While this is not free as requested by the original askslashdot poster, I would also mention SnAppshot from Novell. It sounds like it will be exactly what he/she is looking for. I've used it in the past to snap an OS, install software or reconfigure something, and then snap again to list all of the registry and file changes. It worked really well and made it possible to script some automation into our task of configuring a large number of workstations.
I have been to many large scale lan parties, and some of the techniques that I've seen are:
1. Waiver - Though I'd agree with a lot of the posts that say it's a sad world if you need this.. the fact is that you need this. Say up front that you are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged equipment (hardware or software).
2. Lockdown - I have been to lans that kick everyone out at a certain time (2am-7am) to a sleeping area and lock the doors to the room the computers are in. This may not work with your attendees though, depending on how late/early they game. This helps a little against people picking through your gear while you're sleeping.
3. Barcodes - I have seen lans that will take a quick inventory of your major gear components (tower, monitor, laptop) at check-in, and issue you barcodes. They then check the list when you haul something out to make sure that you didn't walk out with someone else's laptop or tower. The barcodes could be either on the equipment itself, or on your attendee badge. People who rsvp ahead of time can submit the inventory list online and get through the line faster. This could also be done by manually typing in serial numbers, but a barcode reader is faster and not terribly expensive. (It's cheaper than getting sued.) It won't prevent someone from swiping your headphones, but it's a start.
4. Room Security - If possible, make sure that your room only has one entrance/exit (not including fire escape routes), and place your staff member's table near it. Hopefully you'll see anything that's obviously wrong.
All that being said, I've still heard stories of ram being stolen out of servers, while the server was on and had people connected to it. (I don't know if that's true or what damage it may have done to the thief or server.)
I know a local woodsball / scenario paintball field that uses the big dish satellites as bunkers. They flip them over and pile sand bags in a 3/4 circle beneath the dome and use it as a pill box fortification. That's the best use I can think of, though not very technical.
At the very least, it is a crime on a lesser level because no one is placed in danger of physical harm through it's effects. That isn't necessarily true though. People are starting to notice cyber criminals, but they still think it's all about stealing grandma's credit card number. What happens when a denial of service hits a hospital, power plant, or airport. What happens when military, govt, and contractor information gets posted on P2P sites or sold to foreign govts?
An interesting line of rugged portable computers - top of the line will do 4 cpus and go up to 16Gb Ram - You'll have to go to the site to see all of the specs of the various model lines.
/me glances back through Counter-Hack.
Good Question. I will have to agree that a lot of the content is similar, and that makes sense (author of book==author of course material). The price difference is significant, but I could point to a few benefits of attending the course over just reading the book.
If you attend the course, you can ask Ed questions (or another qualified SANS instructor). If you need to clarify something or want to dig into a topic a little deeper, you have that opportunity.
You get to discuss the topics and work with other security people who are taking the course with you. It was a good place to make contacts and meet like-minded folks.
You probably get to hear more real-life stories and examples of security issues and how they really happen from your instructor/peers
You get to use the tools in a safe lan environment and practice what you've learned hands-on. The end of the week competition is a lot of fun.
The course material is updated more often than a book can be, so they can give extra focus to the newest attack vectors, trends, and tools.
Probably one of the most important differences is that you can sign up to take the certification. SANS GAIC Certifications are well respected. Cert on resume could equal more $ or better job, or even just more business for your current job, promotions, etc. So, as many other/. posts remind us: "3.) Profit!!!!!"
Your company probably paid for the whole thing, you got a week off of work - paid, you get to spend time in a cool city, and eat good food on per diem. What else do you want?
Seriously though, those are the differences between any book and a live training course. If you're just asking about the text content, they do have a lot in common and Counter Hack is a very good book.
