May 19, 2021 • 39 mins
Welcome to the Security Chipmunks podcast where we talk about the development of cybersecurity skills. To stay up to date in today's world you need to be resilient, that’s why as Advanced Persistent Chipmunks we keep chipping away at it
Today we are joined by special guest Colin Lindberg
Tools:
https://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.techet.netanalyzerlite.an&hl=en_US&gl=US
https://www.fing.com/products/fing-app
Further Reading:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3228917-outliers
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38390751-the-infinite-game
Socials
- Join our Chipmunk community Discord server: https://discord.gg/9yfWP6evYQ
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SecChipmunk
- You can find us online at: https://securitychipmunks.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome to Security Chipmunks podcast, where we talk
about the development ofcybersecurity skills.
To stay up to date in today'sworld, you need to be resilient.
That's why as advancedpersistent chipmunks, we keep
chipping away at it.
My name is Meg Sedna-Johnson.
My co-host is Neil Smalley.
And today, we are joined byspecial guest Colin Klinberg.
(00:30):
Colin, it's a pleasure havingyou here today.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
So would you tell us aboutyourself and a little bit about
what you do?
SPEAKER_02 (00:43):
Sure.
I'm a career changer, butmultiple careers.
Started out in culinary arts,went to Culinary Institute of
America, had my own cateringcompany for a little bit, jumped
out of that, got into IT becauseI've actually been a computer
guy my entire life, and foundout that I make twice as much
and work half as many hours, andI get benefits from doing IT
(01:06):
work And from doing that, I'vedone help desk for now two major
aeronautics companies, one ownedby the French government and the
Boeing company.
I've worked on cell phonetowers, building them,
installing them, engineeringthem, commissioning them, where
it's taken me all over thecountry.
(01:26):
Spent a year in Alaska doingthat, spent some time in Hawaii
doing that.
Kind of done a little bit ofeverything and haven't really
settled down in one specificarea, only a except for the past
couple of years where I'vereally been going heavy into
networking, IT networking, andmost recently kind of trying to
make the transition intocybersecurity by starting at WGU
(01:50):
last July.
SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
Oh, that's very, very cool.
So are there any projects thatyou're currently working on?
SPEAKER_02 (01:56):
Right now I'm in the pre-production phase for
creating videos to help andassist new WGU students coming
in.
Because what I'm seeing is aswe're getting new students
joining every month, there's alot of people that are career
changers who don't really havemuch in the way of IT
(02:18):
experience, but they're veryenthusiastic.
And I think that's the bestthing that you can capitalize
on.
If you can get somebody whilethey're enthusiastic about a
subject and get them a littlebit down the road, you can keep
that momentum going.
And so what I'm trying to tryingto do with uh is create a video
series where we can kind of makea uh tutorial and handholdy if
(02:46):
you will for new students on howto get started and what some of
us might consider really basicsimple things but to the outside
person it was like wow you knowthat's superman level stuff and
it could be you know simplethings as hey i'm a student at
school do I have any access tofree resources?
(03:08):
What are those free resources?
How can I utilize them?
It could be like Windowslicensing.
It could be discounts for Huluor Amazon Prime, small,
low-level stuff, but canultimately lead into bigger
things.
And ultimately, I like to shapeit into, hey, okay, now that
you've taken advantage of allthese free student resources,
(03:30):
now let's get into the nuts andbolts of things.
Let's figure out how we canstart what I would call
gamifying our learning.
So really get into, you know,the big one that everybody likes
to do is like hack the box ortry hack me, right?
They want to start to learn howto be a hacker man or person,
woman, whatever you choose.
It's one of those things thatthere's a little bit of a
(03:51):
barrier to entry there.
And unless you go through andread a lot of information, watch
a lot of videos, you're stillkind of just, I don't know where
to begin.
First couple of videos I want totackle is how to create a VM
setup on your computer.
across different platforms, soMac, Linux, Windows, as well as
(04:11):
the different softwares anddifferent implementations that
you can use to do that.
A really great one that Iactually like to use is the
Windows subsystem, and that gotadded to Windows 10 about two
years ago.
And you can go straight to theWindows Store right now and just
type in Kali, K-A-L-I, anddownload an instance of Kali
(04:35):
Linux on your machine and it isrunning on your machine.
You don't have to do any otherVM.
SPEAKER_00 (04:42):
Yeah, that makes it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
Yeah.
And then the nice part about itis that Kali, the offensive
security, the people thatdistribute the Kali Linux
distribution, even have areally, really wonderful
walkthrough on how to set allthat up, as well as how to give
yourself a desktop on top ofthat as well.
So even if you're coming intothis and you don't want to jump
(05:05):
straight into command line, andyou're a little bit scared of
you know being a keyboardwarrior you can still you know
start off with in the safe spacewith a desktop and that's pretty
much how I run most of the timewhenever you know I get into
some of these CTF capture theflag challenges or I'm working
on these boxes is I will pop outyou know different windows here
(05:29):
and there of whatever I'mworking on so that way you know
I'm most comfortable in mywindows environment so I can do
all my research there but then Ican switch over to you know
another window or anothermonitor and be like okay this is
going to be my Linux side ofthings and this is where I can
do all of my attacking orinvestigation my recon things
(05:51):
like that
SPEAKER_00 (05:52):
so
SPEAKER_02 (05:52):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (05:53):
you're doing some great things that's going to be
awesome I'm sure thosewalkthroughs are going to help
so many people that are that arejust getting started and your
experience is going
SPEAKER_02 (06:04):
to
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
putting into that process It's
SPEAKER_02 (06:08):
going to be great.
Thank you.
(06:36):
I am and not really being ableto do anything about it so you
know 30th birthday kind of hadthat moment I was like okay I
have to do something to changethe situation to be more
successful and I was like youknow we're outside of that
window of over prescription ofdrugs I'm not a teenager anymore
I'm a man and I was like let'stry it let's see what happens
(06:59):
and for me it was that itliterally was an overnight thing
like flip of a switch and thingsjust kind of coalesced and I was
able to just become more focusedand more driven in whatever I
was working on.
And so because of that, I stillretain a lot of my old bad
(07:20):
habits, but I can also kind ofuse them to my will at the same
time.
So the one thing that I feelthat I'm good at is because I've
had such a difficult timelearning new things, I've had to
create my own learning stylewhich is usually more difficult
than it needs to be but the endresult of it is I end up having
(07:44):
a pretty deep understanding ofwhatever that information is and
can pretty much identify wherepeople get stuck most of the
time so it's I have a what Iwould consider I don't want to
say innate but I have asensitivity if you will to know
like okay this is going to be asticky spot this is where more
(08:08):
information needs to be focusedbecause if we get this one piece
of the puzzle it unlocks 10other pieces for us so that's
kind of that's the you know thepie in the sky mission statement
it's the reason why I want to dothe how-to videos is because I
think I can bring my idiotic wayof doing things to help teach
(08:30):
people because I think mostpeople realize or they feel at a
that they are stupid, but theyfeel stupid.
And they know if they just hadsomebody there, you know,
helping them out that they couldget it.
But it's just, you get sofrustrated and you don't even
know what you don't know at thatpoint.
(08:51):
So it's, I hope to, you know,give some reassurance and some
step-by-step instructionalinformation on how to succeed,
how to get past hurdles,essentially.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
What are the biggest challenges that are facing you
right
SPEAKER_02 (09:05):
now?
So biggest challenge isself-inflicted I ended up
leaving my job I was acontractor at Boeing and it was
a fine job I just I wasn't doingenough work for me to stay
active and that's part of thereasons why I started back up at
school I have enough money savedup made a calculated decision to
(09:29):
figure out that okay I've gotthree months before my term ends
and I've got about nine classesleft and I'm I'm already
familiar with most of thesesubjects, so I'm not learning
them from a zero point, but canI get these next classes done by
the end of my term so then thatway I can get my second
(09:49):
bachelor's and then move on to acybersecurity job by the end of
the summer?
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Okay, so you've got a really big goal.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (10:01):
Do you have an idea of what type of job you want to
go for or
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
I'm somewhat open.
