Hacking Dojo week 2

So this week was a little interesting in how it came about. And why I'm not posting on it until so late tonight. Monday, for class, due to issues with work, I was going to be late. I loaded up skype on my Galaxy S, to either start listening, or something, and saw that Thomas Wilhelm had bail on us last week. Worked out for me, I was 20 to 30 minutes from being somewhere I could take the class.

This Week's Class:
So the 2011-04-04 class was on Passive Informtion gathering as listed in the ISSAF. The class is canceled didn't mean that we got a free week. Instead we were told to pull the video from 3 months ago, off the site, and watch it.

The topic was searching for as much information for a target, based on scope, without touching the target's servers at all.

One of the things I caught in the video was the use of Personal Wiki's to keep track of your notes during the course of the attack. Something a little better than a text editor. I can see the point, to a point. Easier to make call outs, add images, links and other things than a text editor. So I spent some time today looking for a personal wiki. I'm trying Zim right now, but might just do a local install of media wiki. I've used Leo in the past, but that's less a wiki and more an outlining tool. (Offensive Security uses Leo for their stuff).

Some of the tools covered were remote whois and dns look up servers. How Google caches work and how they don't cache images but hit the servers for them (Google cache only copies text everything else it pulls live from the web site). How to use the Wayback Machine at archive.org, and how to search a couple of other things.

A lot of what was covered here, was in the recon chapter of Dissecting the Hack: Th3 F0rb!dd3n N3tw0rk and Hacking: The Next Generation.

Also, if anyone is interested in signing up for the class. I found out yesterday the course cost is going up by $50.00 soon, but if you get in now, you'll be locked in at the $95.00 price, until you cancel.

Hacking Dojo week 1.

So I signed up for the Hacking Dojo recently. At $95.00 a month for 1x a week hacking class it seemed like a good deal. I figured I'd do a running review of the class on my blog. Maybe I'll write up a fancier one later.

The Hacking Dojo has several different levels. The lowest level is actually a 2 month class, that teaches the "Basics". Things like scripting, virtual labs, etc. The others are a pay by the month class.

The Class Format:
The class meets once a week at a set time. The classes meet via Skype conference call, and a web based desktop sharing program for "screen casting".

You can join the class at anytime, as long as there is an opening. Other than the Mukyu, which is ran for 2 months and can only be joined at the start of the cycle.

The Shodan Level, the one I'm in, are designed to recycle every 3 months. Basically go through three months of classes and then if the students have kept up with the home work and labs, they can test out of the class to the next level. The Shodan level classes are designed to teach students the basic frame work of Penetration testing. The exam is just as much about the ISSAF as it is about hacking the system.

First Impressions:
So I started with the Shodan class, because I have experience with Virtual Boxes and Virtual Labs, shell scripting, and some of the other topics that were covered at that level. I can't scrape a web page yet (one of the things you're expected to already know how to do in the Shodan class), but I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out when I have to. The one thing I'm more worried about is the lack of scripting / programming I've done over the last couple of years. I can do some basics but been a long time since I've had to do any real scripting.

I kind of lucked out when I signed up. I've been saying I'm going to for a while now. I was going to start with the lower class, but said meh, go big or stay on the porch. The first week's class I was lucky. It was the Review class for the last 3 weeks. It works good as an over view class too, giving the student an idea of what is to come.

The class incorporates both a Wiki and a Forum for peer level conversations. However, probably possible for a little bit of mentoring there too. But I haven't looked into it that much yet.

Moving to the next level:
To move up to the next level, you can ask to take the test at any time. It is a 2 part test. Both parts are timed. The first part is a 48 hour written exam, that must be passed before taking the second part. It's not just a bunch of answers, but includes having to prove your work with screen shots. The second test is the Practical exam. Where you have 72 hours hack the system.

After passing, you can move up to the next level, Nidan.

Stick around, my next class is in 2 days. I'll update sometime between then and next Sunday.