This appears to be similar to the highly regarded SANS GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH) Course, SEC-504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling, which I attended a while back. The SANS course was excellent and is often taught by Ed Skoudis. Its challenging, but also very worthwhile. They cover how to create an Incident Handling team and then launch in to Reconnaissance, Scanning, Exploits, Keeping Access, and Covering Your Tracks. It would take too long to list out all of the different tools and tactics that they covered, but it's pretty comprehensive. It's a great course, and I highly recommend it to anyone involved in computer security. The insight into how attackers target, gather information, compromise, and maintain access on systems has been invaluable in understanding how to then try and close the holes and mitigate the risks. You'll never be 100% invulnerable on a machine or network that you actually use for anything, but if you know how to think like an attacker and what the current tools are capable of, then you'll be able to fix most of it.
I used to work as a computer tech in a small public library, and I was there when they decided to convert the whole system from the machine stamped cards to a barcode electronic system. I'll let the other/. posters help you decide what system to use, but I do have a suggestion that may help you out with the data.
In whatever system that you decide to use, I can tell you that if you plan it right you'll be able to import a lot of the up front data about the books without too much effort. For example, there are sites where you can type in the ISBN and pull up records with the title, author, copyright, publisher, category, and maybe a brief synopsis. You can definitely search the archives of various online libraries, and with a script parse it into your database. When my library buys a new book to put into the system, they pull the MARC records from Baker & Taylor. I'm not sure what kind of registration you'd have to do on the site to get access, but they're our primary resource and worth checking out. Good luck!
If you're not familiar with the security field, then you might want to take a step back and look at a bigger picture. Information Assurance is the broader category.
IA can be divided into 7 categories:
Physical
Computer
Information
Operations
Communications
Network
Emanations
There are also several dimensions of each category:
Confidentiality
Integrity
Availability
Accountability
I would recommend that you investigate each one to see where your personal strengths might make the best fit. If you enjoy math, then you might want to specialize in crytography, passwords, and secure communication. If you enjoy the business side of things, you can look at developing corporate policies on security matters. If, like you said originally, you've decided on network security, you can focus on network packets, matching attack patterns, creating router and firewall rulesets to block known (and unknown) attacks. Network security can also include network hardening: knowing what services are running, why, and who has the right to use them; and then restrict everything that is outside of that approved use.
Obviously there is a lot to it, but the point to be made here is that you should look at all of the different facets of Information Assurance and find the direction that is right for your skills and interests. Many of the fields will overlap and a well rounded security professional will be talented in many of these directions.
Another important quality of a security professional is a strong set of ethics. You will probably at some point have access to very sensitive information, and you must have the ethics and tact to handle those situations correctly.
An important bit of advice on the side: Before you use any security tools on a network, get permission in writing from the appropriate authority (the higher up the better).
There are probably several reasons, but I can tell you about one at least. ADSL is fast when you download something because the A stands for Asynchronous. If you ask your DSL company they'll tell you that your actual speeds are, for example, 1.5 Mb download and 256 kb upload (1024 kb = 1 Mb). The download speeds are extremely disproportionate to the upload speeds. This is fine for most home users as you download webpages, emails, and files but do very little uploading. A business on the other hand, is likely to do a lot of uploading as we host web servers, file servers, etc which is why a T1 line is typically synchronous (1.5 Mb download and 1.5 Mb upload). DSL lines can now run 3.0 Mb down / 512 kb up or even 6.0 Mb down / 768 kb up, but it's still too unbalanced to meet the needs of a business who hosts many of its own services. Businesses are also paying for better support and service. Anyway, that's an introductory explanation of why a T1 will cost more than a DSL line that seems just as fast or faster.
I recall playing 'Stronghold', an RTS based on medieval castle defense. If you play for a certain (long) period of time the narrator starts making suggestions such as "How about a snack, mylord?" In other words.. you've been playing for too long.. get up and do something! This is one example of how game developers have tried to discourage extended gaming sessions. Though I must admit, after having a good laugh I still kept gaming.
Unfortunately, these days I spend more time at work than I do gaming; eight to ten hours in a stretch! In fact, though I've nearly died of exhaustion several times, I think we would all agree that there are only a few people who are actually addicted to their jobs.