I'm open to whoever's going tobe paying me and has a nice
office environment to work at,to be perfectly honest.
But that said, more than likely,probably going to be focusing
more cybersec on network typejobs, just because that's kind
of my bread and butter.
It's what I know.
(10:26):
I mean, the nice thing aboutcybersecurity is that, you know,
there's a bunch of disciplinesinside of it that are, you know,
you can kind of, depending onwhatever your past is, you can
either leverage that or focusthere.
Because it seems like relativelyspeaking, cybersec falls into,
you know, let's say three majorcategories, in my opinion, which
(10:49):
is networking-based, web-based,and software-based.
Depending on what you'refamiliar with, it might make
sense for what I would say topeople is like, I've got a
friend who is a very bigsoftware developer, and he's
making the change as well rightnow.
And so I wouldn't say for him,like, makes sense to go into the
(11:10):
networking side of things, eventhough, like, if you enjoy it,
hey, go follow that.
But given what you already know,and what your skill set is, it
might make sense to, you know,go software, but go focus on
cybersecurity software, or atleast reverse engineering,
understanding things like that.
Just to, you know, play to yourstrengths.
(11:32):
Unless you really like thatchallenge.
And you're that savant whereyou're like, okay, it Throw them
in the deep end.
Let's just go.
Let's see what happens.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
I think networking can help you out in all those
areas
SPEAKER_02 (11:42):
at the
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
end of the day.
I kind of approach it with theOSI model.
SPEAKER_02 (11:46):
Yeah, yeah.
And I guess to better clarify,when I say networking, what I'm
trying to say is more on theenterprise side of things.
So firewalls and encryption orsite-to-site encryption, VPNs,
things like that.
Because I did get some exposureto that where working at Boeing,
(12:06):
obviously, because they workwith the Department of Defense.
So, you know, they haveclassified environments and they
have an entirely separatesecurity network team in place.
But I totally agree with you.
Yeah, networking, it's one ofthose things, it helps as a good
foundation for a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00 (12:23):
So you talked about you want to get a job by the end
of the summer.
So what does your dream job looklike?
SPEAKER_02 (12:29):
Ultimate dream job?
I'd be in New Zealand doingcybersecurity.
SPEAKER_00 (12:34):
Oh, so cool.
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
That's the two-year goal.
It was a three-year goal untilthe pandemic happened.
But yeah, I really like NewZealand and the lifestyle that
they have, meaning that theirwork-life balance is very
amicable to the way I want tolive my life.
Fair amount of vacation time,work is not the end-all to
(12:57):
be-all kind of how it is with usAmericans or myself as an
American, because I have thepropensity to become a
workaholic.
and I don't want to stop and putthings down.
So, you know, the office forcingme to put things down, I think
it would be beneficial.
That's the pie in the sky rightnow.
It's, you know, I would saysomething as I really don't
(13:19):
know, to be perfectly honest,it'd be nice to go get a
government job because I thinkthat'd be a great resume
builder.
I'm looking actually into eithermoving to Salt Lake City because
the NSA has a bunker there and aprevious company I worked for
works there as has headquartersthere at the same time.
Also looking at DC, uh, cause Ihave family that lives there and
(13:42):
I really like the area.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
Yeah.
And there's a lot ofcybersecurity jobs in DC.
SPEAKER_02 (13:47):
Exactly.
And then, you know, up untilrecently I was looking in the
PNW area, but it seems like thatAustin and Austin have kind of
just been a bunch of Californiaexpats, which nothing against
cause I I'm in the heart ofCalifornia.
I'm in orange County.
Okay.
Um, But it seems like they'vetaken all the expensiveness of
(14:08):
California with them.
And I'd like to avoid that asmuch as possible.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:13):
So, you know, that's kind of thing.
Granted, D.C.
is still, you know, almost justas expensive as L.A.
is what it is.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Yeah.
I don't know.
I like the green.
I miss the green.
Even just going over to the eastside of Washington can be a
little lonely.
SPEAKER_02 (14:32):
Yeah.
And that's kind of the nicething of where I live.
I am...
10 minutes from the beach onside streets, and I'm about an
hour away from every otherclimate you could think of.
So the desert is like 30, 40minutes.
Las Vegas is three hours away.
The mountains are about an hourand a half away for skiing and
(14:55):
stuff.
Santa Barbara is like two and ahalf hours away.
San Diego is an hour and a halfsouth.
LA is 40 minutes to the north.
I'm kind of lucky where I'm at.
I got access to everything.
We just get fires from time totime.
SPEAKER_01 (15:11):
It seems like definitely a common occurrence
on the West Coast these days.
SPEAKER_03 (15:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:19):
Do you have any common myths about networking
that you'd want to debunk or anyinteresting networking
misconfigurations that might notbe apparent to a total newbie?
SPEAKER_02 (15:33):
It's kind of hard to say at this point because I'm in
so long that I've kind offorgotten my newbie discovery
phase.
And I'm trying to rack my brainright now if there's things.
The big thing, which is theearly concept that it takes
people a little bit of time tofigure out is the terminology.
(15:55):
And really, it's the networkjargon that is used by
non-networking people confusingthings.
So what I mean to say by that isa subnet is the same as a
network.
But a subnet mask is not asubnet.
(16:16):
So a subnet is a neighborhood.
A subnet mask is the number ofhouses inside of a neighborhood.
And so previous job, I wasworking doing technical
networking support for peoplewho were audio video installers
and had no networking knowledge.
(16:36):
So it's having to, you know,very politely ask them
information and then educatethem at the same time but doing
so with a certain level of tactis one of those things where
it's like okay well the subnetmask is this and subnet is this
and it's like I just give me therouter IP and it's like let's
(16:57):
start there and it's so the bigthing I would say you know for
myths is or I wouldn't say it'sa myth, but the best thing to
help you out, and I think thisgoes for whatever you're
studying, is learn theterminology and learn the
foundation, like chapters oneand two of whatever book you're
reading, because nine times outof 10, if you understand one and
(17:21):
two at a theoretical level, youwill understand everything else
or you will be able to teach itto yourself.
Granted, I don't take my ownadvice.
I look through one and two.
I'm like, yeah, I kind of knowthis stuff.
And I'll jump straight tochapter nine.
And I'm like, I don't knowwhat's going on here.
Two weeks later, okay, I'll goback and I'll read chapter one.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
Well, that's like where all the interesting stuff
is, right?
Like the security chapters areall the way at the end.
And it's like, well, I just wantto skip to the end.
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
Yeah, but then you get to concepts and you're just
like, I don't, what, like, howdoes this work?
wait a minute, how am I supposedto know this?
And you're like, okay, hold on.
It's being able to acknowledgeand reflect that, yeah, I really
don't know what's going on here.
I am a fool.
Let me go back.
Let me educate myself.
(18:09):
And let's see if I, after I readthat chapter, come back, read
chapter nine.
Does this make sense now?
And the short answer is yes.
It's just, I have to fail beforeI can succeed.
I can't just be smart and readchapters one, two, three, four.
SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
Absolutely.
I definitely fill in the deepend a lot.
I know if I'm trying to read arequest for comment or a white
paper on some new attack orsomething, I end up having to do
lots of background research andlook stuff up a lot.
I think you have to get used toit in this field of not knowing
(18:47):
what the heck is going on, butbe willing to go out there and
figure out what the individualcomponents of it are.
SPEAKER_02 (18:56):
Yeah, I think the big thing really is that you
have to get very comfortablewith saying, I don't know, and
realize that you might say, Idon't know, to people you don't
want to say that to.
Not that that person is going tohold it against you, but
depending on what their teachingstyle is, say it's somebody
(19:20):
knowledgeable, they might not bethe most newbie-friendly
teacher.
It's like, well, How do you notknow this?
It's this, this, and this.
But if you're okay with that,you know, quick sting of emotion
of saying like, I'm sorry, Idon't know.
If you can get over that, thingsbecome a lot easier very quickly
because then you can go find outthe smart people and be like,
(19:42):
hey, I don't understand this.
What am I missing?
