FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is Internet Addiction? Internet addiction is defined as any online-related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones, and one's work environment. Internet addiction has been called Internet dependency and Internet compulsivity. By any name, it is a compulsive behavior that completely dominates the addict's life. Internet addicts make the Internet a priority more important than family, friends, and work. The Internet becomes the organizing principle of addicts' lives. They are willing to sacrifice what they cherish most in order to preserve and continue their unhealthy behavior. How do you know if you have Internet addiction (IA)? No single behavior pattern defines Internet addiction. These behaviors, when they have taken control of addicts' lives and become unmanageable, include: compulsive use of the Internet, a preoccupation with being online, lying or hiding the extent or nature of your online behavior, and an inability to control or curb your online behavior. If your Internet use pattern interferes with your life in any way shape or form, (e.g. does it impact your work, family life, relationships, school, etc.) you may have a problem. In addition, if you find that you are using the Internet as a means to regularly alter your mood you may be developing a problem. It is important to note that it is not the actual time spent online that determines if you have a problem, but rather how that time you spend impacts your life. To learn more, you can take our Internet Addiction Test.

What causes Internet addiction? Internet addiction can be understood by comparing it to other types of addictions. Individuals addicted to alcohol or other drugs, for example, develop a relationship with their "chemical(s) of choice" -- a relationship that takes precedence over any and all other aspects of their lives. Addicts find they need drugs merely to feel normal. In Internet addiction, a parallel situation exists. The Internet -- like food or drugs in other addictions -- provides the "high" and addicts become dependent on this cyberspace high to feel normal. They substitute unhealthy relationships for healthy ones. They opt for temporary pleasure rather than the deeper qualities of "normal" intimate relationships. Internet addiction follows the same progressive nature of other addictions. Internet addicts struggle to control their behaviors, and experience despair over their constant failure to do so. Their loss of self-esteem grows, fueling the need to escape even further into their addictive behaviors. A sense of powerlessness pervades the lives of addicts. What is internet safety about? Internet safety is about the safe and legal use of the internet. The internet is used by lots of people, of all ages, for lots of purposes – ranging from chatting to friends to booking a holiday – and the use of the internet is growing at a rapid pace. But there are risks involved in using the internet. These risks include: unwanted e-mail, online fraud, identity theft, child grooming and viruses. There are numerous media reports about abuses and new threats are emerging all of the time. A large survey carried out by Ofcom highlighted these two trends (growing use of the Internet, accompanied by increased threats to personal safety) and emphasised the lack of awareness about potential threats. So internet safety means knowing about potential threats when you are online; knowing what you can and cannot (legally) do when you are online; and knowing how to protect yourself from some of the risks that are involved in using the internet.

What is IRC? IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat". It was originally written by Jarkko Oikarinen ([email protected]) in 1988. Since starting in Finland, it has been used in over 60 countries around the world. It was designed as a replacement for the "talk" program but has become much much more than that. IRC is a multi-user chat system, where people convene on "channels" (a virtual place, usually with a topic of conversation) to talk in groups, or privately. IRC is constantly evolving, so the way things to work one week may not be the way they work the next. Read the MOTD (message of the day) every time you use IRC to keep up on any new happenings or server updates. IRC gained international fame during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, where updates from around the world came across the wire, and most irc users who were online at the time gathered on a single channel to hear these reports. IRC had similar uses during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in September 1993, where IRC users from Moscow were giving live reports about the unstable situation there. How is IRC set up? The user runs a "client" program (usually called 'irc') which connects to the irc network via another program called a "server". Servers exist to pass messages from user to user over the irc network. How do I use a client? First, check to see if irc is installed on your system. Type "irc" from your prompt. If this doesn't work, ask your local systems people if irc is already installed. This will save you the work of installing it yourself. If an IRC client isn't already on your system, you either compile the source yourself; have someone else on your machine compile the source for you. At my workplace, loads of things in Windows are disabled, how can I access them?

Right, well I have been faced with this as well! I think my workplace was using a program called 'WinLock 95' which would disable a number of things...including:  "My Computer"  The control panel - and any of the other ways of getting to programs in it  Items on the start menu  Network items Most people found this annoying. It meant that you couldn't change your wallpaper/screensaver/default printer etc. You are stuck with what they give you! Well, wouldn't it be great to get round this? Well, yeah! Go to the start menu, there should still be the option of 'Help' (I don't think this would be disabled) open it and go to 'Index'. Right, now you can access help of various items of windows. So, lets think of something that they have disabled...hmmm, how about add/remove programs! In the help index type "add/". The help topic 'add/remove programs' should be highlighted - select it. Then choose 'Removing a program from your computer'. The help topic is displayed - see the little clickable object that says "Click here to open the Add/Remove Programs dialog box." CLICK IT! BINGO! You're in the add/remove programs! Now, if you wanted full control back, you could try looking through the program list for the protection program (e.g. WinLock) and removing it! Try this technique with all the disabled items, such as display properties, modem properties, printers, keyboard settings etc. Can you explain this telneting thing in a bit more detail? Well, ok. Here's what we established in Volume 1:

