7 ms·

Re: Hakin9's new Nmap Guide

136 points by dewey 14y ago

Zenst 14y ago
Pretty funny - found this one that made me laugh: "Despite the results by Qian et al., we can disconfirm that the much-touted real-time algorithm for the improvement of the transistor runs in Ω(2n) time. This may or may not actually hold in reality. Along these same lines, the frame- work for NMAP consists of four independent components: wireless methodologies, voice- over-IP, the appropriate unification of systems and Byzantine fault tolerance, and robust theory. This seems to hold in most cases. Therefore, the framework that our application uses is solidly grounded in reality."
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Trying to read some of that 'paper' was really funny. Definitely worth a look.
Stratoscope 14y ago
"...pushing CPU microcode updates to the Windows 8 kernel..." "...we asked (and answered) what would happen if mutually noisy ﬂip-ﬂop gates were used instead of virtual machines..." "...J. P. Ito’s seminal treatise on sufﬁx trees and observed effective USB key space..." Lovely. They've been SocialTexted! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
alexholehouse 14y ago
Outstanding. My personal favourite is, "Our experiments soon proved that exokernelizing our fuzzy Knesis keyboards was more effective than making autonomous them, as previous work suggested. Our experiments soon proved that microkernelizing our PDP 11s was more effective than exokernelizing them, as previous work suggested. We note that other researchers have tried and failed to enable this functionality."
- geofft 14y ago
  Is this SCIgen? It looks like the same style, and "exokernel" vaguely identifies it as the right co-conspirators. :-)
  - quanticle 14y ago
    As I understand it, it was a SciGen paper that was enhanced to make it more readable.
countzeroasl 14y ago
hackin9 got punk'd!!! Get down guys!
heelhook 14y ago
I have dealt with Hakin9 a few years ago and was extremely disappointed by how they handle themselves. After publishing my article (a piece about overwriting system calls by rewriting pointers in the system_table and practical uses) it took them close to 10 months to be paid and only did so after harassing them for months. Its hilarious, albeit not too surprising, that they published this without even bothering to read it (they crowdsource their proof reading and expect beta readers to report if they are about to publish something inaccurate or outright stupid).
bri3d 14y ago
Quite an old tool, but SciGen ( http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ ) is great for generating this style of satirical paper using choice buzzwords. SciGen has famously been used to get falsified publications into several "real" journals - citations are available on the SciGen page linked above and worth checking out.
gregcmartin 14y ago
absolutely brilliant
aakside 14y ago
"The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, we motivate the need for A* search. Second, we place our work in context with the previous work in this area. As a result, we conclude."
dguido 14y ago
It looks like Jonathan Brossard was the author: https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/251902357720403971 https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/251902357720403971 I doubt this is widely known on Hacker News, but Hakin9 is one of the most spammy organizations in infosec. They constantly beg everyone with any relationship to security online to write articles for them and it seems impossible to get them to stop. The creation of this epic troll was likely a direct response to that. The articles they do get tend to be more centered around using and running tools, which isn't that useful and doesn't help you grow, and are filled with typos and errors. I wouldn't be surprised if there were also egregious examples of plagiarism hidden in their magazine like what was discovered at the Infosec Institute (http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/infosec_institute/ http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/infosec_institute/).
- fuzzbang 14y ago
  Actually, @fygrave put together the document (using scigen and a draft from jonathan), so both of them should get credit.
jyap 14y ago
This is awesome. Anyone have a link to this? There is even an ASCII penis in the "sample output" section, but apparently none of this raised any flags from Hakin9's "review board".
- dchest 14y ago
  It's in the output of DICKS: |--[ Exploiting remote IP stack pool overflow: | Anti ROP kernel heap non exec stack payload bypass |8======================================================> ((
iuguy 14y ago
I routinely get spammed by Pentest Magazine affiliates asking me to write for them, was thinking about doing something similar but these guys beat me to it. Well played!
ewadudzic 14y ago
Hello everyone, My name is Ewa Dudzic, I have been the chief editor of Hakin9 for the last 15 years. I would like to make a statement concerning the article which you are mentioning in this post. First of all I would like sincerely apologize to everyone of you and all our readers for what has happened. I have to admit that it was the unintentional mistake on our part. It should not have been published but for some reasons, which we are currently investigating internally, it was published causing as I can see a lot of negative opinions. Mentioning that I would like to thank you for all your reactions. As negative as they sound I humbly accept them and take full responsibility for that mistake on our part. I can only wish that this hopefully one-time error will not undermine the general perception of Hakin9 as professional magazine offering the highest standard possible. I would also like to kindly ask you not to pass the judgment on authors collaborating with us (who devote their professionalism and heart to the content of each issue) basing on this example. I can assure you we will investigate the matter to prevent such "accidents" in the future. If you have any other questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me via email: ewa.dudzic@hakin9.org
- gcrow 14y ago
  No idea if that is actually Ewa Dudzic, but this post is similar to past responses to previous hakin9 spam. All useless in stopping them. She also appears to no longer be listed as their chief editor on their website. Also - hakin9 has only been around for 7 years, not 15. Sigh.
- satan8848 14y ago
  15 years?? :)))
- secnewspl 14y ago
  And now you want to sue someone just because they wrote an article about your "business model" http://www.secnews.pl/en/2012/10/04/software-press-chce-mnie-pozwac/ http://www.secnews.pl/en/2012/10/04/software-press-chce-mnie... nice job!
- surREvival 14y ago
  Hakin9 as professional magazine ... well, you have to know somethin, a donkey will never be a stallion :)
jmias 14y ago
Hum ...? or did they?(got punked!) i am starting to believe on negative viral campaigns
oelmekki 14y ago
Hilarous. Great job, writing team, now I want to buy this magazine.
jgrahamc 14y ago
The "Rogue MD5 signing" value of d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e is the MD5 of the empty string.

