in reply to monitoring a free program

Pull the wires out the back of your computer. Access your web page on the machine. If the perl script complains or fails, then it's sending stuff elsewhere. They usually do. It's fun, easy, and informative enough to hack up one yourself, though.

Update: I meant any networking cables. if you pull the power plug, your perl script will not complain.

Update 2: Also try scanning the sources for any suspicious use tags. Really, another other than use CGI; would look suspicious to me. Also scan for socket API which really doesn't have a place in the script.

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(jcwren) RE: (2) monitoring a free program
by jcwren (Prior) on Oct 10, 2000 at 02:52 UTC
    Dude, let's be a little more helpful.
    1. This person has had an account since 06/04/2000 on this site, but has a total of 5 posts, counting this one.
    2. Three of his previous posts were clearly indicative of someone who is not well practiced in Perl, or at least not CGI (and one doesn't *have* to learn CGI to use Perl effectively).
    3. His 4th post was asking what Perl books he should buy, which he got a reasonable list of. He clearly states that he has been put in a position of having to learn Perl/CGI for his job. That was about a month ago.
    4. He's obviously not posting as a homework troll.
    5. Lastly, look at his handle. It's unlikely that unless someone were working for UNICEF they'd pick such a handle. I imagine (and I certainly could be wrong, it's not unusual), that this person works in some capacity for UNICEF.
    While the question was not very detailed in regards to the specifications of what he's trying to do, I don't think he deserves a flippant response. I think it's our job to point out where to go for other sources of information that are relevant. Telling him to yank the cords out the back of the computer is hardly a helpful solution.

    Don't get me wrong, I think there are posts that deserve vitrolic responses, but I think this person was asking a real question, just very naively. Let's save the nasty responses for the homework trolls.

    --Chris

    e-mail jcwren
[reply]
      actually, i gave a completely serious response. that's what i would do to ensure that any downloaded program is not sending my shit over the net. how else would you do it, supposing that you have no access to the code? if he has the source, then i explained to him what to search for. you are looking for a hidden agenda in my helpful and brief note which doesn't exist.
      AgentM Systems or Nasca Enterprises is not responsible for the comments made by AgentM- anywhere.
[reply]
RE: Re: monitoring a free program
by cianoz (Friar) on Oct 10, 2000 at 14:50 UTC
    Also scan for socket API which really doesn't have a place in the script.

    actually the script uses Socket (optionally) for dns lookup...

[reply]

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