Telnet is a program that allows you to connect to other computers using ports. Every computer/server has ports, the most common ones you would see when using telnet are: Port 21: FTP Port 23: Telnet Port 25: SMTP (Mail) Port 37: Time Port 43: Whois Port 79: Finger So, for example you could tell Telnet to connect to mail.virgin.net on port 25. This would connect you to Virgins mail server. Well, that's the basic principle anyway. How do we get into Telnet? Here's how: Windows 9x - Telnet.exe will be installed if you Dial Up Networking (DUN) installed. It should be in the c:\windows\ directory by default. If you can't find it try using the Start Menu - Find to get hold of it. Windows 3.x - Look for a program called 'Terminal.exe' which is the equivalent (I believe). I am not a user of Win 3.x so you will have to find that yourself (or you could upgrade Windows hint, hint!). Windows NT - I am pretty sure that Telnet does not come with Windows NT. You may have to go on the net and find an alternative. Try http://www.winfiles.com

Unix/Linux systems - type Telnet at the prompt (syntax: Telnet ). Telnet is a simple program with few options. It's a good program to use, and I still use it, although I have found a good alternative at http://www.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html called "Tera Term Pro". You can find Telnet alternatives all over the net, try http://www.winfiles.com for a replacement. Ok, we will assume you are using Telnet. It is pretty straight foward to connect to something, so I leave that for you to work out! Obviously to connect you will need two things, the hostname (or IP address), and the port on which to connect to. Ports are like doors on a computer which information can either enter into, or leave. The ports we are referring to are not like printer ports or keyboard ports (although the fundamental idea of information going in and out of a port is the same) on your computer at home, these are more - well, internet ports - invisible ports if you like. When you connect to a port you will usually get some kind of response on your screen. This is because there is a program running on each port to let you communicate with the host. These programs are called 'Services'. Here is a larger listing of the ports you probably will encounter: How can I get round a passworded screen saver? Ok, why would you want to do this? Well, say someone you work with always leaves their computer on, but with a passworded screensaver running - how would we break through it and get access? Another situation might be a computer shop (although these tend to take further precautions which I can't go through here) which uses passworded screensavers to stop the customers tampering. To get round this, try these techniques: Always try the key combination ctrl + alt + delete to try to bring up the 'close programs' dialog box. This hardly ever works, but sometimes it does. If it works and you see the box, look through the list of running programs and close down the screensaver.

Try turning off the computer, then switching it back on. I know this sounds weird, but you probably have a better chance of cracking through the boot up/windows log on passwords. Try the break in techniques mentioned in FAQ volume 2. Wait until you see him go away from his computer for just a little while, assuming the screensaver isn't yet running - use a screen saver cracker program to give you the password (I made one called ScrCrack which cracks windows 3.x and 9x screensaver passwords its on the website at http://welcome.to/wangsdomain ). You can then break in with the password without him knowing when he goes to lunch or something. Its always more fun to know the password! (perhaps its his password for other things as well? Such as the network password?). When he leaves, boot the computer into DOS (using one of the break in techniques in Volume 2) and then copy the file c:\windows\user.dat to a floppy disk (or if Windows profiles are being used, copy c:\windows\profiles\(his username)\user.dat). Then put this file on your computer and tell your screensaver cracker to crack it (It is able to crack the user.dat file taken from another computer as well!). 5> This is the almost-bound-to-work method. You need to get hold of a Screensaver cracking CD. Here's what happens: The screensaver is running - you put the CD in the drive and AS LONG AS the CD autoplay facility on the CDROM is on - it will run a program which decrypts the screen saver password, closes the screen saver, and then tells you what the password was. I made one of these CD's recently, and they work like magic (as long as Autoplay CD is on). It is now available to buy from the site, yes - buy! basically because I have spent a long time ensuring it works efficiently, and does the job well. Buy from here What open ports should I look out for on my own computer? (Trojan Detection) If you have port scanned yourself and found some suspicious open ports - your bound to be worried! Really, on your comp you should know exactly what ports to expect to see open.

As we have said before, a Trojan is an independent program that appears to perform a useful function but that hides another unauthorized program inside it. When an authorized user performs the apparent function, the trojan horse performs the unauthorized function as well (often usurping the privileges of the user). This is not always the case. Some of the Trojans being distributed today (eg. Netbus) are made up of two programs - a client and a server. The server program is the program which will infect the victims computer. For example the netbus trojan server program used to be called 'Patch.exe'. When someone ran it, nothing seemed to happen so they forgot about it but in fact it made the persons computer opened up and listen on port 12345 for any connections. Then someone else could use the client program as a kind of control panel to control the other person PC. To stop avoid getting infected with any of these, make sure you follow these guide lines:  Don't accept files over IRC...especially .exe files, .com files, or .dll's  Get a virus scanner and regularly download updated virus definition files from the net  Virus scan all downloads you make from the net  Don't run any files sent to you over email or ICQ  Make sure no-one but you has physical access to your computer - use passwords!  Live in a cardboard box and destroy your computer and modem