Brian Baskin's Site (FWIW)

Last Updated on Monday, 06 October 2008 05:02 Written by Administrator Saturday, 04 October 2008 19:13

I was able to attend Sun Tzu Data's first DojoSec meeting on Thursday night. This is a genius idea from Marcus Carey, the man in charge. The Balt-DC corridor is the hotbed for IT security, so get the big name speakers to come here, in their own backyard, to train other locals. And the event went off awesomely.

It was a three hour mini-conference, catered, with two talks given. Chris Daywalt and Eoghan Casey teamed up on a talk of altering Incident Response techniques to more effectively combat advanced hackers. Working with Chris, I know that he thinks and speaks on a level that is far beyond us mere mortals, but the information was great and really emphasized by the many mistakes that we have all made. This was my first time meeting Eoghan, who had a great speaking presence and mixed well with Chris's very up-beat, off-the-wall manner.

Following them was Johnny Long's No Tech Hacking talk (from whom I unabashedly stole the web design). Having seen this a few times already, you get used to it. But, there were a few good changes to keep it new over the months. Johnny and his family were there to also spread the Hackers for Charity movement, a noble cause that deserves much recognition.

This is geared to be a monthly meeting, and I hope to attend each one. Not only for the good talks, but also to meet with others in the field and catch up with some old friends that have moved onto other businesses in the area. A number of conversations arose from that night, one a topic that is really hitting deep with me that I will write about in a bit... how to get n00bs into forensics/intrusions.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 August 2008 07:15 Written by Administrator Wednesday, 06 August 2008 07:14

I spent this last weekend on an enjoyable drive to London, Kentucky to participate in the 9th Annual Sport Truck Shootout, put on by the North American Truck Club (mostly Chevy 454SS owners). I've always tried to attend in prior years, but the distance and general state of my truck has made it impossible.

This year, my plans were slightly changed by Spike TV's Trucks! show. This season featured a build-off between Ryan and Kevin over a '94 Ford Lightning and a '90 454SS. These efforts were to culminate at the Shootout when the two trucks would go head-to-head to see which was faster.

Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, the race did not occur. However, Trucks! was there to hang out with the clubs for the weekend and take plenty of footage for the show. Kevin and Ryan were great to our clubs and genuinely interested in the various builds.

For me, well, times were off. I was near 2 seconds off of my normal times due to weather and elevation, so I spent the event practicing burn-outs and launches. A great trip overall! It was also the first time that my wife had come with me to a drag day, where we spent 12 hours on the drag strip from setup to shutdown.

Last Updated on Sunday, 30 March 2008 08:29 Written by Administrator Sunday, 30 March 2008 08:27

After enjoying Florida twice in my life, we're heading back again. The first two times was when our DoD Cyber Crime Conference was held at the Westin Innisbrook in Tampa. This time, I will be traveling to speak at the US-CERT GFIRST conference in the first week of June. 

 

I will be giving my talk from the last Cyber Crime Conference: Bittorrent: The Swarm of Internet Crime. It'll be massively updated to take account of some of the new clients (Deluge) and hardware from CeBIT and other recent conference.

Plus, we'll stay a few extra days for my family's first time ever at Disney.

 

On a side note, for those of you who asked, yes I completely ripped my theme from Johnny's site. Congrats to him on his recent trip to Uganda again for the Hackers for Charity movement.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 March 2008 18:00 Written by Administrator Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:56

I've been asked a number of times what I've been up to lately.  For one, an undisclosed project management task that is eating the very soul of my existence. But, from what I gather, that seems to be the entire management field as a whole.

 

I've been approached a few times over the last year to help, or completely write, some book material. All I've turned down. Writing is hard, especially when you have a toddler, busy hobbies, and an even busier career. Some call me the 'research monkey'; someone who can quickly find and learn new information, then regurgitate it into an easy to read format. But, at a point, I don't like doing that too much. I got burned on the Practical VoIP book for that; at least I feel like I burned myself. There was one topic that I was not very familiar with, so I BS'd my way through it. The tech editor called me out on it, but helped get me to where it needed to be.  After that, I decided not to write on any topic unless I knew it like the back of my hand.

 

So along comes a new project in January. A book on Netcat! One of my favorite tools, and one that I've developed many new procedures for in forensics. Due to time commitments, I ended up writing just one chapter in it: Banner Grabbing, another favorite topic. 

 

The work is submitted and undergoing edits now, so be on the look out for Netcat Power Tools when it comes out.