Hacker versus cracker
By Matthew Hunter
| Apr 2, 2023
| gcih In the early days of the internet, and even before that, there was a distinct difference in the terminology used for the people who obtained unauthorized access to computer systems. The term hacker meant someone who created an interesting hack, usually something interesting that used a system – not necessarily even a computer system – to do something outside its design intent. A Rube Goldberg machne is a good example of a hack.
GIAC Certified Incident Handler
By Matthew Hunter
| Mar 29, 2023
| gcih Last weekend. I took the certification exam to become a GIAC certified incident handler. Both the exam and the course material leading up to it were interesting enough to deserve a few comments.
One thing I was moderatedly surprised by in the SANS course was the initial focus on Linux shell tools and Windows Powershell. I’ve been using Linux for a long time, so there weren’t any surprises there. The Powershell material was new to me.