I'm on staff for a local Lan party and have dealt with a lot of the issues. I recommend that you start with power. Having enough electricity is usually more of a problem than the actual floor space. We tested our systems with an Ammeter and found that an 'average' gaming system will pull around 3-4 amps under gaming load. (less when idle). Obviously it depends on the number of components and lcd vs crt monitor, etc. Most buildings will run with 20 amp circuits but you'll have to get a electrical blueprint for the building to know which wall outlets are connected to which circuits. It's important because it really stinks to be in the middle of a tournament and breakers start flipping.
That's a start... feel free to drop me a line and I can give you more details about other lan challenges, advertising, tournaments, food, location, and other logistics. [ daph00z@ h s v g l . com ] remove spaces
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Remember to 'sudo'
Reference: http://xkcd.com/149/
You can view this image and many other interesting photos at the Astronomy Picture of the Day website. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090805.html
While this is not free as requested by the original askslashdot poster, I would also mention SnAppshot from Novell. It sounds like it will be exactly what he/she is looking for. I've used it in the past to snap an OS, install software or reconfigure something, and then snap again to list all of the registry and file changes. It worked really well and made it possible to script some automation into our task of configuring a large number of workstations.
I have been to many large scale lan parties, and some of the techniques that I've seen are:
1. Waiver - Though I'd agree with a lot of the posts that say it's a sad world if you need this.. the fact is that you need this. Say up front that you are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged equipment (hardware or software).
2. Lockdown - I have been to lans that kick everyone out at a certain time (2am-7am) to a sleeping area and lock the doors to the room the computers are in. This may not work with your attendees though, depending on how late/early they game. This helps a little against people picking through your gear while you're sleeping.
3. Barcodes - I have seen lans that will take a quick inventory of your major gear components (tower, monitor, laptop) at check-in, and issue you barcodes. They then check the list when you haul something out to make sure that you didn't walk out with someone else's laptop or tower. The barcodes could be either on the equipment itself, or on your attendee badge. People who rsvp ahead of time can submit the inventory list online and get through the line faster. This could also be done by manually typing in serial numbers, but a barcode reader is faster and not terribly expensive. (It's cheaper than getting sued.) It won't prevent someone from swiping your headphones, but it's a start.
4. Room Security - If possible, make sure that your room only has one entrance/exit (not including fire escape routes), and place your staff member's table near it. Hopefully you'll see anything that's obviously wrong.
All that being said, I've still heard stories of ram being stolen out of servers, while the server was on and had people connected to it. (I don't know if that's true or what damage it may have done to the thief or server.)
I know a local woodsball / scenario paintball field that uses the big dish satellites as bunkers. They flip them over and pile sand bags in a 3/4 circle beneath the dome and use it as a pill box fortification. That's the best use I can think of, though not very technical.
http://www.maxvision.com/
An interesting line of rugged portable computers - top of the line will do 4 cpus and go up to 16Gb Ram - You'll have to go to the site to see all of the specs of the various model lines.
Good Question. I will have to agree that a lot of the content is similar, and that makes sense (author of book==author of course material). The price difference is significant, but I could point to a few benefits of attending the course over just reading the book.
Seriously though, those are the differences between any book and a live training course. If you're just asking about the text content, they do have a lot in common and Counter Hack is a very good book.
This appears to be similar to the highly regarded SANS GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH) Course, SEC-504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling, which I attended a while back. The SANS course was excellent and is often taught by Ed Skoudis. Its challenging, but also very worthwhile. They cover how to create an Incident Handling team and then launch in to Reconnaissance, Scanning, Exploits, Keeping Access, and Covering Your Tracks. It would take too long to list out all of the different tools and tactics that they covered, but it's pretty comprehensive.
It's a great course, and I highly recommend it to anyone involved in computer security. The insight into how attackers target, gather information, compromise, and maintain access on systems has been invaluable in understanding how to then try and close the holes and mitigate the risks. You'll never be 100% invulnerable on a machine or network that you actually use for anything, but if you know how to think like an attacker and what the current tools are capable of, then you'll be able to fix most of it.
