Packet Maze: Solving a CyberDefenders PCAP Puzzle with R, Zeek, and tshark

It was a rainy weekend in southern Maine and I really didn’t feel like doing chores, so I was skimming through RSS feeds and noticed a link to a PacketMaze challenge in the latest This Week In 4n6. Since it’s also been a while since I’ve done any serious content delivery (on the personal side,… Continue reading

Nykolas Z Updates Global Alternative DNS Speed Test to Include Cloudflare (1.1.1.1)

A while back, Medium blogger ‘Nykolas Z’ posted results from a globally distributed DNS resolver test to find the speediest provider (NOTE: speed is not the only consideration when choosing an alternative DNS provider). While the test methodology is not provided (the “scientific method” has yet to fully penetrate “cyber”) the data is provided…in in… Continue reading

Clandestine DNS lookups with gdns

Google recently [announced](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/dns-over-https) their DNS-over-HTTPS API, which _”enhances privacy and security between a client and a recursive resolver, and complements DNSSEC to provide end-to-end authenticated DNS lookups”_. The REST API they provided was pretty simple to [wrap into a package](https://github.com/hrbrmstr/gdns) and I tossed in some [SPF](http://www.openspf.org/SPF_Record_Syntax) functions that I had lying around to bulk it… Continue reading

iptools 0.3.0 (“Violet Packet”) Now on CRAN with Windows Support!

`iptools` is a set of tools for working with IP addresses. Not just work, but work _fast_. It’s backed by `Rcpp` and now uses the [AsioHeaders](http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2016/01/07/#asioheaders_1.11.0-1) package by Dirk Eddelbuettel, which means it no longer needs to _link_ against the monolithic Boost libraries and *works on Windows*! What can you do with it? One thing… Continue reading