How do I get sure I'm not being hacked?

[D2S05]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the correct subforum, feel free to move it if it's not.

I've been contacted by an agent from ztmc.com, this guy offered me $50.00 USD in advance each month for introducing text ads in our vb board. When I accepted, he sent me not a HTTP code as I though he would, but some php and xml files and I'd like to be sure those files are completely safe:

The instructions:

* Upload the empty file named ad_network_ads_405.txt set the web server to have write permissions to this file. An easy way to set the permissions would be with the following command:

chmod 666 ad_network_ads_265.txt

* Upload ad_network_405.php (note both files should be uploaded to the root of the forums)
* In the Styles/Templates section of the Admin section, edit the SHOWTHREAD_SHOWPOST, printthread and footer templates, and add the following to it (somewhere appropriate):

footer:
$ad_network


# Import product-advertising_links.xml under AdminCP -> Plugin System -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product

The xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<product productid="advertising_links" active="1">
	<title>Advertising Links</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Allows you to run 5 advertising links on your forum]]></description>
	<version>1.0</version>
	<codes>
	</codes>
	<templates>
	</templates>
	<plugins>
		<plugin active="1">
			<title>Advertising Links On Archive</title>
			<hookname>archive_process_start</hookname>
			<phpcode><![CDATA[include ('ad_network_405.php');	
echo '<div style="border: 1px solid silver; padding: 8px; background: #eee; margin-bottom: 16px;"><center>';
echo $ad_network . '</center></div>';]]></phpcode>
		</plugin>
		<plugin active="1">
			<title>Advertising Links On Main Forum</title>
			<hookname>global_start</hookname>
			<phpcode><![CDATA[include ('ad_network_405.php');]]></phpcode>
		</plugin>
	</plugins>
	<phrases>
	</phrases>
	<options>
	</options>
</product>

The php file:

<?php
	// Last update:  October 6, 2005 5:49 pm (PST)

	function file_get_contents_an($url) {
		if (substr ($url, 0, 7) == 'http://') {
			$url = parse_url ($url);
			if ($handle = @fsockopen ($url['host'], 80)) {
				fwrite ($handle, "GET $url[path]?$url[query] HTTP/1.0\r\nHost: $url[host]\r\nConnection: Close\r\n\r\n");
				while (!feof($handle)) {
					$string .= @fread($handle, 40960);
				}
				$string = explode ("
", $string);
				$string = array_pop ($string);
			}
		} else {
			$handle = fopen($url, 'r');
			$string = fread($handle, 4096000);
			
		}
		fclose($handle);
		return $string;
	}
	
	if (!function_exists('make_seed')) {
		function make_seed() {
			list($usec, $sec) = explode(' ', microtime());
			return (float) $sec + ((float) $usec * 100000);
		}
		mt_srand (make_seed());
	}

	if (!isset($_SERVER)) $_SERVER = $HTTP_SERVER_VARS;

	$ad_file = 'ad_network_ads_405.txt';
	for ($i = 0; $i <= 11; $i++) {
		$path = substr ('../../../../../../../../../../', 0, $i * 3);
		if (file_exists ($path . $ad_file)) {
			$ad_file = $path . $ad_file;
			break;
		}
	}

	if (is_writable ($ad_file)) {
		$ad_network = array();
		$ads = file_get_contents_an ($ad_file);
		$ads = explode ('<ad_break>', $ads);
		$ads_temp = explode ('|', $ads[0]);

