Python Website Monitor
I have several websites on the internet and the dark web used for labs in the SEC497 Practical OSINT course and the SEC587 Advanced OSINT course. If any of these sites are offline, I want to be notified as soon as possible so I can fix the issue. To help monitor this, I wrote some […]
Qgrep Speed Improvements
Yesterday, we talked about indexing and qgrep. Today let’s take a quick look at how much quicker searching with an index is. When I used qgrep to search through my repository of historic whois data, I got back my first result in under two seconds and the search was complete in about one minute. When […]
Indexing Large Datasets with Qgrep
In my SANS SEC 497 practical OSEC course, one of the topics we cover is dealing with large data sets, particularly focusing on indexing. An index works very similar to the way an index in a book works. Imagine I gave you a 1200-page book of world history and asked you to find every page […]
Cursor’s Composer Mode
The Definitive Rankings for AFC North Helmets
My next irrelevant weekend blog post! This time, we’re ranking the best helmets in team history for the AFC North football teams.
The Definitive Rankings for AFC East Helmets
My first irrelevant weekend blog post! This time, we’re ranking the best helmets in team history for the AFC East football teams.
How Persistence and OSINT Skills Led Me to a Star Trek Treasure
Recently, I hosted some houseguests for the holiday season, and it turned out that a few of them were big fans of the original Star Trek series. This gave me a rare opportunity to share something special from my collection that few people truly appreciate: an authentic Tribble prop from one of the most famous […]
SANS Webinar On SEC587 Advanced OSINT Course Updates
Super short blog post today! Later on this morning (for me at least) I’ll be giving a webinar called “Twenty New Labs, Infinite Possibilities: The SEC587 Overhaul”. You can register for the webinar here: https://www.sans.org/webcasts/twenty-new-labs-infinite-possibilities-sec587-overhaul/ Even if you can’t attend it live, registering gets you access to the recorded version.
Cursor: The AI Code Editor That Just Works
It started when my friend David texted me asking if I’d tried Cursor, a new AI-powered code editor. I hadn’t, but after he mentioned it twice in two days, I figured I should take a look. Within 10 minutes of trying it, I was convinced this was something different. What makes Cursor special isn’t just […]
Crack Smarter, Not Harder: Automating Hashcat with Cat Sitter
Anyone who’s taken a SANS SEC504 or now SEC587 class with me knows I love password cracking. But here’s the thing about password cracking – it’s a game of patience. Sure, sometimes you’ll crack a password in seconds. Other times, you’re playing the long game, watching your GPU churn through combinations for days. During my […]
