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A.
Introduction:
----------------
Since the introduction of ICQ in 1997, its popularity grew
very fast! ATM (2001-11-01), more than 137130215 people are
using/have used ICQ. And since many users of ICQ are
interested in how it works, they began to study the
program and it’s protocol. Lots of users asked where their
info, address book, etc. was stored, well the answer is
simple: ICQ uses 2 files to store its information, an
uin.IDX and an uin.DAT file, together they are called the
DataBase.
The uin.DAT file is the actual database and contains
everything (messages, contacts etc.) and the uin.IDX serves
as an index for the database by having a chain of entry's
pointing to the uin.DAT file. The Database is saved in
“Directory where you put ICQ\ICQ Version” Example: ICQ is
installed in “C:\Program Files\ICQ” and your version is
“2001b” --> The DB can be found in “C:\Program
Files\ICQ\2001b”
NOTES:
UIN = Your ICQ Number.
Example: Your UIN is 1001 à Your files are called 1001.idx
and 1001.dat ICQ Versions Other versions are 98a, 99a, 99b,
2000a, 2000b Very Old ICQ Versions & Databases Very old
versions ICQ store the DB into “Directory where you put
ICQ\DB” (ex. C:\Program Files\DB). ICQ v 2001b ICQ seems to
store your DB in the folder 2001a and NOT 2001b ...
Strange, but I guess it has something to do with the fact
that version 2001a was never released (it was the beta
version)
B.
Needed things to crack passwords
-----------------------------------
- The actual DataBase of someone (so the uin.DAT file on
its own is good)
- ICQr Information (http://www.headstrong.de) “ICQr
Information is able to read and reveal personal
information, such as nickname, address, birthday and much
more. As it's THE ONLY KNOWN program that can display
passwords of ICQ 99a/b and 2000a/b, it can be used to get
back your own lost password!” Now you see where I’m
heading? The only problem is to get uin.DAT files, which is
explained in the next topic. Oh, by the way, did I mention
that the maximum length of an ICQ password is 8 chars?
C.
Getting DAT Files
---------------------
There are 2 ways of getting DAT files
1. The
easy way
---------------
If you know the victim, just ask him if you may work on his
computer, and while doing that grab the dat file, without
him noticing. Of course, this can only be done with friends
you personally know.
2. The
hard way
---------------
Go to a search engine like google, hotbot, etc. and search
for “ICQ, DAT, IDX” (or something like that. Most of the
links found are non-interesting for us; they are only
articles on DAT and IDX files or something like that. Links
that are interesting for us are links like this:
Index of /~jkrishna/icq/2000b
03-Oct-2000 08:42 - 12941716.dat 31-Oct-2000 08:21 2.1M
12941716.idx 31-Oct ...
As you can see, this is a backup of ICQ made by that person
(jkrishna). Of course he/she was stupid enough to include
the dat and idx file.
The only thing you have to do is to download the DAT file
and open it with ICQr Information and you’re done; you have
the password.
NOTE: You can search DAT files by using file-sharing
programs like kazaa, Morpheus, etc. because lots of users
share their whole Hard Disk.
Some of the passwords might not work. Why? Well, there are
several reasons:
- Someone was faster than you and already took that UIN
- The password has already been changed by the person who
originally registered the UIN.
- Etc.
D. I
have the password, now what?
---------------------------------
Add the registered user to your ICQ (Click on “My ICQ” -->
“Change User on this computer” --> “Add another registered
user”
You will now see the form to add another registered user.
Click on “Existing User” and then enter the UIN and the
password and click on next.
If you get the “Password Error” message, it means the
password isn’t correct --> You can’t go on, the password
has been changed by the owner or the UIN has already been
taken.
If the registration succeeded, then work quickly! ICQ will
automatically log on with the UIN.
