Netscape JavaScript Bombs

Netscape Bombs

One of Netscape 2.0 main features is JavaScript. An scripting language that is included inside a HTML document. It allows the HTML publisher to alter the way the Netscape client behaves to certain user or system events. This allows one's web page to become more user interactive. Only drawback is that it's a Netscape extension, so not every browser supports it.

Here at Damaged Cybernetics, we wanted to see what we could do with this JavaScript. Playing around one day we came up with a few nasty little things that is sure to make Netscape sessions hellish. Mind you we are looking for creative bombs, a simple while loop always locks up Netscape.

Now as time goes along we will add more bombs. If you happen to be quite clever and make some of your own, let us know and we will post it for others to play with. You will of course get full credit for your nastiness.

Ok people, looks like we fixed the JavaScript bug. It looks like Netscape has a problem with the IMG tag. If you don't specify the WIDTH and HEIGHT parameters it somehow affects JavaScript. I'll look for the exact bug report and post what I find.

This is not a way for us to slam Netscape. Netscape develops excellent products, although their customer service needs work. But they are getting there! We prefer Netscape over Microsoft Internet Explorer ANY DAY!

Playing with these bombs WILL render your Netscape client useless.
You have been warned!

Exploding Windows Bomb continously opens windows, over and over and over again. Sucking up memory resources. If you are running Windows'95 check out the nice scrollbar on the taskbar!
This one continously prompts the user that their session has been taken hostage! Rendering the Netscape client useless to the user. Although under Windows'95 the user can perform the 3 finger salute to kill the process. By doing this it will kill all Netscape's threads regardless if you are killing a child browser or not!
The Time Bomb sets up four timers which then calls itself to spawn off 4 more timers for each timer previously spawned. Watch the status bar to see how many times this function gets called.
The Reload Bomb forces the user to stay at the current page, by refreshing the page the smallest interval possible. Users will not be able to stop the reloading process by clicking Stop or jumping to another page.
The While Loop Lock Bomb is nothing more than a while loop that does not do anything but loop! It still effectively renders Netscape clients useless. One thing is interesting about this bomb, is that on the local side Netscape does not interfere asking you if you wish to abort. However on the client/server side, it jumps in asking you "Lengthy JavaScript still running. Continue?". This was tested with the beta version of Netscape Gold for Windows'95.
The Eat Memory In Time is a really interesting one! It slowly consumes as much memory as it can over time. Watch the status bar to see how much memory is being consumed! It has been known to do various things such as crashing machines, increased swap file size, affecting other programs, eating cpu time and of course making your machine perform like a c64..
Note: This bomb only works for Netscape 2.0 clients, 2.01 has this fixed now. =( The Form Action Bomb just plains crashes Windows'95 Netscape 2.0 clients. If you are running something else other than Windows'95 and it crashes for you please let me know! Chris reports that Netscape 2.0 (final) crashes on a Indigo (uname -a: IRIX europa 5.3 IP22 mips) with a bus error.
The Flood Bomb, altho similar to a while loop lock, you can send a special greeting to those who you do not allow access to your page by showing them by using this piece of code (also make their machine go swap swap swap). You are encouraged to make links to the flood page (www.futureone.com/~damaged/netscape/page2.html).

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