Okay, I don't know what either of you mean... but maybe that's just my high fever I haven't gotten rid of yet.    Half of June I was on vacation and the last two weeks I was sick. Blah.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Oyle, so sorry to hear the news!  I hope you continue to fight and make a great recovery.

Praying for ya... 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!  Hope you have a BLAST! 

Hey Guys,

I run Gentoo Linux on my notebook and for the life of me cannot get my USB wireless adapter to work on it.  I had to use a friends adapter and even with that was only usually able to crack WEP in hours instead of minutes.

What kind of adapter works best for you guys while cracking WEP with linux?  Any of them faster than the rest in this regard?

Thanks!

That's pretty interesting, Kev. I just dabbled a bit in HTML, Javascript, C and Perl but now don't really know enough to even put a program (or anything) together in any of those languages! Whenever I sit down and try to learn a language, it seems a little overwelming and boring to me. I enjoy learning about networking and security too much to switch over and study programming instead. It seems like I'd need to put in some good time that's usually spent with ethical hacking into programming.  I'll check it out though, bash is pretty cool... thanks for sharing your opinion! 

I agree with the above two.. these giveaways are HUGE!  You and others already have listened to me complain about trying to find conferences to attend that are low cost or free, so believe me... i'm trying to think of some sorta topic to get a good thread going for this great giveaway.     Just hope I can make it in time.

What90, thanks for the SANS idea.  I already did that once for SANS in Vancouver. I volunteered for their GCIH course, wrote and passed the exam when I got home. It was a great opportunity but I still had to pay $500US to be a volunteer, so I don't recall it being free. The SANS courses are all usually at least a week in length too and I can only afford to go without work/pay for a couple days max.

Thanks a lot, guys!  I'll definately have a look at your suggestions.

Just to let ya know, I'm in sunny Edmonton, AB Canada.

I'm in my 20's and a Helpdesk Technician as a few of you know by now.  I just switched positions at work and have a horrible boss now. He is willing to pay for 1 attempt on certification exams (if I bug him enough), but don't think he'll keep a straight face if I ask him/the company to pay admission to an IT Security conference.  Most of these conferences have been pretty pricey at well over $1000 for admission alone. 

Can anyone recommend some good conferences in N. America where admission is actually affordable if paying on your own?  (besides Def Con)

I've been wanting to attend one for quite a while now and see so many conferences popping up now.

Thanks! 

Welcome to the site, Kokopelli!  There's so much resources on this forum alone and a wealth of knowledge.  Hope you find what you're looking for...  Just start asking away. 

Venom, sounds like you had a good first day there. I know just how you feel by being the youngest one at the conference. I went to a SANS conference in Dec, also had "Helpdesk Technician" on my badge and 25 yrs old. Some ppl ignored me and others were very nice and had some great chats.

Hope you have a blast down there!  Wish I could attend some sort of conference in the future. I could only attend SANS because it was free as I was a volunteer. 

Even though I'm in Canada and not the States, I also honor, respect and give thanks for all the men and women in our armed forces.   

Happy Memorial Day!

Hey guys!  I'm definitely interested in going to Defcon this year. That is if I can get the time off work and if the hotel isn't too expensive. It'd be great to finally meet you guys too! 

Wow!  That's also great advice, oleDB!  Thanks 

I was just checking out some other threads on here and noticed that the CEH requires 2 years of direct security experience unless you want to spend $1500 on QuickCert, which I certainly do not have.  So the CEH is out of the question for now.. but that doesn't mean that I can't study for it anyway, while doing my CCNA. 

I'll check out ISSA, InfraGuard and any other organizations you guys know about from the top of your head.  Keep in mind that I'm in Canada and don't have much money if the membership is costly.

Thanks a lot!!

Thanks Don, for the reply.  My path is definitely auditing & pen-testing. Unfortunately, I can't afford (and my company unwilling) to pay for a bootcamp. They were willing to pay for my SANS GCIH conference but that's because I volunteered and the total was only $500. So it looks to be more self-study for me. 

I guess it also depends on the expiry date of each of these certs. CCNA seems to be valid for 3 yrs whereas the CEH is only valid for 2. I'm not sure if I'll have an IT Sec job within 2 yrs from now or not.

I see many IT Security jobs have been looking for Sec+, SANS, CCNA, CEH and Checkpoint. But they seem to be worthless to getting the job if I don't have experience. Man, I hate that word.