B U R N - I N G ...or...How to work on a Kinko's %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%% % %%% Graphic Design Workstation %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %% %% %% ALL Day and Not Pay a Red Cent %%%% %% %%%%%% %%%% %% %% %% Plug Nickle or Thin Dime! %% %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %% %% Concept by Arcangel %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%% %%% Written by oleBuzzard -------------------------------------------------------------------02-FEB-96-- INTRO I like this one. In Colorado (where I live), Kinko's has been running this Ad Campaign: 'Have you been to Kinko's Lately?' This alludes to Kinkos' complete architecural and technological overhaul of their 'Consumer Branch Offices.' Kinko's in case you don't know, is a print related Business Services company that offers Corporate Quality Printing services for Small Business and your everyday Joe. Anyway, Kinko's is expanding, and every Kinko's in town has moved from Strip Mall shacks, to 4000+ Sq.ft. facilities, complete with bright lights, conference rooms, state of the art Copiers and Color Copiers, and, upgraded Self-service computers. Quite an improvement considering last year (1995), Kinko's offered just 2 each Mac LC IIs and IBM 486SX 30s with barely enough room to accomodate those. For '96, nothin but P-90s, PowerPCs and plenty of room! Awesome, huh? Well not exactly. I was there for the Grand Opening, and you should have seen my jaw drop when my eyes zeroed in on that Macinosh 9500 PowerPC 604 Graphics Workstation. I was like 'Cool!' I immediatley plopped my ass down in front of it and proceeded to work on a little Graphic Design job I was working on. You know it's funny how a little job can turn into a BIG job at the drop of hat when you're working on a computer. That 'little job' ended up takin four hours and 17 printous. Anyway, I was like 'Damn... oh well there's $30 bucks down the drain.' $30 bucks my ASS!..."HOW MUCH?!? $123.97?!!' I couldn't f---in' believe it. Kinko's computer rental rate USED to be $6.50/hour for any computer. To use that f---in' Workstation cost me $19.25/hour! Plus they charged me half price for each messed up Color printout. I was so pissed! I mean, it was cool Kinko's Expanded and Remodelled and stuff, but make no mistake...they did pass the cost onto the consumer. Anyway, I had been plotting my revenge ever since. Thank you Arcangel. DESK TRACY Arcangel is an up and commer in (303) who hipped me to how you can use those damn Kinko's Self-service computers for FREE! Kinko's uses an Accounting Package on their Macs called Desk Tracy. Basically Desk Tracy keeps an accounting of: * Hours, minutes, and seconds online * Pages printed * Actions performed The way Desk Tracy works is: when you get on one of Kinkos' self-service machines, you have to 'Login', and from that point forth, all time and printing is accounted. Once you're done, Desk Tracy sends a printout of charges to the Main Checkout Desk, and....they gotcha! As part of Desk Tracy's security: it protects against Restarts by keeping you you logged in and all of your charges added up if you fail to logout before Restarting. If you try and Restart with Extensions Off, it WON'T disable Desk Tracy. If you try and Delete anything from the computer, or try and alter the System Folder in anyway, i.e. drag something into it, or take something out of it, it will prevent you from doing so. And finally, you can't access the Desk Tracy Configuration (to override all of this protection) without a password. Not a bad little package. Thankfully, because of Arcangel's genius, there's a way around all of this sh#t. BURN BABY, BURN One of the most common ways of defeating protected Control Panels (AfterDark, SAM, Virex, etc), is to delete the Prefs. By deleting the Prefs you can effectivley remove a files protection because it's configuration is gone, and it's password is nulled out. Unfortunatley, some programs protect the Prefs file to prevent just this. In the case of Desk Tracy the Prefs file is protected in that, first off, nothing can be deleted from a 'Desk Tracy-ed' computers anyway. On top of that, Desk Tracy prevents anything from being moved into or out of the System Folder. So much for Deleting the Prefs or Restarting without them. Enter: Arcangel. Arcangel discovered that all though you can't Delete or move the Desk Tracy Prefs, you can BURN them! BURN 2.2 is, what's called, a File Wiper. File Wipers permanently destroy a file by writing over every sector of it with null data (0s). By this way of erasing a file, the file is not Deleted, it's