Re: Counter Strike blocker?

From: Iain Mcleod (mcleodia_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: 10/07/04 

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:41:49 +0100

You could certainly write an app that scans for the traffic on the local
network.
I wouldn't try and disturb the traffic, just locate the machines and catch
the offender in the act.

As to the kids installing the game, like I said in my previous post, all
machines should be service packed. That will prevent most exploits which
allow a user to gain administrative privs. What OS is the school running?

Cheers
Iain

"Johan Christensson" <johan.christensson@telia.com> wrote in message
news:%23SkKzRLrEHA.756@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Well, they have a firewall that prevents the kids from playing internet
> games, so the problem here is localy played games.
>
> The problem get's even more severe since many of these students are
> attending computer courses that aim to give the students a understanding
> of network computing basics, Windows networks, AD and so on, so they know
> a quite alot some times, and they install there own clients. This prevents
> me to acces the computers as an Administrator, since they only join there
> own domain. Further, this also mean that most of the kids are local
> administrators of there own computers.
>
> My first thought was to create an application that scans for CS servers.
> The next step would be to listen after client requests for that computer
> and to some how block or disturbe the traffic between the client and the
> server by sending some malformed package or just a hep of junk. A second
> though was that this might consume a lot of network traffic, and the I
> would be the bad guy. :D
>
> Any thought?
>
> /JCh
> "Iain Mcleod" <mcleodia@dcs.gla.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:%23AhhpELrEHA.3324@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>> Hi Johan
>>
>> Firstly a decent setup on the school's computers would prevent the kids
>> from loggin on with administrative privileges. That way you could
>> prevent them installing the game. It may be that you are already doing
>> this, but the kids probably know a backdoor which gives them admin privs.
>> This is distinctly possible if you are not running the latest service
>> packs on all the machines. You should be doing this.
>>
>> You could write a program that searches in a known location for known
>> counterstrike files on all the hard drives of the school machines through
>> the c$ administrative share (the local hard drive on a machine should be
>> viewable to network administrators through this share). Check wherever
>> counterstrike is installed by its setup program and what files are
>> installed and then write a program to look for those files.
>>
>> You can also block the external traffic by installing a firewall on the
>> gateway computer controlling the school's access to the internet. Find
>> out what ports counterstrike servers normally listen on. I had a quick
>> google and it seems that most seem to be running on ports 27015 through
>> 27018. Of course the port that a server is listening on is almost
>> certainly a configuration option and there may be servers out there which
>> are on different ports. Blocking 27015 through 27018 would stop most of
>> the kids from finding the common servers.
>>
>> The firewalling will not prevent the kids from playing local games on the
>> school network between themselves though if counterstrike gives the
>> option of running a local server for a game (I don't play it myself, so I
>> don't know!). Kid 1 could set up a local server and kids 2, 3 and 4
>> could then connect in and they could play against each other. I'm afraid
>> the only option there would be to get some packet sniffing software and
>> listen for traffic on the ports I mentioned above. I've never used any,
>> so I can't recommend any. Chances are that the traffic would be UDP not
>> TCP as that is what most games run on.
>>
>> Finally, it should be stressed to the kids that school policy prevents
>> such practices and individuals caught will be severely punished etc. It
>> just takes a few unlucky kids to be caught and made an example and the
>> practice should soon stop :)
>>
>> Hope that gives you some pointers to further info.
>>
>> Either that, or forget about the whole thing and join them in their
>> games...
>>
>> Kids, eh?
>> :-)
>> Iain
>>
>>
>> "Johan Christensson" <johan.christensson@telia.com> wrote in message
>> news:ulv5M4KrEHA.3464@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>>> Hi.
>>>
>>> I got contacted by an old teacher today that works at a public shool
>>> here in Sweden. They have a ever groving problem with the students
>>> playing Counter Strike on the schools computers. Not only dose this pose
>>> a problem with bandwidth usage, but the fact that the Half-Life
>>> installations often are not licensed, and this puts the school in a
>>> tight position. Apperently the schools IT department say that thay can't
>>> do anything to stop it from there point of view.
>>>
>>> He asked me if I chould come up with a solution. So here is my idea:
>>>
>>> I'm not that familiar with Couter Strike, but I belive that it's a
>>> client server setup. Would it be possible to some how make a application
>>> that listens after CS Servers and block/jam there traffic? I want to
>>> disturb the CS traffic but not everything else?
>>>
>>> I'm quite an experiensed programer, but in this case I have no clue
>>> where to start. All help is apprciated.
>>>
>>> /Johan Ch
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

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