Have you ever seen those computers with a nice GUI that prompts you to pay $/€ .... , an hour for internet access. You know, those things in libraries, or internet-cafe's.

I noticed that those 'security systems' are usually nothing more than a few Internet explorer tweaks. So, i thought of a way to defeat them, what quite succeeded because I've seen quite a lot of those systems and till today I managed to get around them.

Usually those systems are nothing more a maximized (full screen) Internet Explorer page, with Info on it about the rates or something else. What you first might want to know are the basic shortcuts for IE e.g.

F1 = Internet Explorer help !!
Shift + Click = Open link in new page
Ctrl + h = history

Attempt 1.

a lot of the times F1 wil just do fine. After pressing f1, click around untill you get into the internet options page. The go to 'connections' and see if there's a proxy specified (somewhere in LAN settings), if that's the case, just check out that option and you're done.
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A proxy-connection is something like this.

Your computer -> proxy server -> webserver

And here's a standard connection (simplified)

Your computer -> webserver
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If you request a webpage through a proxy, you tell the proxy to fetch you that page and send it to you (something like a shield). That way, the proxy can decide to get the page for you or not. If you don't pay up, the proxy won't let you through, that's it.

This scenario is quite common, but of course, somtimes the 'Internet Options' are locked up, so you can't reach them.

MAKE SURE TO SET THE PROXY TO ACTIVE AGAIN AFTER YOU ARE DONE

Attempt 2.

Remember the new window short cut? Wel.... Use it. After you get a new window, go to 'view' -> 'explorer bar' and then something like 'folders' or something (I'm not very sure because I have the Dutch version of Windows XP).

Anyway, you'll see a bar on your left, with a standard 'Your Computer' structure with folders , drives and stuff. Then get to the 'desktop' folder. Check the 'file' menu again , you'll notice the standard things you'll see when you right-click on your desktop.

Make a new shortcut to command.com OR c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe, these are executables for MS-DOS (Oohh blessed that good old dos). Run it and you'll see a dos prompt. Now do type the following:

- ftp
- o
- ftp.mozilla.org
- login with anonymous (password = an email adress just make it up)
- lcd c: (make sure you fill in a directory you can write to c:, or c:\temp , whatever)
- get "pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0/win32/en-US/Firefox 1.0.zip"
- close
- exit

this will download the browser firefox onto the computer, as some of you might know, this is a opensource browser. Because firefox doesn't require an install and doesn't copy Internet Explorers Proxy settings, just unpack it and run it. Easy as that. (of course any other NOT M$ depending browser will do Opera, Netscape etc etc)

MAKE SURE YOU DELETE THE BROWSER(S) AFTER YOU'RE DONE

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I was planning to reveal 3 tricks, but it's getting late now....

But before I quit, here's some of my experience with those pay-systems (systems I managed to get free internet access on)

- Computers at local libraries, 4 times, (they changed it three times) + some other libaries makes 6
- Computers at airport and subway stations in Hong Kong
- Computers at hotel in Paris.

The main reason why i do it is just because of the fun. I see those things as a puzzle that must be solved.

Of course, why would you want to know this. I don't know. Maybe it will be usefull to you. Or just use it to impress your friends



NOTE : If you want to try these things, I'm not responsible if you get busted by an old library lady

NOTE 1,5 : Above things work about 80% of the time. The other 20% is possible too.

NOTE 2 : These things CAN'T be considered hacking, IT'S NOT. It's just a little playing with the settings.

Haha You've got some style!!! All my life I dreamed to get rid of that "You still have 5 more minutes" banner. I just wanted to know if lets say they have an external program running the security system and saying the "You still have 5 more minutes" catch phrase?
I'm guessing the trick about downloading Mozilla will work for this. Will it?

I love stuff like this, bending the settings and such. I try to do this at my school and its fun. Getting past the no start button or explorer is always pretty fun.

Wouldnt someone at the library or cafe see you though? Then you'd get caught and they'd ban you.

@Techocian : It will probably work .

@JaredLeto : Well... you know.... They know and they don't mind too. But i don't think i should tell them that i can print for free too (A)

what if the command promt is blocked by GPO's and/or say WinForcer?

Then we can do three things.

One : Create a registry key setting that disables the dos-disabler in the registry (Win 98, havent tested it on Win XP/2000 yet) HKEY_LOCALMACHINE or LOCAL USER/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/policies/winoldap/... etcetc

Two : We check if the proxy doesn't forget about going to ftp:// sites... since a few proxies have the tendency to forget about that.

Three : create a shortcut that links to ftp://server.org/downloadablefile.exe. It worked for me on proxied servers with ftp blocking sometimes, its really weird. Don't really know why it could happen.

The best way to prevent causual (unsophisticated) users from editing the registry is to create this key:

When regedit is started it clooses with a security warning.

It's a little more involved if you block remote access to edit the registry.

Nils

i can easily write a program to edit the registry too.

It's hundreds of them out there so I don't doubt you. Turning off remote edit and set the permissions will make it a lot more difficult

Disable Remote Registry Editing on windowsnetworking.com

Any computer you have physical access to can be hacked

Nils