DiamondCS releases Port Explorer

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/

Free evaluation download is on the site. This program is the result of over a year of intense research and development, and utilises technology developed for our upcoming TDS4 anti-trojan system. More information is available on the website, and the program comes with a very comprehensive help manual.

We hope you enjoy our latest software offering! :)

We also thank Paul Wilders / wilderssecurity.com for graciously hosting this forum!

Best regards,
All of us here at DiamondCS

[Primrose]

Nice Utility.
Question-Is this screen going to call out in red actual trojans or exploits on ones system only, or is it also going to call out those annoying "possible" exploits based upon a data base of know trojans using certain ports ?

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/web/bigscreens.php?screen=Main%20Display%202

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

In the Port Explorer helpfile, see the Advanced section and select "Hidden Server Detection" for a comprehensive explanation on red sockets :) (the helpfile should be able to answer most of your questions - if it doesn't, please post here! :))

But to quickly answer your question, Hidden Server Detection (which results in some sockets displaying as red) uses no databases, it's 100% generic. Basically it works by analysing each process in memory to determine if the process has any visible/on-screen attributes, such as a window. If the process is found to be invisible, Port Explorer will show the socket as red, regardless of what port it's listening on. It has detected virtually every trojan that Gavin (our senior trojan analyst) has thrown at it so it's proving to be extremely effective in that respect - it exceeded my expectations.

Best regards,
Wayne

[Primrose]

I have a few statements to make about this product and my last post.
1. I asked that question to see how fast DCS would respond. The response was immediate :)

2. There are many products out there which claim to do similar function (or you need 2 or more to do the same), but there is little or no documentation available from the developer how his program operates. Port Explorer has a helpfile :)


I have already downloaded and read this document. You can too without downloading the program .

It is called pehelp.zip

WOW !

Port Explorer by DiamondCS is one Fine Product.

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

Well, our email support is usually quicker ... :)
Thankyou for the kind words, and we hope you enjoy the program!

Best regards,
Wayne

PS. The link for the helpfile is http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/pehelp.zip, but it is included with the Port Explorer download.

[bubs]

{QUOTE-> quoting: Wayne - DiamondCS link=board=7;threadid=4798;start=0#31528 date=1037004802]
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/

This program ........... utilises technology developed for our upcoming TDS4 anti-trojan system.

<-QUOTE}

Will it in fact form part of TDS-4 when that is ready and released?

And BTW - Congratulations - looks like a very fine toy - sorry - tool - sorry - its very hard to find the right word - when your apps are not only awesome security producst, but such downright fun to play with ;D

[Pilli]

Well done Wayne & your team,

Great progrmme which I have had the pivilege to beta test.

As a beta tester I have been able to test this program to death (which I did several times)

Just one of the things which make this program excellent:

I love it when I right click on a process to do a "Who Is" or "Traceroute" and my firewall asks if PE can access the internet, it gives you that nice warm secure feeling inside especially as you know you can KILL that process at any time.

Just one of the GREAT toys!

[Gavin - DiamondCS]

I'm personally proud of the hidden server detection, which worked out very well. "Standard" trojans will always show up as red, as they use a hidden form which is created and hidden, or created off screen. This characteristic of trojans lead us to add another user oriented detection method.

Finding if a red socket is a trojan should be quite easy, generally only tray icons can throw you off - but just right clicking your tray icons usually create menus, which then cause Port Explorer to show the process in black. To add to the original question about the red sockets, it will show any such hidden trojans no matter what port they are listening on as explained by Wayne. It's all about whether the program is hiding or not :)

The documentation is something else to be happy about, we welcome future input especially questions from less experienced users as we can then include more information for such users in the next help file. As soon as we get translations for the few remaining languages there will most likely be a new build - this could be very soon as the first complete translations submitted will receive free full licenses each.

[Loki]

Be the First Kid on your block to have Port Explorer. ;D ;D

I just download and installed it no problems with the Eval. version. It would be nice if the register was in the program instead of the purchase so that it would be easier to use the more secure payment method.

Nice job, now to play...

Loki 8)

[Jooske]

Congratulations DCS to release for the public this fine tool we've been beta testing and translating with lots of joy, and a learning opportunity it was again too!
Finally we can speak openly about this fine piece of software.
It has so much, and finally a good one working on win98 systems too, and far more very useful whistles not found on others somewhere in that field.
Great Pilli, you tested it tremendously and support here too!

