Let's face it, a lot of public Windows machines aren't locked down properly. This trick, sent in by 0perator, goes to show how trivial it can be to obtain a shell using the notorious MsPaint tool. Begin by opening Paint and starting a new image with the dimensions of 1 px tall and 6 px wide. Then from left to right paint one pixel at a time with these custom RGB values:

10,0,0

13,10,13

100,109,99

120,101,46

0,0,101

0,0,0

Now save the image as a 24-bit bmp file. Rename the extension .bat, open and enjoy the shell.

To see what's really going on here open the file in a hex editor. My favorite on Windows is HxD Hex Editor. It's freeware. Of course it's worth mentioning that any machine secured properly with group policies isn't going to be susceptible to this attack, but you'd be surprised how many aren't.

A lot of power users- like Darren- don't really use the start menu or well... their mouse. They just want to be able to put in a couple of keystrokes and immediately get to the program they need to use.

There's this nice, simple utility called Launchy that does just what Darren needs. Launchy is a free cross-platform utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. It indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Launchy can be found at launchy.net , where you can download, donate, and check out skins and how-tos, The skins on their website kind of remind me of the days of Winamp skins, so I'm just sticking to the simple black one.

The download is available for Windows up to 7, Mac, Linux, as well as a portable version.

After downloading Launchy, open the main window and type in a program name or something you want to find, and press enter. It should automatically open that program within a few seconds. If you find that doesn't work, click on the settings button and choose the catalog tab. Click the plus button and add your program files folder.

A few keystrokes to know: Alt + Space opens and closes the Launchy window. Typing something in then hitting tab with start a command line entry. For example, type in chrome, then hit tab, then type in the hak5 website.

You can look at your history of searches by press down when the window is blank. Press shift + delete to delete a highlighted program in that list.

To add functionality for other file types other than programs, go to the Catalog tab under settings, choose your destination or create a new one, then click + to add a different file type, type in *.mp3 or *.jpg..., and choose rescan Catalog.

Along with the healthy does of easy GUI is a handful of plugins for your mere enjoyment. The Launchy website features many plugins to make the utility easier to use and more useful- including a built in calculator, a website browser, and a program killer for background programs.

I think this is a tool for those users who need something to help them speed up their daily processes just a bit by giving them that freedom to not have to use the mouse. Also, the portable version would be really handy for IT support who don't necessarily know where programs are on each computer they work on. Booting up this tool and searching for a program is as easy as making sweet tea. Mmmm. Delicious.

Alex submitted this tip at hak5.org/nibble . He writes:

Need to access a file on an FTP server, but you're on a machine where you can't install programs, or you don't have your all singing all dancing flash drive full of portables? Well by using the full address with the ""FTP://"" at the beginning you can access it using Firefox, Chrome, IE and even the Windows File explorer!

Thanks! I'd also like to add that the syntax for FTP URLs goes ftp://username:password@localhost:21/directory

Props to Alex for submitting this and getting some free Hak5 swag! Submit your 4-bit tips at hak5.org/nibble

Mark writes:

love your show how to disable tcp-ip, dhcp and other stuff in BT and other linux distro that you don't accidentally connect to ap

Check out the config files in /etc/network, specifically /etc/network/interfaces.

Also don't use network manager or Wicd, instead connect manually from the terminal. For example in my case for a WPA network I'll first scan, then create a passphrase file, then connect:

iwlist wlan0 scan | grep 'ESSID\|Encryption\|WPA'
wpa_passphrase ssid password
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlan0 -c ssid"