Abuse of the word Computer Hacker

In the wake of recent Facebook's security issue which compromised lot of profiles I am seeing lot of posts putting vague information about Hackers and "How to be safe on Facebook".

First and foremost the term Hacker is misused all the time, Hacker is simply a computer enthusiast who loves to tinker with systems, it need not to be a computer all the time. It is not necessary that the term Hacker is related to a crooked mind who misuses the vulnerabilities in a system for a malicious intentions. There is another term for such, it's called Crackers. Know the terminology or do a bit of research in Google

Posting from my Nexus S :)

Though I do not prefer (or like) using a smartphone for blogging, I just thought of giving it a try.

I bought my Google Nexus S a month back (my first Android) and so far I've been pondering and tinkering in the Android Ecosystem, so far, so good :) two days back I've installed WordPress app for Android and synced my account with it, the app looks good and gives access to very basic features like comments, posts, blog stats it's a neat and simple app :). so here it is -

Potential DoS attack on a Cisco Layer 2 Switch

I came across an Issue at my work where one of our customer's RF network was frequently going down. This RF network supports wireless handheld inventory management RF guns. The initial reason for the network down time was unknown but on careful examination through remote user assistance the cabling for the standard network setup was altered.

Usually, in small network installations, it is a best practice to connect an RF network to a Gigabyte or fast Ethernet port on a switch, on a 24 port switch it is a good practice to connect the RF network to the last switch ports, either 23X or 24X, not a coercion, but that's what I've

Network Administration, troubleshooting from Linux #1 Ping

Linux has dozens of tools for network troubleshooting, among them the famous Ping, the preferred tool that comes to my mind for any kind of IP connectivity related issue. This post is to explain basic information for people who would like to know its usage.

Ping is a well know tool to test the IP connectivity of a host in a network. When we execute ping followed by the host name/IP it sends Echo packets to the target until we press the Ctrl+C, in Linux.

TCP flags: Hackers Playground and Functions

TCP is a very important protocol in the Internet. More than half of the traffic in Internet uses TCP. When it comes to reliable communications, TCP plays a major role, let it be logging into Facebook  or opening a website like Wikipedia.com the underlying protocol which takes care of these reliable connections is TCP. TCP’s dominance over internet has its advantages and disadvantages from security point of view. The architecture of TCP/IP protocol suit doesn’t have any security features in built, what it has are algorithms for protocol timers, error correction, flow control, buffering, but there is nothing in code for its security, as Internet evolved the techniques to use it in unethical ways also evolved.

Finally Tattooed!

I finally got a tattoo! 

I had this dream since from my 18's, but I was pulled back by lot of stuff like family, friends, college environment and bla bla. I wasn't that free to take decisions when I was in college, like any other teen.

What is an Intrusion Detection System?

Definition from Wikipedia:

An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a device or software application that monitors network and/or system activities for malicious activities or policy violations and produces reports to a Management Station.

My own words:

Basically an IDS is a dedicated box tapped into a computer network which sniffs the traffic (raw packets) to check for anomalies/intrusions/virus/attacks.