Daily Cup of Tech

It’s pretty amazing what some people are donig with AutoIt!

DecaffeinatID: A Very Simple IDS / Log Watching App / ARPWatch For Windows

This project started because I wanted a simple ARP Watch like application for Windows. In a short matter of time, feature creep set in. DecaffeinatID is a simple little app that acts as an Intrusion Detection System (more of a log watcher really) to notify the user whenever fellow users at their local WiFi hotspot/ LAN are up to the kind of “reindeer games” that often happen at coffee shops and hacker cons. For more information on the sort of attacks I’m talking about see my article Caffeinated Computer Crackers. It’s not meant to be a replacement for something more feature rich (but complicated) like Snort. DecaffeinatID watches the Windows logs for three main things and pops up a message in the Windows Systray when it sees any of the following:

New or changed ARP table entries
Think of this as a poor man’s ARPWatch for Windows. The IDS gives a special alert whenever it sees the MAC address of the IP gateway change.

New events in security log
This will let you know about attempted and successful logins, assuming you have set up auditing for such things in your local security settings.

New events in the firewall log
DecaffeinatID will read your Windows firewall log (if you have one) and list events.

DecaffeinatID should work in Windows XP SP2 and Vista. Notifications are logged into idslog.txt located in the present working directory. Currently settings can be changed via the decaffeinatid.ini file that is created whenever DecaffeinatID is first run. You can sort of set what is monitored via the GUI, but the single threaded nature of Autoit3 causes it to be somewhat less than responsive at time (we are working on this).You may want to just edit the setting via the INI for now.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2009/02/20/autoit-based-ids/trackback/

In my previous post, a user commented that it would be cool to be able to launch a web page from an autorun.inf file.  So, I took it upon myself to do just that.  I wrote a little program that will do just that!

Download WebLaunch and save it on the root of your USB drive.  Then, create an autorun.inf file on the root of your drive with the following contents:

[autorun]
open=WebLaunch http://www.dailycupoftech.com
action=Open Website

You can set the http://www.dailycupoftech.com portion to any website you want and you can tweak the autorun.inf file to be as funky as you wish.

There you go, Shoban!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/11/11/launch-website-from-usb-autoruninf/trackback/

There are several situations where it would be to your benefit to listen to a WAV file rather than read a text file.

• When you are driving home.
• Someone who is visually impaired.
• You do not want the contents of a text file edited.

So, I started looking into how difficult it would be to create such a program. As it turns out, not very difficult.

I used AutoIT to create a simple executable that lets you either double click on the program and select a text file or drop a text file right on it. It will then automatically create a WAV file with the same name in the same folder as your original file.

You can download the MakeWAV application for free.

Also, if you are interested, here is the source code that you can copy and compile to make your own application. It’s open source so have fun!

#NoTrayIcon

Opt("MustDeclareVars", 1)
Dim $strTXTFile ;Name of the text file to convert to a WAV
Dim $strWAVFile ;Name of the WAV file to create
Dim $strTextData ;Text information to convert to a

WAV file

If $CmdLine[0] > 0 Then
$strTXTFile = $CmdLine[1]
Else
$strTXTFile = FileOpenDialog("Select Text File...", @MyDocumentsDir, "All (*.*)|Text files (*.txt;*.csv;*.log;*.msg;*.asc)", 1)
EndIf

If Not FileExists($strTXTFile) Then Exit

$strWAVFile = StringLeft($strTXTFile, StringLen($strTXTFile) - 3) & "wav"
$strTextData = FileRead($strTXTFile)
SplashTextOn("", "Creating WAV file. Please be patient.", 275, 20, -1, -1, 1)
_MakeWAV($strTextData, $strWAVFile)

Func _MakeWAV($strSentence, $strFileName)
Dim $oVoice ;SAPI voice object
Dim $oFilestream ;SAPI file stream object
$oVoice = ObjCreate("SAPI.SpVoice")
$oFilestream = ObjCreate("SAPI.SpFileStream")
$oFilestream.Open($strFileName, 3, False)
$oVoice.AudioOutputStream = $oFilestream
$oVoice.Speak($strSentence)
$oFilestream.Close
$oFilestream = 0
$oVoice = 0
EndFunc ;==>_MakeWAV

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/08/27/convert-text-into-wav-files/trackback/

Well, it took over a year, but we now have definitive proof that the Lost USB Drive application works! When I launched the Lost USB Drive Experiment in early June of last year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had all but forgotten about the experiment.

So, imagine my surprise when I had this in my inbox this morning:

Dale,

I recently took over Costa Coffee Eastleigh and have found your USB Memory stick, I’m not sure how long it has been here but if you would like to pop in and collect it I will put it to one side.

Thanks

Matthew
Store Manager

Costa Coffee
27-29 Market Street
Eastleigh
SO50 5RG

To be honest, I was a little shocked! But, at the same time, this totally made my day! Just goes to prove that there are some honest people out there and that a little ingenuity can go a long way!

If any of you are in the area of Matthew’s store, go in, congratulate him on his honesty and integrity, and buy the biggest, most expensive coffee on the menu! Way to go, Matthew!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/06/11/long-lost-drive-found/trackback/