/hhbook.html. What does the new cover look like?
Beats me, I haven't seen it yet! The publisher says he wants to surprise
me. Last time he surprised me by using a cartoon of me wearing a nose ring
on the cover. Bletch, I *hate* nose rings. What did he do to me this
time???? Hey, maybe this time you are on the cover!

OK, I, the Grand Pooh-bah, am signing off now. Happy hacking against
fishbone and koan!