Being an Everquest junkie I know how this feels. But my solution was to slowly get my significant other to play EQ too. This solves the problem nicely.
To: BugTraq Subject: Microsoft Word Protection Bypass Date: Jan 2 2004 10:51AM Author: Thorsten Delbrouck-Konetzko Hi all, Microsoft Word provides an option to protect "forms" by password. This is used to ensure that unauthorized users cannot manipulate the contents of documents except within specially designed "form" areas. This feature is also often used to protect documents which do not even have form areas (quotations/offers etc.). This form protection can easily be removed without any additional tools (apart from a hex-editor). Please find the full advisory attached. best regards,/tdk
Thorsten Delbrouck
Chief Information Officer
Guardeonic Solutions AG
Rosenheimer Str. 116
D-81669 Munich Security Advisory #01-2004 Advisory Name: Microsoft Word Form Protection Bypass Release Date: 2004-01-02 Affected Product: Microsoft Word Platform: Microsoft Windows, probably Apple Mac OS Version: tested on 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003,probably other versions vulnerable as well Severity:Document ("Form") protection can be easily removed Author:Thorsten Delbrouck Vendor Communication:2003-11-27, 10:30 UTC Microsoft notified to: secure microsoft com 2003-11-27 confirmed receipt from: secure microsoft com 2003-12-03 Note from Microsoft, Form protection "is not intended as a full-proof protection for tampering or spoofing, this is merely a functionality to prevent accidental changes of a document", request additional time to update Microsoft Knowledge Base article. Targetting beginning of January 2004 for release of this advisory. from: "Magnus" 2003-12-08 Microsoft has already released the KB article (or added a warning to an existing article). Read the KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822924 from: "Magnus" Overview: Word provides an option to protect "forms" by password. This is used to ensure that unauthorized users can not manipulate the contents of documents except within specially designed "form" areas. This feature is also often used to protect documents which do not even have form areas (quotations/offers etc.). (Word users will find this option on the "Tools" menu, entry "Protection", select "Forms" there and provide a password)If a Word document is protected" by this mechanism, users cannot select parts of the text or place the cursor ithin the text thus they cannot make any changes to the document. Description: When saving protected Word-documents as html-files, Word adds a "checksum" of the password (enclosed in a proprietary tag) to the code. The checksum format looks somewhat like CRC32 but currently there are no further details available. The same checksum can be found within the original Word document (hexadecimal view). If this "checksum" is replaced by 0x00000000 the password equals an empty string. Example: 1.) Open a protected document in MS Word 2.) Save as "Web Page (*.htm; *.html)", close Word 3.) Open html-document in any Text-Editor 4.) Search "" tag, the line reads something like that: ABCDEF01 5.) keep the "password" in mind 6.) Open original document (.doc) with any hex-editor 7.) search for hex-values of the password (reverse order!) 8.) Overwrite all 4 double-bytes with 0x00, Save, Close 9.) Open document with MS Word, Select "Tools / Unprotect Document" (password is blank) Variation: If the 8 checksum bytes are replaced with the checksum of a known password it should be fairly easy to unprotect the document, make any necessary changes, save, close and reset the password to the original (unknown!) password by simply restoring the original values. Document changed without even knowing the password. Nasty. (Note: Take care to get file properties (author, organisation, date/time etc.) right.) Solution: No solution is currently available. Do not rely on the "Protect Forms" mechanism to protect a Word document against changes. Credits: Magnus from the Microsoft Security Response Center for his fast responses and for showing a decent sense of humour.:-)
It is also known in the art to provide an autocompletion tool that suggests completed text strings to the user as the user enters text. For example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser automatically suggests completed URLs as the user enters text in the URL field; and the TextPlus.TM. for Palm tool suggests autocompletion words and phases (based on frequency of use) as users enter text within Palm Pilot.TM. applications. These tools generally operate based on text strings that have previously been entered on the particular PC, Palm Pilot, or other computing device. As a result, the tools generally are not helpful when the user enters a new term or phrase.
One problem that is not fully addressed by the above and other known methods is that of reducing the number of keystrokes, voice commands, or other actions needed to enter a search query for searching a particular catalog or database, such as the products database of on online merchant. This problem is particularly important to users of handheld and other wireless computing devices that do not include full keyboards. The present invention seeks to address this problem.