136 points by dewey 14y ago

Zenst 14y ago

Pretty funny - found this one that made me laugh: "Despite the results by Qian et al., we can disconfirm that the much-touted real-time algorithm for the improvement of the transistor runs in Ω(2n) time. This may or may not actually hold in reality. Along these same lines, the frame- work for NMAP consists of four independent components: wireless methodologies, voice- over-IP, the appropriate unification of systems and Byzantine fault tolerance, and robust theory. This seems to hold in most cases. Therefore, the framework that our application uses is solidly grounded in reality."

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Trying to read some of that 'paper' was really funny. Definitely worth a look.

Stratoscope 14y ago

"...pushing CPU microcode updates to the Windows 8 kernel..." "...we asked (and answered) what would happen if mutually noisy ﬂip-ﬂop gates were used instead of virtual machines..." "...J. P. Ito’s seminal treatise on sufﬁx trees and observed effective USB key space..." Lovely. They've been SocialTexted! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

alexholehouse 14y ago

Outstanding. My personal favourite is, "Our experiments soon proved that exokernelizing our fuzzy Knesis keyboards was more effective than making autonomous them, as previous work suggested. Our experiments soon proved that microkernelizing our PDP 11s was more effective than exokernelizing them, as previous work suggested. We note that other researchers have tried and failed to enable this functionality."

geofft 14y ago
Is this SCIgen? It looks like the same style, and "exokernel" vaguely identifies it as the right co-conspirators. :-)
- quanticle 14y ago
  As I understand it, it was a SciGen paper that was enhanced to make it more readable.

countzeroasl 14y ago

hackin9 got punk'd!!! Get down guys!

heelhook 14y ago

I have dealt with Hakin9 a few years ago and was extremely disappointed by how they handle themselves. After publishing my article (a piece about overwriting system calls by rewriting pointers in the system_table and practical uses) it took them close to 10 months to be paid and only did so after harassing them for months. Its hilarious, albeit not too surprising, that they published this without even bothering to read it (they crowdsource their proof reading and expect beta readers to report if they are about to publish something inaccurate or outright stupid).