		$file = fopen($ad_file, 'r+');
		if (flock ($file, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB, $would_block) && !$would_block) {
			if ((count ($ads) < $ads_temp[4] + 1 && $ads_temp[0] + $ads_temp[6] < time()) || $ads_temp[0] + $ads_temp[5] < time()) {
				$new_ad = file_get_contents_an ('http://ads.digitalpoint.com/network.php?c=' . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . '&type=link');
				if ($new_ad) {
					$ads_param = explode ('<ad_param>' , $new_ad);
					$new_ad = $ads_param[1];
					unset ($ads_param[1]);
					$ads_temp = explode ('|', $ads_temp[0] . '|' . $ads_temp[1] . '|' . $ads_temp[2] . '|' . $ads_param[0]);
				} else {
					$ads_param = array_slice ($ads_temp, 3, 6);
				}
				$ads_temp[1] = (integer)$ads_temp[1] + 1;
				if ($ads_temp[1] > $ads_temp[4]) $ads_temp[1] = 1;
				$ads[0] = time() . '|' . $ads_temp[1] . '|' . gethostbyname('validate.digitalpoint.com') . '|' . implode ('|', $ads_param);
				if ($new_ad) {
					$ads[$ads_temp[1]] = $new_ad;
					if (count ($ads) > $ads_temp[4] + 1) $ads = array_merge ((array)$ads[0], (array)array_slice ($ads, -$ads_temp[4]));
				}
				fwrite ($file, implode ('<ad_break>', $ads));
				ftruncate ($file, ftell($file));
			}
			flock ($file, LOCK_UN);
			fclose ($file);
		}
		$ads_x = 0;
		while (count ($ad_network) < 5) {
			if (count($ad_network) % 2 == 0 && false) {
				$ads_next = (hexdec(substr(md5($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] . $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']), 0, 6)) % (count($ads) - 1 - $ads_x)) + 1;
				$ads_x++;
			} else {
				$ads_next = mt_rand(1,count($ads) - 1);
			}
			$ad_network[] = $ads[$ads_next];
		}
		foreach ($ad_network as $key => $ad) {
			$split = explode ('<id>', $ad);
			$ad_ids[] = $split[1];
			$ad = $split[0];
			$ads_output = $ads_temp[2] == $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] || $_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'] == $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
			if ($ads_output) {
				$ad_network[$key] = str_replace ('" />', '" class="' . $ads_temp[3] . '" />', $ad);
			} else {
				$ad_network[$key] = str_replace ('" />', '">', $ad);
			}
		}
		$ad_network = implode (' | ', $ad_network);
		if ($ads_temp[7] && ($ads_output || preg_match('#(' . str_replace ('-', '|', $ads_temp[8]) . ')#si', $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) && !$_SERVER['HTTPS']) $ad_network .= ' <img src="http://ads.digitalpoint.com/t-' . implode ('-', $ad_ids) . '.gif" width="1" height="1">';
	} else {
		$ad_network = 'You must set the ' . $ad_file . ' file to be writable (check file name as well).';
	}
		if (substr (@$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_NAME'], -6) == '.shtml') {
		ini_set ('zlib.output_compression', 0);
		echo $ad_network;
	}

?>

If you find anything suspicious or find them clean I'd really appreciate your opinion as I don't understand a bit of php or xml programming.


Thank you!

[Paul M]

The XML is fine - it's just the vb product file to upload the plugins.

The php is quite complicated so it's hard to say really, do you have some reason to suspect it ?

[D2S05]

Yes, i never heard before about ads that would need this kind of scripts, and the emails received from the agent never were signed with phones, complete company name, charge, etc. He never sent a brochure or something, and Its maybe nothing, but as I am not sure I'm still investigating... I won't make a step until I know for sure these codes are safe.

[AN-net]

have you considered google adsense or yahoo publishers network? they are somewhat more repuitable.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

What i think it does is that it will pull the content (didn't really check the script) from an external server. That means that even if it is ok now, they could remotely insert unsecure things. Personally i would only allow this from well known trusted sites.

I don't know this website, but that means not much, not very familiar with advertisement suplliers.

[D2S05]

What would be the worst escenario in case these guys were malicious?, I mean, introducing these scripts would put in danger the integrity of the whole forum?, we really don't need that much the money, I'm just curious about it... I think we'll check for google ads...

Thanks to you all.