The Laptop from Hell

[astcell]

Thios thread here: http://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?t=6469 gave me an idea.

Imagine a contest where the competitors try to mess up a laptop as bad as possible. Maybe segment the hard drive into the maximum number of partions, make every key go BOING when pressed. I am sure we have all been possessed by spyware to the point of frustration, so imagine doing this on purpose!

Some ideas on IRC had me rolling in laughter. If I am at DC14 I would be happy to see this. Of course the contest needs a prize, maybe all the beer from the cooling contest? :>

Well I have a while to think of something. This sounds fun. How much can YOU hack up a laptop for an unsuspecting user?

Example:
All of the above link plus:
Have a 6GB wallpaper image
Remap the keyboard
Set the NIC speed to 256k simplex

I would think all laptops should be at least 1GHz and 256MB RAM so that it is the user's abilities that slow it down, not the hardware. Any script kiddie can disable services and make the laptop a pile of plastic. Can you disable it with skill, finesse and panache? Opinions?

[Toothpaste]

I like this idea.

How many of us here have at some point or the other corrected others when they 'accuse' us of fixing everything with: "No, I just break things around, sorry to disappoint" ?

More examples:
-Add a shutdown script in the startup folder
-In Nix, add a folder named '*' in ~/. It's a folder, so it will need an -r flag to delete. ;-)
-Add those old highschool DOS recreations in BASIC.

[TheCotMan]

If we had such a contest, I think spyware makers would try to recruit them to make even more annoying software. :-P

Funny concept for a contest. :-)

[AlxRogan]

Along with the previous stuff, create .bat or .sh files in the system path, depending on the platform for commonly typed mis-typed utitlies that do the opposite or seek to piss off the user. I know that I'm always fat-fingering stuff like tcpdump, xmms, etc.

[Siviak]

setting the cache to 0
remapping the orientation of the mouse

I assume that this is a plan to just screw up a laptop and no just make it not work? I'm in for this one :)

[astcell]

The laptop would have to function, once the user figures out stuff like the mouse orientation (good one).

We can think of things we have to be able to accomplish, albeit slowly and with much difficulty. Maybe we need to get to a command prompt in under 5 minutes, or successfully download a file. It is easy to kill it, we don't wannt do there however. We just want to make its use very painful and totmenting. With that last sentence, I think it needs to run Windows too. :>

[converge]

It could actually be a two-part contest.

On one side you have contenders trying to build the most functioning yet difficult to use Windows laptop.

On the other side, you have contenders wielding their might and abilities to navigate through various tasks on the system faster than others. As a weak example, a system that loads with IE continuously popping up new browser windows via javascript. The savvier contenstant would instantly know to try and kill the process to continue through his maze of pain. Knowledge of shortcuts and manuevering would be required to do well on more difficult systems.

Heck, the maze could even be constructed to focus on physical and logical security issues. Continuing on the previous example, a hidden script that runs every so many seconds to perform the above-mentioned annoyance. Smart contestant would realize an IE config issue and fix that instead of just dealing with killing the process *every* time it happened. Or maybe they could be witty enough to escalate privs and kill the initial script....

One person wins for best 'worste' design... another person wins for the fastest time in surviving the gauntlet of broken systems, with more difficult systems weighted for more scoring value.

[astcell]

So instead of playing DOOM ~ON~ the computer, you play it ~WITH~ the computer!

[che]

I think we already did that last year.. twinvega left his laptop with us... logged in with admin rights...
/me wonders if he ever found all the stuff we did... :biggrin:

[allentrace]

Have a 6GB wallpaper image?

I made a gif wallpaper that uses 24 colors flashing by rapidly on your screen. Pretty sure it might cause a seizure in some people.

[Beginner]

Example:
All of the above link plus:
Have a 6GB wallpaper image
Remap the keyboard
Set the NIC speed to 256k simplex


Where would i get such a big image?

I remember having a 1.4 GB image, it was on a machine with 256 MB of ram...
tried to load it in IE and I heard a loud pop. I rebooted and it only had 128 MB left on it. I fried a ram stick.:shock:
Good thing it wasnt my machine. :biggrin:

[TheCotMan]

Where would i get such a big image

Well, you could always make one.

