Animation and Effects wAnimation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ith Macromedia Flash MX 2004

ISBN: 032130344X | CHM | 20 Mb | 472 pages
What started as a simple animation tool has evolved into a full-fledged Web development environment. Which means that if you're like many of today's Flash developers, you may know little about actually creating animations and effects with the program. Here to solve that dilemma is a hands-on guide from one of today's leading Flash experts. By showing you how to create 10 projects based on real-world Web solutions, author Jen deHaan provides a thorough grounding in all of Flash's effects and animation fundamentals. Each chapter represents a single project with simple step-by-step instructions for re-creating the cool Web elements pictured in these pages: an animated character, a Flash interface that uses transitions to "page" through different areas of a site, an animated gallery, a dynamic menu that animates using the Tween classes, a simple game, button effects, Timeline animations, scripted effects, text effects, and more! Ten real-world projects reveal the magic behind the most useful Flash-produced animations and effects, and a companion CD includes lesson files and sample software.

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3D For The Web, Interactive 3D Animation

Ideal if you are a web designer with little or no 3D experience and need an overview of how 3D could transform your work and how best to put it online, or if you are a 3D animator wanting to produce work for the web and need a guide to which applications to use.


Instead of being bogged down in code, this user-friendly, highly illustrated book teaches from a practical, technique-orientated stance, with only a minimal amount of code typing needed. Use pre-written code modules to create interactive are, animated characters and commercial websites. Then you can learn the techniques needed to make your own 3D games.

Each chapter contains tutorials which you can do yourself, using the files on the free CD included with the book. Interviews with successful professionals show you what you can aspire to by sharing their tips and tricks as well as details on the pros and cons of each software package.

* Learn how to successfully translate your 3D work to the web without the need for code

* Get inspiration from professionals at the cutting-edge of 3D web design and games from interviews and examples of their work throughout the book

* Use the tutorials on the free CD to practice your skills and stay ahead of the rest


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3D Programming All in one

About This Book
If you want to, you will be able to take this book and a computer, go into a room without Internet access, and emerge with a completed, ready-to-play first-person shooter gamewithin weeks. You will then be able to spend as much time as you want to dream up your game play concepts, and you will have the ability to add them to your game.

You might think this is a bold claim, but you can see for yourself. Go ahead and turn to the Table of Contents, or take a quick flip-through skim of the chapters. It’s all there. If you follow through and do the exercises and work, you will arrive at the other end of the journey with experience, not just book learnin’.



Believe in Yourself
Computer games are a $9 billion per year industry. A growing part of this industry is peo­ple like you—part of a growing segment of the gamer population that doesn’t just want to play the games but believes that you can make them better than the game companies can. Your problem may be that you lack the right combination of training, experience, and tools needed to turn your dreams into reality. This book is for you.

Every year more and more colleges offer game development programs, and every few months a new online indie game developer site launches on the Web. There is no lack of training available for those with the money to pay, and there is no lack of books for those of you who want to create your own engines or other specialized parts of a game.

The key element missing is a resource that takes the inspired and aspiring game developer by the hand and walks him through all the steps and tools required to make a fully fea­tured game. This book is that resource. With the exception of game music composition (which itself could be a complete book series), you, the Gentle Reader, will learn how to create every part ofthe game yourself by using a well-defined toolkit of programs, knowl­edge, skills, and ideas. Sound, music, art, and code libraries are included on the compan­ion CD for you to use if you lack a certain artistic or creative flair.

What You Bring to the Party
I assume that you have more than a passing familiarity with computer games, especially the first-person shooter genre. Throw in some computer savvy, add a reasonably capable computer system, sprinkle with desire, and you should be good to go!

Skills
You are probably fully able to deal with all aspects of Microsoft Windows-based comput­ing. You don’t need to be a programmer, but you do need to be aware that some pro­gramming will be required in creating a computer game. The first few chapters will introduce you to all the programming concepts that you will encounter in the course of using the book. You will not be expected to learn advanced 3D math in detail, but you will learn enough 3D math to accomplish your goals.I’m going to show you how to create your own artwork, but you don’t need to be an artist. The companion CD features a large collection of art you can use in your game.

System
All of the development tools, including the engine, are also included on the companion CD. All of these tools are priced such that even though the shareware version may be included on the CD, the actual registered versions are less than $100.

You will need a Windows-based computer to use this book. (The table below outlines the minimum system requirements.) It is possible for Macintosh and Linux users to use this book to create a game, because the game engine used—Torque—is also available for those platforms. However, not all of the required development tools are available on Mac and Linux, so the book’s focus will be on Windows on Intel.