Best Buy
Lexmark X73 multifunction printer (less than $100)
Kodak Digital Camera (i think $100, not sure of model)
Monsters Inc., Beauty & The Beast, Grease DVD $12.99
Shania Twain Up, 8 Mile Soundtrack, Eminem The Eminem Show, 3 Doors Down, U2 The Best Of 1990-2000 CD $8.99
Panasonic 45 sec No Skip CD Player(SLSX388) $39.99-$10 IR-$5 BB MIR=$24.99
Precision CDR Discs 40x 80 Min 2 pack 150 total Disc bundle (5770075) $26-$26 MIR = FREE
Curtis 3 CD Shelf System (RCD855) $37.99
DVD/CD Player [model may vary by store] (CH-DVD 402/2110) $69.99-$30 MIR= $39.99
ALL Wireless phones regularly $149.99 and below are FREE (after MIR) with new activation
75GB 7200 WD (WD750BBRTL)/KByte 256MB PC133 RAM (6432ZZGSEM) BUNDLE $219.98-$60
IR-$109.99 Bundle MIR= $49.99
AVorcent 48x12x48x CDRW (RWJ-481S) $59.99-$30 MIR-$20 MIR= $9.99
Kodak EasyShare 2 Megapixel Digital Camera (CX4200) $99.99
Daewoo 25" Stereo TV (DTQ25S3FC) $159.99-$10 MIR= $149.99
KLH 160 Watt Home Theater System (HA7000/HA9000) $159.99-$30 MIR= $129.99
eMachines Celeron 2.0Ghz Computer 256MB DDR SDRAM, 40GB HDD, 40x CDRW, 6 USB 2.0
ports (T2040) $549.99-$250 MIR = $299.99
SAME MACHINE AS ABOVE + 15" Samsung LCD Monitor (151V) $919.98-$250MIR-$100MIR-$70 Samsung MIR= $499.98
Slashdot Mirror
Scientific American Frontiers did an episode that documented this back in 1999! Here is the transcript
Doh! you mean I was supposed to pick up that junk mail?!?!
Laptop Desk
See this link here: http://www.ifcomp.org/ Also there is this about the IM bots which serve up INFOCOM games. Those can be found here: http://wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62791,00.html
Laptop Desk I have this at home. It works on the same principal as radiators.
Being an Everquest junkie I know how this feels. But my solution was to slowly get my significant other to play EQ too. This solves the problem nicely.
To: BugTraq /tdk :-)
Subject: Microsoft Word Protection Bypass
Date: Jan 2 2004 10:51AM
Author: Thorsten Delbrouck-Konetzko
Hi all,
Microsoft Word provides an option to protect "forms" by password. This is
used to ensure that unauthorized users cannot manipulate the contents of
documents except within specially designed "form" areas. This feature is
also often used to protect documents which do not even have form areas
(quotations/offers etc.).
This form protection can easily be removed without any additional tools
(apart from a hex-editor).
Please find the full advisory attached.
best regards,
Thorsten Delbrouck
Chief Information Officer
Guardeonic Solutions AG
Rosenheimer Str. 116
D-81669 Munich
Security Advisory #01-2004
Advisory Name: Microsoft Word Form Protection Bypass
Release Date: 2004-01-02
Affected Product: Microsoft Word
Platform: Microsoft Windows, probably Apple Mac OS
Version: tested on 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003,probably other versions vulnerable as well
Severity:Document ("Form") protection can be easily removed
Author:Thorsten Delbrouck
Vendor Communication:2003-11-27, 10:30 UTC Microsoft notified to: secure microsoft com
2003-11-27 confirmed receipt
from: secure microsoft com
2003-12-03 Note from Microsoft, Form
protection "is not intended as a full-proof protection for tampering or spoofing, this is
merely a functionality to prevent accidental
changes of a document", request additional
time to update Microsoft Knowledge Base
article. Targetting beginning of January 2004 for release of this advisory.
from: "Magnus"
2003-12-08 Microsoft has already released the KB article (or added a warning to an existing article). Read the KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822924
from: "Magnus"
Overview:
Word provides an option to protect "forms" by password. This is used
to ensure that unauthorized users can not manipulate the contents of
documents except within specially designed "form" areas. This feature
is also often used to protect documents which do not even have form
areas (quotations/offers etc.).
(Word users will find this option on the "Tools" menu, entry "Protection", select "Forms" there and provide a password)If a Word document is protected" by this mechanism, users cannot select parts of the text or place the cursor ithin the text thus they cannot make any changes to the document.
