Tag Archives: Spring 2019

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Final Day 2019 – So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Objectives:

  • Bid a fond farewell for now.
  • Tell Mister M how he did, and help him improve future classes.
  • Look forward to the future.

Student-Friendly Objectives:

  • I can say “Happy Trails” until we meet again.
  • I can remember what Mister M taught me, and use it to troubleshoot, fix, secure and protect computer systems and networks.

Links:
Google Classroom

Topics Discussed:

  • Networking and Operating Systems
  • Class Survey
  • Summer Vacation

Assignment:

Hello, and congratulations! You successfully made it to the end of Networking and Operating Systems 1-2H! I hope this was a fun and productive class for you, and that you learned a few things that will help you in your future endeavors.

If you could take a moment to let me know how I did, and how I can improve for future classes, I have attached a brief questionnaire on the Google Classroom page. It’s not for a grade, but your feedback will help me out a lot, and I’d appreciate it if you took a moment to fill it out with your honest opinions.

Now that we’re done, above all else:

  1. Use your powers for good, not evil. Remember the lessons of Spider-Man: “With great power, comes great responsibility.” You now have skills and abilities far beyond those of your average computer user. Use them to protect and defend, never attack.
  2. Keep using your skills! Take more computer classes and keep learning as much as you can about PC, Mac, Linux, Security and Networking technology. The more you use your knowledge, the less likely it will slip from your memory. The more you know, the more effective and valuable you are, and as more devices connect to the global network, Technical Support and Cyber Security especially will remain rapidly growing and highly lucrative fields for decades to come.
  3. Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. If you love working with computers and technology, then pursue it. If computers are just your hobby, don’t make it a job – it’ll just suck the joy out of your hobby. If you truly love working with computer hardware and software and networking technology, and you love solving problems with technology, then by all means pursue a career in the Computer Science field. As long as you love what you’re doing, every day you’ll look forward to going to work and the financial rewards will follow.

It has been my great pleasure to accompany you on your journey into Networking and Operating Systems this year. I hope that you enjoyed this class, and continue to use your newfound powers to solve the problems that are related to and created by technology, and to protect your own and others’ computer systems from the constantly emerging and evolving range of threats – both online and offline.

Posted: May 20th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

KANKETSUHEN! FINAL BATTLE! NetOp Final Exam 2019

Objective:

Students will demonstrate their understanding of hardware and software basics through a summative quiz.

Link:

Topics Discussed:

  • Information Technology
  • The Internet & The World Wide Web
  • Software
  • Hardware – The CPU & Storage
  • Hardware – Input & Output

Assignment:

  1. Click the https://connect.mheducation.com link, log in and look for the “KANKETSUHEN!!! FINAL BOSS BATTLE EXAM 2019!” test.
  2. The exam consists of 100 multiple choice questions.
  3. Before starting the quiz, please put away all notes, study guides and other materials.
  4. Please close all other documents and webpages and do not open any new tabs or windows until after you have submitted the exam.
  5. Please remain silent until everyone has completed the exam.
  6. You have fifty-five (55) minutes to complete the test. Be sure to submit your test answers before the end of the class period today, and be forewarned that the test will auto-submit itself at the end of the class period, so work quickly!
  7. Congratulations on completing Networking and Operating Systems 1-2H! Thanks for all your hard work this semester.
    • Graduating seniors: Congratulations, and good luck in your future pursuits! I am confident that the skills and knowledge you have acquired in this class serve you well, no matter what academic or career path you pursue.
    • Returning Students: See you on Monday! I know with a certainty the skills and knowledge you have acquired in this class will help you with your continued Computer Science studies, and we will discuss future opportunities on Monday for those of you who are returning to NetOp next year, and those who are continuing with their studies in other classes, like Computer Science Senior Seminar.

Assigned: May 17th, 2019
Due Date: May 17th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

KANKETSUHEN! Networking and Operating Systems Final Exam Review 2019

Objective:

Students will demonstrate their understanding of hardware and software basics through a summative quiz.