Go Get ’em!
The most important asset you have as an independent, and the key to any success, is your enthusiasm. Remember to use this book, and other books and training you acquire, as resources that will help you do what you want to do; they are not vouchers that you can trade in for a nice big pot of success. You have to do the work in the learning, and you have to do the work in the creating. And I know you can! Go get ’em!
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3ds Max 6 Bible (2004)

About This Book


Let me paint a picture of the writing process. It starts with years of experience, which is followed by months of painstaking research. There were system crashes and personal catastrophes and the always-present, ever-looming deadlines. I wrote into the early hours of the morning and during the late hours of the night — burning the candle at both ends and in the middle all at the same time. It was grueling and difficult, and spending all this time staring at the Max interface made me feel like . . . well . . . like an animator.
Sound familiar? This process actually isn’t much different from what 3D artists, modelers, and ani­mators do on a daily basis, and, like you, I find satisfaction in the finished product.
Tutorials aplenty
I’ve always been a very visual learner — the easiest way for me to gain knowledge is by doing things for myself while exploring at the same time. Other people learn by reading and comprehend­ing ideas. In this book, I’ve tried to present information in a number of ways to make the informa­tion usable for all types of learners. That is why you see detailed discussions of the various features along with tutorials that show these concepts in action.

The tutorials appear throughout the book and are clearly marked with the “Tutorial” label in front of the title. They always include a series of logical steps, typically ending with a figure for you to study and compare. These tutorial examples are provided on the book’s CD-ROM to give you a first­hand look and a chance to get some hands-on experience.

I’ve attempted to “laser focus” all the tutorials down to one or two key concepts. This means that you probably will not want to place the results in your portfolio. For example, many of the early tutorials don’t have any materials applied because I felt that using materials before they’ve been explained would only confuse you.

I’ve attempted to think of and use examples that are diverse, unique, and interesting, while striving to make them simple, light, and easy to follow. I’m happy to report that every example in the book is included on the CD-ROM along with the models and textures required to complete the tutorial.

The tutorials often don’t start from scratch, but instead give you a starting point. This approach lets me “laser focus” the tutorials even more; and with fewer, more relevant steps, you can learn and experience the concepts without the complexity. On the book’s CD-ROM, you will find the Max files that are referenced in Step 1 of most tutorials.
I’ve put lots of effort into this book, and I hope it helps you in your efforts. I present this book as a starting point. In each tutorial, I’ve purposely left most of the creative spice out, leaving room for you to put it in — you’re the one with the vision.

Fourth time around
This book is now in its fourth edition and, like aged cheddar cheese, is getting better with time. This edition posed an interesting dilemma. The edition for Max 4 clocked in at 1,246 pages, which was the largest number of pages that can be bound into a paperback book. So, for Max 5, I needed to rework and tighten the content to make room for pages where the new features could be cov­ered, which was an tough task, but I was happy to say I succeeded by cramming in an additional 400 pages worth of content into the 3ds max 5 Bible. However, when the book came back from the printer, it weighed in at only 1,106 pages, making the reader think that the book was put on a diet. It turned out that the editors who laid out the book decided to use a tighter layout, thereby saving 140 pages while providing the additional content.
Now that I’m working on a version covering Max 6, I’m delighted to have that extra 140 pages to cram full of information, and the editors are already looking at an even tighter format. At this rate, the next couple of editions will be shipping with a magnifying glass.

There have been several other changes to this edition. In an effort to add some new life to many of the older tutorials (several of which desired a chance to retire), I have secured a new set of Viewpoint models that I’ve used to replace many of the old tutorials. I’ve also included a new Quick Start that lets you play with a monster truck.

How this book is organized
Many different aspects of 3D graphics exist, and in some larger production houses, you might be focused on only one specific area. However, for smaller organizations or the general hobbyist, you end up wearing all the hats — from modeler and lighting director to animator and post-production compositor. This book is organized to cover all the various aspects of 3D graphics, regardless of the hat on your head.

