What happened to the Messenger Plus! forums on msghelp.net?
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Download a bit of the forums' history right here
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MeEtc
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by Talk2Luke
Hey guys, I’ve set up a subreddit for the messenger plus forum. Info here: http://www.reddit.com/r/msghelp/comments/1jlrcu/e...us_forums_welcome/

http://www.reddit.com/r/banana used to be for this/irc. We have http://www.reddit.com/r/tawx now
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08-03-2013 02:13 AM
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CookieRevised
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RE: RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by Chrono
quote:
Originally posted by MeEtc
/OLD/game-beta-1.zip
/OLD/game-update1-2.zip

they're password protected, any ideas?

Not really... the game sucked anyways. Who made it? i cant recall. Im pretty sure it's quite easy toi crack a winrar password, if anyone bothers, let us know :p
RAR: not so easy or quick if it is a long pwd. But luckily they aren't RARs.

ZIP: depends on the contents. In this case it was dead easy and super-fast because of how ZIP encrypts its stuff (weakness in its standard encryption algorithm)...

Bruteforcing might still take a very long time, even on todays PCs, depending on the length of password, so that is out of the question, but in this case you can use an almost instant "known plain-text" attack.


Now, I cba to upload the archives somewhere, so here instructions to decrypt them using AZPR:
(note: only the registered version will fully decrypt the archives)

[Image: attachment.php?pid=1023868]





And to keep with tradition, for old time sake and for what it's worth, below a lengthy post explaining how I came up with those key numbers ;-) :p

Spoiler:


So in this case we're in luck:
There are 2 files in there (the UNLHA32 library files) which is a third party component they used and as such might be found on the internet if we're lucky (and we are).

The point here is that if you have access to an original unencrypted file which is encrypted in the zip, chances are extremely high that you can use the "plain-text" attack. AZPR from ElcomSoft can do such an attack.

So.... Googling for that library and you'll find a few versions. But if you wanna use a "plain-text" attack you need to find the exact same files which are in the encrypted archive. So, I downloaded many versions and started to compare the CRC32 checksums of them with the one used in the archive.

Most versions I found immediately (on the original homepage of UNLHA32) weren't the right ones (all newer versions).
So I Googled a bit deeper and found two older ones in some obscure corner of the net.
It turned out they used version 1.47.1.7 of the UNLHA32.DLL library.

But there is a problem:
For the "plain-text" attack to be effective you need to zip the original file with the _exact_ same zipping method (no problem there, the method can be looked up in the encrypted file attributes..."deflating" was used), but also with the _same_ program! This because many programs use all slightly different compression dictionaries and trees and thus the compressed files are slightly different too!

After trying a few different zip programs I already had installed (except winzip), I always ended up with a slightly wrong dictionary tree. So I gave up on that (cba to download and try more zip programs because it was already too late...yawn)....

Then I Googled for the documentation text file (UNLHA32.TXT) of version 1.47.1.7. Luckily I found it (same CRC32 as the one in the encrypted archive).
I tried to zip that (simply using Windows build-in zipper), and it came out exactly as what was needed (compressed size 12 bytes smaller than its encrypted counter part which means it is a potential match)

So, all what needed to be done now was to load up AZPR,
- select the encrypted archive (1)
- select the "plain-text" attack (2)
- select the normal unencrypted zip with UNLHA32.TXT in it ("plain-text path")
- press start button

40 seconds later: "Encryption keys successfully recovered"

Then:
- save the unencrypted archive
- select the second encrypted archive (assuming the used password is the same... it was... if it wasn't I could have done another new "plain-text" attack since UNLHA32.TXT is also in the second encrypted archive)
- by now the found encrypted keys are saved in their respective boxes (3), so all you need to do now is press the "decrypt zip using encryption keys" button (4)
- save the second unencrypted archive

done

;-)

.png File Attachment: tadaaaaaa.png (24.9 KB)
This file has been downloaded 797 time(s).

This post was edited on 08-03-2013 at 02:44 PM by CookieRevised.
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08-03-2013 03:54 AM
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Menthix
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by MeEtc
quote:
Originally posted by Talk2Luke
Hey guys, I’ve set up a subreddit for the messenger plus forum. Info here: http://www.reddit.com/r/msghelp/comments/1jlrcu/e...us_forums_welcome/

http://www.reddit.com/r/banana used to be for this/irc. We have http://www.reddit.com/r/tawx now
There's also http://www.reddit.com/r/shoutbox
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08-03-2013 03:57 AM
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prashker
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by Nagamasa
SonicSam changed usernames I see.
the new age has begin
08-03-2013 07:08 AM
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Chrono
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O.P. RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised

Spoiler:


So in this case we're in luck:
There are 2 files in there (the UNLHA32 library files) which is a third party component they used and as such might be found on the internet if we're lucky (and we are).

