PingRest Deadman canceler, resetter, restarter

guerrillaware -- guerrilla or guerilla -- 1. A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids.

This is a Beta Test version of PingRest.EXE -- a Windows-based utility which can be used to order deadman devices to cancel, restart, or reset their timers.

This Windows utility is a deadman device canceler, restarter, or resetter that's intended to stop or restart a timer being run on an IP device on a network to keep a time-delayed event from occuring.

Typical deadman software packages currently in use by human rights, civil rights, and other progressive causes perform a small set of functionality which include:

• Send a pre-saved EMail message to a list of EMail addresses
• Post information into a list of Usenet newsgroups
• Wipe a series of sensitive data files
• Turn on or off a piece of hardware

(These are typically done after a period of time of not receiving an authentication code after a period of weeks or months however this software also will work to immediately instigate an action upon receiving the authentication code.)

But the nature of the software which cancels, restarts, or resets the deadman device have suffered from a number of flaws, all of which stem from an activist's computer being monitored by the wrong people, allowing the destination IP device to be located and get turned off before its deadman timer can expire to perform the functionality it's designed to perform.

This software employs some functionality which makes it harder to determine what the destination IP device is by obscuring its address in among a series of bogus rest commands sent to a series of randomized IP addresses. The authorization code that the deadman device looks for is described in the program's configuration file and it's typically a randomized series of ASCII characters.

Each of the randomized bogus rest commands sent to the randomized IP addresses contain a bogus randomized authentication code of randomized lengths, all of which look much like the legitimate authorization code sent to the legitimate deadman device, making any monitor's efforts to identify the legitimate deadman device a bit more difficult.

• The authentication data is configurable. Your authentication code is passed to your deadman device unencrypted and in the clear via ICMP on the port number (usually well-known port number 7) that you also configure. A drop-down menu option generates a sample of 30 authentication codes of randomized lengths into a text file which you can choose from to select an auth code, or you can create one your own. So long as it agrees with what the deadman device expects, the rest command will be accepted.

• Because the equipment sending these dead-man restart frames can be monitored, a configurable number of bogus replicant ICMP frames (up to 1000) can be sent to randomized IP addresses while your "payload" IP address is randomly embedded in the sequence. Thus any unauthorized individuals monitoring your equipment would need to track down each IP device that received the reset command in order to find your dead-man device.

• Because ICMP isn't guarenteed delivery, you may configure the software to send each ICMP frames up to three times.

Currently PingRest.EXE is in Beta Test and anyone who wishes to test the software and report back problems is welcome to email me with bugs, code review, and suggestions for fixes and improvement.

The executable as well as the source code will be provided on the http://www.notserver.com/ web site. While in Beta Test, testers can email me and I will send the executable and the source in ZIP files to you for testing.

Ping Rest, Written by Fredric L. Rice. FRice@SkepticTank.ORG Copyright 2004. Rights are granted for the free distribution of this software provided all users employ the software legally. Individuals who abuse or misuse this software are not granted license to use it.

Fredric Rice assumes no responsibility for the use, abuse, misuse, or modifications of this software as it's the user's responsibility to ensure that the use of this software falls within the legal framework of her country's laws.

Suggested modifications should be sent to Fred Rice so that they may be incorporated into the root source.

I can't think of any ways PingRest can be easily abused but if someone else can, obviously I don't assume any responsibility for the misuse or abuse of my software. In fact if you can think of a way this could be misused or abused, please let me know so I can see if I can spackle in the hole to fix it.

If you wish to be informed about updates to this project, please write to me at the address offered below. If you have suggestions to make about the project, please write and I will see if they can be added or -- if you've found a problem -- if I can fix it.

The program is very simple and the instructions for how it's used can be found in the PingRest.CFG configuration file which you'll have to modify to meet your needs.