Thanks for the SIFT suggestion, I'll have to look into that. I knew about Security Tube but as it stands, can't go to the website (currently deployed, Army).

Welcome to the community NH

It's all good, no offense taken.

Just looking for anyone out there that knows how I could get into the forensics field. I'd like to get into DOMEX/MEDEX but I'm noticing that a lot of people point to EnCE right off the bat. I don't really have that kind of money to drop on a class so I was hoping someone had some knowledge of other stuff out there like the CCE or tutorials I could watch/do for free. I have a watered down copy of FTK and the beginners forensics book by Syngress at this point. Any help is great.

Thank you for the welcome. A lot fo the more recent posts in here asking for help is from Hacker Newbie, who kinda just shanghai'd my thread instead of making his own.

As far as programming goes, I'm working on Python right now. I've been self teaching myself for the last few months and I really enjoy its ease of use and forgiving run mode to let me know where I screwed up lol.

Yeah, I surrounded by concrete barriers here and back in the states I'm in a brick building that I swear is lined with lead lol. I can hardly get a cell signal in there!

I have been looking at the R36 for when I get home, glad to hear that the driver issue has been fixed.

As it stands now I'll be waiting until I get home before I make anymore purchases. I'm looking into setting up a multi purpose lab to do pen testing as well as forensics. Looking into getting my hands on some good hardware (some Cisco 2650 routers and switches, various wireless routers, and a server for forensics work). I'd really like to knock out my CCNA, SEC+, NET+, and EnCE within the next year - 2 years.

DragonGorge: I've tried using both my internal (Atheros Ath9k) and a Rosewill USB card with no success.

Hayabusa: I didn't think to check that, I'll have to give it a look. You may have solved my million dollar question lol.

Yes, I ran airodump-ng and filtered it by channel. It comes up as an open network on there. I tried to connect via Wcid as well as using the command line, neither has worked yet. I may go try it again today but I wasn't having much luck. I'm not sure if he even knows why I can't connect. He got the wireless router from a Polish soldier he replaced when he got here.

I had a fairly good signal, around -31db. I was only about 30-40m away from his AP.

I just have to wait until I have good internet speeds again.  Just a few more months to go. The silver lining has been that I've had a good deal of time to read and learn and test out here. I have a mini lab set up in my living quarters and a co-worker has let me try his network a few times. 

When you say seats do you mean physical seats or is it all done online? I was looking to take the beginners course once I get back to the states. Either theirs or hackingdojo.com's entry level course. I have a bit of knowledge on the basics but I'd like to have a solid foundation.

Don,

 Thank you for the support. I have already gained a lot of knowledge just by going through the forums and the links to other sites. I've also almost finished the army's version of C|EH thanks to some of the information found from those links. I just wish I would have had this drive to learn before I deployed.

I'm pretty sure he's not using a password but I won't rule it out. His network is open I just can't connect to him even while spoofing a client MAC.

So a co-worker of mine gave me permission to try to crack his wireless network until my router gets here. so Far I've found his SSID (had it hidden) and thought it would be cake because his network was open. I spoofed his MAC and tried to connect and I wasn't able to. I ran a deauth and still no connection. I'm not sure what I'm missing here. As far as my knowledge goes he's running an open wifi with MAC filtering. I'm fairly sure he's using a dynamic IP config.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be holding me up?