I just fired up the gimp and built an image with just a white background that was some insanely large resolution, saved it as a .tif (uncompressed) and the file was 2304003292. The GIMP swap file was ~5.5GB to save that image. With a larger resolution, a 6GB file should be possible. An even larger resolution should make a huge bitmap possible too.

Side note: applying bzip2 to this 2.3GB image reduced it to 2882 bytes. Yeah... less than 3 kB compressed with bzip2... lots of repeated data with an all white image saved as a tiff.

[allentrace]

Well, you could always make one.

I just fired up the gimp and built an image with just a white background that was some insanely large resolution, saved it as a .tif (uncompressed) and the file was 2304003292. The GIMP swap file was ~5.5GB to save that image. With a larger resolution, a 6GB file should be possible. An even larger resolution should make a huge bitmap possible too.

Side note: applying bzip2 to this 2.3GB image reduced it to 2882 bytes. Yeah... less than 3 kB compressed with bzip2... lots of repeated data with an all white image saved as a tiff.

Or in Photoshop set your pixels to inches and go crazy with some huge png saved as a jpeg with as many progressive scans as you can get

[astcell]

Where would i get such a big image?


You haven't seen my camera. :>

[allentrace]

You haven't seen my camera. :>
I remember you telling me how much your camera and all of its accessories cost and it was almost as much as my car. But hey it takes amazing pictures.

[Voltage Spike]

I remember you telling me how much your camera and all of its accessories cost and it was almost as much as my car. But hey it takes amazing pictures.

I'm guessing you own a Scion because I can't think of any other designer that would manufacture a car that takes pictures... :wink:

[Beginner]

My high-priced (2.5k with all accessories)camera is not digital, it is just a 35mm NIKON.

[TwinVega]

I think we already did that last year.. twinvega left his laptop with us... logged in with admin rights...
/me wonders if he ever found all the stuff we did... :biggrin:
haha, yea...
funny story really...it wasn't my laptop. :smile:
I won't name any names.....

[kryptonite0110]

If we had such a contest, I think spyware makers would try to recruit them to make even more annoying software. :-P

Funny concept for a contest. :-)

No i think we should recruit the spyware makers

With that last sentence, I think it needs to run Windows too. :>

i think it would be a lot more satisfying to mess up a nice *nix system, for all the times it did what i told it to do

ideas for an *nix system:
-install modules that freeze the machine
-make a blue screen of death (as one doesn't already exist)
-have a list of kernels in lilo that link to /dev/null with the name "linux-2.6.13["n"]"
so that the end user has to guess which kernel to use (because real users don't make boot disks)
-unplug the keyboard (if it's a laptop)

[skroo]

I'm keen on applying recommended procedures in ways they were never, ever intended to be used. Two that spring to mind immediately: remapping root's home directory to /var/empty - then denying console login. Also setting apache's htdocs directory to something fun like /dev/zero or /dev/urandom could be interesting.

Then there's always adding something like 'init 0' to rc.local, or appending 'logout' to .bash_profile...

[dataworm]

I'd say rename ls as dir, and change the prompt to c:\

[TheCotMan]

On a *NIX system, setup a chroot/newroot for post-boot for a CLI only where all commands exist by name, but map to either "kill -9 -0" or for commands requiring files, map to "rm -rf"

Then, maybe abuse ld preload with some apps to randomly call reboot.

[bascule]

How about the P-P-P-Powerbook (http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/)?

[astcell]

At this rate it is going to be a challenge to successfully install all these ideas without crashing yourself out!

[allentrace]

At this rate it is going to be a challenge to successfully install all these ideas without crashing yourself out!

Are you backing out of the challenge then?

[astcell]

Are you backing out of the challenge then?

Not at all. I hope to be grading it. :>

[IcEbLAze]

How about the P-P-P-Powerbook (http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/)?

This is one of the greatest bedtime stories ever.

[Ridirich]

In windows: Format the harddrive, then put a USBDrive in the side of the laptop and install Windows XP. It will set the harddrive as D. Remove the USBDrive and make sure to set the typing language to korean. Set the typing speed to sloooooow, but the curser speed to blink insanely fast. Set the mouse to slow as well, but the clicking speed to max. Oh, and if you plan on making the desktop image huge, make sure it's a hot chick. No one would think of getting rid of the hot chick ;)

[astcell]

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