Is this, is XYZ equal to ABC?
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
You got to go the other way.
It's like, oh, okay.
You know, it's one of thosethings I'd say that's a big
thing or myth is that you haveto be willing to you know raise
your hand and say like I don'tknow what I'm doing because it's
a lot easier to get help thatway to say I don't know what I'm
(20:05):
doing rather than just you knowtrying to do the fake it till
you make it
SPEAKER_01 (20:09):
thing I think going back to people just starting out
and trying to get going I thinka lot of people are hesitant to
ask for help and that's like oneof the biggest stumbling blocks
SPEAKER_02 (20:23):
yeah always that for help like it's it's not going to
be fun for the first bit but youmight get a piece of information
and you know you might do somegoogle foo and it might lead you
down the correct path you justbe okay with the sting it's you
know it's not the thing i kindof have to had to tell myself
(20:43):
early on was it's not a personalthing you know it's just i don't
even know what it is it's theydon't hate me as a person it's
just i'm shocking them to acertain degree And it's, okay,
cool.
Shock is over.
It's done.
Let's move on.
And you can go from there.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Outside of normal academic skills, what skills do
you think are needed to be agood student or learner?
SPEAKER_02 (21:08):
Really the big thing, and this is one of those
things actually that I've beendealing with for the past two
weeks, it's understandingyourself and being able to have
conversations with yourself andfigure out where you are.
currently working on my SEC pluscertification.
(21:28):
And it's one of those thingsthat I feel I should be able to,
you know, take the test.
And I've been working on it forlike two months now.
So by all accounts, I should beready to take the test.
However, every time I take apractice test, I'm always
scoring, you know, in a, let'ssay 65 to 78 range.
(21:49):
And it's one of those thingswhere it's like, I know, I know
the that area.
I want to be up above 85%.
It took me really until thisweek to come to terms and give
myself permission that this istaking longer than expected.
(22:10):
That's fine.
It's not necessarily a hardtest, but it's not necessarily
an easy test.
Maybe you need to back off alittle bit and clear your mind
and do something else and focuson something else and yeah there
was a day or two in there whereI should have been studying and
video games was on the docket sothat's what I did but at the
(22:34):
same time you know it's one ofthose things where if I'm still
not feeling like I am beingsuccessful or I'm making any
type of meaningful progress thenI do a hard switch and at WGU
it's actually very easy to dothis or I find it very easy to
do this is I just go straight toanother class whatever class I
have in my degree I just likeokay we're going here now, like
(22:57):
we're stopping everything onthis class, because we're not
making any headway.
We're going to go over here,everything is 100% on this side
now.
And so, you know, I started up anew class and it just happened
to be a class, learning how touse and map and Wireshark and
those are two things that I, Iwouldn't say I am a master in by
any means but I think I'm prettyproficient based on, you know,
(23:20):
the amount of try hack me hackthe box, NCL, and other CT I was
like, okay, cool.
I was like, I'm already familiarwith a lot of this content.
And I was like, there's going tobe a couple of key things I can
pick up here.
Automatically, I'm already at amuch better place than I was
mentally speaking, because I'malready set up for success.
(23:41):
And kind of my ultimate goalthere is to trick myself into
completing that class andcompleting it what I would think
is in a very reasonabletimeframe, come off it with
some, you know, happy thoughts.
thoughts, lack of a better term,and then go back into the
security plus class and be like,okay, cool.
I know I'm not an idiot.
I know I'm smart.
(24:02):
I just did that class.
I did it well.
It's like, let's go back, youknow, fresh mind, fresh eyes,
and let's reattack this class.
And maybe something was clickedor something has shifted in my
knowledge.
So I can go ahead and, you know,get a better foothold than I did
before.
To kind of circle back around tothe question is, it's you really
(24:24):
got to be in tune with yourselfand you have to be able to you
know step away from yourself andobjectively you know look at
yourself as a third person I waslike am I making good decisions
here or am I just following aschedule it also helps to know
what type of person you are likeif you I'm not the type of
(24:46):
person who can say every morning7 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
I'm going to be studying that'sthe only thing I'm doing for
four hours it's really I waslike okay when I eat and play
with the cats.
I'll try and get in there around7, 7.30-ish.
It's figuring out what works foryou, but then figuring out what
works for you and how to make itwork at the most effective way
(25:08):
possible.
SPEAKER_00 (25:09):
That's good advice.
Be kind to yourself.
If what you're doing isn'tworking and it's stressing you
out, change paths for a bit andcome back to it later.
SPEAKER_02 (25:20):
It's kind of hard to be I don't want to say it's
hard.
What I'm trying to say is of thefriend group that I have of
students at school, there's acouple guys that are just,
they're all stars.
They're just like, bing, bing,boom.
They got things done instantly.
And they have every CompTIAcertification.
(25:40):
It's like, oh, that class waseasy.
And it's okay.
I know what that type ofpersonality is.
I've been in the world longenough.
I know how and why they aresuccessful.
But I also know that's not meand that's not how I'm
successful.
So it's, you know, it's hard.
The thing I have to tell myselfquite frequently is we compare
(26:00):
ourselves to the highlight reelsof others.
And it's one of those thingswhere it's like they're
successful because I can onlysee what they're successful at.
They're not telling me what theyfailed at.
Now, if I ask them about it,they probably will.
And they're, you know, I'd get abetter understanding of their
trials and tribulations.
But for me, it's I knoweverything I failed at and
(26:21):
everything I failed at is, youwhere everything I've been
successful at has only been 10%.
It's being able to take a stepback and internalize that
they're successful just as muchas I'm successful and they fail
just as much as I fail.
But it's...
You can't compare yourself tosomeone else based on, you know,
(26:43):
what they've been doing andbased on what you're doing.
You have to just release thatenergy to get all new age.
As Bruce Lee would say, be likewater.
SPEAKER_01 (26:54):
Yeah, I think those are all good points.
Talking about comparing yourselfto others.
One of our previous guests,Jolene, if you look at that from
the outside, it's like, oh mygoodness, nine months.
How is this even possible?
But then you don't realize thatshe's doing you know, like 50
hours a week or whatnot.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:12):
She, she completed her degree in nine months.
That
SPEAKER_02 (27:16):
was,
SPEAKER_00 (27:18):
that was her mission.
And yeah.
Yeah.
No,
SPEAKER_02 (27:20):
it's incredible.
Uh, and even considering, youknow, what, uh, the other
factors was that she, she wasdealing with and, you know,
everything else, it's, she wasmotivated.
SPEAKER_03 (27:30):
She
SPEAKER_02 (27:32):
had a goal.
She went for it and boom, sheknew how to make things work for
her.
And, you know, you know, whereto take those liberties.
And that's kind of the key thingis if you can know where you can
bend the rules when you need tobreak the rules, that type of
thing, things, you know, workout in your favor a little bit
more.
The one thing I want to alsodrop in here, one of my favorite
(27:53):
quotes in my email signatures aswell, and this is one of those
things that grounds me a littlebit, is the Nobel physicist
Niels Bohr, who I believe oncehe got the Nobel Prize in
physics, Heineken installed atap to his house to always
dispense beer for the rest ofhis life.
But he has a quote and it'sattributed to him.
(28:15):
And the quote is the master ofany one discipline is the person
who has made every mistakepossible for a very small field.
Just because some people aremasters, they're only masters
because they have failed athousand more times than they
have succeeded.
A
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
lot of learning to be done.
One of the interesting thingsI've seen people talk about
10,000 hours of mastery versuslike 20 hours to learn a new
skill or something like that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Malcolm Gladwell versus the,uh, I think there was a guy who
did a Ted X, uh, ukulele talk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the guy who I'm reallyjiving on right now, I just
found him this week and I pickedup one of his books, uh, Simon
Sinek, S I N E K.
His book is the infinite game.
(29:03):
And the first chapter is prettyilluminating because it
describes a or things that Ihave in my head.
If I ran a business, this is howI would do it.
And the basic thing is thatthere's two types of games.
There are infinite game and thefinite game.
Finite game is a sports game.
