Blue team versus red team
In preparation for my interview tomorrow in information security, I have been listening to some podcasts on information securit. I think one of the biggest things you can do in information security is stay connected with new information and others in the field. But one thing th…
URI versus URL
This is a trivial blog post for some, but an interesting distinction that I didn't know about until recently. Oftentimes, one can usually infer the meaning of a word from the context of its use, given plenty of exposure to it, and assuming the author is coherent. However, for me…
HackTheBox Write-up—Ready
This machine has IP 10.10.10.220. Let's use nmap to enumerate the ports available to us: Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-04-12 19:36 NZST Nmap scan report for 10.10.10.220 Host is up (0.28s latency). Not shown: 998 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 22/tc…
Perfect Power Checker in Julia
A perfect power is an integer \(m\) whose \(n^\text{th}\) root is an integer \(a\). That is,— $$ m = a^n $$ For a very long time, intermittently, I have been trying to write an efficient function to check if a number is a perfect power or not. It's been about 5 months n…
HackTheBox Write-up—Archetype
I am going to have a quick night of attempting the "Starting Point" machines in HackTheBox. These machines I didn't see when I first started using HackTheBox, but they seem to be valuable in understanding the usual layout of these kinds of machines. I think they are o…
HackTheBox Write-up—Oopsie
This machine is found at IP 10.10.10.28, and was quite fun to hack. The Short Version Enumerate ports via nmap -sC -sV 10.10.10.28. Notice an HTTP server at port 80; Go to http://10.10.10.28:80/cdn-cgi/login/; Log into the website using the username admin and the password MEGACO…
General notes on HackTheBox
Beginning Notes HackTheBox (HTB) is a great tool to learn penetration testing (pentesting). However, some other useful ones exist, such as TryHackMe (which also has a nice beginner guide, as well as INE (pathway for free), and JuiceShop. Also, CTF (capture the flag) games exist…
HackTheBox Write-up—Passage
WARNING: This is my first "hack"; as such, I change tack a couple of times, and it is messy... This machine is currently active, and is my first attempt at HTB. Its IP address is 10.10.10.206. The Short Version Run nmap -sC -sV 10.10.10.206 to get the open ports; Run …
Approximating GitHub Language Colours in iTerm-256 Colour Terminal
When I first made ls.py, as a good exercise to teach me programming, I went through GitHub and manually tried to match colours. Today, I ported a script to convert RGB tuples to iTerm-256 approximations into Julia. With a quick Julia command call, you can actually take the inform…
Setting up CI on GitHub Actions, and deploying docs for Julia
I didn't know this when I first started learning Julia, but if you write a function; e.g. function my_sum(a::T...) where {T <: Number} return reduce(+, a) end If you add a string immediately before the function definition: "This is my bad version of a sum function be…
Increasing trackpad speed on a Mac more than the maximum allowed
You can increase trackspeed in System Preferences, but that only goes up so far. To see the current speed, you run defaults read -g com.apple.trackpad.scaling Initially, this outputted in 0.6875. To change it, you need to run defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.scaling <numb…
Steps to create a bootable USB drive for Linux
These steps work near-flawlessly on a OSX operating system to create Linux bootable drives. Download the ISO (or torrent, and extract the ISO); Erase USB using Disk Utility application. It should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID Partition Map; Run diskutil list to get th…
Resetting old mac computer passwords
We are going to cover two methods to do this in this little section. The first method works for > 10.5 version. It works by resetting keychain. Reboot and press ⌘ + S. Now in terminal, type mount -uw / launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com/apple/DirectoryService…
Understanding a little bit about Posterior Probability
$$ \text{Pr}(p|W,N)=\frac{\text{Pr}(W|N,p)\text{Pr}(p)}{\sum\text{Pr}(W|N,p)\text{Pr}(p)\forall p} $$ $$ \text{Posterior}=\frac{(\text{Prob. observed variables}\times(\text{Prior})}{\text{Normalising constant}} $$ (Where the normalising constant standardises it). The probability…
Playing with old mac computers
My 2008 iMac had a flashing lock symbol on it when I turned it on. Using results from here, here, and here, I fixed it! (Well, kind of. It didn't work with El Cap., but worked with Mavericks). After about a year or finding "solutions" online not to work, this is all …
Custom File Extension Automatic Syntax Highlighting in Brackets
I spend a little bit of time today just trying to get custom file extensions to automatically syntax highlight in Brackets.app. This problem came about because I kept opening my shell scripts, which didn't have extensions for ease-of-calling, but it would open as Plain Text &quo…
PDF Searching Programmes
I am trying to write some programmes to search PDFs from directories. I am hoping to use: Bash Python Perl Ruby I have done the first two, and am timing them now (from ~/Desktop/Study/.../2018/Tri\ 2/, searching for allport): BashPython 49.80 seconds119.56 seconds 42.87 seconds…
Fumbling with Julia 1.2.0
I was first told about Julia very recently by a friend from mathematics class. He told me that it is very good for maths, but not very well known. Disclaimer: this little post is transcribed verbatim from my notebook. Current Jake cannot necessarily verify the correctness of so…
First Notes from a UNIX, Git and R Workshop
Though I had expressed in my first notebook, in late 2018 at nerve.fancy.chained, that I wanted to "learn terminal" (I obviously didn't know what "terminal" was...), and though I had used ample Excel over the summer of 2018--2019 working in Sue Schenk's lab., …
A Cuppa-themed Crossword
What follows is a cryptic crossword puzzle. The contest was between Z. and myself. Written by K., the first to complete this puzzle was the recipient of K.'s Again Again cup. I was victorious.