Maybe I like my Gnu/Linux harder

Edit: If you found this page searching for knoppix 6 and ssh, please go to this post.

So I was excited when Knoppix released version 6. I was expecting great things.

The one thing I wasn't expecting was a great disappointment. I installed Knoppix6 on the work laptop this week. They said they wanted to go back to the smaller cd architecture over the DVD one. I thought that was a great idea.

However I think a fresh install should include a few simple things.

• a login screen
  
• ssh pre-installed (maybe not turned on but at least installed)
  
• su working like a proper su, not an alias for sudo su.
  
• a system that doesn't make me feel like I'm using a windows want to be.
  
• the ability to create a user account and host name on set up.
  
• the ability to use the file system of my choosing.
  

Knoppix 6, boots and goes straight to a gui. No login, no nothing. Even if this was a home box, I would want someone to have to login to the box, not just drop them in a directory for everyone. Since this is a laptop, I'd want a login for even more reason. I do different thing than other people that use the laptop. It's a shared resource for the team. I don't want them accessing something I'm doing when it's not finished. Something that has always been an issue I've had when working on scripts. It won't be finished, people try to run it, and break things as a result.

SSH is a common tool in the Nix world. At least I, and an developer I talked to today think so. What's the point of a Nix box that doesn't have SSH installed? Sure it doesn't have to be automatically started when the box boots, so you can make config changes the first time. But eventually auto start would be the goal. I use ssh to talk to other boxes. If I hadn't had a external net connection (like where I was Tuesday, when I broke the network) I wouldn't have been able to download ssh and install it. (Luckily this laptop is set for dual boot, and I could do things from Windows with Putty).

I created the user account I wanted. The first of 4 I'm making. It's the generic backdoor account for the department. The people who are going to have access to the laptop will each get their own accounts at some point. However su is aliased as sudo su. Which is great for the default knoppix user, but my account (net-eng) wasn't in the sudoer's file. And wouldn't let me into su. Of course I got around this by using the full path, but still.

net-eng@Microknoppix:~$ which su
net-eng@Microknoppix:~$ type su
su is aliased to `sudo su'

I'll set my own aliases thanks.

The system has limited packages, yes I know they wanted to save size, but half the reason of using a distro is got get packages on the install. If you're not going to include packages then why bother? Then there is the case of the live cd. It gives you cheat codes for boot, kde, gnome etc. But when I tried kde, nothing happened. Seriously it feels like it has the functionality of a Windows install. Other cheats, like kiosk mode wouldn't start for me either.

When I'm doing an install, I'd like to be asked who I want to use the computer, and be able to create an account on the install. Not be given a generic one of the maintainer's choice (the knoppix account in this case). I want to have the setting options. I want to put the name and password I want. As far as I can tell, there is no knowing the knoppix user password. And it doesn't ask for it when you sudo, because it has the no password option set.

Secondly I work in an environment where I have more than one computer. For the last 2 years, because of the previous usefulness of knoppix, I've been pushing to move some of the boxes to that. But when they all install to Microknoppix as the host name, and don't ask for any kind of domain information, it makes setting the systems up slower. Because now I'll have multiple with the same name and lack of domain information, I'll have to touch the boxes multiple times to get them set up.

Lastly, the new simpler 0wn installer forces you to use the reiserfs system. Personally I like EXT3. Just what I prefer. I'm not the only one in that camp either. One of our clients is requesting that all the drives we send to them, with their data on them are the EXT3 format.

But there is more to 0wn being useless than just that. I preconfigured the laptop with an EXT3 and a NTFS partition, since it is dual boot. 0wn couldn't see the EXT3 partition. It has an option to start gparted to modify the table but it would never load, it looks like it's not installed / not on the live-cd. Pre-configuring reiserfs didn't work either, the automatic option couldn't find it, and it wasn't showing a list of drives. Running 0wn from the command line did work, and I was able to get cfdisk to run, instead of gparted even though I used the gparted option. Then it saw the reiserfs partition no problem.