It's got a beginning, it's gotan end, and there's rules.
(29:25):
The infinite game is players cancome and go as they choose.
There are no set rules.
There are no winners.
There are no losers.
Life is a infinite game.
Governments are an infinitegame.
And what What he goes throughand talks about in the book is,
you know, how business leaderswho take the mindset of an
(29:45):
infinite business versus afinite business and don't have
winners and losers end up doingbetter overall.
A really good example he uses isGeorge Eastman, who created
Kodak, one of the firstcompanies, you know, back in the
1800s, probably 1900s, probablylate 18, early 19.
First company to give paid timeoff to give tuition
(30:07):
reimbursement.
to workers because you know it'sI mean that's still radical
stuff now but imagine you know100 years ago it was like it's
insane but you create a culturethat people want to stay and
they want to help the businessyou create a community so really
jiving on his stuff right nowand he's kind of a serial
(30:30):
optimist and but it's notsaccharine you know it's much
more it's optimist with somepragmatism attached to it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:40):
I appreciate that.
As somebody who does networking,do you deal with Wi-Fi at all?
SPEAKER_02 (30:46):
Wi-Fi, yeah.
I used to have to coach peoplethrough how to do site surveys
and Wi-Fi optimization over thephone without really being able
to show them physically.
Granted, I had things like go tomy PC and TeamViewer where I
(31:06):
could jump onto their system buthad to show them using different
tools and techniques aswaterfall displays and radio or
RF output and frequencies.
And then just telling people whyyou can't put a wireless access
point inside of a stainlesssteel box.
SPEAKER_01 (31:27):
Exactly.
My favorite is the good old wallfiling cabinets.
And we're going to stick it inthe corner with all the filing
cabinets.
SPEAKER_02 (31:37):
So So the previous company I worked for, they're a
smart home automation company,very high end, considered to be
the Cadillac of them.
So much to the point, they don'tsell to customers, only to
dealers.
At least once a day, we'd get acall and we're like, hey, I have
poor Wi-Fi range.
Cool.
Where's the AP?
Oh, it's behind the TV.
Okay, so you want a radiofrequency transmitter to be
(32:01):
shooting through a giant pieceof glass and metal that's
electrified, and you expect itto work flawlessly.
I was like, how does that work,man?
Yeah, there's a lot of that typeof stuff.
And it's just, some of it's fun.
Some of it, there were a coupleof calls where I got to
brainstorm with some of theguys.
We're like, well, hey, how can Istop this Wi-Fi bleed from one
(32:24):
room to the other?
And the solution we end upcoming up with was marine grade
copper infused paint.
So we could make a Faraday cagebecause he didn't want the Wi-Fi
bleed going through through thefloor from the basement to the
first floor.
And I was like, look, I waslike, this should work.
I can't say whether or not itwill, but the concept of the
(32:46):
Faraday cage is it's, it'scopper mesh and it's going to
block stuff.
So it's not going to obliteratethe signal, but it is going to
severely hamper any bleed comingthrough.
SPEAKER_01 (32:56):
It's definitely some of the more interesting
experiments.
For example, like thoseanti-static bag you get with
electronics, you can Leo them upand get similar effects.
So it can be kind of fun to playaround with those different cell
phones and see which one will goout with how many layers of the
bags or whatnot.
SPEAKER_02 (33:15):
Yeah, the other kind of the thing that really made me
start to understand or respectWi-Fi is working with dealers
who were working in what I wouldcall Miami homes, which are, you
know, homes in Miami that arereinforced concrete.
So, you know, it's concrete withrebar in it.
So a literal Faraday a cage andit's the sheer amount of access
(33:41):
points they have to put insideof the building, you know,
because even from room to room,you won't get any bleed.
And those are kind of the bestand worst situations because
it's like, Hey, just throw moreaccess points into each room and
you're going to be fine.
But at the same time, Hey, buymore products.
It's going to be more expensive.
SPEAKER_01 (34:01):
As far as doing this stuff on the flight.
Yeah.
Like all I've ever had is, youknow, like Wi-Fi Analyzer, any
of those other apps on my phone?
SPEAKER_02 (34:11):
Yeah, the one that I really like, and I think it's on
the iPhone, it's definitely onAndroid, and it's been my go-to
for at least six, seven years,is NetAnalyzer.
It gives you all of yourinformation for your Wi-Fi, for
your cell connection, as well asnetwork information, and has
(34:35):
land scan capabilities on it.
You can do do some ping tests,some NS lookup tests on there.
And it's free.
And so at a glance, if you justneed quick information, it's
there.
It gives you the RSSI or signalstrength for what you're doing.
And you can switch between thedifferent Wi-Fi channels.
Or it will tell you what Wi-Fichannels.
And you can also switch betweenthe different frequencies, so
(34:58):
the 2.4 and the 5.
SPEAKER_01 (34:59):
Very cool.
Have you used the Fing app atall?
SPEAKER_02 (35:04):
Yeah, everybody, all the dealers, uh, used thing and
loved thing and nothing wrongwith it.
Uh, just never used it.
Cause I think it was at the timeit was all just iOS.
They wasn't on Android.
Um, so it was like, okay, I waslike, uh, you know, I like this.
And at the same time, it's the,the other reason why, uh, we, or
(35:31):
I didn't use it is it's on the,it was on the person's phone,
whoever I was helping.
And if I'm helping you over thephone, I can't see that.
So most of the time, uh, mygo-to, uh, for a land scan tool
was like advanced IP scanner,just because it's, it's cheap.
It's or it's free and it's got aGUI.
So the techs can use it.
(35:52):
Whereas if the person had it ontheir computer, then, you know,
I'd probably go straight to endmap, but that was a, you know, a
one in 1000 type thing.
Most people didn't have that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Yeah.
I just ended up using a thinghalf the time because I, my,
before I I realized I needed toactually reserve the lease for
my, the DHCP lease for myRaspberry Pi.
It always changes every time Ireboot my Pi, right?
It's like, I'm a thing scared,and like, oh, there it is again.
SPEAKER_02 (36:21):
Where'd it go?
Trust me, I'd still do that, andI've got, I'm running a PFSense
with an intrusion detectionsystem, prevention system.
I'm the classic case of themechanic who doesn't take care
of their car for my homenetwork, if that makes sense.
I'm trying to be better, and inIn fact, I'm doing a little home
project now where I've got a NASusing TrueNAS.
(36:44):
And I am trying to take all ofthe files off of that so I can
rebuild it.
Because when I first built it, Ijust threw whatever hard drives
I had laying around into it.
So I got a mix, mismatch ofstuff.
Now I've got some WesternDigital Red 3 terabytes that I'm
going to throw in there to raidthem out.
(37:06):
But I'm trying to just...
Just make things nice and cleanbecause I've got the time and I
probably should have done this along time ago.
From
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
today, what is the number one takeaway you think
our listeners should take?
SPEAKER_02 (37:20):
Be okay with failing.
Expect to fail.
Get comfortable with it.
The classic thing is the measureof a person's not how many times
they fell off the horse, it'show many times they got back up
on it.
Be okay with failing becausefailing, you learn what not to
do.
I am more scared of succeedingbecause it's like, well, why did
(37:44):
it work?
It's a classic programmer thingwhere you're like, oh, I got an
error.
Okay, let me try and debug.
Oh, well, now it works.
Well, wait a minute.
I didn't change anything.
Why is this working now?
It's like, uh-oh.
Be very comfortable with failingand know that if you're failing,
you are actually moving forward.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
How should our listeners connect with you
online if they want to reach outto you
SPEAKER_02 (38:09):
I am the only person with this handle thankfully and
I've been rocking it since I waslike 13 I go by Otter Bob so
O-T-T-E-R B-A-U-B and you canfind me all over the place I
just ask for a little bit offorgiveness because like I said
I've been running it since I was13 so previous discretions are
(38:34):
probably still on full displayeven though I think I have most
of them set to private.
I don't think I've done anythingreally bad.
I've got to imagine I've saidsome stupid things at some point
in time.
We're all human.
I know I've definitely grownsince I was 13.
I apologize in advance.
