I declare BillV the winner of this thread!!!!

First off I have to caveat this advice with the statement that I am a Reverse Engineering newbie.  I would say based on what you want accomplished "keeping someone from replacing the algorithm" and the complexity of the code in question that successful reverse engineering would depend mostly on your implementation.  Is this algorithm code going to be part of the main program executable or a separate file?  If it is included in the main exe and fully integrated into your program honestly very few people are ever going to be able to replace that algorithm by reverse engineering.  I am sure some experts would be able to but it would require significantly altering the flow of the executable using assembly code.  Now on the other hand if you put the algorithm in a separate file using a debugger it would be fairly easy to trace the program flow and change algorithms.  Of course it makes it a lot harder for you to ever upgrade your algorithm if you integrate it into your main executable.

Well that's my two cents.  Good Luck!

Looks like the biggest thing they were plugging was their NeXpose vulnerability scanner and some kind of integration with msf.  Qualys does something similar with CORE if that is there aim and they leave the products separate like CORE and Qualys that could be a great improvement.

I took the GPEN challenge.  I thought that Counter Hack Reloaded by Ed Skoudis was a great reference.

Wow you can get to a hacker website but can't access your porn talk about crappy admins.  Here is what I would do.  Find a buddy who lives close to school.  Pay to hook up an Internet connection to their house and drop a WAP.  Charge all your buddies in school a weekly access fee to access unfiltered wireless Internet.  Rotate the key weekly (this keeps down the natural tendency in a school for the key to get passed around).  Simple!  Make money, access uncensored Internet, be legal, and well MOSTLY ethical.  This probably violates a few school rules so expect to be slapped down hard by THE MAN but at least you won't get jail time for hacking a government computer system.

Sooooo....what if I create an Open Source Tool and let's call it GeekyonePwnsCEH.  For the sake of simplicity we will say this tool is a port scanner and everytime it finds an open port it emails Bill Gates.  When it is done I publish it on the web and include the source code.  Now I have authored a "new" open source tool (40 credits to me!).  Now my buddy comes along, who is also a CEH, and reviews my code and finds that I am a really crappy programmer (which is totally true).  He finds an exploit in my code and reports it to me while we are having beers after work (40 credits to him).  I fix the code.  Rinse and repeat once a year.     I sense a stirring in the force.

Has anyone been able to find out what "changes" they are making?

It's been down for weeks for me.  I check it about once a day.  And of course as I start to write this response it comes up again .

As far as self studying SANS exams it's certainly not easy.  You can purchase the official SANS course material and study that.  (See the SANS Self-Study program)  Although  I can tell you that the Self Study program is also a little expensive.  Other then that you just have to pull as much information as you can from the course description and keep an eye on forums like this.  If you want to get practice tests (which I highly recommend) that is easy SANS/GIAC offer practice tests for $99 per test.

Wow!  My EH-Net experience has official come full circle.  I originally signed up for an user account on this site to view an Nmap tutorial (and stayed for all the really cool stuff here).  The article gave me an error message saying "Please log in to view this article".  I am sure most of you know that this is an error usually caused by an article being removed and logging in doesn't help.  Here is the interesting part I later found out the article had been removed because of some possible content collision with Professor Messor's Nmap book.  Now I log in today and find a review of Professor Messor's book. LOL!!!  Sorry for being off topic but I couldn't resist sharing this with you all.

That sounds like a really cool tool!

Congrats on the new job!  I hope you get the chance to have some fun on the new job.

****** Caveat *********
My opinions are US specific.  I don't know enough about most foreign countries constitutions to make such harsh judgments about this subject.  If you live in China sorry but you can't complain (mostly because you would get thrown into prison) if you want access to unmonitored web traffic move or overthrow your government. 
**********************

ISPs should not be allowed to censor traffic that goes across their networks.  But they should be allowed to take administrative actions when directed to by an authorized authority.  For example I don't think an ISP should automatically take down a website they "believe" is hosting illegal content.  They should certainly report it to the proper authorities and take action if directed to do so.  This concept would also extend to network traffic ISPs shouldn't be allowed to view traffic at such a low level that they can distinguish between legal and illegal content.  If a proper authority authorizes them to capture that information for law enforcement reasons that is acceptable. 

ISPs would still retain the right to manage their network traffic to keep the network running properly.  If they are seeing a DOS traffic that is negatively effecting their network they have the right to drop that traffic.  If a customer requests certain traffic to be blocked from their network that isn't a problem.  I would even go so far as to say if an ISP wanted to block all P2P traffic through their network that is acceptable as long as they aren't required or being pressured to do so for reasons other then sound network management.  If an ISP is willing to tell it's customers that they do not allow P2P traffic they should be able to block that traffic.  They may lose customers but that is their choice.

I prefer mIRC also but it isn't free.  It's well worth $20 though.

http://www.mirc.com/register.html

The best way I found to get free certifications is to find a company that is willing to pay for them!  A lot of companies are willing to refund you for certifications that you pass just ask your boss or HR department.