Thinking of trying a naked internet experience again..

[jmwhite33]

About 16 years ago on a whim I took a pc with a clean install of Windows XP and connected it directly into the cable modem bypassing the router protections.

I did not run any AV software.

Then I browsed the internet without a care in the world. Visited free game sites, bulletin boards, a few porn sites, etc.

I just a had a clickaliscious time!

In a little over an hour and a half the pc was unusable.

 

I wonder long it would last if I did the same thing today?

I have a pc ready to use with XP and backup images of the drive so I can restore it.

Biggest concern would be the BIOS getting infected/corrupted, then the board is done for.

 

Gonna have to do it on a day when nobody else is home or using the internet.

 

Anybody else ever try something like that?

[danalog]

really don't know how you managed to do that unless you intentionally downloaded and ran some shitware. A few years ago i used XP for internet daily with no issues.

 

If you really wanna do that again, though, use a VM. And disconnect other devices on the network because malware can spread quite easily. 

[podkall]

8 minutes ago, jmwhite33 said:

I wonder long it would last if I did the same thing today?

 

 

 

To be fair, it's possible you'd rather accumulate spyware and similar kind of malware, or keyloggers and other privacy invasive stuff, or things that try to steal your accounts, credit cards, personal information, etc.

 

Than something that would just make your PC inaccessible, there's no gain for the hacker to do such thing.

[Poinkachu]

Nowadays it's probably either :

1. Your PC still works fine but all inside will be logged and stolen from henceforth.

or

2. Your PC get locked down and you need to pay ransom to release it. All data most likely already stolen as well.

[Caroline]

if you can get a browser to actually work and display websites then they'll be covered in ads, around 80% of the screen will be ads, popups, flashing banners, popups on top of popups, and so on

 

it's actually crazy normies experience the internet like that, you know, they just click on "The button for the internet" that has now banned adblockers lol. don't download .exe/.msi files, that reduces the chances of getting hardcore malware

you'll probably get crypto miners, "bad" adware on top of the default one, or ransomware

[OhYou_]

46 minutes ago, jmwhite33 said:

About 16 years ago on a whim I took a pc with a clean install of Windows XP and connected it directly into the cable modem bypassing the router protections.

I did not run any AV software.

Then I browsed the internet without a care in the world. Visited free game sites, bulletin boards, a few porn sites, etc.

I just a had a clickaliscious time!

In a little over an hour and a half the pc was unusable.

 

I wonder long it would last if I did the same thing today?

I have a pc ready to use with XP and backup images of the drive so I can restore it.

Biggest concern would be the BIOS getting infected/corrupted, then the board is done for.

 

Gonna have to do it on a day when nobody else is home or using the internet.

 

Anybody else ever try something like that?

what is the usecase for this? seems pointless.

[jmwhite33]

33 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Nowadays it's probably either :

1. Your PC still works fine but all inside will be logged and stolen from henceforth.

or

2. Your PC get locked down and you need to pay ransom to release it. All data most likely already stolen as well.

 

yeah, most likely

24 minutes ago, Caroline said:

if you can get a browser to actually work and display websites then they'll be covered in ads, around 80% of the screen will be ads, popups, flashing banners, popups on top of popups, and so on

 

it's actually crazy normies experience the internet like that, you know, they just click on "The button for the internet" that has now banned adblockers lol. don't download .exe/.msi files, that reduces the chances of getting hardcore malware

you'll probably get crypto miners, "bad" adware on top of the default one, or ransomware

that is what happened, so many pop-up and browser tabs opening that made the pc unusable.

and I did intentionally download sketchy stuff and basically did everything your not supposed to do.

[jmwhite33]

1 minute ago, OhYou_ said:

what is the usecase for this? seems pointless.

Yup, pointless, but fun and interesting none-the-less.

[jmwhite33]

39 minutes ago, danalog said:

really don't know how you managed to do that unless you intentionally downloaded and ran some shitware. A few years ago i used XP for internet daily with no issues.

 

If you really wanna do that again, though, use a VM. And disconnect other devices on the network because malware can spread quite easily. 

But did you intentionally disable any router protections and any AV/Anti-Malware software as well?

I literally did it too get infected.

Not concerned about other devices, as I said, one pc directly into the cable modem. The LAN wouldn't even be active at all.

biggest long term concern would be the BIOS itself being compromised.

extra pc, extra HDD, all easily wiped.

[OhYou_]

42 minutes ago, danalog said:

really don't know how you managed to do that unless you intentionally downloaded and ran some shitware. A few years ago i used XP for internet daily with no issues.

 

If you really wanna do that again, though, use a VM. And disconnect other devices on the network because malware can spread quite easily. 

the important part here is the use of a modem instead of a router. as in the pc is just rawdogging the internet on a public ip instead of a 192.168 or similar.
what actually happens though is your isp doesnt provide you with any way to do this now, iirc non of the US isps do, you have to use something like dialup or business internet.
also the whole browsing part is pointless, it will get btfo with no interaction within 30-60min

[jmwhite33]

4 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

what actually happens though is your isp doesnt provide you with any way to do this now, iirc non of the US isps do, you have to use something like dialup or business internet.
also the whole browsing part is pointless, it will get btfo with no interaction within 30-60min

yeah, it was 16 years ago and lots has changed.