- Quickly switch to advanced mode
- Go to Invisible mode
- Click on “ICQ” --> “Security and privacy”
- Go to the password TAB and enter a new password
- Then click on “ICQ” --> “View/Change my details”
- First of all remove the E-mail addresses that are given!
- Now you can change the info as you like.
Tadaa, the UIN is yours! Of course don’t log on with the
new UIN within the first month, cos’ if you do, the old
contacts of the previous owner, or the previous owner with a
new UIN will spoof your newly obtained UIN.
TIP:
Add the old contacts to the ignore list if you do use the
UIN Immediately
BUT: When you steal a uin the victim can easily get his
password back. He just has to go to
http://www.icq.com/password and enter his UIN and e-mail
address (it doesn’t matter if you deleted it out of the
database, any valid old e-mail address that has been entered
is OK) and he’ll get his password sent to his e-mail
address.
Now this tutorial is rather meaningless one might say, but
don’t go yet, you might wanna read Appendix 1 (at the end
of this document) to know the solution for this problem ...
E. Are
there any other methods for getting passwords?
-----------------------------------------------------
Of course!
1. The
E-Mail trick
-------------------
This passage is taken from The ICQ Security Tutorial, which
was made by barakirs@netvision.net.il
<Passage>
Some people write fake Email addresses in their info, such
as fuck-off@hotmail.com, fake@not.real.com etc'. In the
first case (fuck-off@hotmail.com), you could try to see if
fuck-off@hotmail.com belongs to someone. If not, register
it, and then go to www.icq.com and look for the "forgot your
password?" link. Enter the victim's UIN, and the password
will be sent to "his" Email address (fuck-off@hotmail.com).
Then, login to your hotmail account and wait for the
password to show up in your inbox... Here's another
example: the victim puts fake@pentagon.com as his Email
address. Too bad he didn't write pentagon.gov, because
pentagon.com are giving free Email addresses AFAIK (As Far
As I Know). Simply register fake@pentagon.com and get his
password. If your victim wrote something like this:
fake@not.real.com, you could always try to register
real.com for 70$, register the sub domain not.real.com, put
a POP3 mail server there, register the account "fake", and
walla! You now own fake@not.real.com. Okay, I know, most
people won't go into so much trouble just to get someone's
ICQ password... but what the heck.
</Passage>
You could also try making your victim believe that
something special happens when he changes his e-mail
address in the info to yours. Some newbies believe this!
2. The
Method that doesn’t work most of the time
------------------------------------------------
Just ask your victim!
YOU : Give me your pw.
HIM : OK
F.
Conclusion
-------------
If you do get a password out of a DB and can use it, change
it, but use a hidden ASCII character in it or your victim
will easily get his password back
If the password is outdated, you could use the password for
something else. Maybe the password is the same that he uses
for his e-mail. Try it, maybe you can hack his e-mail.
Appendix 1: How do I make a UIN password proof?
-----------------------------------------------
There is only one way that I know of on how to make that
people will NEVER get their password back: Use a hidden
ASCII character in your password!
Example: If the password is “hello”, change it to
“[ALT+0160]hello” ALT+0160 is a hidden ASCII character and
if people retrieve their password (which has been changed
by you) they will only see “hello”, without the hidden
character.
Wtf?
Directly from my inbox:
"I do not reali understand Appendix 1, as I m not very
familiar with ASCII characters as u said in the tutorial
>Example: If the password is “hello”, change it to
“[ALT+160]hello” ALT+0160 is a hidden ASCII character<how
do u change it to >[ALT+0160]hello< in ICQ, coz theres only
8 characters in pw" The answer is quite simple: [ALT+0160]
is a keycode.
So while pressing the ALT key type "0160" on your keypad.
Then let go of the ALT key and you'll notice that you have
one character.
For those who still don't get it, it's between the
brackets:
[ ] <-- copy the character that is between the brackets.
Credits
Version 1.1
2001-12-08
By Felicity Shagwell
felicity@felicity.fateback.com
http://www.felicityshagwell.tk |