Professor 'Packetslinger' Assigns Questionable Task

mrowton writes "A professor at an undisclosed university recently assigned a practical for his computer-security class. The practical, which is worth 15 percent of the students final grade, requires students to perform reconnaissance on an internet server using tools available in the public domain. While the university is allowing the practical to continue it has also stated that the techniques should not be performed on their own web servers. If students are caught performing any scans against university computers then it would prompt: "Disabling their student account and referring them to the Student Dean of Corrections." The assignment was enough for SANS to dub him 'Professor Packetslinger of the School of Loose Screws.'"

Whistle Blower

Now who would be the WB to publish the name of the university here?

I wonder if that paper will attract more students because of the assignment. Guys, whatever you do, just don't TK.

In related news...

The NSA issued a press release stating that its whole domestic spying operation was just part of a homework assignment.

Re:Whistle Blower

Indiana University's Kelley Business School had a CIS class for undergraduates that featured a final similar to this where students had to secure computers and take turns attacking each others machines.

Each Other's Machines makes all the difference.

That disclaimer isn't enough.

My company's Internet connection is not your lab. I did not request your services and you are not compensating me for use of my resources for your education. We have no contract detailing the work you are permited to perform at my perimeter. As a matter of fact, I see nothing in that assignment which requires you to get permission from me to scan your network. Instead, I see instructions to be stealthy and only communicate with me if I notice you. This more than anything makes me question the ethics of this assignment.

I don't care if you're talented. You have no idea how a scan is going to affect whatever applications I have running off of that pipe. What may not break one network may most certainly break another. You, with all your talent, can still make a mistake. I've had it happen to me and the reason why I was able to quickly recover was because I KNEW I WAS BEING SCANNED BEFOREHAND! Vendor comes in and says "Oh, this is going to be harmless." and surprise one little Nessus scan brings down half the unix farm until I unplug the laptop. If I really want you pen-testing my network then I'll bring you in as an intern. That way I know about and accept the risk I want to take instead of the unknown.

You make this bold, sweeping statement about security through obscurity but reread your quote. "You may" not "You will" The students do not have to turn in their work to the company they scanned so there is no way for that organization to take those findings and improve their system. If this was some big noble cause why didn't the prof contact some local businesses and have them agree to a pen-test in return for a report? The fact that the administration reserves the right to discipline any student that uses this assignment to scan the school's network speaks volumes. Your comment about admins who oppose this are ones who routinely port scan the school's network is a fallacy on so many levels that I simply chose to ignore it.

I don't care if the prof is going to cash his Nobel check and give the money to the starving poor in Africa. The assignment was ill conceived from the start. It wasn't professional or academic and there were viable alternatives other than going out into the wild and poking around people's perimeters without permission. What? Haven't heard of a test lab?

Absolutely nothing in your post has dissuaded me from the opinion that this entire issue was just plain dumb.

Is scanning a network illegal?

I thought there was a case not too long ago that says a scan is not an intrusion, thus is not illegal.

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

The scan itself is not illegal. However, they're asking the students to go much further then the scan itself.

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

How so? All of the information requested in the assignement can be gotten from any server running a compliant web server, including Windows XP Personal Web Server, with a combination of port scanning tools, netstat, ping, and GRC's webhost. There shouldn

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

How so? All of the information requested in the assignement can be gotten from any server running a compliant web server, including Windows XP Personal Web Server, with a combination of port scanning tools, netstat, ping, and GRC's webhost.

Want to know wha

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

I read the article and did not see where intrusion was part of the assignment. From what I read, it was a vulnerability assessment, which would include a few simple scans. Knowing what I do about some scans, they can create a DOS attack (inadvertently of c

Might not be illegal but it's bad form

If I notice someone poking around at my systems in such a way that looks like it's looking for exploits, I'll contact the ISP responsable and ask them to chave a chat with that user. If they blow me off, I'm likely to blacklist the ISP entirely.

Just like with your house, while it might not technically be illegal for you to sit on public land and case my house out like you are going to break in to it, you can bet I'll object if you try.