I used to think that knoppix was one of the most useful distros out there. It lived up to it's claim to be the swiss army knife of linux distros. I can also understand the developer's desire to shrink the growth down some. However, they've gone too far and the distro is no longer a swiss army knife in my book.

I loved the kiosk mode, I've used older versions as emergency web servers, nfs servers, and to make disk images when I had to do forensics work (which I'm not an expert on). I got a few co-workers to start using it too. One even went out and bought the Knoppix Hacks book (second edition). The problem is, Knoppix 6 just doesn't live up to what it's previous versions were, at least in my book.

Something I wish FitDeck had included

After using three decks, I realized that there is something I would have included when i made the decks, if I had made them. 2 to 5 blank cards, for users of the deck to make their own cards.

About 8 years ago, give or take, I was talking with a company about making guitar flash cards. I was taking guitar lessons at their Southfield MI store. The instructor I had suggested making flash cards, for the different cords he was teaching me. Everyone he had would use 3x5 cards, make rough drawings of the guitar neck, and indicate which strings were held down, which were open, and which were not strummed when playing. Being the geek I am, I was able to use Viso to make them. They printed out really nice. Then I printed a few blank ones, so I could take notes, and make new cords on, when I learned them. The instructor saw them, because I kept them in my music folder, and took them to the store's education manager. I made about 10 prototype decks, even laminated those. The instructor took some and gave them to his other students. They really liked them. The manager took it up the food chain. The last I heard they were going through legal to see if there would be any problem printing them and selling them nation wide. Problem is, I stopped taking lessons (the instructor left) and the store closed (they went bankrupt).

The one thing that everyone liked was the blank cards. It was just the guitar fret board, which people could draw things on. I've seen other card decks (Munchkin) do similar things (the blank cards). Actually that might have been where I got the idea from, I don't remember anymore.

It would be great to have a few blank FitDeck cards per deck, which had the same layout as the other cards (different color card from all the others) with the level bubbles, exercise description area.

I know I'd add Burpees to the body weight deck, some more push-ups to the combat deck, and then Snatches and Turkish Get Ups to kettlebell deck. I'd have to figure out what deck to put pistols into.

FitDeck Kettlebell, post workout review

I've used 3 decks now in different ways. The Combat Sports deck and the Body Weight Decks rock. The numbers on all the decks could be a little higher though for the more advanced people. I'm used to ETK in week 1, you're doing 20 swings and 1 minute active rest, for 12 minutes.

Also trying to workout on Christmas when you have no one else to answer the phone, or chase down the bird / keep him company is just a pain.

It also lets people know what they're in for before buying the deck. If I had known what the 18 exercise cards were, I would have probably skipped this deck. Which would have saved me money because I would have not got Military Madness (set of 6 cards), since I don't need stairs, I could have bought the 4 decks instead of the 6.

FitDeck Kettlebell workout, shuffle and draw:
Flip and Squat
Russian Twist
R/L Clean & Press
Alternating Swings
Wave Squat
L/R Suitcase Dead Lift
L/R Single Leg Dead Lift
Double the next card
Turkish Sit Up
[removed the rest of the list]

FitDeck Kettlebell review

First the disclaimer for those that don't know me: I'm not a kettlebell professional yet. That will change when I get the money saved, and I feel I'm in good enough shape. I've been using Kettlebells since March 2007, and I wrote this in December of 2008. While I'm not a professional, I have taken classes with 3 different RKCs, studied kettlebells fairly in depth, and used them to rehab from lingering physical defects of being a pedestrian hit by a car. This review might sound negative, but my goal was to be critical of it.

So I haven't ran the deck / workout yet... But when I looked through the cards yesterday, I saw some that disappointed me with their instruction, and some that just made me say what the hell is this guy smoking.

