ABE - WAN IP (???) = Local

[Ored]

This is my first post to this forum so please bear with me. Anyway, I think I understand the function of ABE and the [WAN IP] checkbox. When I am logged in as Administrator my router IP is showing in this area. However when logged in as a [Limited user] the IP of the router does not show. Just shows the ??? marks.

I am running Windows 7 on this computer, When I log into my other computer and the WinXP virtual machine on this computer the WAN IP shows.

Questions:
Have I done something to the settings somewhere in the NoScript Options?
Has anyone else seen this and how could this affect security?

Thanks in advance for any feedback on this topic.

[dhouwn]

could this affect security?

Depends on your router, simply enter your external IP in the URL bar and see if the config site of your router shows up. If it does, then NoScript is supposed to protect against people from the web accessing it.
http://hackademix.net/2010/07/28/abe-pa ... r-routers/

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply, I have no trouble accessing my router. The question here remains; Why on one specific login (mine) does it show (???) instead of the IP address of my router? In all other user sessions the IP address of my router is shown. I have 2 computers, 1 win xp and 1 win 7, on the win 7 I have setup win xp in a virtual machine. "Oracle VM VirtualBox", all Fx browsers are using the latest version of noscript. 2.0.9.9. Checking [about:config] shows the setting: ( noscript.ABE.wanIpCheckURL;https://secure.informaction.com/ipecho/ }.
So my Questions remain:
Have I done something to the settings somewhere in the NoScript Options?
Has anyone else seen this and how could this affect security?

I have reviewed " http://hackademix.net/2010/07/28/abe-pa ... r-routers/ " and have not found anything on this issue that would explain this. I know I could press the [Reset] button in the NoScript Options dialog box and redo all the settings again. I was hopping to find out what happened to the settings in my profile. I know something changed, because the IP of my router used to show.

Thanks again to anyone with any idea as to what happened here.

[dhouwn]

In all other user sessions the IP address of my router is shown.

Your external IP address should be shown, the real IP of your router should be an internal one like 192.168.0.1 and not be displayed there. It's just that some braindead routers are also accessible through the external IP (from inside your LAN) that makes this NoScript feature necessary.

[Guest]

That is exactly the problem, the external IP is not showing for this one user account. With all other user accounts on either of my two computers, (3 if I count the Virtual Box), the external IP does show.

[Ored]

Has anyone else been able to offer any insight as to why this has happened? As posted previously the WAN IP shows (???) Question marks instead of the external IP address of my router. I have checked my router, all other user log in accounts, the NoScript settings, and have been trying to figure-out why this is so. I have not tried resetting All the NoScript Options, but I have clicked on the [Reset] for the (ABE) section of the NoScript, to no avail.

Any ideas? Anyone?

[dhouwn]

Here is my personal opinion: this feature of NoScript is just band-aid for preventing exploitation of a flaw that shouldn't exist in the first place.
If your router is one of those with this non-nonsensical behavior then IMHO you should first check if you can fix the problem at the root by setting a certain setting, doing a firmware update, by looking for an alternative firmware or maybe even by getting a different model from a different manufacturer.
Because once the root of the problem is fixed you don't need to care about this IP detection feature anymore and you can disable it.

[Ored]

Well, since the first post on this subject no other response to this issue. Anyway, if anyone is interested... the only way I was able to correct the situation and get the IP address (external) of the router to show for the one user, (remember, all other user accounts are OK), was to re-create the user profile. Not a really big deal, because I just copied another users profile into the problem users profile directory.

I would consider this issue closed, as it is no longer a problem. It would have been nice if I could have found out what changed for that one problem user. Did I change some setting somewhere? or did some other extension cause the problem? I have changed things in the "about:config" manually, perhaps something in there I did? Well, I'll never know now... [ CAUTION ! ]... [IF YOU CHANGE THE WRONG SETTINGS IN THE "about:config" FIREFOX MAY NOT OPERATE PROPERLY OR NOT AT ALL! ] Make sure you have a backup copy of your user profile before you monkey with these settings.

[GµårÐïåñ]

Ok, I know this is moot now and I am sorry that I was busy and didn't reply sooner but here are a few things you can try as I have multiple profiles and one of them which is CRAZY restricted for security reasons will not show this either while other profiles do. I cannot tell you off the top of my head which setting causes this but if you are truly interested and willing to do the work, you can can create a dump of your settings on the profile that works and also the one that doesn't, do a file compare and see what the differences are and go through them one at a time until you hit the one that will do it for you. I know that I am not doing the work for you but that would be where I would start, I wish I could remember what setting change in about:config that causes that but if you are really interested, that's where I would begin.

