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 :)

…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.

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 ;-)

now, why is that we run out of things to say, to talk about? It has been almost a month and a half, but somehow, I’ve never felt like logging in and posting something…really no idea why…!! Anyways…things are going on like they have been. There have been a few interesting developments at work; unfortunately, they cannot be revealed here now…btw, don’t let your mind wander ;-), its just work that’s all!!

My hi-def LCD TV arrived over the weekend. I’ve been waiting for over a year to get this one. Got it at quite a bargain and a good installment scheme to boot. 50 inches of sheer splendor - DVD’s look awesome on this beauty ;-) …now just waiting for a HD-DVD player and an xbox 360…LOL :)

… I have been getting really lazy of late…! one month has passed and no posts yet…! few reasons I can give ;-) Appraisals Chennai trip work ;-( I still haven’t got the chennai tip pics up…so it will be a while before getting that post done. However, the Jan trip’s posting is definitely pending…it was fun and it definitely warrants a complete post. I’ll start working on that shortly…;-)

You can trust a client visit to throw things out of gear for a while. Nevertheless, things have gone on pretty well…except my vacation got totally messed up. I have done many changes to the blog page now. RSS links are available for your personalized google or yahoo home pages, so you will get the new posts delivered straight to your home page. Of course, you can subscribe to these feeds with a stand alone reader. further below are two really funny quizzes - “Are you a true nerd?” which gives you your nerd score and the next one is your “Computer savviness index”. try out these quizzess - you’ll find it fun.