The point here is that if you have access to an original unencrypted file which is encrypted in the zip, chances are extremely high that you can use the "plain-text" attack. AZPR from ElcomSoft can do such an attack.

So.... Googling for that library and you'll find a few versions. But if you wanna use a "plain-text" attack you need to find the exact same files which are in the encrypted archive. So, I downloaded many versions and started to compare the CRC32 checksums of them with the one used in the archive.

Most versions I found immediately (on the original homepage of UNLHA32) weren't the right ones (all newer versions).
So I Googled a bit deeper and found two older ones in some obscure corner of the net.
It turned out they used version 1.47.1.7 of the UNLHA32.DLL library.

But there is a problem:
For the "plain-text" attack to be effective you need to zip the original file with the _exact_ same zipping method (no problem there, the method can be looked up in the encrypted file attributes..."deflating" was used), but also with the _same_ program! This because many programs use all slightly different compression dictionaries and trees and thus the compressed files are slightly different too!

After trying a few different zip programs I already had installed (except winzip), I always ended up with a slightly wrong dictionary tree. So I gave up on that (cba to download and try more zip programs because it was already too late...yawn)....

Then I Googled for the documentation text file (UNLHA32.TXT) of version 1.47.1.7. Luckily I found it (same CRC32 as the one in the encrypted archive).
I tried to zip that (simply using Windows build-in zipper), and it came out exactly as what was needed (compressed size 12 bytes smaller than its encrypted counter part which means it is a potential match)

So, all what needed to be done now was to load up AZPR,
- select the encrypted archive (1)
- select the "plain-text" attack (2)
- select the normal unencrypted zip with UNLHA32.TXT in it ("plain-text path")
- press start button

40 seconds later: "Encryption keys successfully recovered"

Then:
- save the unencrypted archive
- select the second encrypted archive (assuming the used password is the same... it was... if it wasn't I could have done another new "plain-text" attack since UNLHA32.TXT is also in the second encrypted archive)
- by now the found encrypted keys are saved in their respective boxes (3), so all you need to do now is press the "decrypt zip using encryption keys" button (4)
- save the second unencrypted archive

done

;-)

.wow cookie, you must've been really bored to do THAT :P

This post was edited on 08-04-2013 at 06:26 AM by Chrono.
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08-04-2013 06:25 AM
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CookieRevised
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
quote:
Originally posted by Chrono
wow cookie, you must've been really bored to do THAT :P
indeed, I couldn't sleep.
It took more time to write the post than to do all that though.



This post was edited on 08-04-2013 at 07:28 AM by CookieRevised.
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08-04-2013 07:27 AM
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felipEx
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
lol @ Chrono caga el foro.png
08-09-2013 07:22 AM
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Menthix
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
Have a collection of my own too. Filtered out the duplicates and organized it a bit. Don't be fooled, it is still a maze of folders and meaningless filenames, but some people may enjoy it. My collection adds up to almost 600MB, that is excluding files which were already in Chrono's collection. Only checked for duplicates by checksum (found about 400), you will probably still find many duplicates because of other file formats, stuff being zipped, etc.

Most of it are graphics of some kind: Lots of screenshots, photos, emoticons. But also official wallpapers, DPs, banners. Photos of several meetings. Never released GFD prototypes of the Messenger Plus! Live logo. People loosing their mind in the shoutbox. Messenger Plus' appearance in a legit music video. The original patate spears video. Yuna stuff stashed away in their own folders. Patchou's secret history as a software cracker. Old site screenshots dating back to patchou.com/msgplus. Interviews and articles around several MSN add-ons. Traxor's male model career. Possible references to uber secret beta and private forum sections... :ah:

There are also some saved threads/pages as HTML. Unfortunately those don't age well, many of those refer to images or CSS files on the internet which have been gone for ages. Don't expect the HTML pages to load well, but the text should be there in most cases.

The download is 557MB and extracts to about 593MB.

Download/Mirrors
https://www.dropbox.com/s/84v9pgvrzpvw7dq/MsgPlus...hix_supplement.zip
https://rnd.menthix.net/mpl_mirror/history/MsgPlu...hix_supplement.zip
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/files/MsgPlus_forums-...hix_supplement.zip

Again, this is supposed to supplement Chrono's dump. Although I did have some of the stuff, I left it out if it was already in Chrono's rar.
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08-13-2013 05:46 PM
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traxor
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
This kept me up well until 3am a couple of weeks ago, thanks for this guys. It brings back a lot of memories – 80% positive. ;-)

When will the forum end up being shut down?
08-15-2013 07:40 PM
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blessedguy
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RE: Download a bit of the forums' history right here
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Originally posted by Talk2Luke
When will the forum end up being shut down?
At the current state, when whoever controls the forums server stops paying the bills, I think. I haven't seen any Yuna activity recently.
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08-18-2013 12:07 AM
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