Pranking...

[Eiredrake]

One thing you pranksters out there don't seem to realize is that screwing with someone's computer /isn't/ funny. If you're in the middle of working on an important document that's going to net your company $100,000 do you think you'll be laughing if some little punk with some VB experience simulates the Blue Screen of Death and causes you to lose the entire document back to your last save?

Or if someone is screwing around with a computer's setup and manages to park the hard disk while it is still spinning. Is that funny? No, it's not funny. It rates right up there with Keying someone's car. It may be funny to you, but if it ever happened to you you wouldn't like it. I've never been spoofed, but I've had viri do some strange things to my computer, and I've had one deflate my HDD and completely destroy it. Spoofing and viruses AREN'T funny, they're destructive and there's nothing funny about destroying someone's livelyhood.

Eiredrake

Absolutely god-damn right!

I agree totally with everything you said.

Perhaps we could get together with the administrators to outlaw all posts relating to hacking/viruses etc...

does this sound like a good idea or is it overkill?

[seaweed]

Blue screen of death type pranks are not funny. Pranks that may lead someone to reboot their machine or that delete necessary (or actually ANY) files from someone's drive are not funny.

There are some pranks that might be amusing without being harmful, however. I would suggest that if you want to make a prank program, make one that does no harm and reveals itself as a prank in a timely fashion. Then give it to a friend and watch their reaction. Don't try to pull pranks over the internet or other networks.

I fear that the more pranks that are pulled over networks, the more people will try to enforce restrictions (as was mentioned by wossname), and the less freedom we will all have.

With freedom comes responsibility. Let's not abuse it!!!

[REM]

I agree about the pranks that could cause massive data loss, and I'm not up for that... But hey, what's life without a little fun? :) :) :)

BTW, for you newbie bandits out there, here is some more source you will find of interest, for your little pranks etc :)


Sub Main()
Dim X
Do

X = Msgbox("Do you like S Club 7? Cmon now, don't lie!", vbYesNo + vbdefaultButton1 + vbQuestion, "Do you?")

Loop until X = vbYes
x = Msgbox("Nice 1!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "Nice 1!")
end
End Sub


I will post more amusing newbie code sploits when i get the chance... or maybe not.
Laterz

REM

you shouldnt outlaw all posts regarding hacking,
well it depends if it is REAL "hacking".
the real kind is actually finding information, and/or doing something really cool on the computer, figuring out how and why things work.
if we outlawed all posts regarding real hacking we would have to close everything but the chithcat forum down!
because figuring out how to do something in vb is hacking!

but I do agree about the pranks, the blue screen of death IS NOT FUNNY!
it is a horrible horrible prank,

ohhh look at me, I am the Kewlezt person in diz forum bcuz i made some guy think hiz computer wuz fu**ed up, hehe, LOLz. and he lozt all hiz workz hehe, he lozt 5 thouzand dollarz bcuz I screwed with him.. hehe...


REM:
FYI when using the infamous "z" I am not making fun of you

As some of you stated, there is a difference between pranks and Real Hacking. When you talk C++, you talk hacking. When you talk VB, you talk about people who loop through annoying code.

Another thing. REM is right. You guys should lighten up. Nobody in the forum is crazy enough to make a virus for the purpose of harming others.

[seaweed]

Of course, it depends on what your definition of hacking is. If it means doing irreperable damage to someone else's computer, then you CAN do that with VB.

As to the statement:

Nobody in the forum is crazy enough to make a virus for the purpose of harming others

Megatron, maybe you didn't see this quote from another post...

Once upon a time a young websurfer/vb programmer (I) was reading this veryyyy forum. Then some one farted (no thats not it). Then his computer froze he tried pushing the off button but it wouldn't respond even to that, he then proceeded to pull out the cord then he returned to the forum then his pc crashed again - and thennnnnnnnnn he thought how can I recreate this on someone elses pc
.

AND THIS IS WHY I WANNA KNOW HOW TO RECREATE THE DAMN(blue) SCREEN OF (shhh) DEATH!


The above quote is from:
http://forums.vb-world.net/showthread.php?threadid=20446

Now, I realize that he probably had a problem with his local machine or browser, but he is implying that he does, in fact, want to create a "virus" for the purpose of harming others! (again, depends on your definition of "harm").