The book is divided into the following parts:
♦ Quick Start — This single chapter (which is actually a chapter in Part I) is an entire anima­tion project presented in several focused tutorials. It is designed to whet your appetite and get you up to speed and producing animations immediately.
♦ Part I: Learning the Max Interface — Whether it’s understanding the interface, working with the viewports, dealing with files, or customizing the interface, the chapters in this part get you comfortable with the interface so you won’t get lost moving about this mammoth pack­age.
♦ Part II: Working with Objects — Max objects can include meshes, cameras, lights, Space Warps, and anything that can be viewed in a viewport. This part includes chapters on how to reference, select, clone, group, link, transform, and modify these various objects.
♦ Part III: Modeling — Max includes several different ways to model objects. This part includes chapters on working with spline shapes, meshes, polys, patches, NURBS, com­pound objects like Lofts and Morphs, and particle systems.
♦ Part IV: Materials and Maps — With all the various materials, maps, and parameters, under­standing how to create just what you want can be difficult. These chapters explain all the various types and how to use them.
♦ Part V: Cameras — This part describes how to control cameras and use the Camera Matching and Tracking utilities and the Multi-Pass Camera effects.
♦ Part VI: Lighting — This part describes how to create and control the standard lights, as well as coverage on advanced lighting, radiosity, and global illumination.
♦ Part VII: Animation — To animate your scenes, you’ll want to learn about keyframing, the Track Views, constraints, and controllers. This part includes a chapter specifically on expressions.
♦ Part VIII: Character Animation — I cover creating and working with characters, bone sys­tems, skinning, rigging, and character modeling in this part. I also provide complete cover­age of the various inverse kinematics methods.
♦ Part IX: Dynamics — This part includes coverage of Space Warps, the Dynamics utility, and all the cool features found in Reactor.
♦ Part X: Rendering — To produce the final output, you can render the scene as described in this part. In addition, this part discusses environments, Render Elements, Render Effects, network rendering, raytracing, and mental ray.
♦ Part XI: Compositing and Post-Production — This part describes the compositing process using external tools, as well as post-processing using the Video Post interface.
♦ Part XII: MAXScript and Plug-Ins — This part provides details on using Max’s scripting lan­guage, MAXScript, and on using plug-ins.


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A Practical Guide To Video and Audio Compression

From The Author


When you write a book a book like this, it is the sum of so many people’s efforts and good­will. I would like to especially thank “J and Lo” (Joanne Tracey and Lothlórien Homet) of Focal Press for guiding me through the process of writing this book. Thanks to Gina Marzilli, who guided us down the right path on the administrative side. The manuscript was skill­fully progressed through the production process by Becky Golden-Harrell—thanks, Becky. Let’s do it again. Copyediting was ably managed by Cara Salvatore, Sheryl Avruch, and their team of experts. Thanks guys; you really turned this into a silk purse for me.

Of course, without the products in the marketplace, we’d have very little success with our endeavors. I’d like to send warm thanks to the team at Popwire in Sweden. Anders Norström and Kay Johansson have been immensely helpful. Over the last couple of years I’ve enjoyed getting to know members of the QuickTime team at Apple Computer. Thanks to Dave Singer, Rhondda Stratton, Tim Schaaf, Vince Uttley and Greg Wallace for their help and inspiration. Guys, you are doing wonderful stuff. Just keep on doing that thing that you do. Also at Apple, I’d like to thank Sal Soghoian for pointing out some really cool stuff that AppleScript does. Thanks go to Envivio for some very thought-provoking and inspiring conversations, especially the time I’ve spent with Rudi Polednik, Frank Patterson, and Sami Asfour. Greetings also to Diana Johnson, Dave Kizerian, and Matt Cupal of Sorenson and Annie Normandin of Discreet. Thanks for being there when I needed your help. In the latter stages of completeing the book, Janet Swift and Barbara Dehart at Telestream came through with some coolness that enabled me to make Windows Media files effortlessly on a Mac.
To the people who work so hard at the MPEGIF (formerly known as the M4IF), Rob Koenen, Sebastian Möritz, and your team, I thank you for your time and patience explain­ing things to me. I hope this is a journey we can travel together for many years yet as we see the new MPEG standards being widely adopted.

I have so many friends from my time at the BBC who unselfishly shared their expert­ise and knowledge. Foremost of these must be Russell Merryman, who produced the ele­phant cartoon and was also responsible—with Asha Oberoi, Robert Freeman, Saz Vora, and John Nicholas—for the MPEG-4 packaged multimedia concept studies way back in 2002. Thanks also to Julie Lamm, John Angeli, and everyone in the News Interactive department.

Thanks are due also to those individuals, companies, and organizations who gra­ciously permitted me to use their images in this project or spent time talking to me abouttheir work: Christopher Barnatt from the University of Nottingham; Simon Speight and Mark Sherwood from Gerry Anderson Productions; Guan at Etiumsoft; Jim Cooper at MOTU; David Carew-Jones, Anna Davidson, and Paul Dubery at Tektronix; Diogo Salari at DPI Productions; the folks at M-Audio; the Sales Web team at Apple Computer; Grant Petty and Simon Hollingworth at Black Magic Design; Julie Aguilar of ADC Telecommunications; Victoria Battison of AJA Video Systems; and Amanda Duffield of Pace Micro Technology.

