HiR Reading Room: Hakin9 Magazine

I picked up the most recent copy of Hakin9 magazine this week. As usual, it delivers some good content.

I first ran into Hakin9 at the local Border's Book Store when looking for Make magazine about a year ago. I usually subscribe to magazines I like, so you won't find me perusing the periodicals too often.

The first issues of Hakin9 I found were a little rough around the edges. I've mentioned hakin9 in passing before, but it seems to be maturing (just a little bit). Of note, the overall grammar in the publication seems to be improved. This is partially, I'd suspect, because more writers seem to be from English-speaking countries.

Hakin9 always comes with a CD-ROM of goodies. For the past several issues, this has been Hakin9 Live, a slightly modified release of BackTrack 2 with some extra content related to the magazine. The most recent issue of Hakin9 Live comes with two decent video tutorials, some demonstration software, and simply by way of building on BackTrack 2, a LOT of security tools ready to use if you boot a system up from the CD. Both of the video demonstrations show how to use tools right from within BackTrack.

Additionally, this issue's hardcopy content is juicy. The article count is pretty low, but it makes up for it with a great level of detail, rich illustrations, and some epic profiles of big names in the industry: Gary McGraw -- who I mentioned a few weeks ago, and Eugene Kaspersky.

Always rounding out the pages are overviews of the extra software included on the CD, frequent book reviews, and product reviews and recommendations.

While Hakin9 obviously still carries a strong bias from the "Attack" side of things, it has enough defense-centric advice to keep it relevant to the task at hand for people in the information security biz. As such, it's never a bad thing for white hats to understand how the back hats think or what they're up to -- and we're all just various shades of grey anyways. There's obviously a verbose disclaimer about how the information within Hakin9's pages are for use on your private network and machines. We know. ;) I do think it's cool that they publish in several different languages, though.

Link:
Hakin9 - Hard Core IT Security Magazine (English)

RIP, SysAdmin Magazine...

I recieved my copy of the August Issue of SysAdmin this week. The very first column of SysAdmin is always syslog, where the Editor in Chief -- currently Amber Ankerholz -- writes a short essay relevant to the current issue.

This latest issue's syslog has me saddened. It opens as follows:

This is the last issue of SysAdmin magazine that you will receive. The magazine is ceasing publication after this issue.

This is a really hard time for publishers and for print media in general. 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has repeatedly said that things are pretty tense, changing publishers and thus slightly changing the format and binding of the magazine itself. It's industry-wide, and smaller publications are victims of collateral damage, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately for those of us who read and enjoy SysAdmin, there really isn't anything else out there to take its place. Sure, there's a slough of Linux publications out there, but I personally don't use Linux all that often. On a daily basis, I use AIX, Solaris, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X. Also, with the market shifting Linux towards desktop focus, the world is a lot more interested in Ubuntu than it is in SLES, Red Hat Enterprise, or CentOS. Most Linux magazines are now focused on graphics, games, and productivity suites for Linux. That's definitely a far cry away from the content in my beloved departed SysAdmin.

There are other magazines focused on security in general. 2600 comes to mind, but it covers more than just security -- often focusing on mischief or malice beyond the realm of the digital world. Hakin9 is published out of Poland, and the English version of their magazine is written in translated, slightly broken English. It resembles e-zines of old in writing style, which is great for nostalgia but terrible for clearly conveying information. I could name a few others, but they're also sorely lacking in UNIXish-specific systems and applications administration content.

So, a moment of silence for SysAdmin. RIP, Buddy. You will be missed.