[FanJ]

And you yourself, Jooske, deserve credit (and a nice sweet karma cookie) for beta-testing it and translating it into Dutch!!!

Warm regards, Jan.

[Jooske]

yammieeee! crunch crunch
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachments/awww_thank_you.gif

[Khaine]

Is the price for this ($30) in American or Australian Dollars ???

[snapdragin]

well it took me all of 10 min with the evaluation version and i realized i reeeeeeally wanted those buttons to work! LOL! Or maybe it was those colour options?

so i bought 2........ ::)

Congratulations to the DiamondCS Team and beta-testers! This is a GREAT program!!

thank you!
snap

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

Hi there snapdragin, and thanks for your kind words :)
However, we haven't received any order from you? re: "so i bought 2". Let me know if you had any problems

Khaine, all prices are US$

Best regards,
Wayne

[Jooske]

And i like to the easy language changes; as part of the translation team / testers learned a lot of not only what it means in other languages, but one needs to understand the function for a proper translation in several cases, to choose the right one. One realizes the funny differences in the languages once more!
So a security tool adding to your cultural, geographical, lingual, etc etc knowledge too at the same time.

[Pieter_Arntz]

Nice utility. Compliments are due :)
Confirming some differences in behavior between IE (keeps listening) and Opera (flares up when you refresh and disappears again) Very easy to see this way.

Job well done :)

Pieter

[Pilli]

Jooske,
Sorry for the belated reply as my ISP has suffered an "outage" in our area. The weather here has probably soaked the local UBR's.
Thanks for your comments, your lingual abilities have been oustanding ;D
Hope Wayne & the team have sorted the minor "glitches" from yesterday :-[
Just hope this connection holds up!

[Ghost]

From Wayne http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=4824
"Port Explorer v1.101 ready, fixes expiry problem some users reported."

"This fixes the problem that some people were having where PE was expiring on the first run. If you encountered this problem or any other similar problem with running Port Explorer, please download the new build:
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/
There shouldn't be any problems at all with this build, but naturally if you do have any problems or if you have any questions not answered by the comprehensive help file (http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/pehelp.zip, or pehelp.chm when installed), please just email me at wayne@diamondcs.com.au and I'll personally attend to your query. It's only 1pm here in Perth at the moment so we'll be around for a while :-)

Best regards, thankyou for your patience and understanding, and we hope you enjoy Port Explorer! :-) "


*corrected URL for you :)*

[snapdragin]

{QUOTE-> quoting: Wayne - DiamondCS link=board=7;threadid=4798;start=0#31717 date=1037093602]
Hi there snapdragin, and thanks for your kind words :)
However, we haven't received any order from you? re: "so i bought 2". Let me know if you had any problems

Khaine, all prices are US$

Best regards,
Wayne

<-QUOTE}

Hi Wayne - yep, it was the blank screen i got when i used Opera which prevented me from seeing the "confirm order" button, but after going back with IE everything went through ok and i have Port Explorer on both my Win98se & XP-Home working great! ;D

Thank you and the DiamondCS Team for creating such a great program!

best wishes,
snap

[rockdj99uk]

Played with the eval version for 1/2 hour and decided I definitely need this. Used similar programs that aren't as good but this is excellent.
Now fully registered and love the full program.

Looking forward to TDS 4.

[Jooske]

And thank you Snap and all the others for using and liking it as much as the beta testers team! It's a joy to moderate this forum about it, knowing we're working with a great product! :)
We defenitely need this gem. What is very special (among others) it even works and has lot of value on Win98 and 95 systems, while most others in this area at least need 2000/NT or XP, on which this PE works too, of course and has some more tools to enjoy.

[Khaine]

Thanks Wayne, the price for this is a little steep ($60 Aus) Esp for a student, however it does seem worth it.

[grey_ghost]

Hi,

My congratulations to Wayne and Gavin and all the rest of the team on once again producing another fine product.

I didn’t need the evaluation version. :)

[Mr.Blaze]

;Dbut what we newbys want to know is this easy to use and are the help files in newby format 8)

[CopyCATS]

I would sincerely like to congratulate TDS on all the hard work and research they did to develop this wonderful copy of someone elses software.

I am sure the authors of CATS would be so pleased and honored that Diamond CS copied their software almost down to the detail, even including the IP location feature which is nowhere near as good as the one they blatantly attempted to copy from an early version of their software.

In all my years, I have never seen such blatant copying and theft of ideas and having the nerve to claim all this hard work as your own is sheer lunacy.