I’d also like to thank Ben Waggoner for his unselfish sharing of many Master Compressionist’s secrets at conferences. Ben, I’ve learned many new things from you whenever I’ve been at your presentations. Thank you so much for encouraging people the way you do.


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SUSE Linux - A Complete Guide To Novell's Community Distribution (2006)

Each chapter consists of a series of labs, each of which introduces a new feature or capability, shows how it's used, and then walks you through an example, explaining the details you need to understand along the way. You'll also find "What About..." sections that attempt to anticipate and answer follow-up questions, as well as "Where to Learn More" sections that tell you where you can learn more about each topic.


Chapter 1, Quick Start

Introduces SUSE Linux, and gets you up and running quickly, with labs that show you how to install SUSE and get all your essentials connected and configured.

Chapter 2, Basic System Administration

Covers basic system administration for desktop machines, but much of this will apply to notebook users as well. You'll learn how to work with text files, find your way around the filesystem, and more.

Chapter 3, Using SUSE Linux on Your Desktop

Describes how to start putting SUSE Linux to work. You'll find help for getting the X Window System working just right, and find your way around the KDE and GNOME desktop environments.

Chapter 4, Using Linux on Your Laptop

Shows laptop users how to get everything set up just right with SUSE Linux, including laptop power management and wireless networking.


Chapter 5, Package Management

Describes all about package management. You'll learn how to install new software from local media and from the Internet, and to use package management tools to avoid conflicts and version discrepancies during upgrades, and you'll discover how easy it is to build software from source.


Chapter 6, System Administration for Servers

Focuses on the server capabilities of SUSE. Even if you are primarily a desktop user, there might be something in here for you. You'll learn how to specify which services start up when your computer starts up, how to work with disk partitions, and more.


Chapter 7, Network Services

Dives into network services such as email, file sharing, and more.


Chapter 8, Security

Gives you a comprehensive collection of labs that explain how to keep your system secure. You'll learn how to set up a firewall, restrict access, and monitor attempts to break into your server.


Chapter 9, Alternative Installations

Explains other ways you can install SUSE, from dual-boot configurations to virtual machine installations with Xen.

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Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop CS2 In 24 Hours

Photoshop CS2 is the latest and greatest version of a program that has set the standard for image manipulation since 1987. The new version has lots of new features, including Smart Objects, a beefed-up File Browser that's been renamed Bridge, a new Red Eye tool, Reduce Noise and Smart Sharpen commands for cleaning up photos, and a lot of "under-the-hood" enhancements that make your work easier and quicker. If you've used an earlier version of Photoshop, you'll be amazed at how much more powerful this one is. If this is your first experience with Photoshop, you'll be blown away. It's that good! The big surprise for first-time users is that it's really not as difficult to work with as it looks. If you have used any other Adobe software, the Photoshop interface will be immediately familiar to you. If this is your first step into creating digital graphics, you'll find the going easier if you work on the hours of this book one at a time and don't skip the activities or exercises.

Also, please be aware that this book was written using beta versions of the software. As such, some of the figures might be slightly different from what you see on your screen. Nevertheless, every possible effort has been made to keep the book as accurate as possible.

There's honestly no way to become an overnight expert, be it in Photoshop or anything else, but Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop CS2 in 24 Hours will get you up and running in 24 hours or less. It's divided into 24 one-hour lessons, rather than chapters. Each lesson should take you about an hour to complete. Some lessons might need more time; others, less time. Please don't try to do it all in one 24-hour day, even if you could. The best way to learn is to take an hour or two between the lesson sessions to try out what you've learned. You'll want to simply poke around, and see what's on the menus and what happens when you click here and there.

Here's one for you to start with: Open the About Photoshop window and wait for a minute. You'll see it start to scroll through the list of all the people who worked on the program. Watch carefully for the very last name on the list. It's a pleasant surprise.

Ready? Let's get to work.

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Succeeding At Your Yahoo Business (2006)

The Yahoo! Stores have grown into one of the largest online shopping destinations on the Web today. The nearly 20,000 Yahoo! Stores have a 71% reach among online consumers, the highest on the Web. Many of these stores have become so successful that they have grown from small 'mom and pop' or part time businesses into full time money-making ventures. A whole new set of skills and knowledge are needed to operate a Yahoo Store like a full time eCommerce business.