(38:55):
It's not my fault.
SPEAKER_00 (38:57):
Thank you for coming today, Colin.
It was a pleasure having you.
SPEAKER_02 (39:01):
Thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed it.
Thanks again.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
Thanks for listening to the Security months and
remember if it seemsoverwhelming just keep chipping
away at it
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome to Security Chipmunks podcast, where we talk
about the development ofcybersecurity skills.
To stay up to date in today'sworld, you need to be resilient.
That's why as advancedpersistent chipmunks, we keep
chipping away at it.
My name is Meg Sedna-Johnson.
My co-host is Neil Smalley.
And today, we are joined byspecial guest Colin Klinberg.
(00:30):
Colin, it's a pleasure havingyou here today.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Thanks for having me.
Great to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
So would you tell us aboutyourself and a little bit about
what you do?
SPEAKER_02 (00:43):
Sure.
I'm a career changer, butmultiple careers.
Started out in culinary arts,went to Culinary Institute of
America, had my own cateringcompany for a little bit, jumped
out of that, got into IT becauseI've actually been a computer
guy my entire life, and foundout that I make twice as much
and work half as many hours, andI get benefits from doing IT
(01:06):
work And from doing that, I'vedone help desk for now two major
aeronautics companies, one ownedby the French government and the
Boeing company.
I've worked on cell phonetowers, building them,
installing them, engineeringthem, commissioning them, where
it's taken me all over thecountry.
(01:26):
Spent a year in Alaska doingthat, spent some time in Hawaii
doing that.
Kind of done a little bit ofeverything and haven't really
settled down in one specificarea, only a except for the past
couple of years where I'vereally been going heavy into
networking, IT networking, andmost recently kind of trying to
make the transition intocybersecurity by starting at WGU
(01:50):
last July.
SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
Oh, that's very, very cool.
So are there any projects thatyou're currently working on?
SPEAKER_02 (01:56):
Right now I'm in the pre-production phase for
creating videos to help andassist new WGU students coming
in.
Because what I'm seeing is aswe're getting new students
joining every month, there's alot of people that are career
changers who don't really havemuch in the way of IT
(02:18):
experience, but they're veryenthusiastic.
And I think that's the bestthing that you can capitalize
on.
If you can get somebody whilethey're enthusiastic about a
subject and get them a littlebit down the road, you can keep
that momentum going.
And so what I'm trying to tryingto do with uh is create a video
series where we can kind of makea uh tutorial and handholdy if
(02:46):
you will for new students on howto get started and what some of
us might consider really basicsimple things but to the outside
person it was like wow you knowthat's superman level stuff and
it could be you know simplethings as hey i'm a student at
school do I have any access tofree resources?
(03:08):
What are those free resources?
How can I utilize them?
It could be like Windowslicensing.
It could be discounts for Huluor Amazon Prime, small,
low-level stuff, but canultimately lead into bigger
things.
And ultimately, I like to shapeit into, hey, okay, now that
you've taken advantage of allthese free student resources,
(03:30):
now let's get into the nuts andbolts of things.
Let's figure out how we canstart what I would call
gamifying our learning.
So really get into, you know,the big one that everybody likes
to do is like hack the box ortry hack me, right?
They want to start to learn howto be a hacker man or person,
woman, whatever you choose.
It's one of those things thatthere's a little bit of a
(03:51):
barrier to entry there.
And unless you go through andread a lot of information, watch
a lot of videos, you're stillkind of just, I don't know where
to begin.
First couple of videos I want totackle is how to create a VM
setup on your computer.
across different platforms, soMac, Linux, Windows, as well as
(04:11):
the different softwares anddifferent implementations that
you can use to do that.
A really great one that Iactually like to use is the
Windows subsystem, and that gotadded to Windows 10 about two
years ago.
And you can go straight to theWindows Store right now and just
type in Kali, K-A-L-I, anddownload an instance of Kali
(04:35):
Linux on your machine and it isrunning on your machine.
You don't have to do any otherVM.
SPEAKER_00 (04:42):
Yeah, that makes it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
Yeah.
And then the nice part about itis that Kali, the offensive
security, the people thatdistribute the Kali Linux
distribution, even have areally, really wonderful
walkthrough on how to set allthat up, as well as how to give
yourself a desktop on top ofthat as well.
So even if you're coming intothis and you don't want to jump
(05:05):
straight into command line, andyou're a little bit scared of
you know being a keyboardwarrior you can still you know
start off with in the safe spacewith a desktop and that's pretty
much how I run most of the timewhenever you know I get into
some of these CTF capture theflag challenges or I'm working
on these boxes is I will pop outyou know different windows here
(05:29):
and there of whatever I'mworking on so that way you know
I'm most comfortable in mywindows environment so I can do
all my research there but then Ican switch over to you know
another window or anothermonitor and be like okay this is
going to be my Linux side ofthings and this is where I can
do all of my attacking orinvestigation my recon things
(05:51):
like that
SPEAKER_00 (05:52):
so
SPEAKER_02 (05:52):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (05:53):
you're doing some great things that's going to be
awesome I'm sure thosewalkthroughs are going to help
so many people that are that arejust getting started and your
experience is going
SPEAKER_02 (06:04):
to
SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
putting into that process It's
SPEAKER_02 (06:08):
going to be great.
Thank you.
(06:36):
I am and not really being ableto do anything about it so you
know 30th birthday kind of hadthat moment I was like okay I
have to do something to changethe situation to be more
successful and I was like youknow we're outside of that
window of over prescription ofdrugs I'm not a teenager anymore
I'm a man and I was like let'stry it let's see what happens
(06:59):
and for me it was that itliterally was an overnight thing
like flip of a switch and thingsjust kind of coalesced and I was
able to just become more focusedand more driven in whatever I
was working on.
And so because of that, I stillretain a lot of my old bad
(07:20):
habits, but I can also kind ofuse them to my will at the same
time.
So the one thing that I feelthat I'm good at is because I've
had such a difficult timelearning new things, I've had to
create my own learning stylewhich is usually more difficult
than it needs to be but the endresult of it is I end up having
(07:44):
a pretty deep understanding ofwhatever that information is and
can pretty much identify wherepeople get stuck most of the
time so it's I have a what Iwould consider I don't want to
say innate but I have asensitivity if you will to know
like okay this is going to be asticky spot this is where more
(08:08):
information needs to be focusedbecause if we get this one piece
of the puzzle it unlocks 10other pieces for us so that's
kind of that's the you know thepie in the sky mission statement
it's the reason why I want to dothe how-to videos is because I
think I can bring my idiotic wayof doing things to help teach
(08:30):
people because I think mostpeople realize or they feel at a
that they are stupid, but theyfeel stupid.
And they know if they just hadsomebody there, you know,
helping them out that they couldget it.
But it's just, you get sofrustrated and you don't even
know what you don't know at thatpoint.
(08:51):
So it's, I hope to, you know,give some reassurance and some
step-by-step instructionalinformation on how to succeed,
how to get past hurdles,essentially.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
What are the biggest challenges that are facing you
right
SPEAKER_02 (09:05):
now?
So biggest challenge isself-inflicted I ended up
leaving my job I was acontractor at Boeing and it was
a fine job I just I wasn't doingenough work for me to stay
active and that's part of thereasons why I started back up at
school I have enough money savedup made a calculated decision to
(09:29):
figure out that okay I've gotthree months before my term ends
and I've got about nine classesleft and I'm I'm already
familiar with most of thesesubjects, so I'm not learning
them from a zero point, but canI get these next classes done by
the end of my term so then thatway I can get my second
(09:49):
bachelor's and then move on to acybersecurity job by the end of
the summer?
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Okay, so you've got a really big goal.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (10:01):
Do you have an idea of what type of job you want to
go for or
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
I'm somewhat open.
I'm open to whoever's going tobe paying me and has a nice
office environment to work at,to be perfectly honest.
But that said, more than likely,probably going to be focusing
more cybersec on network typejobs, just because that's kind
of my bread and butter.
It's what I know.
