First Post - Mission Statement

     Beginner security practitioners and programmers sometimes have a hard time getting acquainted with the tools of the trade. In a recent discussion on the Taosecurity blog at http://taosecurity.blogspot.com Richard Bejtlich interviewed a security analyst who had participated in the 2005 CTF competition at Def Con. In this discussion, I had brought up the lack of “hands on” type activities such as CTF tournaments.

     So I was inspired to start this blog. Taking a cue from Rich, I came to blogspot and started an account. The purpose of this blog is post information of technical relevance in the fields of Computer Security, Programming, and technology in general. Here I will post news, articles, and examples in each of these areas. I will muse on topics, and give anecdotes into each of these areas. I will post discussions over programs I come across. I did this for some beginners to learn from me and also in hopes of learning something new from the more experienced individuals out there in these areas.

     Here is some background on me. I was involved with the scene when it was referred to as H/P/A/V/C (that’s Hacking/Phreaking/Anarchy/Virii/Carding, I don’t think that acronym is still used). Before the “Geek Chic” computer savviest of the Yahoo generation cried and took the term hacker for themselves because it “sounded cool”, and crackers were people who were part of warez scene that cracked copy protection, and hackers wanted nothing to do with them. This was before dial up accounts allowed clients direct connection and all we had were shell accounts, the World Wide Web was just starting to emerge, but Gopher was still dominate, and even Mosaic was a whisper (if it was even around at that time, my memory is a little fuzzy). This was back when boxes were used to manipulate the phone system to get free calls, eavesdrop on conversations, and modify your phone to make conference calls at your neighbors expense. AT&T and BSD were fighting with each other for the rights to Unix. Java wasn’t even a gleam in Suns eye, C++ was a mysterious and scary language, and although C was king, Pascal came in a close second. No one had even heard of Kevin Mitnick, so when Cyberspace chanted “Free Kevin” I had to say Déjà vu because I remember what happened to Phiber Optic and MOD.

     Programming became by passion in life, and still is to this day. Back then, the demo scene showed us what you could do with just a bit of assembly knowledge and really push the limits of the PC’s in those days. Programs like this inspired me to learn languages like Pascal, C, and Assembly in those days of Borland’s Turbo products.

     Enough of my reminiscing, welcome to my blog. I welcome all comments and questions. If I don’t know the answer, I will do my best to point you in the right direction. If you have a suggestion for an article, please feel free to make a suggestion.