Succeeding At Your Yahoo! Business teaches you how to customize a Yahoo! Store using the basic elements of the popular web design program Dreamweaver, including architecting an eCommerce web site. It then takes three different types of Yahoo! Stores and deconstructs them, showing you how they are formed and how they sell the products or services they offer. There is also an entire section on how to position a Yahoo! Store, acquire customers, and retain those customers. Finally, the book will show you how to set up the necessary accounting and operations systems, and how to hire the staff necessary to successfully run your business.

Who Should Buy This Book

Unlike our first book, Launching Your Yahoo! Business, which was for those who wanted to dip their toe into the e-commerce ocean, this book is for a small to medium-size part-time business or a current full-time business that needs the skills and knowledge to set up and run a true full-time business and take advantage of the successful e-commerce strategies and tactics in use today.

You might already have a standard Yahoo! store and want to customize it and evolve it into a full-time business. Or you might have an online business idea and want to leap into the e-commerce water with both feet and create a full-time online business. Either way, this book can steer you in the right direction to succeed at making a living with the Yahoo! store program.

What's in This Book

First, this book informs the reader how to customize a Yahoo! store using the basic elements of the Yahoo! store Catalog Manager, including how to architect an e-commerce website. It then deconstructs three different types of Yahoo! stores, showing how they are formed and how they sell the products or services they offer. An entire section covers how to position a Yahoo! store, acquire customers, retain those customers, and monetize the traffic to the store. Finally, this book shows how to set up the necessary accounting and operations systems to successfully run a business, and how to acquire and hire the necessary staff.
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Teach Yourself Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 In 24 Hours (2005)

"Ooooooo, Dreamweaver. I believe you can get me through the night." Remember that song by Gary Wright? Okay, some of you weren't born yet. The song brought up memories of seventh-grade dances for me. I'm glad that Dreamweaver, the software, came along and replaced that vision in my head. Dreamweaver, the software, has helped me through a number of nights developing websites and web applications!

I started using Dreamweaver when it first came out. Web page–editing tools were frustrating in that pre-Dreamweaver age. Many web developers were annoyed that some tools would rewrite or even delete some of the code they had just lovingly crafted. I remember one instance where I jumped up and down, stomping in my office, for almost five minutes after one tool deleted several hundred lines of JavaScript I had just written. So, many developers at that time preferred to use a simple text editor and write HTML and JavaScript by hand. I think Macromedia web developers must have been frustrated at that time, too, because they created a tool, Dreamweaver, that had all the features a web developer could want.

And Dreamweaver has continued to be the industry standard for web development tools.

What Is Dreamweaver 8?
Dreamweaver 8 is the newest version of Macromedia Dreamweaver, an award-winning HTML editor and web application–development tool. Some people do not exploit the more powerful features of Dreamweaver because they don't know about them. You will not be one of those people with this book in your hand!

Whether you use Mac OS X or Windows, you'll get the same robust set of features from Dreamweaver 8. The interfaces for the two operating systems look slightly different but you can produce the same beautiful, functional websites with either version.

Dreamweaver is excellent at quickly creating attractive web pages that include styled text, images, forms, frames, tables, and more. But Dreamweaver really shines when you need to make your web page do something. Dreamweaver excels at Dynamic HTML (DHTML), the web functionality that enables the user to interact with your web page. Don't know how to script? No problem! Dreamweaver includes behaviors, scripted functionality that you simply click to add to a certain object.

Dreamweaver 8 also excels at enabling you to create and apply standard Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to format how your web pages display in the browser. Dreamweaver 8 gives you the capability to use CSS to style your web pages. You can also use Dreamweaver tools to design your page layout using CSS.

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html in 10 minutes

If you're reading this book, you must have some idea of what HTML is, right? Maybe you already know that HTML is the language of the Internet and that far from being a complex programming language requiring years to perfect, HTML is actually a simple markup language that you can learn very quickly. XHTML is the latest version of HTML. You'll learn more about how these two standards work together to create Web pages in later chapters.

You're probably thinking that if you knew how to create documents in HTML, you could help your company earn more money, or better yet, help you earn more money.

What you probably don't know is how to get started. How do you learn that language and what's it going to cost?

What You Need to Know Before Using This Book

Guess what? You can create HTML documents on any computer system because HTML works the same on any type of computer. Even better, you can use software that you already own to do it. Any kind of text editor (such as Microsoft Notepad) can be used.

Because we're covering a lot in 10 minutes, it will certainly help as you go through this book if you already have some basic computer skills (including the ability to use a word processor, some understanding of how to use directories and filenames on your computer system, and some experience using a Web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer).