Re:Is scanning a network illegal?

Yes, but it is commonly against school policy, which in some universities is apparently more important than law.

Sand box?

Why doesnt the professor construct a cheap server, with security out the wazoo? Then let the students attempt to bring down the sand box, rather than randomly probing servers which are probably used to run a business?

Re:Sand box?

Hell, set up some kind of a honeynet with several types of servers (Windows, Mac, *nix) in various states of security. There's absolutely no reason to make these students scan actual production servers. By using custom built servers, the professor will have more control over the lesson, and will be able to tell what the students are actually doing.

Re:Sand box?

Or better yet, break the student body into teams. One Team scans the other team secures. And maybe swap teams after a good go at it.

You could grade based on what the student learned from both tasks.

Re:Sand box?

Or even better, default installations of the more popular OS's and Web servers (you know who you are) so that these security professionals-to-be get a taste of the real world!

Once they're handled this, then step it up to a fully patched and locked down ve

Re:Sand box?

Or even better, default installations of the more popular OS's and Web servers (you know who you are) so that these security professionals-to-be get a taste of the real world!

What that's missing, of course, are the users internal to the server/network that

Re:Sand box?

Because university cuts down on budget so they use students as 'testers' on production servers :)

Can they please disclose the university?

Then all of Slashdot can scan the university's computer for them!

Dean of Corrections? good lord... =b

Lemme get this straight

He's not supplying his own honeypot servers, and didn't get the University to allow use of campus servers either? I'd think he could sell it to the IT group as a hardening exercise, since students would have to do full disclosure to get credit anyway.

Yup, just goes to show you that "smart" and "fool" aren't antonyms.

In academia

Smart and fool go together as often as not. Never have you met so many people that can know so much about so little, people with mountians of theoritical knowledge and no idea how to apply it at all. We have a lab in our building that is devoted to studyin

Undisclosed, huh?

Five bucks says it's DJB [slashdot.org]:

1. Impossible assignment? Check.
2. Severe ramifications for students? Check.
3. Callous disregard for everyone but the professor? Check.

Yeah, my money's definitely on Dan.

Firing ranges

If a police office needs to test out shooting a gun, he goes to a firing range. You wouldn't have him field test it.

I feel for the prof, there isn't a good "firing range" on the internet. It would make for an interesting business. Setup a virtual network o

you're mostly right

But there's always the LAPD

What about criminology classes?

They should have an assignment that each student rob, or break into a bank. Any attemps to break into school secured areas would result in immediate suspension.

Re:What about criminology classes?

Haven't kept up with the latest from the Department of Fatherland Obsurdity have you? You can't go around videotaping anything in public lest you be thrown in jail without trial for terrorism charges.

Next assignment - Hack in and change your grade

If you change it to anything other than an 'A' you automatically fail.

2 legal, 2 illegal, solutions w/o getting caught

Legal solution #1: Contact a local business, explain you're a student learning about computer security, and ask for permission to hit their server.

Legal Solution #2: find out the address of a home computer on a broadband connection and hit that, prefera

Dean of Corrections?

AKA Warden?

Is it a university or a prison?

Screws and Marbles...

... School of Loose Screws ...

Unless you're majoring as a PC Technician, you are likely to lose your marbles than your screws in the IT department. My marbles disappeared a long time ago.

Re:Screws and Marbles...

My marbles disappeared a long time ago.

Hence the stereotype of the single male computer geek.

Missing intructions

a. Subtract marks for students that scan government servers. b. Bonus marks for the student that sets up his own web server and then scan it.

Re:Missing intructions

a. Subtract marks for students that scan government servers. b. Bonus marks for the student that sets up his own web server and then scan it.

Bingo! Set up a dyndns.org entry to your own darned machine.

Got knows my firewall logs indicate that half the fri

When did Snorting a remote network become illegal?

When did Snorting a remote network become illegal?

Re:When did Snorting a remote network become illeg

I of course mean running Nessus against a remote network... doh.

When did portscanning become illegal?

SANS seems to take it for granted that portscanning is illegal and immoral. However, I can't find anything on Google, and of course, IANAL. Is there any case precedent in the United States for the illegality of portscanning?

