Gong Hey Fat Choy/Gong Xi Fa Cai

Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of you that celebrate a Merry Christmas 2010.

See you next week :)

If you’ve been reading regularly you would have probably noticed unavailability or extreme loading times during March. Anyway, it was about time I updated the look of the site and the functionality needed implementing properly so I took the change to put up a new theme and fix any inefficient parts of the old setup. So the server problems (and horribly slow handling of the problems by the ‘managed VPS’ company) led me to change server and pushed me to update the theme with a newer one that suites the latest version of WordPress better.

I had been using that dear old Tonus theme since 2004, it was getting a little worn around the edges.

And well here we are, April 2010 a new look for Darknet. A wider column, more modern look and larger text for my old eyes. Layout wise I tried to keep as similar to the old layout as possible so people didn’t get lost, and well the layout was fine I think.

Anyway I’m gonna leave it for a few days without updating and I hope there is no bugs. New server is likely to be faster for most people (but sadly is slower for me over here in Asia).

I looked around for quite a while and found the top 3 managed VPS providers to be KnownHost, WiredTree and ServInt.

In the end ServInt seemed to be the best option, having been around the longest and having some customer testimonials from people who have been with them 6 years! Now that is impressive, plus they give a little hardware for the buck.

Feature wise, not much different – main thing is the site now supports threaded comments so you can reply to each other properly and I can reply to you.

If you spot anything wrong/any bugs/mistakes/odd looking tidbits or general nonsense do drop me a line and let me know.

DNS is a funny thing so you might alternate between seeing the old site and the new site for a couple of days.

Well this is a first for me and this blog, Darknet has been nominated for a blogging award and selected as a finalist! There’s some heavy-weights in our category too like SANS ISC and Evil Bytes from Dark Reading.

If you don’t know about SBN (Security Bloggers Network) it’s a VERY good collection of RSS feeds in the security arena, blogs rather than news sites hence the name.

It started out way back as a Feedburner group consolidating all the security related blog feeds on the Feedburner network into one feed. You can find the current RSS feed here:

Security Bloggers Network

With our contributions here:

Darknet – Security Bloggers Network

If you’re interested do check out the members (you’ve probably already subscribed to quite a few) and some of the stronger ones are amongst the nominations below.

Obviously being in the same category as SANS ISC I won’t be wasting any time writing an acceptance speech. It is an honor to be in the same list as blogs like Bruce Schneier’s and Tao Security even if it’s in a different category.

You can find a complete listing of the finalists here:

Best Technical Security Blog

SANS Internet Storm Center
Evil Bytes by John Sawyer
Praetorian Prefect
Darknet.org
Frequency X ISS blog

Best Non-Technical Security Blog

Security Uncorked
Schneier on Security
Krebs on Security
ThreatPost
TaoSecurity

Best Security Podcast

PaulDotCom
SANS ISC Stormcast
An Information Security Place
CSO Security Insights
Security Catalyst

Best Corporate Security Blog

Jeremiah Grossman (White Hat Security)
Sophos Graham Cluley Blog
Microsoft Security Response Center
Fortiguard Blog
Cisco Security Blog

Most Entertaining Security Blog

Rational Survivability by Chris Hoff
Security Incite by Mike Rothman
Uncommon Sense Security by Jack Daniel
SecBarbie by Erin Jacobs
Emergent Chaos by Adam Shostack and ensemble

Good luck to everyone and may the best blog win.

If you’re also a member of the SBN you can place your vote here:

2010 Social Security Bloggers Awards Voting

You can find the original post on the RSA Conference blog by Alan Shimel here:

Let the voting begin . . .

I’d just like to take this opportunity to wish you all a merry xmas 2009, enjoy the festive season and I hope santa brought you whatever nifty gadgets you wished for.

Well it’s December 31st again that means shortly another year will be over and we will be ushering in 2009.

Let’s hope for another year full of exciting tools, new developments, more Microsoft exploits (and timely patches) and interesting issues to discuss.

I’d like to take this chance to thank you all for your continuing support, comments and visits.

Keep reading, keep posting and keep informing me of any interesting articles you come across.

Feel free to browse back through the Archives for 2008 and check out the Most Interesting Posts.

May 2009 be a happy, healthy and prosperous year for you, your families and friends.

Happy New Year!

Competition time again!

As you know we started the Darknet Commenter of the Month Competition on June 1st 2007 and it’s been running since then! We have just finished the fourteenth month of the competition in July and are now in the fifthteenth, starting a few days ago on August 1st – Sponsored by GFI.

We’ve successfully been holding this contest for a year now!