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Stealing The Network - How To Own A Continent (2004)

The first book in this series Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box created a new genre of “Cyber-Thrillers,” that told fictional stories about individual hackers using real technologies. This second book in the series Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent (or STC for short) introduces the concept of hacker groups, and the damage they can inflict through a concerted, orchestrated string of malicious attacks. The “Stealing” books are unique in both the fiction and computer book categories. They combine accounts that are fictional with technology that is very real. While none of these specific events have happened, there is no reason why they could not. You could argue it provides a roadmap for criminal hackers, but I say it does something else: It provides a glimpse into the creative minds of some of today’s best hackers, and even the best hackers will tell you that the game is a mental one. The phrase “Root is a state of mind,” coined by K0resh and printed on shirts from DEF CON, sums this up nicely. While you may have the skills, if you lack the mental fortitude, you will never reach the top. This is what separates the truly elite hackers from the wannabe hackers.


When I say hackers, I don’t mean criminals. There has been a lot of confusion surrounding this terminology, ever since the mass media started reporting computer break-ins. Originally, it was a compliment applied to technically adept computer programmers and system administrators. If you had a problem with your system and you needed it fixed quickly, you got your best hacker on the job. They might “hack up” the source code to fix things, because they knew the big picture. While other people may know how different parts of the system work, hackers have the big picture in mind while working on the smallest details. This perspective gives them great flexibility when approaching a problem, because they don’t expect the first thing they try to work.

The book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy (1984), really captured the early ethic of hackers and laid the foundation for what was to come. Since then, the term hacker has been co-opted through media hype and marketing campaigns to mean something evil. It was a convenient term already in use, and so instead of simply saying someone was a criminal hacker, the media just called him a hacker. You would not describe a criminal auto mechanic as simply a mechanic, and you shouldn’t do the same with a hacker, either.

When the first Web site defacement took place in 1995 for the movie Hackers, the race was on. Web defacement teams sprung up over night. Groups battled to outdo each other in both quantity and quality of the sites broken into. No one was safe, including The New York Times and the White House. Since then, the large majority of criminal hacking online is performed by “script-kiddies”— those who have the tools but not the knowledge. This vast legion creates the background noise that security professionals must deal with when defending their networks. How can you tell if the attack against you is a simple script or just the beginning of a sophisticated campaign to break in? Many times you can’t. My logs are full of attempted break-ins, but I couldn’t tell you which ones were a serious attempt and which ones were some automated bulk vulnerability scan. I simply don’t have the time or the resources to determine which threats are real, and neither does the rest of the world. Many attackers count on this fact.

How do the attackers do this? Generally, there are three types of attacks. Purely technical attacks rely on software, protocol, or configuration weaknesses exhibited by your systems, and these are exploited to gain access. These attacks can come from any place on the planet, and they are usually chained through many systems to obscure their ultimate source. The vast majority of attacks in the world today are mostly this type, because they can be automated easily. They are also the easiest to defend against.

Physical attacks rely on weaknesses surrounding your system. These may take the form of dumpster diving for discarded password and configuration information or secretly applying a keystroke-logging device to your computer system. In the past, people have physically tapped into fax phone lines to record documents, tapped into phone systems to listen to voice calls, and picked their way through locks into phone company central offices. These attacks bypass your information security precautions and go straight to the target. They work because people think of physical security as separate from information security. To perform a physical attack, you need to be where the information is, something that greatly reduces my risk, since not many hackers in India are likely to hop a jet to come attack my network in Seattle. These attacks are harder to defend against but less likely to occur.

Social engineering (SE) attacks rely on trust. By convincing someone to trust you, on the phone or in person, you can learn all kinds of secrets. By calling a company’s help desk and pretending to be a new employee, you might learn about the phone numbers to the dial-up modem bank, how you should configure your software, and if you think the technical people defending the system have the skills to keep you out. These attacks are generally performed over the phone after substantial research has been done on the target. They are hard to defend against in a large company because everyone generally wants to help each other out, and the right hand usually doesn’t know what the left is up to. Because these attacks are voice-oriented, they can be performed from anyplace in the world where a phone line is available. Just like the technical attack, skilled SE attackers will chain their voice call through many hops to hide their location.

When criminals combine these attacks, they can truly be scary. Only the most paranoid can defend against them, and the cost of being paranoid is often prohibitive to even the largest company. For example, in 1989, when Kevin Poulson wanted to know if Pac Bell was onto his phone phreaking, he decided to find out. What better way than to dress up as a phone company employee and go look? With his extensive knowledge of phone company lingo, he was able to talk to the talk, and with the right clothes, he was able to walk the walk. His feet took him right into the Security department’s offices in San Francisco, and after reading about himself in the company’s file cabinets, he knew that they were after him.