(10:26):
I mean, the nice thing aboutcybersecurity is that, you know,
there's a bunch of disciplinesinside of it that are, you know,
you can kind of, depending onwhatever your past is, you can
either leverage that or focusthere.
Because it seems like relativelyspeaking, cybersec falls into,
you know, let's say three majorcategories, in my opinion, which
(10:49):
is networking-based, web-based,and software-based.
Depending on what you'refamiliar with, it might make
sense for what I would say topeople is like, I've got a
friend who is a very bigsoftware developer, and he's
making the change as well rightnow.
And so I wouldn't say for him,like, makes sense to go into the
(11:10):
networking side of things, eventhough, like, if you enjoy it,
hey, go follow that.
But given what you already know,and what your skill set is, it
might make sense to, you know,go software, but go focus on
cybersecurity software, or atleast reverse engineering,
understanding things like that.
Just to, you know, play to yourstrengths.
(11:32):
Unless you really like thatchallenge.
And you're that savant whereyou're like, okay, it Throw them
in the deep end.
Let's just go.
Let's see what happens.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
I think networking can help you out in all those
areas
SPEAKER_02 (11:42):
at the
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
end of the day.
I kind of approach it with theOSI model.
SPEAKER_02 (11:46):
Yeah, yeah.
And I guess to better clarify,when I say networking, what I'm
trying to say is more on theenterprise side of things.
So firewalls and encryption orsite-to-site encryption, VPNs,
things like that.
Because I did get some exposureto that where working at Boeing,
(12:06):
obviously, because they workwith the Department of Defense.
So, you know, they haveclassified environments and they
have an entirely separatesecurity network team in place.
But I totally agree with you.
Yeah, networking, it's one ofthose things, it helps as a good
foundation for a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00 (12:23):
So you talked about you want to get a job by the end
of the summer.
So what does your dream job looklike?
SPEAKER_02 (12:29):
Ultimate dream job?
I'd be in New Zealand doingcybersecurity.
SPEAKER_00 (12:34):
Oh, so cool.
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
That's the two-year goal.
It was a three-year goal untilthe pandemic happened.
But yeah, I really like NewZealand and the lifestyle that
they have, meaning that theirwork-life balance is very
amicable to the way I want tolive my life.
Fair amount of vacation time,work is not the end-all to
(12:57):
be-all kind of how it is with usAmericans or myself as an
American, because I have thepropensity to become a
workaholic.
and I don't want to stop and putthings down.
So, you know, the office forcingme to put things down, I think
it would be beneficial.
That's the pie in the sky rightnow.
It's, you know, I would saysomething as I really don't
(13:19):
know, to be perfectly honest,it'd be nice to go get a
government job because I thinkthat'd be a great resume
builder.
I'm looking actually into eithermoving to Salt Lake City because
the NSA has a bunker there and aprevious company I worked for
works there as has headquartersthere at the same time.
Also looking at DC, uh, cause Ihave family that lives there and
(13:42):
I really like the area.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
Yeah.
And there's a lot ofcybersecurity jobs in DC.
SPEAKER_02 (13:47):
Exactly.
And then, you know, up untilrecently I was looking in the
PNW area, but it seems like thatAustin and Austin have kind of
just been a bunch of Californiaexpats, which nothing against
cause I I'm in the heart ofCalifornia.
I'm in orange County.
Okay.
Um, But it seems like they'vetaken all the expensiveness of
(14:08):
California with them.
And I'd like to avoid that asmuch as possible.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:13):
So, you know, that's kind of thing.
Granted, D.C.
is still, you know, almost justas expensive as L.A.
is what it is.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Yeah.
I don't know.
I like the green.
I miss the green.
Even just going over to the eastside of Washington can be a
little lonely.
SPEAKER_02 (14:32):
Yeah.
And that's kind of the nicething of where I live.
I am...
10 minutes from the beach onside streets, and I'm about an
hour away from every otherclimate you could think of.
So the desert is like 30, 40minutes.
Las Vegas is three hours away.
The mountains are about an hourand a half away for skiing and
(14:55):
stuff.
Santa Barbara is like two and ahalf hours away.
San Diego is an hour and a halfsouth.
LA is 40 minutes to the north.
I'm kind of lucky where I'm at.
I got access to everything.
We just get fires from time totime.
SPEAKER_01 (15:11):
It seems like definitely a common occurrence
on the West Coast these days.
SPEAKER_03 (15:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:19):
Do you have any common myths about networking
that you'd want to debunk or anyinteresting networking
misconfigurations that might notbe apparent to a total newbie?
SPEAKER_02 (15:33):
It's kind of hard to say at this point because I'm in
so long that I've kind offorgotten my newbie discovery
phase.
And I'm trying to rack my brainright now if there's things.
The big thing, which is theearly concept that it takes
people a little bit of time tofigure out is the terminology.
(15:55):
And really, it's the networkjargon that is used by
non-networking people confusingthings.
So what I mean to say by that isa subnet is the same as a
network.
But a subnet mask is not asubnet.
(16:16):
So a subnet is a neighborhood.
A subnet mask is the number ofhouses inside of a neighborhood.
And so previous job, I wasworking doing technical
networking support for peoplewho were audio video installers
and had no networking knowledge.
(16:36):
So it's having to, you know,very politely ask them
information and then educatethem at the same time but doing
so with a certain level of tactis one of those things where
it's like okay well the subnetmask is this and subnet is this
and it's like I just give me therouter IP and it's like let's
(16:57):
start there and it's so the bigthing I would say you know for
myths is or I wouldn't say it'sa myth, but the best thing to
help you out, and I think thisgoes for whatever you're
studying, is learn theterminology and learn the
foundation, like chapters oneand two of whatever book you're
reading, because nine times outof 10, if you understand one and
(17:21):
two at a theoretical level, youwill understand everything else
or you will be able to teach itto yourself.
Granted, I don't take my ownadvice.
I look through one and two.
I'm like, yeah, I kind of knowthis stuff.
And I'll jump straight tochapter nine.
And I'm like, I don't knowwhat's going on here.
Two weeks later, okay, I'll goback and I'll read chapter one.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
Well, that's like where all the interesting stuff
is, right?
Like the security chapters areall the way at the end.
And it's like, well, I just wantto skip to the end.
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
Yeah, but then you get to concepts and you're just
like, I don't, what, like, howdoes this work?
wait a minute, how am I supposedto know this?
And you're like, okay, hold on.
It's being able to acknowledgeand reflect that, yeah, I really
don't know what's going on here.
I am a fool.
Let me go back.
Let me educate myself.
(18:09):
And let's see if I, after I readthat chapter, come back, read
chapter nine.
Does this make sense now?
And the short answer is yes.
It's just, I have to fail beforeI can succeed.
I can't just be smart and readchapters one, two, three, four.
SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
Absolutely.
I definitely fill in the deepend a lot.
I know if I'm trying to read arequest for comment or a white
paper on some new attack orsomething, I end up having to do
lots of background research andlook stuff up a lot.
I think you have to get used toit in this field of not knowing
(18:47):
what the heck is going on, butbe willing to go out there and
figure out what the individualcomponents of it are.
SPEAKER_02 (18:56):
Yeah, I think the big thing really is that you
have to get very comfortablewith saying, I don't know, and
realize that you might say, Idon't know, to people you don't
want to say that to.
Not that that person is going tohold it against you, but
depending on what their teachingstyle is, say it's somebody
(19:20):
knowledgeable, they might not bethe most newbie-friendly
teacher.
It's like, well, How do you notknow this?
It's this, this, and this.
But if you're okay with that,you know, quick sting of emotion
of saying like, I'm sorry, Idon't know.
If you can get over that, thingsbecome a lot easier very quickly
because then you can go find outthe smart people and be like,
(19:42):
hey, I don't understand this.
What am I missing?
Is this, is XYZ equal to ABC?
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
You got to go the other way.
It's like, oh, okay.