I'm sure you thought that nobody would notice. If your software is so awesome as you frequently boast, then why do you need to steal ideas and features from other programs?

I can post some screens if others want to see thne true extent of the blatant copying and theft of ideas. This leaves me to wonder how many stolen features and ideas will miraculously appear in TDS4.

You don't even credit the program from which you stole! I will be e-mailing the CATS authors later on and making them aware of the lameness of TDS who seem to lack their own ideas. Maybe you should ask those people to code for you as they obviously have more clue than you guys if you have to blindly copy them.

http://www.softpile.com/Utilities/Security/Review_13950_index.html

http://webs.ono.com/usr026/Agika2/3internet/dialer.htm

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

"CopyCATS" (why are you posting anonymously - what do you have to hide?), your post is nothing short of offensive -- you weren't a part of the beta team so you obviously have no idea of the struggles we went through in developing this program, and the hurdles we had to cross. We were developing anti-trojan programs in the mid 90s when remote access trojans first appeared, and indeed we are the OLDEST registered anti-trojan company in the world, having been a legally registered business since December 1986 -- what was the 'CATS' author doing then?

If our software is older than theirs (which it is by many years), surely THEY would be ripping OUR software off, and not vice versa??? And seeing as we've been around for so long, why are you the VERY first person to _ever_ make any accusation questioning the uniqueness of our software. You haven't identified yourself as a computer professional, and TDS-3 and Port Explorer, like all our software, has been subject to use and analysis by professionals from all corners of the globe, yet we've never had any similar remarks from anybody else. Is it safe to assume that you're affiliated with another anti-trojan company? I smell a RAT.

Until I read your post I must confess that I hadn't personally heard of 'CATS' (there are many new anti-trojans that pop up all the time, but I don't even consider them as they're too new to be useful - they don't cover many of the older trojans that are still popular), although I'm sure Gavin has heard of it, but he handles the trojan analysis side of things and not programming. TDS-3 is 100% original -- there is nothing like it in the world. I've never downloaded let alone tried CATS so I don't know how it compares to either TDS-3 or Port Explorer, but your comment that we are ripping off other software is absurd and we take great offense.

You have provided NO evidence to support your absurd claim, and in fact we'd LOVE it if you emailed the CATS author to get his confirmation that our software is unique and not a 'rip-off' of his software that we've never even heard about. In addition to no evidence, you have no understanding of how long it has taken us to develop Port Explorer -- it uses technology developed for TDS4 and you will NOT find such technology in ANY other programs.

The people of this forum are intelligent enough to see through your post, and we look forward to your sincere apology. I'll also be emailing the author of CATS to introduce myself, with a copy of your post. I'm sure he'll be just as surprised as we are.

Best regards,
Wayne Langlois
DiamondCS - Since 1986.

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

{QUOTE-> This program is no longer available for download from our website. Please contact the author of CATS Complete Anti Trojan System at submit@securitycats.com for any additional information. <-QUOTE}
The securitycats.com site doesn't appear to exist anymore, and all websites we've found that had originally listed the program have now de-listed it ... (the plot thickens). Does the CATS program still exist? The securitycats.com website was created 2002-06-12 (hmm, a very new site), so I'm surprised it's not up at the moment. Either way, it's a bit hard to see if we're "ripping a program off" if we can't even download the thing or contact the author, who's name appears to be Chris Kolar. Sorry but I've never heard of him, he must be new in the anti-trojan scene? A google search for "Chris Kolar" CATS only found one reference, and that has since been removed. Hmm...

Also, CATS appears to have a very low version number -- 0.5.0 as of August 26, 2002. TDS was already up to version 2.0 in the mid 90's.

I'll let the good people of this forum do the maths to figure out which the older program is, and who is copying who, if at all. (Has ANYBODY here even heard of CATS? We haven't, Gavin just confirmed that hasn't either).

Anyway I think we can safely say that neither TDS-3 or Port Explorer have anything in common with this new-but-non-existant anti-trojan program. We'd contact the author about it, but with all due respect to him he doesn't seem to exist either.

Best regards,
Wayne

[CopyCats]

"CopyCATS", your post is nothing short of offensive -- you weren't a part of the beta team so you obviously have no idea of the struggles we went through in developing this program, and the hurdles we had to cross. We were developing anti-trojan programs in the mid 90s when remote access trojans first appeared, and indeed we are the OLDEST registered anti-trojan company in the world, having been a legally registered business since December 1986 -- what was the 'CATS' author doing then?