bri3d 14y ago

Quite an old tool, but SciGen ( http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ ) is great for generating this style of satirical paper using choice buzzwords. SciGen has famously been used to get falsified publications into several "real" journals - citations are available on the SciGen page linked above and worth checking out.

gregcmartin 14y ago

absolutely brilliant

aakside 14y ago

"The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, we motivate the need for A* search. Second, we place our work in context with the previous work in this area. As a result, we conclude."

dguido 14y ago

It looks like Jonathan Brossard was the author: https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/251902357720403971 https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/251902357720403971 I doubt this is widely known on Hacker News, but Hakin9 is one of the most spammy organizations in infosec. They constantly beg everyone with any relationship to security online to write articles for them and it seems impossible to get them to stop. The creation of this epic troll was likely a direct response to that. The articles they do get tend to be more centered around using and running tools, which isn't that useful and doesn't help you grow, and are filled with typos and errors. I wouldn't be surprised if there were also egregious examples of plagiarism hidden in their magazine like what was discovered at the Infosec Institute (http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/infosec_institute/ http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/infosec_institute/).

fuzzbang 14y ago
Actually, @fygrave put together the document (using scigen and a draft from jonathan), so both of them should get credit.

jyap 14y ago

This is awesome. Anyone have a link to this? There is even an ASCII penis in the "sample output" section, but apparently none of this raised any flags from Hakin9's "review board".

dchest 14y ago
It's in the output of DICKS: |--[ Exploiting remote IP stack pool overflow: | Anti ROP kernel heap non exec stack payload bypass |8======================================================> ((

iuguy 14y ago

I routinely get spammed by Pentest Magazine affiliates asking me to write for them, was thinking about doing something similar but these guys beat me to it. Well played!

ewadudzic 14y ago

Hello everyone, My name is Ewa Dudzic, I have been the chief editor of Hakin9 for the last 15 years. I would like to make a statement concerning the article which you are mentioning in this post. First of all I would like sincerely apologize to everyone of you and all our readers for what has happened. I have to admit that it was the unintentional mistake on our part. It should not have been published but for some reasons, which we are currently investigating internally, it was published causing as I can see a lot of negative opinions. Mentioning that I would like to thank you for all your reactions. As negative as they sound I humbly accept them and take full responsibility for that mistake on our part. I can only wish that this hopefully one-time error will not undermine the general perception of Hakin9 as professional magazine offering the highest standard possible. I would also like to kindly ask you not to pass the judgment on authors collaborating with us (who devote their professionalism and heart to the content of each issue) basing on this example. I can assure you we will investigate the matter to prevent such "accidents" in the future. If you have any other questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me via email: ewa.dudzic@hakin9.org

gcrow 14y ago
No idea if that is actually Ewa Dudzic, but this post is similar to past responses to previous hakin9 spam. All useless in stopping them. She also appears to no longer be listed as their chief editor on their website. Also - hakin9 has only been around for 7 years, not 15. Sigh.
satan8848 14y ago
15 years?? :)))
secnewspl 14y ago
And now you want to sue someone just because they wrote an article about your "business model" http://www.secnews.pl/en/2012/10/04/software-press-chce-mnie-pozwac/ http://www.secnews.pl/en/2012/10/04/software-press-chce-mnie... nice job!
surREvival 14y ago
Hakin9 as professional magazine ... well, you have to know somethin, a donkey will never be a stallion :)

jmias 14y ago

Hum ...? or did they?(got punked!) i am starting to believe on negative viral campaigns

oelmekki 14y ago

Hilarous. Great job, writing team, now I want to buy this magazine.

jgrahamc 14y ago

The "Rogue MD5 signing" value of d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e is the MD5 of the empty string.