We are offering some pretty cool prizes including a £50 Amazon Gift Voucher, along with cool GFI merchandise like shirts, keyrings and mugs.

And now the winner will also get a soft copy of the Ethical Hacker Kit.

Keep up the great comments and high quality interaction, we really enjoy reading your discussions and feedback.

Just to remind you of the added perks, by being one of the top 5 commenter’s you also have your name and chosen link displayed on the sidebar all month on every page of Darknet, with a high PR5 (close to 6) on most pages (5000+ spidered by Google).

So announcing the winner for July…it’s zupakomputer!

Comments for July were pretty active, more so than June and really picked up towards the end of the month. zupakomputer has been leaving some very interesting and lengthy comments so I feel he really does deserve this prize. Navin actually had the most comments for 2 months in a row (the first time so far) but can’t win the prize twice, so keep up the good comments Navin!

There were some really really really LONG discussions in July and I hope they continue into August (which it looks like they will)! I’d like to thank you all for your participation! I hope it keeps getting better as 2008 develops with more interesting news and tools. Keep up the excellent discussions, it’s very interesting reading especially on some of the more controversial topics.

Thanks to everyone else who commented and thanks for your links and mentions around the blogosphere!

Feel free to share Darknet with everyone you know :)

Keep commenting guys, and stand to win a prize for the month of August!

A mailing address + telephone number will be requested from the winner for the sole purpose of sending out the gifts. The details will not be used from promotional purposes, and will not be sold.

Winner for June 2007 was Daniel with 35 comments.
Winner for July 2007 was backbone with 46 comments.
Winner for August 2007 was TheRealDonQuixote with 53 comments.
Winner for September 2007 was Sandeep Nain with 32 comments.
Winner for October 2007 was dre with 19 comments.
Winner for November 2007 was dirty with 38 comments.
Winner for December 2007 was Sir Henry with 84 comments.
Winner for January 2008 was goodpeople with 66 comments.
Winner for February 2008 was eM3rC with 122 comments.
Winner for March 2008 was Pantagruel with 66 comments.
Winner for April 2008 was fever with 44 comments.
Winner for May 2008 was Bogwitch with 37 comments.
Winner for June 2008 was Navin with 45 comments.

Competition time again!

As you know we started the Darknet Commenter of the Month Competition on June 1st 2007 and it’s been running since then! We have just finished the thirteenth month of the competition in June and are now in the fourteenth, starting a few days ago on July 1st – Sponsored by GFI.

We’ve successfully been holding this contest for a year now!

We are offering some pretty cool prizes like iPods and PSPs (or similar), along with cool GFI merchandise like shirts, keyrings and mugs.

And now the winner will also get a copy of the Ethical Hacker Kit.

Keep up the great comments and high quality interaction, we really enjoy reading your discussions and feedback.

Just to remind you of the added perks, by being one of the top 5 commenter’s you also have your name and chosen link displayed on the sidebar of every page of Darknet, with a high PR5 (close to 6) on most pages (5000+ spidered by Google).

So announcing the winner for June…it’s Navin!

Comments for June picked up towards the middle of the month with a relative (but very active newcomer taking the throne with more than double the second place, which was May’s winner Bogwitch).

There were some great discussions in June and I hope to see them continue in July! I’d like to thank you all for your participation! I hope it keeps getting better as 2008 develops with more interesting news and tools. Keep up the excellent discussions, it’s very interesting reading especially on some of the more controversial topics.

Thanks to everyone else who commented and thanks for your links and mentions around the blogosphere!

Feel free to share Darknet with everyone you know :)

Keep commenting guys, and stand to win a prize for the month of July!

We are still waiting for pictures from backbone, Sandeep and TRDQ, dirty and dre, eM3rC, fever, Sir Henry and goodpeople of themselves with their prizes!

Winner for June 2007 was Daniel with 35 comments.
Winner for July 2007 was backbone with 46 comments.
Winner for August 2007 was TheRealDonQuixote with 53 comments.
Winner for September 2007 was Sandeep Nain with 32 comments.
Winner for October 2007 was dre with 19 comments.
Winner for November 2007 was dirty with 38 comments.
Winner for December 2007 was Sir Henry with 84 comments.
Winner for January 2008 was goodpeople with 66 comments.
Winner for February 2008 was eM3rC with 122 comments.
Winner for March 2008 was Pantagruel with 66 comments.
Winner for April 2008 was fever with 44 comments.
Winner for May 2008 was Bogwitch with 37 comments.

Competition time again!

