I’ll be talking about the knoppix-based forensic live CD called Helix on the next Hak5 episode which we’re shooting this coming weekend. It’s been out there for quite awhile, and as a security guy I have gotten the opportunity to use it in an incident response role a couple of times. I believe a 2.0 release is coming in the next couple of months, but no official word yet.
I need some geek roommates so I can delegate some of this network stuff to them :). I’ll eventually get things online, I just stay fairly busy. Sorry!
In the computer world, credentials have always been a little bit different from most other industries. Lawyers, Engineers, Teachers, Doctors, and similar professions have some sort of structured peer-reviewed and enforced system for distributing and maintaining credentials for the work that they do. It is a way of protecting people from illegitimate practice and giving them an avenue of redress should they experience any problems with a particular individual or entity.
Many professions within the computer industry umbrella do not have such credentialing bodies, especially within computer engineering and computer security. There are degrees, vendor and vendor-neutral certifications, however there is no such thing as the equivalent of a bar exam, or a license to practice. I believe that while this should not be necessary for most situations, however, if one is going to testify in a courtroom as an expert, they should have some sort of credentials to prove what they claim to know that aren’t possible to obtain with a credit card and a couple of hours taking a test online.
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