Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

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AxleGrinder
Posts: 3
Joined: September 13th, 2017, 1:09 pm

Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

Post by AxleGrinder »

I would consider it as spyware. I had a rather strange situation where someone I worked with seemed to know what was on the screens of whichever Linux or Windows PC I had connected online. With my Linux PC, I already had all servers disabled or so I thought. Ran netstat, no servers running. Never had my smartphone connected to either PC or even facing the screen. Ran wireshark, nothing.

Then when I started up Firefox, I was surprised to see that a SSDP server started up!!!! Our sysadmin had always told us never to have a server running on a home PC. It wasn't long before I started seeing data being streamed off to aws.com (Amazon Web Services) in Ireland or Texas or as I now call them, Amazon Wiretapping Services.

Checked my router to see if it could be secured any further, changed passwords etc... Blocked off those outgoing ranges of IP addresses, as well as all SSDP ports and multicast addresses. Then I ran wireshark on my PC and waited... at one time; 7.30pm, several external SSDP requests came in, then a few more at 1.30am. But they weren't getting anywhere. Next day, my suspect looks extremely shifty.

I've done some research and there are applications which allow you to remotely query network systems via SSDP for streamable video sources.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2014-07-pr ... -discovery
allande
Posts: 188
Joined: July 20th, 2017, 11:58 am

Re: Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

Post by allande »

Under media capabilities here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ho ... onnections it says that SSDP is related to the Send Video to Device feature and is turned off with browser.casting.enabled . But, on mine that setting is false as default. Other searches mention setting media.getusermedia.screensharing.enabled to false.
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Reflective
Posts: 2283
Joined: February 15th, 2007, 11:13 am

Re: Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

Post by Reflective »

You're running Windows 10 so go to "Control Panel" ---> "Network and Sharing Center" ---> "Change advanced sharing settings" (menu top left) and then click the "Turn off network discovery" radio button. Do the same to turn off "File and printer sharing" and then click "Save settings". It should look like you see it in the screenshot afterwards. https://i.imgur.com/skZUrJQ.png

Be aware though that if you want to make changes to your router configuration you'll have to re-enable Network discovery. Disable it again afterwards.
AxleGrinder
Posts: 3
Joined: September 13th, 2017, 1:09 pm

Re: Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

Post by AxleGrinder »

I was running both Windows and Linux when I had a problem with someone (a work rival) at my workplace seeming to know what was on my computer screens regardless of which combination of dual-boot laptop/desktop Windows/Linux I was running. I had specifically disabled all server services including NTP on my Linux system. I didn't even connect my smartphone using a USB cable or even have Bluetooth running. It was only when my smartphone was attached to my local Wi-Fi network that he seemed to know. I used wireshark to monitor my local network and found my smartphone emitting two sets of SSDP requests (around 7 at 8.30pm, and 1 more at 1.30am). After blocking SSDP traffic to/from my PC and laptop, this "problem" disappeared.
AxleGrinder
Posts: 3
Joined: September 13th, 2017, 1:09 pm

Re: Which service - is responsible for SSDP?

Post by AxleGrinder »

I have just about disabled every service on Windows as well, and use wireshark to make sure no telemetry is being sent back to Microsoft or to AWS in Ireland or Austin, Texas.
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