WeakNet Laboratories

WeakNet Laboratories is a computer security lab in Pittsburgh founded by Douglas Berdeaux (trevelyn) in 2007 with absolutely no money and has since grown into a three part security lab, all located within Pittsburgh PA. WeakNet Labs has donated countless hours of time writing code, papers, music and much more to give away to the Underground Computer Community - All for no charge. It is physically comprised of machines and hardware found disregarded by local companies and residential areas, donations of computer hardware from forum members of Phonelosers.org and ZeroDayExile.com, approx. 250 forum members, and from whatever extra income, time, and energy that can be spent by it's founder.

== WeakNet Labs History == WeakNet Labs (WNL) allows people to join in on computer security related projects, and publishes all work (videos, text files, pdf files, images, software, ISO's (including WeakNet Linux), Music (by Trevelyn as "DJ Boo!") and more on their website, Blip.tv, YouTube.com, and others after the security lab tests are complete.

WeakNet Labs all started with a catch phrase "Our Network is Weak!" referring to services being down, updates (including security updates) never being completed, power failures, utility bills overdue, frequent network intrusions, and frequent loss of service to the external IP.

WeakNet Labs was also a branched idea from Douglas' old Phone Phreaking website "2*DialPhreak" which was http://zombie.el.cx/ at the time.

Services (when available)

The Lab allows people to sign up for email requests, Email from the web-host (weaknetlabs.com), chat via IRC irc.tdirc.net, connect via SSH and VNC. The forums currently have AbOUT 250 ACTIVE members and WeakNet Linux versions are hosted by many mirrors around the world.

Contribution to Computer Underground Community

WeakNet Labs created a Debian based live disk that featured a suite of security tools coded with Bash, Perl, Perl Tk, PHP, MySQL, Gtk, and more called WeakNet Linux. It was made publicly available on November 20th 2008 with Version 1.0 which has since grown to Version 2.0. With over 900 downloads from Softpedia alone and 1000's of requests from the webserver hosting WeakNetlabs.com, WeakNet Linux has been a success amongst it's members. WeakNet linux was also featured as a new release at DistroWatch.com and Security-Database.com It is a basic customized Live disk which featured instant servers, software written by WNL members and services accessed remotely.

The WeakNet Network

In the beginning, there were only about 8 systems, all of which had no hard disk drives, and minimal hardware specs (RAM, CPU, etc). Eventually, from donations from members of the Phoneloser phone phreaking forums the lab grew in size. Today It has 1 server rack with 2 Sun Netra T1 servers, 1 HP DL360 G3 Server, 1 Cisco 2600, 1 Cisco 2900, 1 12 port KVM, 1 SunRay Thin client. 2 Microsoft Windows Machines for remote exploit testing, 1 Debian Based hand built firewall and snort (software) IDS, 4 WeakNet Linux Based systems, 1 MacBook 13" white, 1 DELL d610, 1 Sun SPARCSTATION 20, 1 Sun ULTRA IIe Panther custom machine @ 333MHz - 512MB ECC, 4 Wireless routers, 1 La Fonera FON Router, 1 Fios (internal) NID @ 20Mbps(dn), 1 16port Netgear switch, and hundreds of feet of ethernet cables. All systems are now up and running with security tests being held mostly on the weekends.

WeakNet Labs in the Media and Accomplishments

Music
WeakNet Laboratories has produced music for Phonelosers of America Radio in several episodes and on the PLA Media CD, Hacker Public Radio, and has co-oped with MC Router with "Drunken Cactus," a track from "Please Check the Number." WNL was also featured on Digg.com, with "Please Check The Number" a free download album on the WNL website.
Papers and Videos
WeakNet Labs has written the wiki at Sun Microsystems, on how to install and configure Solaris 10 on a MacBook 13" white Core 2 Duo.
WNL was also featured on HackaWii.com, for creating a portable USB Wii sensor bar to use the Wii Mote with a MacBook 13" white Core 2 Duo.

Charities
WeakNet Labs has spent a considerable amount of time on WeakNet Linux. On June 5th, they created a commercial for hackersforcharity.org and sold WeakNet Linux version 2.0 Final on USB drives to raise over $100 for HackersForCharity.org, to help feed children, and put them through school in Uganda Africa
All WNL volunteers continue to produce papers, music, and other media for free download available on their website.

Software
WeakNet Labs has a Google Developer Page Developer page, and has written code using Perl, PHP, MySQL, Bash, and much more, all published free on their website.

Web Development
D&Andy Media is a branch off of WeakNet laboratories members Douglas Berdeaux and Andrew Leer, who are responsible for creating the PHP/MySQL web Hacking Portal tools including WardriveSQL and a few websites including Montistudio.com, weaknetlabs.com, icodeperl.com, andyleer.com, fortpittcandy.com, eisenstatcandy.com and a few others.

Branches

2 in the inner city Pittsburgh PA, 1 just outside, south of Pittsburgh in rural Washington PA.

Logo

The WeakNet Labs Logo went through many different variations over the span of the labs existence finally landing on a black and white large "W" with the word "net" incorporated in each pillar of the "W." This has again since changed incorporating the Enlightenment "e" logo into the logo due to their OS being built with the Enlightenment (window manager) as the default and only GUI of their modified version of Linux. The different versions of the logo can be seen in dated PDF files and older computer security videos offered by WNL.

External Links

WeakNet Labs
WeakNet Linux
WeakNet Documentation
WeakNet Forums]
iCodePerl.com

References

References
Softpedia's WNLA web page
DistroWatch and WNL
SecurityDatabase.com and WeakNet Linux Assistant
PentestIT.com and WNLA
Security-Shell and WNLA