physically written over. Wholey by coincedence (I suppose) this 'writing over' process circumvents the mechanics involved in Deleting a file (a process which simply takes a file out of the Desktop Database) and thereby DEFEATS protection against deleting files. Say good bye to Desk Tracy's protection. Steps: 1. Login to a Kinko's Self-service Mac and Insert your Disk with Burn on it 2. Open -> System Folder: Extensions: Desk Tracy Folder 3. Drag the files 'DTPreferences' and 'UData' onto the Burn 2.2 Icon. 4. Go up to the Menubar, you should see your Login name up there, drag down to 'Configuration' 5. Don't change anything, just click the Close Box and it will ask you if you want to Save. Click 'Yes' 6. Now go up to the Apple Option Menu and Select 'About Desk Tracy'. It should beep at you, and then show you the Desk Tracy 'About' Window. 7. By this process, you have just Returned Desk Tray to it's Virgin Installation State! All accounting is Off, and Desk Tracy is like it was when it was First installed, BEFORE it was configured! Now I tried this and it worked great! But I discovered one problem; Kinko's already (kinda) knows about this trick (I think). As part of the 'NEW' Kinkos' there's a Camera aimed from the ceiling at every other Computer, AND the Employees walk around looking over the shoulder of Self-service Computer patrons. This policy probably stems from fraudulent use of their Color LaserWriter 600 ;>. In any event I'm at Kinko's about to try Arcangel's trick for the second or third time, when this Employee comes up behind me and says, 'Hey, what are you using Burn for?' I'm like, 'Excuse me?!' He's all, 'We don;t allow Burn on our computers.' I asked why and he responded 'Company policy'. Now I'm not sure what THIS stems from--Arcangels' is, as as far as I know, a fairly new and original trick. Despite this there is NO question, Kinko's does not want you using Burn on their computer. Now if they're going to be spying on you and looking over your shoulder for whatever reason, and they don't want you using Burn for whatever reason, it's obvious you're going to need a subterfuge... THE CLANDESTINE BURN Basically what the following does is hide Burn's existence and actions. See, the Burn icon looks like a flaming Trashcan, a dead giveaway, so we need to change this. Also, Burn's called Burn--to obvious--so we need change this too. Third, Burn puts up a dialog that beeps and says 'Are you sure you want to delete the file [whatever]?' WAY to obvious, we definitley need to change this. The first two are easy, a couple of simple Finder mods. The last change, getting rid of the dialog, requires a patch. For the patch I went to that virtuoso of Cracking, Observer. Now, he pointed out to me that in Burn's Preferences you can just turn Off 'Confirm Delete' thereby preventing any Dialog from showing when you Burn the Prefs file. The only problem is, you want to try and be as inconspicuous as possible about this whole thing. Now, if you have to Load up Burn, select the Preferences, and configure the options...so much for being inconspicuous. And, because Burn defaults to 'Confirm Deletes', the only way to prevent it from doing this without configuring it when you move it to a new computer, is to do a patch. So, a-patching we will go Steps: 1. If you don't have it, go get Burn 2.2: ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/burn-22.hqx 2. Create and Save a Microsoft Word or Teach Text document. 3. In the Finder, go up to File and Get Into on the Saved document. Within the Get Info information, click on the document Icon, and select Copy. 4. Get Info for Burn 2.2, select the Burn Icon and Paste. Burn 2.2 should now look like a Teach Text or Word Document. 5. Rename Burn to 'Assignment #1' or something. 6. Use Resourcer or ResEdit to make the following patch to remove the Delete Confirmation Dialog: CODE 1, Offset $C12--change from: 67 1C to: 60 1C That's it, The Clandestine Burn. Flame up those Desk Tracy prefs files in complete obscurity. Noone, except Happy future customers will know a thing! OUTRO Ah, revenge is sweet! That'll teach those bastards to charge me $19.25 an hour to use their f---kin' computer! ;>, I'd like to thank Arcangel for his *KILLER* concept, and Observer for his Programming Prowess. If you'd like to contact Arcangel he can be found at The Gravity Well (303)-YOU-WISH. If you'd like to contact Observer he can be reached at BBS, user #158. If you'd like to contact me or read more of my Infamous T-Philes (nearly 40), you can goto the kn0wledge phreak WWW site at: http://iti2.net/k0p or call BBS: oleBuzzard's 7 Macintosh/PC Underground /