You know, it's one of thosethings I'd say that's a big
thing or myth is that you haveto be willing to you know raise
your hand and say like I don'tknow what I'm doing because it's
a lot easier to get help thatway to say I don't know what I'm
(20:05):
doing rather than just you knowtrying to do the fake it till
you make it
SPEAKER_01 (20:09):
thing I think going back to people just starting out
and trying to get going I thinka lot of people are hesitant to
ask for help and that's like oneof the biggest stumbling blocks
SPEAKER_02 (20:23):
yeah always that for help like it's it's not going to
be fun for the first bit but youmight get a piece of information
and you know you might do somegoogle foo and it might lead you
down the correct path you justbe okay with the sting it's you
know it's not the thing i kindof have to had to tell myself
(20:43):
early on was it's not a personalthing you know it's just i don't
even know what it is it's theydon't hate me as a person it's
just i'm shocking them to acertain degree And it's, okay,
cool.
Shock is over.
It's done.
Let's move on.
And you can go from there.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Outside of normal academic skills, what skills do
you think are needed to be agood student or learner?
SPEAKER_02 (21:08):
Really the big thing, and this is one of those
things actually that I've beendealing with for the past two
weeks, it's understandingyourself and being able to have
conversations with yourself andfigure out where you are.
currently working on my SEC pluscertification.
(21:28):
And it's one of those thingsthat I feel I should be able to,
you know, take the test.
And I've been working on it forlike two months now.
So by all accounts, I should beready to take the test.
However, every time I take apractice test, I'm always
scoring, you know, in a, let'ssay 65 to 78 range.
(21:49):
And it's one of those thingswhere it's like, I know, I know
the that area.
I want to be up above 85%.
It took me really until thisweek to come to terms and give
myself permission that this istaking longer than expected.
(22:10):
That's fine.
It's not necessarily a hardtest, but it's not necessarily
an easy test.
Maybe you need to back off alittle bit and clear your mind
and do something else and focuson something else and yeah there
was a day or two in there whereI should have been studying and
video games was on the docket sothat's what I did but at the
(22:34):
same time you know it's one ofthose things where if I'm still
not feeling like I am beingsuccessful or I'm making any
type of meaningful progress thenI do a hard switch and at WGU
it's actually very easy to dothis or I find it very easy to
do this is I just go straight toanother class whatever class I
have in my degree I just likeokay we're going here now, like
(22:57):
we're stopping everything onthis class, because we're not
making any headway.
We're going to go over here,everything is 100% on this side
now.
And so, you know, I started up anew class and it just happened
to be a class, learning how touse and map and Wireshark and
those are two things that I, Iwouldn't say I am a master in by
any means but I think I'm prettyproficient based on, you know,
(23:20):
the amount of try hack me hackthe box, NCL, and other CT I was
like, okay, cool.
I was like, I'm already familiarwith a lot of this content.
And I was like, there's going tobe a couple of key things I can
pick up here.
Automatically, I'm already at amuch better place than I was
mentally speaking, because I'malready set up for success.
(23:41):
And kind of my ultimate goalthere is to trick myself into
completing that class andcompleting it what I would think
is in a very reasonabletimeframe, come off it with
some, you know, happy thoughts.
thoughts, lack of a better term,and then go back into the
security plus class and be like,okay, cool.
I know I'm not an idiot.
I know I'm smart.
(24:02):
I just did that class.
I did it well.
It's like, let's go back, youknow, fresh mind, fresh eyes,
and let's reattack this class.
And maybe something was clickedor something has shifted in my
knowledge.
So I can go ahead and, you know,get a better foothold than I did
before.
To kind of circle back around tothe question is, it's you really
(24:24):
got to be in tune with yourselfand you have to be able to you
know step away from yourself andobjectively you know look at
yourself as a third person I waslike am I making good decisions
here or am I just following aschedule it also helps to know
what type of person you are likeif you I'm not the type of
(24:46):
person who can say every morning7 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
I'm going to be studying that'sthe only thing I'm doing for
four hours it's really I waslike okay when I eat and play
with the cats.
I'll try and get in there around7, 7.30-ish.
It's figuring out what works foryou, but then figuring out what
works for you and how to make itwork at the most effective way
(25:08):
possible.
SPEAKER_00 (25:09):
That's good advice.
Be kind to yourself.
If what you're doing isn'tworking and it's stressing you
out, change paths for a bit andcome back to it later.
SPEAKER_02 (25:20):
It's kind of hard to be I don't want to say it's
hard.
What I'm trying to say is of thefriend group that I have of
students at school, there's acouple guys that are just,
they're all stars.
They're just like, bing, bing,boom.
They got things done instantly.
And they have every CompTIAcertification.
(25:40):
It's like, oh, that class waseasy.
And it's okay.
I know what that type ofpersonality is.
I've been in the world longenough.
I know how and why they aresuccessful.
But I also know that's not meand that's not how I'm
successful.
So it's, you know, it's hard.
The thing I have to tell myselfquite frequently is we compare
(26:00):
ourselves to the highlight reelsof others.
And it's one of those thingswhere it's like they're
successful because I can onlysee what they're successful at.
They're not telling me what theyfailed at.
Now, if I ask them about it,they probably will.
And they're, you know, I'd get abetter understanding of their
trials and tribulations.
But for me, it's I knoweverything I failed at and
(26:21):
everything I failed at is, youwhere everything I've been
successful at has only been 10%.
It's being able to take a stepback and internalize that
they're successful just as muchas I'm successful and they fail
just as much as I fail.
But it's...
You can't compare yourself tosomeone else based on, you know,
(26:43):
what they've been doing andbased on what you're doing.
You have to just release thatenergy to get all new age.
As Bruce Lee would say, be likewater.
SPEAKER_01 (26:54):
Yeah, I think those are all good points.
Talking about comparing yourselfto others.
One of our previous guests,Jolene, if you look at that from
the outside, it's like, oh mygoodness, nine months.
How is this even possible?
But then you don't realize thatshe's doing you know, like 50
hours a week or whatnot.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:12):
She, she completed her degree in nine months.
That
SPEAKER_02 (27:16):
was,
SPEAKER_00 (27:18):
that was her mission.
And yeah.
Yeah.
No,
SPEAKER_02 (27:20):
it's incredible.
Uh, and even considering, youknow, what, uh, the other
factors was that she, she wasdealing with and, you know,
everything else, it's, she wasmotivated.
SPEAKER_03 (27:30):
She
SPEAKER_02 (27:32):
had a goal.
She went for it and boom, sheknew how to make things work for
her.
And, you know, you know, whereto take those liberties.
And that's kind of the key thingis if you can know where you can
bend the rules when you need tobreak the rules, that type of
thing, things, you know, workout in your favor a little bit
more.
The one thing I want to alsodrop in here, one of my favorite
(27:53):
quotes in my email signatures aswell, and this is one of those
things that grounds me a littlebit, is the Nobel physicist
Niels Bohr, who I believe oncehe got the Nobel Prize in
physics, Heineken installed atap to his house to always
dispense beer for the rest ofhis life.
But he has a quote and it'sattributed to him.
(28:15):
And the quote is the master ofany one discipline is the person
who has made every mistakepossible for a very small field.
Just because some people aremasters, they're only masters
because they have failed athousand more times than they
have succeeded.
A
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
lot of learning to be done.
One of the interesting thingsI've seen people talk about
10,000 hours of mastery versuslike 20 hours to learn a new
skill or something like that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Malcolm Gladwell versus the,uh, I think there was a guy who
did a Ted X, uh, ukulele talk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the guy who I'm reallyjiving on right now, I just
found him this week and I pickedup one of his books, uh, Simon
Sinek, S I N E K.
His book is the infinite game.
(29:03):
And the first chapter is prettyilluminating because it
describes a or things that Ihave in my head.
If I ran a business, this is howI would do it.
And the basic thing is thatthere's two types of games.
There are infinite game and thefinite game.
Finite game is a sports game.
It's got a beginning, it's gotan end, and there's rules.
(29:25):
The infinite game is players cancome and go as they choose.
There are no set rules.
There are no winners.
There are no losers.
Life is a infinite game.
Governments are an infinitegame.
And what What he goes throughand talks about in the book is,
you know, how business leaderswho take the mindset of an
(29:45):
infinite business versus afinite business and don't have
winners and losers end up doingbetter overall.