Link:

Topics Discussed:

  • Information Technology
  • The Internet & The World Wide Web
  • Software
  • Hardware – The CPU & Storage
  • Hardware – Input & Output
  • Cybersecurity Topics

Assignment:

  1. Click the https://connect.mheducation.com link, log in and look for the “KANKETSUHEN! – Final Exam Review 2019” Study Guide.
  2. The Study Guide consists of 342 questions, drawn from the Chapter 1 through 6 quizzes we took this year, plus the Cybersecurity topics we covered in the second semester.
  3. The final exam will consist of 100 multiple choice questions drawn directly from this pool of 342 questions.
  4. Use the study guide to refresh your memory on the Hardware and Software topics we covered in the first semester, and to familiarize yourself with the specific topics you may be asked about from the second semester.
  5. You may print portions of the study guide, but do not print the entire guide, as it will total over 100 printed pages.
  6. The Study Guide will close itself and be unavailable at midnight on Thursday, May 16th.
  7. All late assignments are due by end of day on Thursday, May 16th, and no late assignments will be accepted after this date.
  8. The final exam will take place during the regular class period on Friday, May 17th. Use the time up until this Friday to prepare yourself for the final exam, which will comprise 10% of your final grade, as specified in the Networking and Operating Systems Plan for Success.

Assigned: May 14th, 2019

Due Date: May 17th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League – Back to the Gym

Objective: 

Students will continue to train in the NCL Gym to enhance their understanding of Cybersecurity principles and to assist in preparing for next year’s competition.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Team Game
  • NCL Gym Training

Assignment:

  1. This week, we will continue our training in the Gym to learn more about cybersecurity tools and techniques, and to prepare returning Net/Op students for competition in the NCL 2019 Spring Season.
  2. It is expected that everyone will complete as many of the Gym exercises as they can by May 16th. This will allow for us to prepare for the end-of-course final exam over the week of May 13th. The current high score in the gym has been capped at 5000 points, so your final assignment grade will be graded on a curve down from this point total. In essence, you will receive a grade based on how close your score is to 5000, so you should continue working in the Gym for the next two weeks, regardless of how much (or how little) you have already completed.
  3. The final exam will be held on May 17th during the regular class period. It is a 100 question multiple choice quiz covering all six of the chapters studied during the first half of the course, plus some of the cybersecurity tools we worked with in the second half of the course. We will review this material the week of the 13th.

Support Team:

For those who are not participating in the NCL, the daily challenge has been posted on my Google Classroom page. This week’s challenges are difficult Steganography challenges, so make sure you have downloaded the Digital Invisible Ink Toolkit, and visit the page to complete the daily challenge and receive your participation points for the class!

Assigned: May 6th, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: May 8th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Final Game: The Team Game

Objective: 

Students will form a team and use their collective knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Team Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Team Game

Assignment:

The Final Game: Team Game Play

Real-world cybersecurity work is often done in teams. The NCL Team Game provides a safe and challenging environment for players from the Individual Game to apply their knowledge and skills in a team setting. The team game requires players to work together to solve real problems, with real deadlines, under time (and in some cases) technical and resource constraints. No flag-sharing with other teams allowed.

All registered student players are eligible to play in the Team Game; Preseason participation is not required. If all members of the team did not participate in the Individual Game, then your team will be placed into the Pewter Bracket for the Team Game.

You will need to arrange and setup your own teams. As a coach, I have no involvement or ability to set up or configure teams. Setup must be completed by April 25 at 8:59 PM Local Time or you will not be able to participate.

1. Students who are creating a team can do so here: https://cyberskyline.com/events/ncl/register/team. After they create the team, they will be given a link to give to players (up to 7) they want on their team.

2. Students who are joining a team will need to obtain the team joining link from the person who created the team. Once they visit the link and confirm, they will be part of the team. 

