Trying to create some Spy Code

[SolidState]

I'm not trying to criticize in a negative way but I kind of felt it important to mention that as far as espionage goes disabling the registry of the CD-ROM or whatever such solution to the 1 time view scenario is just unacceptable, as the media is still readable if placed in another machine, which the second time round could, knowing it'll fry the CD-ROM, redirect the output of the video to copy it.

So the Flash drive erase idea seems the best. Unless you could somehow access the CD-ROM to write over the data and make it unreadable. I would imagine you could gain access through whatever OS's device manager, but I really don't know much about direct hardware programming.

Just saying if we're being authentic spy types, data must be unreadable after use across multiple systems. 'This message will self destruct in..' style.

[Aereshaa]

I had an idea that would certainly work on unix, i dunno about windows. Nevertheless, how I would do this is by having the batch file check whether a hidden file exists somewhere obscure in the tree, and if it does not, play the video, and create the file. Could this be done?

[CharlesHutchsky]

Originally Posted by SolidState

...as far as espionage goes disabling the registry of the CD-ROM or whatever such solution to the 1 time view scenario is just unacceptable, as the... data must be unreadable after use across multiple systems. 'This message will self destruct in..' style.

I totally agree with that, which is why I want to try to isolate the effects/destruction to the CD itself. However, if that is impossible, and a flash drive is necessary for an autonomous self-destructing program (which Aereshaa essentially solved with this code), I plan on at least being able to make it look *like* that is actually what happened; my intentions are to (in "if not-then" style):

1. Create an autonomous CD that successfully self-corrupts; no effect to system
2. Create a CD that, when run, forbids repeat plays; effect on system is residual code/keys that *could* technically impact performance, but likely would not be noticeable
3. Create a CD that when run, makes changes that require technical knowledge to reverse; effects on system are noticeable and will require removal

Which leads me to...

Originally Posted by Aereshaa

... having the batch file check whether a hidden file exists somewhere obscure in the tree, and if it does not, play the video, and create the file. Could this be done?

I hit upon that thought too, where a key would be created in the registry that *doesn't* attack the CD-ROM drive (a la my second choice), but creates a reg key with a value of 0 that increases by 1 (to a maximum of 1) when the video is played. Then, once the value is maxed, it denies the system the ability to play the video file. I believe it can be done - just like trial software that expires after X days/hours of use - but I don't know how.

Well, "yet" anyways...

[MeTh0Dz|Reb0rn]

Check out the abswrite() function. It allows you to write directly to a disk sector. It may or may not do the trick.

I've been kind of busy, but I'll keep looking around.

[CharlesHutchsky]

You may be on to something... I'll keep looking into it, but when I was looking into the details of how it writes (DOS interrupt 0x26) and whether it is compatible with and could absolute write onto a CD, I noticed that, for abswrite(), "64K is the largest amount of memory that can be written in a single call."

I know that some media programs have a certain degree of tolerance for corruption in media files (assume only scenarios are VLC/WMP), so if we find that we can corrupt the CD without third party software, we may have to determine how much we would need to corrupt for it to render the media ineffective. I mean, if the file is 10 mb/10 000 kb or so, that's just over 150 64kb segments to corrupt/times we would need to call this command if we do the whole thing. I'm unfamiliar with just how much more efficient C is than the languages I'm familiar with, so does anyone think this would be worth noting? Or is it pretty much negligible (and I should really just go learn more about C already)?

Regardless, for now I say we cross that bridge when we get there...

[MeTh0Dz|Reb0rn]

Just learn C, I'll be more inclined to help you then to.

Also a lot of it depends on where exactly we write it to the CD. If we **** up the correct area we won't have to corrupt that much.

[CharlesHutchsky]

For sure. I'll go through some tutorials first so I can at least understand how to read it... that shouldn't take *too* long.

Though, for the purposes of getting this project up and running, I might just use a .bat file to run the media file, wait a bit, and then execute the C code just because that's what I know how to do. After all, the only important part that really needs to run without any interruptions (and therefore needs to be the most efficient) is the corruption stage, so the .bat file can be as inefficient and clunky as it wants until it passes of the reins to the C section (minus the baby).

For the purposes of the tutorial though, I'll try to look a little deeper into C to see if I can keep the number of pieces to the package down to 2: the media file and the C file. No guarantees though... I know C is a pretty complicated language to learn.

[MeTh0Dz|Reb0rn]

This is what I think would probably work....

Embed the video file in the C program, have the C program launch the video file, then after that use abswrite() to corrupt the PE header.

What do you think of that?

[marwex89]

I, think it sounds like a good idea, but you weren't asking me...

[CharlesHutchsky]

The PE header... that would corrupt the part of the file that tells the program where all the file parts are located/how many there are, yes?

I think that is a very good idea, and I like the idea of having the video file embedded as opposed to using a .bat file to point at everything separately, but I am still not sure if "DOS interrupt 0x26" functionality works on a CD medium as well. I will also need a bit of time to learn how to write it all in C. "Absolute" is pretty definitive, and it's a good sign that it ignores file systems and the like, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will work in practice. I guess there's only one way to find out...

I assume I will also need a program to determine the exact location of the PE header in the video file/on the CD as well. Recommendations?