The first thing that troubled me about these cards, was the "Using FitDeck Kettlebell" card, one of the 6 information cards. Under equipment needed: "Kettlebell(s) (from 5-50 lbs.)". Maybe I'm just being picky, but I think the weight range is too light. If you look at either the Dragon Door site, or the Art of Strength site, you'll find how to pick the right size weight. They usually say 8kg (about 18lbs) for women just starting. The upper weight range is higher. Personally, as my heavy weight, I have a 32kg, about 72lbs, Kettlebell. My normal workout weights, depending on what I'm doing, are 16kg (36lbs) and 24kg (53lbs). Personally I think anything under 4kg (about 9lbs), the weight I would use for teaching kids only, is just a marketing gimmick. Adults, unless special circumstances, shouldn't use anything less than 8kg to start (for the record, with my limp and bad hip, I still started off at a higher weight than that).

Next was the "Warm Up" Card, again an information card, covers how to warm up, cool down, and stretch. Those 3 items didn't bother me at all, what did was the last item on the card. The Rack position. The image of the person holding it, shows the wrist bent back instead of locked straight from the arm. If you're not familiar with the rack, it is one of the basic holds for a kettlebell. The handle is in your hand, at about shoulder level, the elbow is close to the side, and the bell rests on the back of your forearm, with your wrist locked. If you want to see a locked wrist, take and arm and hold it straight out in front of you with your hand in a fist. If you're doing it right (like you're throwing a punch) it is one straight line. The wrist isn't bent at all. Another way to see what a locked wrist is, is to do knuckle push-ups. Like I said, the card is not showing that.

The cards that I have the what the hell attitude towards are these, and I said what I'd do different or switch them with:

"CRUNCH" - put the kettlebell between your feet in a sit-up position, then do straight arm crunches. you go back down when your hands pass your knees. When this one comes up, I'll do Turkish Sit Ups (press kettlebell, sit straight up).

"LEG SWAY" - Hold the kettlebell by the horns directly over your chest. Bring your knees up, to a 90 degree, then lower them to the side. Go back and forth. The kettlebell stays over your chest, and your shoulder blades stay flat on the floor. I'm going to swap this card for a Russian Twist.

"RENEGADE LUNGE"renegade lunge - hold the kettlebell at the naval by the horns. Side lunge right and left. Actually the only problem I have with this card, is how they hold the bell. I'll be doing bottom-up at the chest thanks.

"GOOD MORNINGS" - Stand with both feet together hold the bell 2 handed in front of you, then bend over and touch your toes. Looks really like a legs together, straight legged dead lift. Going to replace this one with Wave Squats.

I think the following are bad instructions, nothing wrong wit the exercise itself, just not explained very well:

On all the clean cards, they say to start from the rack position and then drop the bell and do a clean. I think his point was so people wouldn't do dead cleans each time, but could have been said better.

On the swing cards, except "alternating swing" aka hand to hand, he tells you to swing too high. He says to Swing to eye level. The alternating swing card, he says chest level.

The one arm swing is listed as an upper body exercise. To me that sounds like they expect you to lift with your arms (ie bad form).

And lastly the funniest card in the batch, Swing Catch Squat. Swing bell up, catch it, and do a squat. The card just looks funny, because the way it's drawn it looks like the guy has to reach out to grab the bell. It also says to swing bell up, let go and catch it. That's great, but that means I'll have to lean forward to catch it. Thankfully I know Flip-n-Squat.

Things I would have liked included in the deck:

Snatches, High-Pulls, Windmills, full Turkish Get Ups (closest they came was the "Get Up Sit Up" which was only half the TGU.), Thrusters, and chest presses.

Don't get me wrong. I think the cards are great concept, and I appreciate the work that Mr. Black did on them, but I think he should have have ran them past some certified Kettlebell instructors first. I do think that these cards will give you a hell of a work out, especially with the proper weight at the higher levels. I do not think however that all the cards are good for you, meaning a few of them might hurt you (Leg Sway, Renegade Lunge, Good Morning). These cards in my opinion are for people that have experience in kettlebells and not just starting out.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go grab 24kg and hit the deck (after changing the 3 cards I really do not like).

Go here for my follow up, after workout review