While working for Ernst & Young, I was hired to break into the corporate headquarters of a regional bank. By hiding in the bank building until the cleaners arrived, I was able to walk into the Loan department with two other people dressed in suits. We pretended we knew what we were doing. When questioned by the last employee in that department, we said that we were with the auditors. That was enough to make that employee leave us in silence; after all, banks are always being audited by someone. From there, it was up to the executive level. With a combination of keyboard loggers on the secretary’s computer and lock picking our way into the president’s offices, we were able to establish a foothold in the bank’s systems. Once we started attacking that network from the inside, it was pretty much game over.

The criminal hacker group in STC led by mastermind Bob Knuth, deftly combines these various types of attacks in an attempt to compromise the security of financial institutions across an entire continent, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Hacking is not easy. Some of the best hackers spend months working on one exploit. At the end of all that work, the exploit may turn out to not be reliable or to not function at all! Breaking into a site is the same way. Hackers may spend weeks performing reconnaissance on a site, only to find out there is no practical way in, so it’s back to the drawing board. STC takes you inside the minds of the hackers as they research and develop their attacks, and then provides realistic, technical details on how such attacks could possibly be carried out.

In movies, Hollywood tends to gloss over this fact about the time involved in hacking. Who wants to watch while a hacker does research and tests bugs for weeks? It’s not a visual activity like watching bank robbers in action, and it’s not something the public has experience with and can relate to. In the movie Hackers, the director tried to get around this by using a visual montage and some time-lapse effects. In Swordfish, hacking is portrayed by drinking wine to become inspired to visually build a virus in one night. This is why the Stealing books are very different from anything you have ever read or seen. These books are written by some the world’s most accomplished cyber-security specialists, and they spare no details in demonstrating the techniques used by motivated, criminal hackers.

There have always been both individual hackers, and groups of hackers like the one portrayed in STC. From the earliest days of the ‘414’ BBS hackers to modern hacking groups, there is always mystery surrounding the most successful teams. While the lone hacker is easy to understand, the groups are always more complicated due to internal politics and the manner in which they evolve over time. Groups usually are created when a bunch of like minded people working on a similar problem decide to combine forces. Groups are also formed when these individuals share a common enemy. When the problem gets solved or the enemy goes away, these groups are usually set adrift with no real purpose. The original purpose over, they now become more like a social group. Some members leave; others join; they fracture, and very seldom do they survive the test of time. Old groups such as the Legion of Doom (LOD) went through almost three complete sets of members before they finally retired the name. It might have had something to do with their long-standing battle with a rival group, the Masters of Destruction (MOD) and run ins with the FBI. But, who really knows for sure other than the members themselves?

The ability of some of these now defunct groups is legendary in the underworld. Groups such as the LOD, The PhoneMasters, the MOD, and BELLCORE had excellent hacking skills and were capable of executing extremely sophisticated attacks. Their skills ranged from purely technical to social engineering and physical attacks. This ability to cross disciplines is what makes some groups so powerful when they set themselves to a task. BELLCORE got a back-door installed in an operating system that shipped to the public, and some of its members monitored bank transfers over the X.25 network. Through a combination of hacking and social engineering, the PhoneMasters obtained tens of thousands of phone calling cards, located and used unlisted White House phone numbers, re-routed 911 calls to a Dominos Pizza, and had access to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. They were even able to access information on who had their phone lines tapped.

There are documented reports of U.S. organized crime tricking unknowing hackers into doing work for them. What starts out looking like a friendly competition between hackers to break into a couple of Web sites can mask the intention of one of them to do so for financial gain. The other hackers have no idea of the bigger picture, and are unwitting accomplices.

One such incident occurred in Los Angeles when unsuspecting hackers helped Mexican gangs hack gas station credit cards, which allowed the gangs to operate over a larger area with no fuel costs. The hackers thought they were doing something cool, and sharing the how-to information with other locals who were a little more enterprising, shall we say.

This is the problem with the net. You can never be too paranoid, or too careful, because nothing may be as it seems. When your sole protection to being caught depends on keeping your identity and location secret, any information you share on-line could come back to haunt you. This creates a paradox for the illegal hacking group. You want to be in a group with people you trust and who have good skills, but you don’t want anyone in the group to know anything about you. Many illegal hackers have been busted when it turns out their on-line friend is really an AFOSI or FBI informant! Hackers seem to be good at hacking, and bad at being organized criminals.