So you say it wouldn't work now? If they hand me an IP address why wouldn't it?

Not sure I follow why you say it wouldn't work.

 

 

[OhYou_]

28 minutes ago, jmwhite33 said:

yeah, it was 16 years ago and lots has changed.

So you say it wouldn't work now? If they hand me an IP address why wouldn't it?

Not sure I follow why you say it wouldn't work.

 

 

just gonna have to try it and see, a lot of them do weird cgnat stuff or similar

[thrasher_565]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

if you can get a browser to actually work and display websites then they'll be covered in ads, around 80% of the screen will be ads, popups, flashing banners, popups on top of popups, and so on

 

it's actually crazy normies experience the internet like that, you know, they just click on "The button for the internet" that has now banned adblockers lol. don't download .exe/.msi files, that reduces the chances of getting hardcore malware

you'll probably get crypto miners, "bad" adware on top of the default one, or ransomware

thats how it was back in the day. i mean you have to unplug the etherent before install xp for it will install a virus. then you had to install something before connecting but i dont remember sp3 maybe?

 

popups were the norm. and i dont no if there were big web sites so you go to random sites and well you get virus from thows

 

now getting free stuff well your just asking for it. a google account was kinda useless then and was a vary easy way to still peoples accounts but how cares just make a new account.

 

later on there were sites like newgrounds and youtube witch was more stable. but you were also doing other stuff like limewire stuff too so...

 

i remember one version of msn could crash some ones computer buy too many emots... fun times...

Edited June 24 by thrasher_565

[MC.Morrado]

I learned how to use a computer on my grandmother's Windows XP computer when I was a kid and spent my childhood using Windows 7 at school.

 

Bro I'd rather use FreeBSD on my old Pentium 4 boxes released during the Windows XP era. Makes them usable again.

[freeagent]

I remember back in the day you had to install XP with the modem unplugged, or the ethernet removed because before it was done installing it would be just littered with all kinds of shit. Back when the internet was the wildwest.. I guess it still is, but XP just made it feel like you were walking around downtown buck naked. And people were sticking you with syringes. Some with air, some with bleach, some with god knows what.

[WinDreamer]

Hey, if the browser runs uBlock Origin, why not?

[TudorF]

I don't see why this couldn't be done without issues.

After installing WinXp, you can go into Windows Firewall and disable all incoming connections. Then do the same for outgoing connections,  except for HTTP.

This should block all the ports except 80 for outgoing requests.

 

I think WinXP SP3 had some extra support for cryptography. Not sure if this meant HTTPS could work. But you could use the last-supported Firefox, which I think has its own implementation of HTTPS that doesn't rely on Windows'.

Then just load a website you trust doesn't have malware and use it in "read mode only". Don't log in anywhere, don't submit any input, don't click on anything that is not just a simple link part of a text (like on Wikipedia).

 

Then it might be fine. Even if there's someone scanning ports, they won't see port 80 open, as the application makes the request as an outgoing connection.

Of course there's the risk of a "man in the middle" attack on your HTTP/S requests to the site, so you could get some injected responses. As long as you don't download and don't install anything, it shouldn't be a problem.

Even older browsers had sandboxed processes and web standards never allowed external access to a local user's file system.

 

Then I think there's also some protection from the ISP, that have their own firewalls, spam filters, DNS filters, blocking the most known malicious vectors of attack, just because they want to protect themselves, so they don't want a client to become an infected attacker inside their networks.

 

Though, it's possible some websites might do user-agent detection and if they spot a WinXP machine they might display a message that they don't support a connection to an insecure system.

[jmwhite33]

3 minutes ago, TudorF said:

I don't see why this couldn't be done without issues.

After installing WinXp, you can go into Windows Firewall and disable all incoming connections. Then do the same for outgoing connections,  except for HTTP.

This should block all the ports except 80 for outgoing requests.

 

I think WinXP SP3 had some extra support for cryptography. Not sure if this meant HTTPS could work. But you could use the last-supported Firefox, which I think has its own implementation of HTTPS that doesn't rely on Windows'.

Then just load a website you trust doesn't have malware and use it in "read mode only". Don't log in anywhere, don't submit any input, don't click on anything that is not just a simple link part of a text (like on Wikipedia).

 

Then it might be fine. Even if there's someone scanning ports, they won't see port 80 open, as the application makes the request as an outgoing connection.

Of course there's the risk of a "man in the middle" attack on your HTTP/S requests to the site, so you could get some injected responses. As long as you don't download and don't install anything, it shouldn't be a problem.

Even older browsers had sandboxed processes and web standards never allowed external access to a local user's file system.

 

Then I think there's also some protection from the ISP, that have their own firewalls, spam filters, DNS filters, blocking the most known malicious vectors of attack, just because they want to protect themselves, so they don't want a client to become an infected attacker inside its network.

 

But that is counter to the whole idea.

I want to venture online completely naked and unprotected.

I want to see how long a system could survive with no protections at all.

May try it this weekend.

[TudorF]

@jmwhite33 If you're looking for trouble, you can find it in a minute

[dilpickle]

You don't even need to open a browser. If you have the original release of xp and plug it in to the internet you'll have Sasser within seconds.