~seaweed

[REM]

REM:
FYI when using the infamous "z" I am not making fun of you


Iz alwayz usez zedz whenz iz speakz inz publicz forumz. Uz lotz gotz anyz problemz wiz zat?


No, i just always put a Z on the end of laterz form some reason. Just the way it is when me and me chums are chatting(and no, i don't think I'm some 3l33t haX0r D00d)

Laterz

REM(z) :) :) :)

[Eiredrake]

I don't agree that we should outlaw any type of post. Information is a tool and the tool should be free. Information is not evil, it's what someone does with it that is evil. If I give a chimpanzee a nuclear weapon and he blows up Washington DC, I don't blame either the Chimpanzee nor the nuclear weapon I blame myself. I don't think that we should outlaw posts because anything that we do on here could be used for legitmate and beneficial purposes. At the same time We should all realize that acting like a 4 year old isn't a good thing. Responsibility and maturity is something that is needed in a programmer.

As far as hacking, hacking involves breaking into proprietary systems for reasons of your own. Either you just want to know what's in there, or you want to prove you can do it, or you plan to do damage, steal guarded information or whatever. Writing a program is not hacking, writing a program is called Programming. If this program is then used to break into a proprietary system, then the act of doing that is called Hacking.

Back from my days in the BBS arena, what has been propsed here was called Spoofing. Ie: Creating bogus programs that make people thing something bad is happening. This is no better than creating a trojan horse virus that damages someone's PC.

I'm all for humor. But I don't think it's funny to screw with something that cost $2000 or so to buy. It's about as funny as Spoofing the Doctor into thinking the EEG readout of a patient is flatlining so that he injects the person with adrenalin to 'save' him and ends up killing the patient.

Joke yourself, joke your friends but keep it off my PC.

Eiredrake

seaweed

Well I never actually realized there was some crazy person on here. What I was refering to was harmless pranks like the 10,000 MessageBoxes which can easily be terminated with Ctrl+Alt+Del.

[seaweed]

by the way, you might check the spelling of "consider" in your province of knowledge... :)

OK, fair enough don't outlaw posts, but I think Denniswrenn (among others) has to seriously rethink his definition of HACKING.

He said:
figuring out how to do something in vb is hacking!

What the hell are you talking about. Are you saying that all the posts on this site are about hacking? I find that a bit insulting personally.

He also says that hacking is doing something really cool on a computer.

Denniswrenn, thank god you haven't got access to my PC.

[REM]

Lighten up PLEASE!!!!!! what is life without a 'little' fun? jeezus. cmon guys, you've all probably been working on databases for too long... ;)

Later(z)

REM

you think being hacked is fun?

ok.. so I was a little tired when I wrote that post(it was right after graduation, I had to stand up for 3 hours straight)

so wossname, whats your definition of hacking?

you could have CORRECTED ME before you FLAMED me.

so from what I gather so far you think being hacked is having your computer broken into, and your stuff destroyed?

you have been using sub7 too long, I know about 3 people who are professional hackers, they are not on this board though, and I am not authorized to give out there ICQ numbers without their permission.

and if you ask; quite a few people will say that TRUE hacking is NOT breaking into OTHER peoples computers and destroying stuff.

and maybe figuring something out in VB isnt hacking, because its so easy, but something like ASM is hacking, because you are taking something HARD and figuring out how to do it, and why it works!!!!!!
and if this definition is wrong TELL ME before you get MAD at me...

what would i do to your PC?
ooooh I would take a look at some source code, real harmful, what do you think? I would delete something?
I am NOT LIKE THAT!!
I just like visual basic, and MONEY, I dont like harming other people.

As I said before. Some of you should lighten up. I don't think anyone on this fourm is capable of making a deadly virus on Assembly. You do not need to be in fear for your PC because of these people.

All they want is a little information. Even if they did say they want to hack, they are probably only little kids that don't have 1 clue of what to do.

Denniswrenn, you say you know Professional Hackers.
What do they do in that job?

Is it Legal?

Perhaps a better definition of hacking is this:

Any form of programming that leads to intentional acts of illegitimate subterfuge, spreading of confusion, harm, be it physical damage or loss / corruption / theft of data media.

Would that be agreeable to most people?

[flame_211]

There is a code that will completely hide u in the ctrl+alt+delete thing. that way u cant terminate it.

it is:
App.TaskVisible = False

that is all u need to get rid of the program in the ctrl+alt+delete thing


http://angelfire.com/nm/VbAolDominance

[nitrolic2]

Well actually when I was thinking of the blue screen of death i didnt want to screw up some developers $100,000 database ok!?