I guess the CATS authors didn't need to start coding anti trojan software in 1986 to be able to think up new ideas for you to copy and release programs which don't crash your computer. Fortunately I was spared being one of your prestigious beta team and having to reboot every 5 minutes after running your buggy software. So because you were developing software in the 90's means that you didn't copy these new features? Lol nice try.

Where was port explorer and the features it contains when CATS was released? Strange how
your program has suddenly found integration and features included in the CATS software.
You may be offended, but you are also a liar Wayne. You lie frequently and regularly talk
nonsense.

CATS was released before port explorer as well you know and now all of a sudden TDS has new
functionaloty and features just the same as CATS which you claim to have never heard of. It was mention over in the dsl forums and you were busy shilling in there at the time, so I very much doubt that it escaped your attention.

If our software is older than theirs (which it is by many years), surely THEY would be ripping OUR software off, and not vice versa???

How absurd! These new features of yours are not older than theirs Wayne. Nice try but no sale.

Until I read your post I must confess that I hadn't personally heard of 'CATS' (there are many new anti-trojans that pop up all the time, but I don't even consider them as they're too new to be useful - they don't cover many of the older trojans that are still popular), although I'm sure Gavin has heard of it, but he handles the trojan analysis side of things and not programming. TDS-3 is 100% original -- there is nothing like it in the world. I've never downloaded let alone tried CATS so I don't know how it compares to either TDS-3 or Port Explorer, but your comment that we are ripping off other software is absurd and we take great offense.

So you are going to claim that these new features now included into port esxplorer which are almost exactly the same as the ones in the earlier released CATS program are all your hard work and ideas then? lol the copying is so blatant that it goes beyond belief. Explain to all these good people why tds suddenly has all these amazing ideas for the exact same features and implemented them into a program in the almost exact same way into their program. CATS was released before port explorer so that makes you the copycat now doesn't it.

You have provided NO evidence to support your absurd claim, and in fact we'd LOVE it if you emailed the CATS author to get his confirmation that our software is unique and not a 'rip-off' of his software that we've never even heard about. In addition to no evidence, you have no understanding of how long it has taken us to develop Port Explorer -- it uses technology developed for TDS4 and you will NOT find such technology in ANY other programs.

Opening your copy of CATS should be all the evidence you could ever need Wayne. You will find all the evidence you need of such technology in other programs. You copied from it so you should know!

The people of this forum are intelligent enough to see through your post, and we look forward to your sincere apology. I'll also be emailing the author of CATS to introduce myself, with a copy of your post. I'm sure he'll be just as surprised as we are.

You mean what you are saying is that you think that the people in this forum are stupid enough to believe yet another of your lies. I am only surprised that anyone trusts you anyway after backdooring your software and unethically stealing peoples e-mail addresses. However snakes like you slither out of most situations. You are going to e-mail the author of a program which you have never heard of? lol You owe the people who you stole these ideas from an apology Wayne! I do hope that when you mail them that they download and look at this program of yours as they will CLEARLY SEE the full extent of your copying.

All in all you have simply copied the FREE Active Ports program http://www.ntutility.com
and then added some of the little extras in CATs. I see you didn't manage to do as good a copy of the lookup feature in your copy as the original in CATS.

CATS was by far a better product than TDS in many aspects but is no longer available for sale after the authors reportedly suffered a long series of mishaps including e-mail bombing a ddos attack which took the site offline for weeks and hundreds of fraud orders generating chargebacks and led to them shelving the project for the time being. They did however refund my money as they were unable to offer updates due to the ddos attacks. I was personally very sorry to see the tool withdrawn from sale because of these problems.

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

{QUOTE-> and now all of a sudden TDS has new functionaloty and features just the same as CATS <-QUOTE}
The last update to TDS3 was over a year ago. TDS4 is just around the corner but hasn't been released, so how can we "all of a sudden" give it new functionality/features without updating it???

You still haven't explained how we are able to copy features from a program that is new and nobody has even heard of. We searched google and found CATS listed on many sites, but virtually all of those sites have since delisted the program - why, I don't know. "securitycats.com" was only registered in August 2002, it's a new site, a new program that nobody has even heard of, developed by an author that apparently hasn't made a name for himself (according to search engines) - indeed I've never heard of him and I've been working in the anti-trojan industry since the beginning.

