I am trying to put together a proper hacking toolkit after reading an article on hackaday encouraging people to come up with the perfect hacker workbench.
I already ordered my oscilloscope kit today, it’s a PC based one, not a full fledged scope, but I think I will be happy with it as it’s been 4 years since I used a real one and this is a cheap entry level thing to get started.
What would you buy? Here’s the article with the comments.
I made my appearance on hak5live last night and all I can say is that it was quite an interesting night. I was a little tense with the cameras at first but I think I managed to pretend they weren’t there after a couple of minutes.
My show and tell involved Homebrew roms obtained from http://www.pineight.com/gba/ and http://www.pdroms.de/ from within an Ubuntu 7.04 environment using an Xbox 360 controller and the VisualBoy Advance emulator. I used the VBAExpress frontend for it to save on the command-line usage.
I think we all learned quite a lot about how different production is for a live show versus a show that undergoes editing before being released. The first 35 to 40 minutes after the 30 minute delay in starting went pretty well I thought. The next time they do this it should be much more streamlined.
The show should be edited and available for download sometime in the next couple of days. Visit http://www.hak5.org and http://www.hak5live.org for more details.
This past Sunday I obtained my SANS GCIH certification. That brings me up to four, with two more left in queue (Linux+ and CISSP). I am proud of my 92/91 test scores for it, and plan on taking it Gold along with my GSEC sometime in the next year or so.
I’m presently working on some slides for a course that the command is going to send new personnel through. I will be teaching for a good couple of hours according to the current plan it appears, which is fine by me. I like teaching.
One interesting thing that popped into my mind a little earlier was regarding the knowledge that we all collectively have and share. It’s a little hard to put into words, but the basic premise is that regardless of our level of intelligence, or individual wisdom and experience, there are certain things that we all know, and strangely they are things that at the same time, we don’t know.
We are the masters of our mind and body, yet introspectively know little about how we actually tick. We know how to think and breathe, but we don’t really understand how these actions are actually performed from within ourselves. Obviously there are theories that cover this, like Freud’s Id, but it’s fun to think about being able to know and do things, and yet not at the same time.
The party last night was pretty insane, although without incidents as geeks are generally pretty decent drunks. I was the victim of a concoction that will probably become widely known as the “Evil Server” which had enough alcohol to put me down early enough to miss the IHOP adventure.
I am without a hangover, however, so I spent the last little while testing out a new gallery I hope to use with this blog so that I can embed pictures, or at least manage some of the photos I want online without having to use an external service, or the clunky interface that Coppermine has. Hopefully Gallery2 has a more streamlined interface. The URL is http://chrisgerling.com/pics/.
Hak5 Live starts up this month, which will have a little different angle than the regular show. I am going to be doing something for the next one most likely, gotta get to work on that.
I’ve also started looking into Second Life again after an interesting conversation/demo last night.
My referral link is http://www.secondlife.com/?u=f35129373e05bb0717abf5bb66873ff2 so if you feel like joining, I get something out of the deal I think.
The past week included one CISSP study group session, installing Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty” on my spare hard drive, and the usual weekend partying/cooking out.
I’ve been using the latest Ubuntu release since early Saturday morning, and I have to say I am impressed. If my parents lived closer than a 10 hour drive from me I might actually consider switching them over to this, although I think we’re at least a few releases away from it being a smooth enough experience for them.
I had never really run a Linux desktop for more than a week or two as my primary desktop OS before, and I believe this one is going to stay for quite a long time. Beryl/Compiz makes things look nice and shiny, as well as providing functionality.
StumbleUpon has come through once again with an interesting tutorial on how to get started with picking locks. I now have something to keep me entertained at work tonight, as the entire site is chock full of good information on lockpicking. I might as well add a new skill or two to myself eh?
Work on the possible podcast progresses. I am working on a little project that I think might provide for an interesting commentary.
More later!
Yes, I haven’t forgotten, I’m still sticking to the minimum of one post per week.
This week has been mostly work, although I did get my favors in this past Sunday so I can call in some karma later on when I need it. Helping friends move can get pretty interesting sometimes.
Today was just wrapping things up. We checked out of our hotel rooms and stopped by the con, I ducked in on a couple of the presentations going on, and picked up DVDs of the presentations I found to be the most interesting, or most useful for why we were sent there by our command. The plan is to use these to prepare up a full report and perhaps some sort of training to our peers.
What was interesting was that the presentations themselves, while great, were actually not the meat of the conference. It was all about meeting and talking with other people who work in the industry, and actually care about what they do. It felt so awesome to be surrounded by people who actually understood their field, and weren’t in it just for the paycheck (although paychecks are definitely a reason).
I’m definitely going next year.
Day Two was more about DC than it was Shmoocon. We managed to hit up some of the presentations while also making sure to visit with the various vendors and talk with some real security gurus at the same time.
Unlike the first day, this was more about one presentation for me than any of the others.
I write this now, having slept from approximately 4am to 8:30am, but we’ll get to that in a minute or two
Registration was supposed to start at 1pm according to the guide, but it was more like 1:40ish. In any event Andy and I were all set by 2pm and collected some vendor swag, had an appetizer upstairs at the Pub built into the hotel, and hung out till things kicked off at 3:30pm.
Opening comments were by the Shmoo group staff, I forget the guy’s name now but i’ll get it later. He was decently entertaining, and basically is the founder of this thing, so he drives the flow of everything. I’m going to summarize each speaker:
My new addiction when i’m at my desktop at home is StumbleUpon. I’ve been using it for approximately a month now, and i’ve discovered so many interesting and useful websites through it, I don’t know how I used to surf the internet the way I did to be honest.
The other day I was greeted to a YTMND page, and usually I don’t like those very much, but this one in particular is different. There’s nothing weird on it, just a picture, a very very humbling quote, and extremely good background music. The theme centers on a picture of our Planet Earth taken from deep space, and the quote by Carl Sagan is really spot on regarding the human race.
Hak5 Ipod Feed