So, what if you were part of a group, and didn’t even know it? What if you made friends with someone on-line, and the two of you would work on a project together, not knowing the other person was using you to achieve their own goals that may be illegal? Now things get interesting! Motives, friendship, and trust all get blurred, and on-line identities become transient. STC shows you what can happen when talented hackers who are very motivated (for many different reasons) try to Own a Continent!

Jeff Moss
Black Hat, Inc.

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http://rapidshare.com/files/121651412/Stealing_The_Network_-_How_To_Own_A_Continent__2004_.chm

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http://tinyurl.com/4r8fcq

Steal This File Sharing Book - What They Won't Tell You About File Sharing (2004)

A computer file can be anything from a single song to a photograph, a full-length motion picture, the complete text from a book, or a computer program that sells for thousands of dollars. Because a computer file is made up of electronic data, all it does is fill up the space on your hard drive. And large hard drives are really cheap today, which means you can fill them up with many, many files at relatively little cost. Storing this stuff is just not an issue.


Computer files can also be copied with perfect accuracy and transferred flawlessly to nearly any computer in the world. In most industries, such qualities might be admirable, but in the computer industry, those same qualities spell trouble for copyright holders. If someone can make multiple copies of a song, a book, or a computer program at no cost, what will stop people from blatantly copying everything they own and passing it around to all their friends?

The answer is simple: nothing. And that’s spelled trouble for the computer industry. Of course, people have been illegally copying music with tape recorders and CD burners for years, but cassette tapes and CDs aren’t as easy to distribute as a single file that you can email or post on a file sharing network for millions of people to copy at once.

Similarly, photocopying has threatened the copyright on books, but photocopying an entire book is usually more trouble (and more expense) than it’s worth. Plus, most people like their books bound, rather than in loose sets of not always perfectly copied pages.

The same can be said for the video cassette recorder, which spawned the copying of videos. But as with audio tapes, each copy of a video cassette loses some of its original quality. It’s also simply too troublesome for the average user to duplicate videos on a mass scale and distribute them.

But once you store something in a computer file, copying suddenly becomes easy and fast for everyone. Instead of asking, “Can it be copied?” people ask, “Where can I find it?” And the answer is usually somewhere online where people can copy and distribute files fast.

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http://rapidshare.com/files/121649138/Steal_This_File_Sharing_Book_-_What_They_Won_t_Tell_You_About_File_Sharing__2004_.chm

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http://tinyurl.com/4dsmpw

Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 8 In 24 Hours

Macromedia is not exaggerating when it says that Flash is "the professional standard for producing high-impact web experiences." You only need to visit a few sites that use Flash to understand how compelling it is. Using graphics, animation, sound, and interactivity, Flash can excite, teach, entertain, and provide practical information.


More than half a billion users already have the free Flash player (which is needed to view Flash movies). The fact that Macromedia continues to distribute this software so effectively means that the potential audience for Flash content is huge and continues to grow. Also, the fact Adobe decided to acquire Macromedia is due to Flash's enormous success.

The tools needed to create Flash movies are within your reach. After you purchase Flash, the only investment you need to make is time learning. You can even download Flash from www.macromedia.com and use it for 30 days before having to purchase it. It's exciting to watch people go from fiddling with Flash to making entertaining movies. Imagine a great musician picking up and learning an instrument in a matter of days. It really is that amazing. If you're motivated, with just a moderate time investment, you'll feel as though a powerful communication tool has been given to you.

Flash is so unique that sometimes the less experience you have, the better. If you have preconceived ideas about what Flash is or how you're supposed to use drawing tools, it might be best to try to forget everything and start fresh. This book is organized in such a way that you should start seeing successes quickly. With each task, you'll prove to yourself that you're acquiring knowledge and skills.

I don't need to give you a pep talk because you'll see for yourself. In just a few one-hour lessons, you'll be creating drawings that you may have thought you weren't capable of. After that, in a few more hours, you'll be making animations. Finally, after 24 one-hour lessons, you'll be unstoppable. I know this. I've taught Flash to hundreds of students, and invariably even those who don't have fire in their eyes at first will recognize the power Flash has given them and that they can hone their Flash skills over time. Where you take your skills is up to you, but you'll get a great foundation here.

You may not feel like a pro overnight, but you will feel that you have a powerful communication tool in your control. When you can't wait to show others your creations, you'll know you're on your way. Get ready to have some fun.

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http://rapidshare.com/files/121713727/Teach_Yourself_Macromedia_Flash_8_In_24_Hours__2005_.chm

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http://tinyurl.com/6megzg