According to this google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22CATS%22+%22anti-trojan%22+%22released%22), CATS v0.6.0 wasn't released until 9/1/2002 -- the latest update to TDS-3 is older than the first release of CATS, _how_ is it possible for us to copy their features when they didn't come into existance until this year? Your accusations are absurd.

Gavin finally was able to obtain a download on approximately the 30th site he tried -- why have just about all sites removed references to the program when it's so new??? After installing it we're greeted with the fatal error message - "DLL not found - sysfrn32.dll". The DLL doesnt appear to be available for download anywhere on the web, so we can't even install CATS on any of our test machines let alone try it, and nobody else can either. Wouldn't a programmer have to be able to install a program if he wanted to even think about copying it???

"CopyCATS" (whoever you are - obviously youre trying to hide something), you're only here to cause disruption and spread lies. You STILL haven't put even a single hint of evidence on the slate, anybody could make the accusations you've made about any program but they're meaningless if you can't back them up -- you can't.

Kindly take your childish games elsewhere, we have business to do and customers to attend to.

[Gavin - DiamondCS]

"CATS" fails to detect the 2 most common trojans I could find in its database, SubSeven 2.1.4 DEFCON being the most stunning. It doesn't even detect trojans the database lists as being detected..

I smell a troll. It even has a list of trojans which looks extremely similar to one I have of a collection by a well known trojan user. Mostly VBS worms too, very small amount of detection (even if it worked!). The program looks like a trojan writer made it, it bears a huge resemblence to "InCommand" and other trojans written by the same team. It copies TDS greatly, considering TDS-2 had that console style look since before 1990..

It crashes the whole system when you try to do anything other than look at it.. no wonder it was pulled, it doesn't work.

A world map is not something it takes a genius to figure out to add ::)

I don't see CATS showing what process a port is being used by ?

Dont bother replying "CopyCats", I wont be reading any more of this

[Jason_DiamondCS]

Hi CopyCats, I'm not sure if you came here just to flame or to find answers? Since I am main programmer on Port Explorer I can tell that I have never heard of "CATS" until today. I only looked at one "Port to Process" mapper prior to starting Port Explorer and that was TCPView Professional, which was clearly the best "Port to Process" mapper at the time. I didn't look at it to steal ideas, but to see what I had to do to make the best "Port To Process" mapper anyone could use. If you download TCPView Professional and try it, then look at Port Explorer, you won't find any similarities, except we both offer Port to Process mapping.

Now as our beta testers can attest, Port Explorer BEGAN beta testing on the 1st of August. That beta test had everything the full version has today except the Whois client, some small features and a lot of bug fixing (as they can also attest ;) ) . Just because Port Explorer was officially released to the public this month, doesn't mean it hasn't been worked on for months.

I can't seem to run CATS on my machine so I can't really say if our features our similar as there are no screenshots of CATS either. Would you mind sending me some email with some screenshots or post them here? If you were trying to be objective "CopyCATS" I don't think you would of just assumed we copied CATS. You seem highly upset over a product that you can't even use anymore, which seems to me you have some sort of vested interest in CATS, but that does not matter to me.

I think the point is do Port Explorer and CATS share similarities? I don't know, I can only tell you I didn't copy CATS or any other program when making Port Explorer.

-Jason-

[UNICRON]

I have been watching this thread and it is time to end this dispute.

Copy Cat: your posts are aggressive, abusive and without evidence. I insist you cease this manor of posting.

If you have grievances, you will email them WITH SUPPORTING EVIDENCE to me or to Paul Wilders. I require a working copy of this program you refer to, and I will need to have correspondence with the author. Failure to provide such rudimentary evidence will be grounds for dismissal of your claims.

The administration will investigate your claims to the best of our ability. You will respect the findings when they have been posted.

I have an ethical obligation to inform all that I did indeed receive the very first beta version of port explorer earlier this year, that I do own TDS-3 and wormguard, and that I have been a DCS moderator for wilderssecurity.com in the past.

I'll be the first to admit that doesn't make me look very unbiased ;) I do, however, give my word that I am taking your allegations seriously, as the integrity of this site is my main focus. If there is ANY possibility that port explorer was modeled after this cats app, I will post such with screen shots. The other possibility, that the reverse is true, will also be considered.

Until you have provided me or Paul Wilders with the information I request, this thread will be closed. It will be reopened with our findings when they are ready. Please do not start additional threads in the mean time or I will remove them without reading them.

Allan Holder
unicron@wilderssecurity.com