Hack This Site! Getting Real!(I)

After successfully hacking through the Basic Levels, lets move on to The Realistic Missions. So Are you ready?

Realistic 1: What’s this dealing with? Hmmm…. (Hope you have read the message provided in the website!) We need to take Raging Inferno to the top. Let’s look at Uncle Arnold’s Band Review Page. We find that Imposing Republic has a ranking of 23.etc! Wow! That’s really cool!. But, feeling something fishy? Check the polling method, Select from 1 to 5 and then click on vote. That means the rank is some kinda average. Then how come the average is more than 5 for Imposing Republic?! There is indeed something fishy. Someone has messed up with the Page. Hmmm…. So let’s get it messier.  :(. So Let’s get things working. Hmm… Try voting for Raging Inferno, and check at the status bar (Use Internet Explorer.) If the text moved quite fast then take a print screen and paste in Paint and then look at the status bar. You will find something like this

http://www.hackthissite.org/missions/realistic/1/vote.php?PHPSESSID=abcaeadfc31a6c43b2534bf995c0553f&id=0&vote=4

[note that the above link has been changed to avoid spoilers.]

Now, look into the source code and try to find strings like in the above URL. So, this string is send to the server to update the vote. Well, lets do it manually! So we need this entire string and change the vote = <> to something else for success. Before that I will try to explain what the URL above means. I will explain whatever is after “vote.php?”. PHPSESSID means the php session id and abcaeadfc31a6c43b2534bf995c0553f is something which is the same for all the bands. So the difference comes in the id which differentiates the different bands and the vote value gives what option was selected from the drop down menu. Ok so we are going to manually send the URL to the server so that we can take Raging Inferno to the top. Okay. Now this should be simple! Create the needed URL from the source for which we need information like the PHPSESSID and the id and the vote. Now, what is the id for Raging Inferno and what should the vote value be so that we can take Raging Inferno to the top? Well, I leave this work for you! Wish you success in the 1st Realistic mission.

[obtaining the URL easily: Did you know that the URL can be made to appear in the Address Bar by preventing the server from accessing the page? Yes, when you attempt a vote just disconnect your internet, due to which the required page cannot be displayed and error will appear, but the Address Bar will show the URL corresponding to the vote you cast! Just change the vote value, reconnect and enter and you are done.! (I found this simple thing by chance!)]