3. Students may form teams of up to 7 players. While students may form their own team and play the game solo, this is highly discouraged, as it will limit your ability to earn points, and will likely result in a poor grade for this final assessment project. Please complete your team setup by April 25th at 8:59 p.m. local time.

The Team Game is a mandatory weekend game. The Team Game starts at 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday, April 26th and ends at 6:00 p.m. local time on Sunday, April 28th.

  1. If you do not finish the competition during class time, please continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, but you may need tools available on a Windows or Linux workstation to solve some of the challenges.
  2. I will be on campus from 10:00am to 3:00pm on Saturday, April 27th, for those who wish to come in and work on the NCL challenges using the full resources of the NetOp computer lab.
  3. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best results.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as this Team Game will represent the final Assessment grade before the Final Exam for this final term.

Support Team:

For those who are not competing in the NCL challenges, a daily challenge will be posted on my Google Classroom page. These will usually come in the form of short quizzes or short answer response posts. Visit the page and complete the daily challenge to receive your participation points for the class!

Assigned: April 22nd, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 26th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Game 2: The Regular Season Game

Objective: 

Students will use their accumulated knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Regular Season Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Regular Season Game

Assignment:

The Second Game: Regular Season Play
The Regular Season Game is a mandatory weekend game. By now, you should have your Bracketing Reports, and know what bracket you are competing in. You must participate in the Regular Season Game in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Regular Season gameplay starts at 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday, April 12th and ends at 6:00 p.m. local time on Sunday, April 14th.

  1. If you do not finish the competition during class time, please continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, but you may need tools available on a Windows or Linux workstation to solve some of the challenges.
  2. I will be on campus from 12:00pm to 3:00pm on Saturday, April 13th, for those who wish to come in and work on the NCL challenges using the full resources of the NetOp computer lab.
  3. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best result in your final Scouting Report.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as the Individual Game will represent a significant portion of your grade for this final term.

Support Team:

For those who are not competing in the NCL challenges, a daily challenge will be posted on my Google Classroom page. These will usually come in the form of short quizzes or short answer response posts. Visit the page and complete the daily challenge to receive your participation points for the class!

Assigned: April 8th, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 12th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Resources: Steganography Resources

Steganography is a method of hiding data within an ordinary-looking image or video in order to avoid detection. Files and messages can be embedded into other files in various ways, and then extracted by its recipient. Steganography can be combined with encryption as an extra step for hiding or protecting data.

Links:

What is Steganography?– An article introducing Steganography from Wired magazine.

Digital Invisible Ink Toolkit – A simple Java-based steganography tool that can hide a message inside a 24-bit color image so that knowing how it was embedded, or performing statistical analysis, does not make it any easier to find the concealed information.

Imagemagick – A powerful image creation software that can be used to convert images to and from a variety of formats, including text-based pixel plots. Pre-built into Kali Linux.

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Resources: Cryptography Links

Links:

Cryptii – A very cool and very fast “modular” decryption tool that lets you run a string of text through several encryption/decryption methods of your choice.

The Black Chamber – A great collection of interactive tools that explain and allow you to decrypt a variety of common (and some uncommon) encoding schemes.

Decode Ingress – A list of tools that can help you with decoding  passcodes, originally provided for use with the AR game Ingress. Tools for text manipulating, basic conversions like text to ASCII, HEX to Base64. Tools to decipher Morse code.  Good Image exif info grabbers, and image editing tools for Steganography puzzles (messages hidden in digital images). A range of great info and tools about various ciphers, and their implementations.

Tools for Noobs: Online Decryption Tool – Decrypts a string using various algorithms (e.g. Blowfish, DES, TripleDES, Enigma).

Rumkin Deciphering Tools – This is a page dedicated to simple text manipulation tools, which all can be replicated with just paper and pencil. An amazing resource for deciphering methods, including many that we will definitely encounter in NCL puzzles (Atbash, Railfence and Vigenere).