I would hazard a guess that it is not illegal. It is the equivalent of looking at a house from a public vantage point to see if any windows are open. Although such an action is suspicious (the person may next try to get in through a window), it certainly isn't illegal, at least in the United States. SANS seems to be overreacting.

Should have set up a honeypot-like system

Get caught and you fail. Make a set of files on the server progressively more difficult to hack/open/retrieve.

Easy file to hack = C, More difficult file to hack = B, Very difficult file plus leave a calling card = A

The same thing happened at my University

A similiar occurance happened at my university (University of Delaware). When I was an undergraduate, I took the 400 level security class. The teacher isn't a professor, but he's a staffer who happens to be amazingly knowledgable about all areas of unix and networking)

The assignments were some of the most practical security assignments you could imagine. For one assignment, he gave us the location of a target machine, and told us to "break in and find something that would make people a lot of money". The trick was to scan it with Nmap across an obscene number of ports (he was running a compromised telnet server on some really high port - like 11,000), telnet in, and look through the files to find a fictitious email about a stock buyout. ("But make sure not to scan any machines besides the target machine!") In another one, we telnetted into a mail server he set up, and emailed the TA with a faked 'from' address. "If it looks fake, you lose points", so you had to make damn sure to get all the fields looking immaculate. Another assignment was he gave us an XOR encrypted message, and we had to crack it. (The trick was to look for large areas with spaces, which gave away the key)

It was, all in all, a great class. Just one problem - the IT people *hated* the class. He told us he got a complaint during the Nmap assignment that it had been used to run 150,000 scans on campus machines. The computer science department adamantly defended the assignments, as important learning tools. It's an important issue of academic freedom, and (last I had heard) the CS department's concerns trumped IT's complaint.

DJB?

    I could see some profs doing it out of stupidity, but I could see Dan Bernstein doing it entirely out of arrogance...

Reminds me of the last episode of Naruto

They had a ninja Chnin exam with extremley hard and actually unanswerable questions. The point of the exam was to actually force students to cheat in order to fail the ones they could catch.

At the end of the exam anyone left (who stayed voluntarily after t

A better way to teach this.

Would be to have seperated the class into two teams with two networks and then have them secure their networks. Then launch attacks angainst one another. This way they see both the way attacks are made along with how to protect their network from them.

Re:A better way to teach this.

Interesting idea but I think that you'd run the risk of the geekiest students in the class taking over each team and the other kids not participating. Obviously this assignment was designed so that each student could prove they knew a little bit about por

Isn't it his job to teach his students?

How would you teach security if not by trying out the attack tools?

I don't see what the hoopla is about here. He asked them to do a scan, not open them up and format the hard disk or download files on it.

Maybe his next assignment is the ethics. Maybe it's just a test to see if any of his students find this ethically wrong and refuse to do it. Maybe he would have given them extra points.

I run several servers on the Internet, and I get port scanned all the time. Even more so at home, where my dynamic DSL IP is hit by worms many times each day.

Dear American proto-hackers, you are welcome to come to Europe and learn the tools of your trade here. We meet every year between Christmas and New Year at the CCC Congress [www.ccc.de], and we have a LAN there, so people can get acquainted with the tools.

We were encouraged...

When I did my engineering degree, with the computer science subjects we were encouraged to explore the network and understand its topology. We even had assignments where we HAD to do this and report back with what we knew about what was where.

Its a bit like open source software.. The information is public, what problems are there by students looking at it. As long as the dont actually compromise anything, they could be helping it security.

In this case, I think the IT Staff are being idiots.

SANS is French for without....

