I Have Candy, Get in The Van.

Posted October 17, 2009 – 18:20 in: Nullamatix, syndicated

Rather than continuing to beat my face against a server rack trying to come up with some compelling topic to make up for a 1 year absence, I opted for an easy out. A simple list of links to the sites, blogs, aggregators, forums, mash-ups, and feeds that I visit regularly or find useful. Perhaps this will shine some light as to what Nullamatix.com readers can expect in the future, and provide some incite into what the hell I’ve been doing for the last twelve months.

First Up: Security

The Information Security Writers’ text library is easily one of the most valuable computer and network security resources on-line. Nine years have passed since the site’s launch and the abundance of available information seems priceless.

Remember the Sony Rootkit scandal? How about the recently resurrected DNS Cache poisoning scare? Dan Kaminsky’s personal blog DoxPara.com is definitely a site worth subscribing to if you’re interested in staying ahead of the security game. What, no conficker propaganda? Don’t worry, Dan’s got your fix; check out what he recommends for conficker infection detection.

Pssst… your ports are showing. Not sure what to do about it? Consider hiring yourself a fwknop, aka the FireWall KNock OPerator. fwknop is a sentry daemon that supports Linux, bsd, and OS X systems. The Single Packet Authentication scheme can add another perimeter of defense to your networks. This clever project was released under the GNU Public License by Michael Rash at cipherdyne.org.

Just recently a site that appears to focus primarily on web application security (XSS, CSRF, CSS, Injections, etc) showed up in my rss feed reader. Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m not even sure when or how it was added…? Wow, guess that makes RSnake the real deal? Seriously though, if you’re into finding holes in web apps and other playgrounds often thought to be secure, head over to ha.ckers.org for some brain food. The papers, tools, and super secrets are hidden toward the bottom right.

Finally – Harden Your Stack. Nobody likes a soft stack.

Development

CodeDiesel.com is a fresh site that avoids publishing the usual PHP code floating around the net. Their posts typically cover a unique or innovative objective with clear, thorough details. For example, their latest post at the moment covers a free geolocation api tool. I definitely look forward to the updates this site produces.

Ever thought about deploying your own army of small, efficient web crawlers to index the Interwebs? Try crawl, a tiny but feature rich app designed with efficiency and simplicity in mind. Mr. Provos has an entire collection of interesting tools worth investigating.

Forget milk, gotAPI? gotAPI is a slick web-site that puts the ins-and-outs of PHP at your fingertips. You thought Google was awesome? Try your PHP code searches at gotAPI and start churning out some real code.

Linux Related

Shell-fu.org publishes an array of content that will prove beneficial to any command line buff. Ever run into a situation that demanded moving MySQL database tables between two remote hosts? Shell-fu.org tip #669 explains how with a single command. What about automating web related tasks with Lynx? Shell-fu.org tip #666 to the rescue. And they said 666 was the mark of the beast… I thought a Lynx was a cat??

Stuck with a ridiculously low maximum file-size attachment limit? No worries, TheGeekStuff.com explains how to compress, encrypt, split, and transport big files safely. How about vim? Still fumbling around trying to understand the purpose of insert mode? TheGeekStuff.com has a list 8 Essential Vim Navigation Fundamentals that will have you flying your way around vim in no time.

Did you know, according to HoneyD.org, 43% of spam originates from Linux systems?

Alright, I’ve barely touched the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much information out there and not enough time to consume it all. My goal is to continue publishing helpful information that may or may not already exist. Even after a solid year of inactivity, Nullamatix.com continues dominating Google’s search result pages for a wide spectrum of keywords, often showing up within the top 5 results for what I consider fairly important topics.

Anyway – what are some of your priceless resources? Feel free to share them by posting a comment.