Our website is going to be against pranking on people you don't know but rather more type of practical jokes so that people can have some fun! AND IF SOME ONE ON THIS FORUM/VISITOR TO OUR SITE(still under contstruction) IS STUPID ENOUGH TO DELETE A DATABASE WORTH $100,000 THEN HERE IS WHAT THEY SHOULD DO:

go to start>settings>control panel>add remove programs> find visual basic (the compiler) and click add/remove


Oh and hacking, thats the reason I started programming (should have started in C++)

BUT THEN I REALIZED HACKING IS A BAD SPORT

Nitrolic, have you ever heard the term, "Downtime" ?

It can cost companies thousands of pounds if a server or even just one workstation is forced to unecessarily shut down.

I cannot believe you people can defend such activity.

I was reading up on this sort of thing, did you know that disruptive computer hacking falls under the category of terrorism.

There is no need to make these prank programs, what do you get out of it...you spend an hour writing it, you send it to a friend via email or whatever, they open it because it is from a friend. They spend twenty minutes being angry that they cannot get on with their work. If they are at work, then their boss starts breating down their neck because the network has slowed down (for example)... your friend eventually gets warned about hoax emails, and eventually fired when you send them another.

Do us all a favour, why don't you use your programming skills to make yourself some money, I bet you will find that prospect infinitely more rewarding than screwing up people's time.

[REM]

hey u guys, just reading this post reminded me of the time I made a program that changed my mates wallpaper to a picture of Slipknot! HAHAH he is a drum and bass freak, and he hates metal. It was so funny. Anyway, what i did was put the bitmap of the slipknot logo in a resource file and change the wallpaper using the following code:


Option Explicit

Public Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32" Alias "SystemParametersInfoA" (ByVal uAction As Long, ByVal uParam As Long, ByVal lpvParam As Any, ByVal fuWinIni As Long) As Long

Public Const SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20
Public Const SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = &H2
Public Const SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = &H1


Public Sub Main()
Dim intRet As Integer

Dim strFilename As String
Dim strTemp As Integer
Dim bytArr() As Byte

'Load the slipknot picture :D lol
bytArr = LoadResData(101, "CUSTOM")

strFilename = "C:\Windows\slip.bmp"

Open strFilename For Binary As #1
Put #1, , bytArr
Close #1

Call SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER, 0, strFilename, SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE Or SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE)

intRet = MsgBox("Check your wallpaper mate! :D :D :D S|_ipKn0t Rule!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAH D & B IS SHITEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!", vbOKOnly + vbCritical + vbDefaultButton1, "S|_IpKn0t Rule! HAHAHAH")
End
End Sub


That is a joke, as is the stuff we are talking about. when you lot go on about loosing databases and downtime etc, you are not talking about jokes, you are talking about intentional damage caused by people with problems. we are just programmers up for a laugh, not damaging systems.

Have fun :)

Later(z)

REM

MY PRANKS WILL NOT HARM A SINGLE FILE ON YOUR SYSTEM
MAYBE PRETEND TO BUT THEY WILL NEVER EVER HARM YOUR SYSTEM!


Some people don't know how to work a computer though. All they know is how to get into a simple Word Processor and type something up. If you were to send one of your pranks to one of these people, they would have no clue of what to do.

[Phobic]

I'd just like to say I don't know why this post was started, but I know and agree on the basis that a virus is no fun. I used to have little funny programs that would let me package them up and mail them to whoever I wanted just for shits and giggles. Well, one day, the joke was on me. Wowee did it suck, everything was gone, nothing important, just a huge annoying waste of time and plenty of bitching to go around. From that point on, I decided I'd never make one, and I've been asked plenty of times!

When I think of a virus, I think of code that in some way damages or inhibits the computer, leading to the restart of the machine or ultimately the reformatting of the machine (fellas, in VB, it's not that hard to do this! You just need to know what to delete or change, and for someone who knows nothing about computers is screwed! Even if they know something, they're still a little screwed... computers are very vulnerable past that friendly plastic exterior).

When I think of a prank, I think of something stupid and pretty funny, like the two stupid code examples posted here. Those won't do any damage at all, but they'll sure be funny (to look at).

SO... be nice! Don't make what you think is a prank, and someone else has no idea what to do but reformat.