A really good example he uses isGeorge Eastman, who created
Kodak, one of the firstcompanies, you know, back in the
1800s, probably 1900s, probablylate 18, early 19.
First company to give paid timeoff to give tuition
(30:07):
reimbursement.
to workers because you know it'sI mean that's still radical
stuff now but imagine you know100 years ago it was like it's
insane but you create a culturethat people want to stay and
they want to help the businessyou create a community so really
jiving on his stuff right nowand he's kind of a serial
(30:30):
optimist and but it's notsaccharine you know it's much
more it's optimist with somepragmatism attached to it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:40):
I appreciate that.
As somebody who does networking,do you deal with Wi-Fi at all?
SPEAKER_02 (30:46):
Wi-Fi, yeah.
I used to have to coach peoplethrough how to do site surveys
and Wi-Fi optimization over thephone without really being able
to show them physically.
Granted, I had things like go tomy PC and TeamViewer where I
(31:06):
could jump onto their system buthad to show them using different
tools and techniques aswaterfall displays and radio or
RF output and frequencies.
And then just telling people whyyou can't put a wireless access
point inside of a stainlesssteel box.
SPEAKER_01 (31:27):
Exactly.
My favorite is the good old wallfiling cabinets.
And we're going to stick it inthe corner with all the filing
cabinets.
SPEAKER_02 (31:37):
So So the previous company I worked for, they're a
smart home automation company,very high end, considered to be
the Cadillac of them.
So much to the point, they don'tsell to customers, only to
dealers.
At least once a day, we'd get acall and we're like, hey, I have
poor Wi-Fi range.
Cool.
Where's the AP?
Oh, it's behind the TV.
Okay, so you want a radiofrequency transmitter to be
(32:01):
shooting through a giant pieceof glass and metal that's
electrified, and you expect itto work flawlessly.
I was like, how does that work,man?
Yeah, there's a lot of that typeof stuff.
And it's just, some of it's fun.
Some of it, there were a coupleof calls where I got to
brainstorm with some of theguys.
We're like, well, hey, how can Istop this Wi-Fi bleed from one
(32:24):
room to the other?
And the solution we end upcoming up with was marine grade
copper infused paint.
So we could make a Faraday cagebecause he didn't want the Wi-Fi
bleed going through through thefloor from the basement to the
first floor.
And I was like, look, I waslike, this should work.
I can't say whether or not itwill, but the concept of the
(32:46):
Faraday cage is it's, it'scopper mesh and it's going to
block stuff.
So it's not going to obliteratethe signal, but it is going to
severely hamper any bleed comingthrough.
SPEAKER_01 (32:56):
It's definitely some of the more interesting
experiments.
For example, like thoseanti-static bag you get with
electronics, you can Leo them upand get similar effects.
So it can be kind of fun to playaround with those different cell
phones and see which one will goout with how many layers of the
bags or whatnot.
SPEAKER_02 (33:15):
Yeah, the other kind of the thing that really made me
start to understand or respectWi-Fi is working with dealers
who were working in what I wouldcall Miami homes, which are, you
know, homes in Miami that arereinforced concrete.
So, you know, it's concrete withrebar in it.
So a literal Faraday a cage andit's the sheer amount of access
(33:41):
points they have to put insideof the building, you know,
because even from room to room,you won't get any bleed.
And those are kind of the bestand worst situations because
it's like, Hey, just throw moreaccess points into each room and
you're going to be fine.
But at the same time, Hey, buymore products.
It's going to be more expensive.
SPEAKER_01 (34:01):
As far as doing this stuff on the flight.
Yeah.
Like all I've ever had is, youknow, like Wi-Fi Analyzer, any
of those other apps on my phone?
SPEAKER_02 (34:11):
Yeah, the one that I really like, and I think it's on
the iPhone, it's definitely onAndroid, and it's been my go-to
for at least six, seven years,is NetAnalyzer.
It gives you all of yourinformation for your Wi-Fi, for
your cell connection, as well asnetwork information, and has
(34:35):
land scan capabilities on it.
You can do do some ping tests,some NS lookup tests on there.
And it's free.
And so at a glance, if you justneed quick information, it's
there.
It gives you the RSSI or signalstrength for what you're doing.
And you can switch between thedifferent Wi-Fi channels.
Or it will tell you what Wi-Fichannels.
And you can also switch betweenthe different frequencies, so
(34:58):
the 2.4 and the 5.
SPEAKER_01 (34:59):
Very cool.
Have you used the Fing app atall?
SPEAKER_02 (35:04):
Yeah, everybody, all the dealers, uh, used thing and
loved thing and nothing wrongwith it.
Uh, just never used it.
Cause I think it was at the timeit was all just iOS.
They wasn't on Android.
Um, so it was like, okay, I waslike, uh, you know, I like this.
And at the same time, it's the,the other reason why, uh, we, or
(35:31):
I didn't use it is it's on the,it was on the person's phone,
whoever I was helping.
And if I'm helping you over thephone, I can't see that.
So most of the time, uh, mygo-to, uh, for a land scan tool
was like advanced IP scanner,just because it's, it's cheap.
It's or it's free and it's got aGUI.
So the techs can use it.
(35:52):
Whereas if the person had it ontheir computer, then, you know,
I'd probably go straight to endmap, but that was a, you know, a
one in 1000 type thing.
Most people didn't have that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Yeah.
I just ended up using a thinghalf the time because I, my,
before I I realized I needed toactually reserve the lease for
my, the DHCP lease for myRaspberry Pi.
It always changes every time Ireboot my Pi, right?
It's like, I'm a thing scared,and like, oh, there it is again.
SPEAKER_02 (36:21):
Where'd it go?
Trust me, I'd still do that, andI've got, I'm running a PFSense
with an intrusion detectionsystem, prevention system.
I'm the classic case of themechanic who doesn't take care
of their car for my homenetwork, if that makes sense.
I'm trying to be better, and inIn fact, I'm doing a little home
project now where I've got a NASusing TrueNAS.
(36:44):
And I am trying to take all ofthe files off of that so I can
rebuild it.
Because when I first built it, Ijust threw whatever hard drives
I had laying around into it.
So I got a mix, mismatch ofstuff.
Now I've got some WesternDigital Red 3 terabytes that I'm
going to throw in there to raidthem out.
(37:06):
But I'm trying to just...
Just make things nice and cleanbecause I've got the time and I
probably should have done this along time ago.
From
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
today, what is the number one takeaway you think
our listeners should take?
SPEAKER_02 (37:20):
Be okay with failing.
Expect to fail.
Get comfortable with it.
The classic thing is the measureof a person's not how many times
they fell off the horse, it'show many times they got back up
on it.
Be okay with failing becausefailing, you learn what not to
do.
I am more scared of succeedingbecause it's like, well, why did
(37:44):
it work?
It's a classic programmer thingwhere you're like, oh, I got an
error.
Okay, let me try and debug.
Oh, well, now it works.
Well, wait a minute.
I didn't change anything.
Why is this working now?
It's like, uh-oh.
Be very comfortable with failingand know that if you're failing,
you are actually moving forward.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
How should our listeners connect with you
online if they want to reach outto you
SPEAKER_02 (38:09):
I am the only person with this handle thankfully and
I've been rocking it since I waslike 13 I go by Otter Bob so
O-T-T-E-R B-A-U-B and you canfind me all over the place I
just ask for a little bit offorgiveness because like I said
I've been running it since I was13 so previous discretions are
(38:34):
probably still on full displayeven though I think I have most
of them set to private.
I don't think I've done anythingreally bad.
I've got to imagine I've saidsome stupid things at some point
in time.
We're all human.
I know I've definitely grownsince I was 13.
I apologize in advance.
(38:55):
It's not my fault.
SPEAKER_00 (38:57):
Thank you for coming today, Colin.
It was a pleasure having you.
SPEAKER_02 (39:01):
Thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed it.
Thanks again.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
Thanks for listening to the Security months and
remember if it seemsoverwhelming just keep chipping
away at it
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