As you know we started the Darknet Commenter of the Month Competition on June 1st 2007 and it’s been running since then! We have just finished the twelfth month of the competition in May and are now in the thirteenth, starting a few days ago on June 1st – Sponsored by GFI.

We’ve successfully been holding this contest for a year now!

We are offering some pretty cool prizes like iPods and PSPs (or similar), along with cool GFI merchandise like shirts, keyrings and mugs.

And now the winner will also get a copy of the Ethical Hacker Kit.

Keep up the great comments and high quality interaction, we really enjoy reading your discussions and feedback.

Just to remind you of the added perks, by being one of the top 5 commenter’s you also have your name and chosen link displayed on the sidebar of every page of Darknet, with a high PR5 (close to 6) on most pages (5000+ spidered by Google).

So announcing the winner for May…it’s Bogwitch! He’s been one of our best long terms commenter’s and has been with us since before the contest in the early days of Darknet.

I’m glad he won as his comments have been consistently of high quality and often entertaining too.

Comments for June have been quite low so far, so it might be an easy win for someone again this month :) I didn’t manage to grab the site on the day before the month turned…so I just spend a while coming up with an SQL query to grab the counts from the database for the month of May.

Jinesh Doshi was pretty close behind in second place. There were some good discussions in May and I hope to see them continue in June! I’d like to thank you all for your participation! I hope it keeps getting better as 2008 develops with more interesting news and tools. Keep up the excellent discussions, it’s very interesting reading especially on some of the more controversial topics.

Thanks to everyone else who commented and thanks for your links and mentions around the blogosphere!

Feel free to share Darknet with everyone you know :)

Keep commenting guys, and stand to win a prize for the month of June!

We are still waiting for pictures from backbone, Sandeep and TRDQ, dirty and dre, eM3rC, fever, Sir Henry and goodpeople of themselves with their prizes!

Winner for June 2007 was Daniel with 35 comments.
Winner for July 2007 was backbone with 46 comments.
Winner for August 2007 was TheRealDonQuixote with 53 comments.
Winner for September 2007 was Sandeep Nain with 32 comments.
Winner for October 2007 was dre with 19 comments.
Winner for November 2007 was dirty with 38 comments.
Winner for December 2007 was Sir Henry with 84 comments.
Winner for January 2008 was goodpeople with 66 comments.
Winner for February 2008 was eM3rC with 122 comments.
Winner for March 2008 was Pantagruel with 66 comments.
Winner for April 2008 was fever with 44 comments.

Competition time again!

As you know we started the Darknet Commenter of the Month Competition on June 1st 2007 and it’s been running since then! We have just finished the eleventh month of the competition in April and are now in the twelfth, starting a few days ago on May 1st – Sponsored by GFI.

We are offering some pretty cool prizes like iPods and PSPs (or similar), along with cool GFI merchandise like shirts, keyrings and mugs.

And now the winner will also get a copy of the Ethical Hacker Kit.

Keep up the great comments and high quality interaction, we really enjoy reading your discussions and feedback.

Just to remind you of the added perks, by being one of the top 5 commenter’s you also have your name and chosen link displayed on the sidebar of every page of Darknet, with a high PR5 (close to 6) on most pages (4000+ spidered by Google).

So announcing the winner for April…it’s fever! He had a 10 comment lead on zupakcomputer, fever another new-comer came out of nowhere.

Comments for May have been very low so far, so it might be an easy win for someone this month :)

April saw some good discussions and was a little more lively than March, I hope May picks up bit! I’d like to thank you all for your participation! I hope it keeps getting better as 2008 develops with more interesting news and tools. Keep up the excellent discussions, it’s very interesting reading especially on some of the more controversial topics.

Thanks to everyone else who commented and thanks for your links and mentions around the blogosphere!

Feel free to share Darknet with everyone you know :)

Keep commenting guys, and stand to win a prize for the month of May!

We are still waiting for pictures from backbone, Sandeep and TRDQ, dirty and dre, eM3rC, fever, Sir Henry and goodpeople of themselves with their prizes!

Winner for June 2007 was Daniel with 35 comments.
Winner for July 2007 was backbone with 46 comments.
Winner for August 2007 was TheRealDonQuixote with 53 comments.
Winner for September 2007 was Sandeep Nain with 32 comments.
Winner for October 2007 was dre with 19 comments.
Winner for November 2007 was dirty with 38 comments.
Winner for December 2007 was Sir Henry with 84 comments.
Winner for January 2008 was goodpeople with 66 comments.
Winner for February 2008 was eM3rC with 122 comments.
Winner for March 2008 was Pantagruel with 66 comments.