Here’s a good question (I think):
I was sitting in IRC the other day, minding my own business, when a friend said “look what I can do.” – he then pasted information about my computer, including the name I registered Windows with. My question is this: Using a DNS or IP address, how can one possibly find out the name of the person who is using the computer? It’s, actually, kind of frightening. :\ I know many websites that allow you to look up an IP or DNS, but they just tell you who their internet provider is.
Most likely just sent you a variable that your computer replaces with your info – only you see it as your information. If he sent it to someone else, they would see their own info, etc.
What do you mean be “he pasted” info about you? Did he do this on your computer, or his? Is is something he sent to you?? If it the only place this info was displayed was on your computer, ask him to show your info on his computer, if he can’t you have nothing to worry about. If he can, I’d still guess, once your outside the network (ie other side of a/the firewall) he probably could’t redo it. Reminds me of old tricks from the days of BBS. I could send something to you that says “your password is $PW” but on your screen it would say “your password is BEANS.” I’ve also seen websites that claim to know what’s on your hard drive because they can run something that pulls up a directory of your HD, but I don’t think they can retreive that info, only display it.
I agree with the posters who sugges tthis is probably a parlor trick. But maybe not.
If you DON’T have a hardware firewall, and you DON’T have any firewalling software, AND you leave Pre-XP Windows in its default configuration, then that sort of info CAN be read by an outside computer as long as you’re online.
The standard settings on Win98 & WinME have file & printer sharing enabled for anonymous connections over NetBIOS. That greatly facilitates the “out-of-the-box” experience for a nonexpert trying to network a few PCs together in the days before the always-on internet. It makes networking very much “plug and play”.
But if someone knows your IP address from DNS, or simply scans across ranges of addresses looking for targets, then your NetBIOS may advertise it’s readiness to share with anyone who asks.
Not good.
For Win XP the anonymous sharing capability is still there but is turned off by default. However any number of setup programs or uninformed user tinkering can turn it back on again, leaving your machine wide open to the Universe.
For a lot more info on this issue, check out www.grc.com & read about “Shields-Up.” They also have a test that’ll have their server try to break into your box.
grc is “Gibson Research Corp”, and Steve Gibson was a contemporary & competitor of Peter Norton & the other DOS utility pioneers who, unlike Peter, never made it big. He’s reliable and his site is safe.
Hardware and/or software firewalls are usually set up to defeat this access, but even then they can be turned off or their settings diddled to allow this access. Testing from the outside is the only way to be sure.