Also, I wouldn't stake my reputation on it, but I have heard people tell me that some addons will cause interference and break this as well. Also some routers, such as 2Wire, if you have disabled WAN ping or it might be ICMP, not sure off the top of my head, it will also break this. However, since I have neither the time nor the proper environment to test this for you, its all for your information and up to you, depending on your motivation, to look into. I would recommend starting by disabling all addons in the affected profile EXCEPT for NoScript and see if that fixes it, in which case individual enabling should tell you which one of the addons (if any) will/might cause the break. But personally, I would start with what I said first. I know it might not seem like much help but at least something to look into. Good luck.

[Ored]

Thanks for the reply and comments. I agree with you about taking the time to try to figure this one out. I don't have the time to spend hours and hours trying to figure this out, so I already nuked that user profile and replaced it. I could get it back from a backup copy but not sure if I want to spend that kind of time. I'm not an avid programmer or even as knowledgeable as others but do have some interest in how things work on computers... Anyway, you mentioned "create a dump of your settings on the profile that works and also the one that doesn't." I don't know how to create a dump of the settings, I would guess you're talking about the "about:config" How do you create the dump? Is there a special command? I can not seem to just copy or print the settings while viewing the "about:config" screen.

Thanks again for your feedback. This is not the 1st. time I have had to re-create profiles for Fire Fox, but I think if there was a way to dump the "about:config" settings to a text file, it would help me learn more about the way things work.

About the addons, I agree, there have been times when I have installed an addon that looked promising then had to un-install it and even re-create the profile after it seemed to change things. I can't even remember exactly what addons I had with that profile...

Have a good day, yes you have been very helpful.

[dhouwn]

Also some routers, such as 2Wire, if you have disabled WAN ping or it might be ICMP, not sure off the top of my head, it will also break this.

Huh?! This shouldn't be related. No ICMP/IGMP involved in NoScript, I am not even sure if Firefox offers interfaces for this to addon devs.

I don't know how to create a dump of the settings,

about:support shows you changed settings, not sure if all. Also you might click there "Open Containing Folder" (referring to the profile) and there you have "prefs.js".

[GµårÐïåñ]

Huh?! This shouldn't be related. No ICMP/IGMP involved in NoScript, I am not even sure if Firefox offers interfaces for this to addon devs.

I am aware of that, please re-read what I said and you'll see that _I_ didn't say this was the case, simply relaying information that has been said to me as a place for this user to look just in case. Hence the: "...I wouldn't stake my reputation on it, but I have heard people tell me that...", what I said was in the first paragraph.

about:support shows you changed settings, not sure if all. Also you might click there "Open Containing Folder" (referring to the profile) and there you have "prefs.js".

I suggested making a dump instead of accessing the actual file since the person acknowledged they are not proficient and the safest route would be to make a copy of the prefs file rather than tapping directly into it, I would not recommend that at all, unless you are absolutely confident in what you are doing and even then you should probably do it through the about:config interface and not directly.

Just saying...

[Ored]

Thanks for the discussion and info. Very useful, as I am not the most proficient when it comes to knowing what I'm doing when fooling around with files and settings, I ALWAYS make backup copies of everything, then test the restoring of the backups before I fool around with anything.

I thinkth I'm on my way to learning about all the different changes and settings you can make in FF. The "about:support" is very helpful. Found another interesting file in the profile directory, "sessionstore.js" I copied and saved the "prefs.js" to "prefs.js.txt" in a temp folder, then was able to open it with my text editor, I use "Editpad", Notepad is so limited... However, this isn't all the information that is in the "about:config" url. I was hoping there was a way to dump this information out to a text file as well. I don't suppose there is any good reason to do this other then curiosity. I agree it's probably much better to make any changes directly in the config screen rather then any text dump file.

[GµårÐïåñ]

Most if not ALL of the settings you would normally find in about:config page of the profile, would be found in its prefs.js file in the same profile directory. The about:support usually will give you the broad strokes and the "changes" if you will, that you have made along the way either directly or via an addon that is not the default state or manually set to a setting that was not originally included. So this would be a quick way to check changes vs. default state but not very useful if you want to dig deeper. Go with the prefs.js file for that and you should see everything there.

Just a note, keep in mind that some of the settings may seem like they mean one thing but in actuality mean something else entirely, so be careful changing things that "seem" obvious and always check the support database documents on them, although most of them are out of date and fairly useless, but they will give you enough to get an idea and when all else fails, google it.