This Side of Paradise

I am a huge fan of CTF’s and play them at every available opportunity to sharpen my skills and keep them up to date. One of the biggest challenges for playing a CTF is to ensure that the VM’s to be used during the event are always up to date and have all of the tools ready. I usually do this before a day, so it is a full day of running apt-get update and check for updates for a whole day before.

As always, forensics challenges draw my attention first - there’s a satisfying feeling that all of the answers are within what ever artefact you have with you. The “league of assassins” is a beginner challenge that requires analysis of a pcap file and is avaiable at this link. The challenge text says You are a field agent tailing a League of Assassins operative. The assassin just got the name of his target and needs to scope him based on available online information. So, he starts using free WiFi provided by Moonbucks coffee shop. The WiFi network is not using any security and is open to all. He is browsing the internet while enjoying his coffee while you are capturing the WiFi traffic. While you were busy with your sniffer set up, he took off. Now, the only way to stop the assassination is to find the target individual by analyzing the captured traffic and warning him in advance.

After a gap of more than four and a half years, I’m back. Been quite busy these times - although I had dropped in occasionally to see what was happening. Life’s on its next, “more responsible” phase right now. It started off way back in 2002 when I started becoming interested in infosec - however, due to Goldman, I didn’t have the time (and the motivation) to pursue it seriously. However, now, I find myself torn apart between two worlds - the work of a project manager and the call of infosec! I’ve decided to eventually transition over. Have been working on lots of things for a while now, will start to post more regularly (Warning - some of the articles are going to be very technical going forward).

…lots more to come :)

quick preview of my next posts… the xbox is here, halo 3 looks just awesome :) terabyte storage, that’s so unassuming the laptop hunt updates …coming soon..!

….yikes…! I dread to think of going out in that peak hour traffic near panjagutta or whereabouts. Had to go pick up the monitor today and hence took around an hour and a half to just travel between the pulla reddy building and lifestyle. As I was sitting idle in the traffic, I had a glimpse (wink wink ;)) of how my life could potentially turn out to be…

…when all of my devices choose to go down at the very same time. It’s as if they’ve all been conspiring together and chose the last couple of days to conk off one after another. It started off with the 19’ monitor of the desktop, would totally refuse to display anything above 640 * 480. The display would blank out and would show an error saying that the optimal resolution of the monitor was 1280*1024. Heck… that was what I was trying to drill into its digital brains.

Stop! This is not an appeal beseeching you to elect the Taj as one of the new seven wonders of the world. The bigger question to me is - do we, as Indians deserve to see the Taj as one of the new seven wonders of the world? Controversial opinion? Let me help with the thought process. Have you ever seen the Taj in the state that it is in, now? The marble used in the construction was milk white - is it now? it’s a dirty brown, courtesy of the many polluting factories in the vicinity of the place. the Yamuna river runs by the Taj - dirty, black and pollutant laden. ‘Wonder of the world’ material? you tell me…!!

…of yesterday’s crash was seen in totality today. Bunked office to get some rest, but it was a pretty hectic day overall…! woke up at 9:30 in the morning and had to literally push the bike to the service station. The key hole was jammed and I couldn’t turn on the ignition. Sat there for a couple of hours to get a repair quotation to submit to the insurance folks. The total damage was worth around 6,700… so far.

So, what are the resolutions for this year gonna be? Well, there’s the pending list from last year… however, the list isn’t too long for this year ;-) get a nice big bike get those certifications moving. Finish them as soon as possible hit the gym more regularly…! learn something new :) (probably why I’m sitting so late trying to get my laptop display the proper resolution on linux) travel 2007 was welcomed from a linux desktop. Have been using vista for a major part of last year - believe it or not, I’ve grown tired of it ;-)