MD5hashing.net Encryption and Decryption – At md5hashing.net you can hash (encrypt) any string into 66 different hash types. As you probably know – decryption of any hash is impossible, but they offer reverse decryption via our database (~1000M records, and counting).

Splitbrain.org Encoding/Decoding Tools – This tool helps you to quickly run some text through various different encoding/decoding functions available in PHP. Great for a lot of different decoding possibilities rapidly

CodeBeautify.org Encryption/Decryption Tool – A nice, clean tool for decrypting codes that you know the key for, or encrypting codes with your own original key.

SQLite Viewer for Chrome – Chrome plugin for viewing SQLite databases in your browser. Allows opening and editing of SQLite databases without requiring admin access to install.

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Week 2: The Preseason Game

Objective: 

Students will use their accumulated knowledge and training to compete in the NCL Preseason Game.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • National Cyber League
  • NCL Spring Season
  • Preseason

Assignment:

The First Game: Preseason Play
The Preseason is a week-long mandatory game. You must participate in the Preseason in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Preseason gameplay starts at 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday, April 1st and ends at 9:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 8th.

There are lots of preparatory materials available. Also, be sure to read about the Bracketing system, which the Preseason game determines, as well as the Ethical Behavior/Rules of Conduct.

  1. If you complete the Preseason game, continue your training in the Gym to prepare for the Regular Season competition on Friday, April 12th.
  2. Remember that Thursday, April 4th and Friday, April 5th are a split schedule due to AIMS Science testing. You will not be here on Thursday, but you will have two solid hours to complete NCL challenges on Friday, so please use your time wisely.
  3. If you do not finish the competition during class time, please continue to advance through the challenges over the weekend. Do not forget that you can log into the NCL Stadium from any device with an Internet connection, but you may need tools available on a Windows or Linux workstation to solve some of the challenges. It is recommended that you continue with the competition over the weekend and get as far as you can to achieve the best result in your final Scouting Report.

The Big Game: Regular Season Individual Game
The Regular Season Individual Game is a three-day mandatory game. You must participate in the Regular Season in order to receive an NCL Scouting Report. The Regular Season Game starts at 10:00 am MST on Friday, April 12th and ends at 6:00 p.m. MST on Sunday, April 14th.

Please mark your calendars, and plan and prepare accordingly as the Preseason and Individual Game will form the bulk of your grade for this final term.

Support Team:

For those who are not competing in the NCL challenges, a daily challenge will be posted on my Google Classroom page. These will usually come in the form of short quizzes or short answer response posts. Visit the page and complete the daily challenge to receive your participation points for the class!

Assigned: April 1st, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: April 8th, 2019

Networking and Operating Systems

National Cyber League Resources: Hacksplaining

Objective: 

Students will begin preparing for competition in the National Cyber League by familiarizing themselves with known vulnerabilities faced by software developers.

Links:

Topics Discussed:

  • Cyber Security
  • NIST
  • National Vulnerability Database
  • CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) Database

Assignment:

  1. Visit the Hacksplaining website and create a login using your haydenmagnet.org email account.
  2. Hacksplaining offers hands-on interactive simulations of hacks that exploit known vulnerabilities in many widely used applications and programming languages.
  3. Each module contains three parts: Exercise, Prevention and Quiz. Complete the exercise to see how the hack is performed. Review the prevention information to learn more about the exploited vulnerability and effective methods of protection. Complete the quiz to confirm your understanding and complete the module.
  4. Take a screenshot of your passing quiz grade for each module to provide verification that you have completed the module. Save all these screenshots in a folder, as you will need to submit them in a Google Doc to receive credit for this project.
  5. There are twenty-five modules in total. You have this week and next week to complete all the modules.
  6. Submit a Google Doc containing screenshots of your passing grades for all 25 module quizzes to today’s Google Classroom assignment post by end of day on Friday, March 29th.

Assigned: March 19th, 2019
Teacher Pacing Due Date: March 29th, 2019