• What is Foolproof?
• Why Foolproof sucks.
• How to get around Foolproof.
• My personal path.

Foolproof is a Windoze desktop security program, used almost exclusivly by schools, or any other large institution where the people using terminals on a network (or even lone terminals) are not trusted to use the computers freely. It is a configurable program, and depending on the amount of precautions taken, certain actions are restricted. Such actions include when one right clicks, all actions other than arranging icons are disabled. Although an understandable precaution on a winblows box, it is more than the least bit annoying for anyone who uses computers for more than checking their e-mail or playing java games. Another rather pesky feature, is the inability to run any program that has not been previously okayed by administrators.

Foolproof is not only annoying, but insulting. Ever since the days of The ICSS (Incompatable Time-Sharing System) in Tech-square at MIT, any program or routine a computer is made to preform that prevents or restricts the full power and capabilities of the computer, is foolish, insulting, and more than a little annoying. Although I too, should I find myself in charge of a network as large as the one in my former school, would cringe at the mere thought of 900 students, who know as little about computers as they do anything else, and the constant worry that they might download a canned hacking program and actually do damage. However, I feel that the use of computers is a priviledge, and comprimises must be made and the student body made aware of the limitations and appropriate uses of the system. Although my school had such an acceptable use policy, it was far too harse, limiting use of computers beyond what Foolproof ever did.

-Running Programs-

Here is where our adventures turn interesting. Foolproof, though initially intimidating, has many gaping holes. First, and most the easiest to exploit, is the fact that the routine that checks to mack sure a program is previously allowed is not path specific; in fact, it uses no recognition techniques other than the name, so by simply renaming your program to an allowed program, such as winword.exe (microsoft word) you can run it- and in the executeable logs, nothing unusual appears. This is probably the biggest vulnerability, especially considering that it is so simple, any idiot who stumbles across such a loophole could do significant damage to the system. But we don't do that. We're hackers.

-Editing System Files-

Although this varies depending on the individual system's configuration, most system files, such as system.ini, or autoexec.bat; both very important to the informed individual, are read only. As Foolproof is a boot sector program, it is often impossible to boot into ms-dos, to change file permissions. Ms-dos prompts are also restricted. Thus, if one wishes to alter such a file, do this: First, you can see the contents of the file- just open it in microsoft word (notepad is often disallowed;-) and save it as a txt file. Take it home, and make the necessary alterations, careful not to do damage(!!!!), make a backup, and (heres the funny part) upload it to an online drive- you know- a free hard drive on the internet such as www.xdrive.com. If you just brought the file into school on a disk, you couldnt move it into the folder to replace the existing file, or use any other method to switch them, but, when downloading files, one is given the option of REPLACING EXISTING FILES! Jackpot. Now, you can make those changes to run your C++ compiler, winword.exe (wink wink), without typing in that whole long ms-dos command. Yes yes, there are more malicious uses for such system file editing, but we wont do that. We're hackers.

-Fooling with Foolproof-

Now, I have never done this myself, and i certainly cannot condone a course of action which would harm a system, but there are ways to actually remove foolproof, or "0wN" it, if you will. These vary from subtle editing, to simple overwriting or removing.

First of all, with some programs, it is possible to simply ctrl-alt-delete and close the program- not so with foolproof. If you see it as an available program, it will not end if you close it. Worth a try though.

The next thing you do requires some research. The default directory for Foolproof is C:\Sss, so look around- you will find some .vxd files, and other interesting material. Look around. I never went so far as to actually edit these, but one could easily use the way of editing system files shown above to rewrite these to his/her liking. Among the files you will find are several .ini files detailing programs which are allowed- and other interesting permission material.

If you wanted to, you could just make a blank .vxd file, with the same name, and replace the existing virtual device drivers of foolproof, so that they no longer preform their intended functions. In fact, you could completely eliminate the system this way. Unfortunatly, there will undoubtably be unforseen side effects of this, and do so at your own risk (or better yet, dont).

Using the methods outlined above, I decided that the best way for me to obtain full access of the schools Client/server NT network, was to install a keylogger. Sure, how lame. Maybe so, but they certainly serve a purpose. I could have downloaded a crappy program, but i went top of the line, and actually bought (not cracked- programmers need to eat also) a program called "International Keylogger Stealth," by Amecisco Ind., available at ameciso.com, or Keylogger.com. This program, herein after referred to as "iks" was perfectly tailered to my needs. It was a boot sector program, and instead of using an automatic installer, you could install it just by downloading the .vxd file to the windows\system folder, and then an edited system.ini file (see below) with 2 entries added. Then, you just place a file called iks.dat, or anything else .dat somewhere on the comp, and specify the name and path in system.ini. This way, the .vxd file logs every keystroke, including NT login passwords in an encyrped form to the dat file. If someone were to open the dat file in winword or notepad, it would be unreadable, displaying random characters. However, if you upload the .dat file to your drive and download it at home, and then you run a program called datview.exe, which decyrpts it and reveals all contained within. Now, you can use other usernames or even admins passwords to have more fun. The golden fleece of this method is if you can get an admins to run foolproof's .exe program, which after prompted for a password, one can edit the configuration of foolproof. If you get this, you can do whatever you want. Also, this way you get all the benifits of keyloggers on public terminals, including the devious dial-up passwords, and other acoount information. But dont mis-use it. After all. We're hackers.

The System.ini installation.

1. There are two files you should know about:
   vikxd.vxd --- the virtual device driver that logs all keystrokes
   datview.exe --- the translator to generate the text file from binary log
2. Let's suppose that you want iks to log to c:\kitkat\kitkat1.dat, here is what you can do:
   1. Copy vikxd.vxd to c:\windows\system;
   2. Edit c:\windows\system.ini, in [386Enh] section, add two entries
      "device=vikxd.vxd" and "VikxdLog=c:\kitkat\kitkat1.dat". So it looks
      like:
      ......
      [386Enh]
      (other entries)
      (other entries)
      device=vikxd.vxd
      VikxdLog=c:\kitkat\kitkat1.dat
      ......
   3. Reboot.

written by TixO
version 1.0