BackTrack5 Released !!

This new revision has been built from scratch, and boasts several major improvements over all previous releases.Based on Ubuntu Lucid LTS. Kernel 2.6.38, patched with all relevant wireless injection patches. Fully open source and GPL compliant. BackTrack 5 comes in several flavors and architectures.

BackTrack5 Codename "Revolution" this time comes with GNOME Desktop Environment for the first time. There is a whole lot of architectures to chose from e.g arm, x86, x86_64 and also there is a choice between Virtual Image and ISO download. I am particularly excited about the GNOME Environment x86 architecture, going to try it soon.

Grab Yourself a Copy at --->> http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

Ping Sweeping in BackTrack !!!

While many of us use "Nmap" to ping sweep a network, there is also "fping" and "nbtscan" which when combined can give pretty fast result. There are many better ways to ping sweep this is just one way to do it.

Using fping is easy just refer the man page. Following is an example

CODE
# fping -a -g 10.18.1.0/24 2>/dev/null
10.18.1.66
10.18.1.77

This usage gives all the live host. For querying Netbios service to get the names of the Windows machine on your network use :

CODE
# nbtscan  10.18.1.1-254
Doing NBT name scan for addresses from 10.18.1.1-254

IP address       NetBIOS Name     Server    User             MAC address      
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.18.1.66       AAA-PC          <server>  <unknown>        00:1e:ce:90:ab:8c

Many other ways to do ping-sweep a network with minimum packet generation e.g using "Scapy" or just go with Nmap.

NOTE :: These are not expert views. on contrary these are something a newbie is  picking up.

Reliance NETCONNECT 1x CDMA stick in Ubuntu 10.04 !

Recently after getting 3G stick from Micromax work under Ubuntu, One of my friend asked me to connect his Reliance NetConnect 1x (CDMA based dongle) on Ubuntu.

I basically followed the steps as earlier for Micromax stick and got hit by a bummer when sakis3g script  tells the device has no GSM capabilities, even after using -noprobe switch there was some issue of "PIN".

So after that i tried a simple method. Execute the sakis3g script & switch modem

dex@dex-desktop:~$sudo ./sakis3g --interactive "verbose"

Then go for " more options > Only switch modem(if applicable)>USB device> HT CDMA device"

After the modem is switched the Network Manager App in Ubuntu(on top right of panel) shows a "new broadband connection" available. Click on that select Reliance as the operator.

Before connecting using this new connection you'll have to enter your "user:password" combination by right-clicking the
Network App> Edit Connections>Mobile Broadband > Reliance Connection.

["user:password" for netconnect is just a 8 digit no. you got while you purchased your dongle. Enter the same no. for both ]

Now you are ready just left-click on Network App and then "Reliance Connection" connects you....

NOTE::  usb_modeswitch can also be used to switch the modem (can try that too).

apt-fast--- faster apt-get installations !!!

When I  see new upgrades or updates available for my Ubuntu distribution i go for them instantly, unfortunately it takes a whole lot time to update using "apt-get" mainly because it doesn't create parallel download connections.
After a bit Googling i came across a cool script named apt-fast by Matt Parnell which can be found here (most recent one with name "apt-fast.sh"). Just download it.

Make it executable and owned by root and then move it to /usr/bin by issuing following commands on terminal::

dex@dex-desktop:~$ sudo -i

sudo password for dex:
root@dex-desktop:~#whoami

root

root@dex-desktop:~# chown root:root apt-fast.sh

root@dex-desktop:~#chmod u+x apt-fast.sh

root@dex-desktop:~#mv ./apt-fast.sh /usr/bin/apt-fast

root@dex-desktop:~# ls -l /usr/bin/apt-fast
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 2072 2011-04-09 15:14 /usr/bin/apt-fast

Note that apt-fast uses same options and commands as apt-get but is faster. For example

root@dex-desktop:~#apt-fast upgrade


P.S. :: If your distro doesn't have axel package then the script apt-fast does it for you. Axel is a light download accelerator for Linux. You can play with axel too.

Extracting META DATA from Photographs !!

Recently, I read a nice blog somewhere about "How" a person caught someone who was posting offensive pictures to a social-networking site using the EXIF Data stored in a photograph to get the GPS location of the offender.
I looked around and found that my BackTrack R2 has got a perfect tool to strip metadata in /pentest/misc directory called "exiftool". You would be surprised as how much information does the smartphones are storing in the photographs you click.(Have plenty if these pics @ facebook of my friends with smartphones)

How to use the tool ?? Well there is a README file.

Or you can just fire the tool like this

root@bt /pentest/misc/exiftool # ./exiftool  <path of image>

Following is a screenshot showing its usage

The Pic shows the camera used is of make "Motorola" , well this is just a snippet of the information the tool also gives GPS location as shown below in another screenshot. See the first few lines.

WARNING !! This tool is used in Forensics and Reconnaissance work on a target. So don't use it to stalk people.

Micromax 3G sticks in Ubuntu (Debian based distro)!!

MICROMAX 310G USB stick in Ubuntu 9.10

Recently tried to use  Micromac310G with my installed BackTrack4 R2 (Ubuntu based distro). But the distro detects it as a CD-ROM.
Read a lot of forums and googled the problem and it came to my knowledge that Ubuntu 10.10 supports these Modems. So , I had one option of updating my whole distro. But I decided to follow it on my current distro and i came across a nice blog which explains most of the process which requires a bit patience and requires basic Linux knowledge. Link is  here

Or for Ubuntu 10.04 and newer version can just try the sakis3g script which can be found here.
After downloading the script execute it with root privileges

root#./sakis3g  --interactive "verbose"

and then  the process is pretty explanatory.


P. S. :: sakis3g script requires usb_modeswitch, so if your Ubuntu doesn't have it   then go for the Full version of sakis3g script. Otherwise Binary free version works fine with already installed usb_modeswitch.