Senior Project Presentation

Alright, I've posted about my Senior Project before, and I've got some ideas on how to present it. I have to present my career or job line of choice, which in this case is Computer Security, to a group of members through the community who are going to be judges. They consist of people from the four main highschools and the BOE and such. I've got a few ideas, but I'd just like to expand it a little bit. I'm not asking for anything specific, just a general idea of something I can do. It can range from websites to networks to whatever else you could think of… If it doens't involve computer security specifically, I can change my career of choice for it to fit the presentation. The only thing I can't do is get into the school network. I was told if I did this, they'd have be blacklisted or some crap and just go overboard because I knew how to do it.

I've considered setting up a network between two or three computers and going through an attack and defender scenario, or how I can prevent it from happening in the first place. I've thought about making a website, breaching it and using html injection and whatever else to change it into something else, then going back through and fixing it from a backup or something of the sort. I've thought about doing something along the lines of computer forensics to get something, but I haven't thought it through all the way yet. I've thought about doing something involving stegano and cryptography, not sure of that yet.

That's about all of the 'I've thought's I got, and I realize that pratically none of them directly relate to computer security, but like I said, I can change my career if I need to…

Any help at all would be appreciated, and I just want something like 'Use Netsend!' to get an idea started. I don't want to seem like a begger or anything of the sort.

Anyways, thanks.

How about doing something like finding a buffer overflow in a C program so you can spawn a shell?

You know, attacker defender scenario.

I have some questions to ask before anything is posed.

1. What is it you are looking to become? Be specific as to what you would like to do in your career so people can get all the information to get you relevant things to do.

2. How far off is this dream of yours?

3. Have you googled to get answers and questions and thoughts on what you could do?

Lets get these three questions out of the way before people start delving too deeply into this and give you a whole bunch of crap advise ;)

1. What is it you are looking to become? Be specific as to what you would like to do in your career so people can get all the information to get you relevant things to do.

I'd like to become something along the lines of a consultant or IT tech. I'm wanting to get a degree in Computer Science, and right now I don't have a job relating anything to computers… Hoping to get there after or during college. I'm a welder currently.

2. How far off is this dream of yours? Not to far. I'll be starting college next august.

3. Have you googled to get answers and questions and thoughts on what you could do? I have, and I didn't like the ways the ideas were expressed and it killed it for me… It sounds funky, and it is, but there's just some things that become a lot more complicated to do once they're overshown or things of the sort…

My advice, tell them what they want to hear. A bit about proper programming, something about what happens when that goes wrong. A bit on privacy vs. security, mention Schneier. Throw in a bit of crypto too.

I dunno. Target your audience. Don't do what you want to do, do what they expect you to do. It's sad, but creativity and personal opinion isn't expected unless it's expected.

I'd like to become something along the lines of a consultant or IT tech. I'm wanting to get a degree in Computer Science, and right now I don't have a job relating anything to computers… Hoping to get there after or during college. I'm a welder currently.

So if you want to be a consultant or Technician (this needs a lot more description, networking, programming, etc..), why are you making your presentation on security? Why not make it on Computer Science, being software engineering, hardware engineering and so on.

Not to far. I'll be starting college next august.

Starting College and having a job are 2 totally different things. But I do understand your thought process here.

I have, and I didn't like the ways the ideas were expressed and it killed it for me… It sounds funky, and it is, but there's just some things that become a lot more complicated to do once they're overshown or things of the sort…

Then I would stop your path to college right now mate. Hate to tell you, if google pissed you off, your prof will do worse!

bdafae wrote: My advice, tell them what they want to hear. A bit about proper programming, something about what happens when that goes wrong. A bit on privacy vs. security, mention Schneier. Throw in a bit of crypto too.

I dunno. Target your audience. Don't do what you want to do, do what they expect you to do. It's sad, but creativity and personal opinion isn't expected unless it's expected.

Good advice here. You might even want to take an idea from some of the challs here to use.

So if you want to be a consultant or Technician (this needs a lot more description, networking, programming, etc..), why are you making your presentation on security? Why not make it on Computer Science, being software engineering, hardware engineering and so on.

See, I don't really know what exactly I'd like to continue following as far as that track goes. But, whatever I decide on I'm going to do nothing but study and figure out whatever it is that I have to to make it work. I picked computer security because I had about 30 seconds to come up with an idea because I was forced into picking something. But I did know that I wanted to go into the computer field and security seemed like it would be a good choice. It's very broad, I know, but I could study and practice with whichever special field I decided to go in… As for why not Computer Science, I figured that was much much to broad, and I'd have to narrow it down eventually, so I thought I'd just pick something that could relate to it.

I do apologize if that doesn't make sense… It's hard to put what I want to say into words and it make sense.

You could demonstrate how a hacker could root a computer and delete a partition on the HDD, and then show how the data could be recovered manually over a command line, assuming the data was untouched; the only thing changed would be the partition table.

That's a pretty easy presentation that you could eat lots of time with using tech talk.

Keep in mind that the board members probably won't be very savvy themselves, so you can do something relatively mundane to a hacker and it'd seem to them like you were a mad scientist at work.