The hyperbole displayed in this post is exactly the sort of behavior that computer security professionals should avoid engaging in. People who take undue offence at obviously innocent acts and run around making completely unfounded accusations of mal-intent and criminal liability are the sort of network operators who can make a workplace a living hell for people who are trying to get things done. Its a power trip and in a serious corporate environment it is totally inappropriate. Security professionals should be focused on real threats to business continuity rather then getting their rocks off by hunting down port scanners. It should be painfully obvious that nothing about this assignment is either illegal or immoral. The students are asked to perform a vulnerability assessment. They are asked to collect information; they are not asked to act on that information and break in. If you want to understand how security gets done it makes sense to take a look at someone who is doing it and see what they are doing. Its the kind of activity that might raise suspicion in the event that the intent was to use the information collected in the subsiquent commission of a crime, but that obviously isn't the intent here, so there is no REAL problem. If your Internet connected computer is so weak from a security standpoint that this kind of snooping is enough to impact your operation then I suggest you stop reading this and go check on it because you are probably offline right now. Obviously one needs to be careful in performing this sort of audit that one doesn't use aggressive tools that can impact the operation of a host, and students do need to understand the difference between collecting information and obtaining unauthorized access. It might make sense for this lesson to be bundled with a serious conversation about the ethical issues. Obviously, it would be preferable to ask students to look at a honeypot host rather then examining someone's live network, if for no other reason then this kind of probing is suspicious and, albeit EXTRMELY unlikely, could cause administrators to waste time investigating. However, to suggest that performing this kind of information collection against a remote host is a crime regardless of the intent of the exercise is, frankly, "just plain stupid and ignorant." Sans security ought to relax. The likelyhood that any of the targets of this exercise so much as noticed it is infinitesimal.

Amazing! The prof should be fired!

This is just amazing. By amazing, I mean to say an affront to ethical teaching. It promotes the wrong idea about proper conduct on the internet. It will spawn tons of alarms on different networks. Companies who get scanned will lose countless dollars and hours figuring what new attack was underway.

I strongly believe that the professor should be fired. The students should be told to NOT go forward with the assignment. And the name of the professor and university should be released so that such unethical or thoughtless behaviour by the professor and double-standard thinking by the school can be revealed and acted upon.

I can't believe the school would come back and say that the professor would not be reprimanded, that the assignment can go forward, but not to scan their own computer networks. This implies that the school admins know that it is a security issue and questionable behaviour, but is allowing it to go forward on the internet. Complete and utter retarded and *ss backwards thinking and reasoning.

For some companies I've worked at, a scan is reason enough to ban your IP, if not your IP address block. Performing a scan is grounds for dismissal, if not initiation of criminal charges of misuse of the business systems. This was the case at my old university. Misuse of school systems resulted in dismissal and/or legal proceedings.

The correct and responsible means of testing would have been to setup a training network. Obviously, there is a complete lack of responsible planning on the part of the professor and the school. Or perhaps a lack of understanding of what they are setting up their students and themselves up for.

The student who brought this up REALLY needs to bring this to the attention of his/her fellow students and prevent them from getting into trouble with businesses and the authorities.

Just because your superiors tell you to do it, doesn't mean it's okay to do it.

I think I may have had this assignment.

Our assignment was very similar to this, except it was to discover the number of nodes, the routing, etc. of the network in one particular building on the campus (housing our classroom) - no port scanning, no attempts to compromise anything, but simply to "map out" the building's network.

One telltale phrase that hit a nerve with me was something that I remember nearly verbatim: "using tools available in the public domain." The examples he gave were essentially tools like traceroute, ping, etc.

Nobody in the class thought there was anything questionable about this, let alone illegal.

Re:Students should do it anyway

For extra bonus points social engineer your way into the server perferably using this situation as the senerio. "Yes, I'm from University Computing Services, I was told that you recently had a security threat concerning some students intructed to hack into

Re:Is this really a problem?

No, that's not at all how the law works.

Someone who leaves FTP service on with no password might be stupid, but you are still breaking the law if you take their stuff or use the server to hold warez.

That is no different than a stupid person leaving their c

Re:Is this really a problem?

Having well-known service ports open on a network reachable from other autonomous systems implies that they are "publicly" available.

However, scanning the entire TCP and UDP port ranges of some random reachable host in order to assess vulnerability is a di

Re:Kerry / Edwards 2004

Having his minions secretly listening in on things that they have no legal right to? Nah, that reminds me of a different candidate.