Server Help

[Solo Ace]

A RETARD, that's what he is.

Reason #1 - Wiping hard drives without asking

In the end of schoolyear 2004-2005 we had all our projects stored on the computers in the classroom for CS.
Right before the end of the year we were getting our scores from our teacher, but earlier that day I noticed all my stuff was gone (I was the only one who back'd it up, including some of the others' work).
Right, the drives had been formatted, WinXP Pro was installed and everything was 'secured', I didn't even have the rights to open MSWord.

So... my teacher was pissed off at him and reported him to the school's main office in The Hague.

Reason #2 - Making two separate networks isn't that hard...

That was when we had two networks and one router, so, whenever we had our computer science lessons, the staff had to unplug their own network before allowing us to go on-line.
I don't know how but last year they made it harder to access files on their computers, probably because the admin found out how to make firewall rules on the router.

Reason #3 - Making the Internet a 'safe' place for students.

So, right, yesterday he installed a router (or some kind of firewall/gateway/whatever) to keep us completely away from the staff's network.
The computers couldn't reach any external host. Webpages kept showing up as "You aren't connected to the Internet." and an url like "http://blah.lan/cgi-bin/error?client=192.168.1.158&server=xx.xx.xx.xx&DNSSpoof=www.google.com" appeared in the address line.

So, what the...???

Most of the other students were pissed off because they couldn't do anything.
I didn't feel like giving up on it, I tried another DNS server, entered a proxy, but still I got the error page.

So... what I did was login as administrator (the "co-principal"? gave me the password a while ago) to turn the firewall off.
I noticed some "Internet gateway" icon popped up in the network connections window, and everybody seemed to be able to get online.

I've seen this before, just had no idea what it did, but it seemed like all computers in that LAN were trying to use it (netstat showed me connections from the others to my computer on port 139).

The weird thing is... I turned the computer off. The others still had an internet connection...
When I turned it back on and enabled my firewall again, they all got the error page again.

Would it be right if I made the conclusions that:

• When I turned the firewall off, some Windows gateway service attempted to login on/connect to the router and establish some PPTP (or whatever you like) link?
  
• The fact the router had my computer's data registered as 'connected' allowed the others to surf too?
  
• When I turned my computer off, it just remained active and was waiting for a time out?
  
• When I turned my computer back on, it saw the host was reachable again so stopped waiting for a time out.
  
• When I turned the firewall back on the router saw that the host remained up, but the PPTP? service wasn't reachable anymore, so it closed the connection to my computer and therefore kicked the others too?

Uhm, well, tell me what you think.

About the guy... heh, I personally think he should be fired for doing a lot worse than I would do.
And about the dumb network problem... wtf?

Excusez-moi for the lengthy post.

[Quan Chi2]

It seems that schools hire tech admins that really don't know jack-squat about how to run a network, or even how to run a computer.

You aren't alone. My schools tech admin banned me because I told him that the internet filters were weak and could be bypassed by basic scripts written in notepad, and that he should work more on security because we were getting VIRUSES almsot every day like there was nothing blocking any attacks. There were things eating up files like crazy. Two days after I told him that, the filters were down without a trace of what happened. He called me in and talked to me about it and accused me of shutting them down. I asked if there were any logs and he said no, and that he found AIM on my account.

I probably said too much, but hes a jackass. A few other people have idiots for admins too.

[K']

I must congratulate your resident BOFH for doing his job meticulously and perfectly in dealing with lusers such as you.

[The Apache]

Quan, i think he was correct to ban you from the network you know.

[Doc Flabby]

if the admin is stupid enough not to protect the network properly.
I wouldnt be stupid enough to tell him. Just abuse it Normally schools have pretty fast connections think of the download speeds on torrents
_________________
Rediscover online gaming. Get Subspace | STF The future...prehaps

[Quan Chi2]

But dude, I was helping out in the technology office as a volunteer hoping to learn something. I learned that the filters werent really hard to bypass so I told the admin. Thats about the only thing I learned. I eventually quit because he was accusing me of hacking and I wasn't learning(i originally started helping to learn more about how networks work). I was doing things like bringing books to the library and getting him McDonalds.

[Smithy101]

Hahaha, Quan got owned.

[Quan Chi2]

lol, well I know not to fall into one of those traps again, and not to become too comfortable. Comfortable enough to talk about security I mean.

[Protoman]

I download so much on school comps, transfer the vids to my ipod then onto my laptop at home

[The Apache]

i wish i had the ability to do that.

stupid restrictions on the network don't allow me to do anything.

[Assassin2684]

Same with my school.. they use BESS to block almost every page also. I use proxies but it still is annoying.