Description:
When saving protected Word-documents as html-files, Word adds a
"checksum" of the password (enclosed in a proprietary tag) to the
code. The checksum format looks somewhat like CRC32 but currently
there are no further details available. The same checksum can be
found within the original Word document (hexadecimal view). If this
"checksum" is replaced by 0x00000000 the password equals an empty
string.
Example:
1.) Open a protected document in MS Word
2.) Save as "Web Page (*.htm; *.html)", close Word
3.) Open html-document in any Text-Editor
4.) Search "" tag, the line reads something like that: ABCDEF01
5.) keep the "password" in mind
6.) Open original document (.doc) with any hex-editor
7.) search for hex-values of the password (reverse order!)
8.) Overwrite all 4 double-bytes with 0x00, Save, Close
9.) Open document with MS Word, Select "Tools / Unprotect Document"
(password is blank)
Variation:
If the 8 checksum bytes are replaced with the checksum of a known
password it should be fairly easy to unprotect the document, make any
necessary changes, save, close and reset the password to the original
(unknown!) password by simply restoring the original values. Document
changed without even knowing the password. Nasty.
(Note: Take care to get file properties (author, organisation,
date/time etc.) right.)
Solution:
No solution is currently available. Do not rely on the "Protect
Forms" mechanism to protect a Word document against changes.
Credits:
Magnus from the Microsoft Security Response Center for his fast
responses and for showing a decent sense of humour.
As soon as I saw PHB's I thought to myself... self, why would a Dungeons and Dragons Source book need computer training?
It is also known in the art to provide an autocompletion tool that suggests completed text strings to the user as the user enters text. For example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser automatically suggests completed URLs as the user enters text in the URL field; and the TextPlus.TM. for Palm tool suggests autocompletion words and phases (based on frequency of use) as users enter text within Palm Pilot.TM. applications. These tools generally operate based on text strings that have previously been entered on the particular PC, Palm Pilot, or other computing device. As a result, the tools generally are not helpful when the user enters a new term or phrase. One problem that is not fully addressed by the above and other known methods is that of reducing the number of keystrokes, voice commands, or other actions needed to enter a search query for searching a particular catalog or database, such as the products database of on online merchant. This problem is particularly important to users of handheld and other wireless computing devices that do not include full keyboards. The present invention seeks to address this problem.
So does this mean that since they now make chips specifically for Linux, that previously they made chips just for Microsoft???
Best Buy Lexmark X73 multifunction printer (less than $100) Kodak Digital Camera (i think $100, not sure of model) Monsters Inc., Beauty & The Beast, Grease DVD $12.99 Shania Twain Up, 8 Mile Soundtrack, Eminem The Eminem Show, 3 Doors Down, U2 The Best Of 1990-2000 CD $8.99 Panasonic 45 sec No Skip CD Player(SLSX388) $39.99-$10 IR-$5 BB MIR=$24.99 Precision CDR Discs 40x 80 Min 2 pack 150 total Disc bundle (5770075) $26-$26 MIR = FREE Curtis 3 CD Shelf System (RCD855) $37.99 DVD/CD Player [model may vary by store] (CH-DVD 402/2110) $69.99-$30 MIR= $39.99 ALL Wireless phones regularly $149.99 and below are FREE (after MIR) with new activation 75GB 7200 WD (WD750BBRTL)/KByte 256MB PC133 RAM (6432ZZGSEM) BUNDLE $219.98-$60 IR-$109.99 Bundle MIR= $49.99 AVorcent 48x12x48x CDRW (RWJ-481S) $59.99-$30 MIR-$20 MIR= $9.99 Kodak EasyShare 2 Megapixel Digital Camera (CX4200) $99.99 Daewoo 25" Stereo TV (DTQ25S3FC) $159.99-$10 MIR= $149.99 KLH 160 Watt Home Theater System (HA7000/HA9000) $159.99-$30 MIR= $129.99 eMachines Celeron 2.0Ghz Computer 256MB DDR SDRAM, 40GB HDD, 40x CDRW, 6 USB 2.0 ports (T2040) $549.99-$250 MIR = $299.99 SAME MACHINE AS ABOVE + 15" Samsung LCD Monitor (151V) $919.98-$250MIR-$100MIR-$70 Samsung MIR= $499.98