MSN Messenger File Transfers

I hope someone can help me its been giving me a headache all day,

What I want to do is disable the whole file transfer feature in MSN Messenger (Not Windows Messenger). I would prefer if there was some way to do it directly on the machine, but I also know that if you block certain port ranges you can stop file transfers directly at the firewall.

I have been looking for quite awhile for programs to disable the MSN File Transfer feature... went to almost every site that google had to offer and still no luck.

I found the program 1st security agent was able to successfully block the File Transfer feature in Windows Messenger, but unfortunately the computer I want to block is running Windows 2000 and can only have MSN Messenger.

Hope someone has a solution soon… thx

Hey Neon, first thing.. i referenced one of your earlier posts :
www.firewall.cx/modules.php?name=Forums&...;highlight=messenger
Where we'd discussed blocking MSN traffic completely. This may be irrelevant but I just realised that the 'attacker' in that post said he used port 137 to access your machine. It should have struck me earlier, its a load of cow... port 137 is netbios name service... used to convert your computer name to IP address ! If anything he'd have to use 139 which is the actual netbios session port. The scariest thing he could do with 137 is tell you what your machines name is..oooh

Some people say that blocking port 6891-6900 tcp/udp will work. Not tried this myself. Here is a breakdown of the MSN file transfer protocol, you might find something useful there:
www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/client/file_transfer.php

And lastly, heres a page telling you how to get your firewall to ALLOW file transfers.. logically if you block whatever they tell you to open up, you should close it down. Its Norton specific though
www.experts-exchange.com/Miscellaneous/Q_20744089.html


You'd think microsoft would at least include an option to refuse all file transfers... can't find it though

Thanks sahirh,

I'll look at blocking those ports first and see if they do any change and just hope it works. I also from memory think there is a MSN 6 option on the router I got that says if you want file transfers/audio to work lol I'll try using that option if the port blocking does not work.

Thanx Again

Neon,

Logically, if you initiate a few file transfers and monitor the ports used to see if there are any paterns between them, then you should obtain enough information to block file transfers, assuming they are using different ports than the rest of the services offered.

If you find it impossible to block them, then perhaps a smarter firewall will do the job, one for example that 'looks' into the data section of the segment, and I'm sure there are plenty around.

Anyways, good luck with it and don't forget to post back the results as I personally would be very interested in your findings!

Cheers,