I used to work as a computer tech in a small public library, and I was there when they decided to convert the whole system from the machine stamped cards to a barcode electronic system. I'll let the other /. posters help you decide what system to use, but I do have a suggestion that may help you out with the data.
In whatever system that you decide to use, I can tell you that if you plan it right you'll be able to import a lot of the up front data about the books without too much effort. For example, there are sites where you can type in the ISBN and pull up records with the title, author, copyright, publisher, category, and maybe a brief synopsis. You can definitely search the archives of various online libraries, and with a script parse it into your database. When my library buys a new book to put into the system, they pull the MARC records from Baker & Taylor. I'm not sure what kind of registration you'd have to do on the site to get access, but they're our primary resource and worth checking out. Good luck!
IA can be divided into 7 categories:
There are also several dimensions of each category:
I would recommend that you investigate each one to see where your personal strengths might make the best fit. If you enjoy math, then you might want to specialize in crytography, passwords, and secure communication. If you enjoy the business side of things, you can look at developing corporate policies on security matters. If, like you said originally, you've decided on network security, you can focus on network packets, matching attack patterns, creating router and firewall rulesets to block known (and unknown) attacks. Network security can also include network hardening: knowing what services are running, why, and who has the right to use them; and then restrict everything that is outside of that approved use.
Obviously there is a lot to it, but the point to be made here is that you should look at all of the different facets of Information Assurance and find the direction that is right for your skills and interests. Many of the fields will overlap and a well rounded security professional will be talented in many of these directions.
Another important quality of a security professional is a strong set of ethics. You will probably at some point have access to very sensitive information, and you must have the ethics and tact to handle those situations correctly.
An important bit of advice on the side: Before you use any security tools on a network, get permission in writing from the appropriate authority (the higher up the better).
There are probably several reasons, but I can tell you about one at least. ADSL is fast when you download something because the A stands for Asynchronous. If you ask your DSL company they'll tell you that your actual speeds are, for example, 1.5 Mb download and 256 kb upload (1024 kb = 1 Mb). The download speeds are extremely disproportionate to the upload speeds. This is fine for most home users as you download webpages, emails, and files but do very little uploading. A business on the other hand, is likely to do a lot of uploading as we host web servers, file servers, etc which is why a T1 line is typically synchronous (1.5 Mb download and 1.5 Mb upload). DSL lines can now run 3.0 Mb down / 512 kb up or even 6.0 Mb down / 768 kb up, but it's still too unbalanced to meet the needs of a business who hosts many of its own services. Businesses are also paying for better support and service. Anyway, that's an introductory explanation of why a T1 will cost more than a DSL line that seems just as fast or faster.
I recall playing 'Stronghold', an RTS based on medieval castle defense. If you play for a certain (long) period of time the narrator starts making suggestions such as "How about a snack, mylord?" In other words.. you've been playing for too long.. get up and do something! This is one example of how game developers have tried to discourage extended gaming sessions. Though I must admit, after having a good laugh I still kept gaming.
Unfortunately, these days I spend more time at work than I do gaming; eight to ten hours in a stretch! In fact, though I've nearly died of exhaustion several times, I think we would all agree that there are only a few people who are actually addicted to their jobs.
if you have questions.. then yes that is the email.. if you have spam.. then no it isn't. =)
There are programs that can read email addresses off of forums and such for spamming so it's better if you don't post it exactly as it's spelled.
I'm on staff for a local Lan party and have dealt with a lot of the issues. I recommend that you start with power. Having enough electricity is usually more of a problem than the actual floor space. We tested our systems with an Ammeter and found that an 'average' gaming system will pull around 3-4 amps under gaming load. (less when idle). Obviously it depends on the number of components and lcd vs crt monitor, etc. Most buildings will run with 20 amp circuits but you'll have to get a electrical blueprint for the building to know which wall outlets are connected to which circuits. It's important because it really stinks to be in the middle of a tournament and breakers start flipping. That's a start... feel free to drop me a line and I can give you more details about other lan challenges, advertising, tournaments, food, location, and other logistics. [ daph00z@ h s v g l . com ] remove spaces