DEF CON 2012 Conference Review

As a general software consulting company, we have to be knowledgeable in many different domains of software. In today’s software world, security is one of the most important domains. To keep my knowledge in this domain current, I attended the Black Hat conference last year and decided to attend the DEF CON conference this year. I only attended one day but my impression of the conference was much better than Black Hat. In my limited time, I went to only two talks because there were so many other interesting activities besides the talks. Out of the two talks, one was much better than any talk I had heard at Black Hat and the other was on par. The better talk had to do with setting up a malicious proxy server that allows you to inject JavaScript into every website returned to a user. Though the concepts individually are not advanced and could easily be replicated, this was a clever combination of ideas that makes it evident how insecure proxy servers can be. Continue reading

Reverse Engineering Memory

On an interesting project we completed recently, we developed a C++/Qt desktop application which used the Windows API to control other applications. So using an XML script, a user could open or close applications or windows and control them via simulated clicks and edits. Almost everything could be controlled including editing fields, choosing items in combo boxes, reading text, etc. The application even had secure networking built in (to control applications on other computers), email capabilities when errors were detected and multithreading to detect error conditions during the processing flow. Continue reading

We are officially online!

Hammertech Engineering Solutions is finally officially online. As a software consulting company, we believe it’s important to put our best foot forward. We searched other software consulting companies and looked over many websites and noticed a bad trend. Most software consulting companies have very poor websites. We were pretty surprised, but we believe that’s one indication of the qualities that set us apart from the competition. Continue reading

Before JavaScript Libraries

Before there were JavaScript libraries like jQuery and Prototype, there was just JavaScript. There was no portable library so everything had to be done from scratch or using your own custom library with browser dependent code. When Google released their web browser line completion code, it was cutting edge. They might not have been the first to do it, but it was certainly the most prominent new example of this technology. It was back when Ajax was first becoming popular. This blog post I wrote back in 2005 explained how to modify Google’s JavaScript for your own purposes in order to have line completion working for your own website.

iPhone 4S Stickers

When the iPhone 4S came out, it looked exactly like the iPhone 4. Since iPhone owners are usually very proud of their devices, we thought they should have a way of showing off that their device was the newer model. So we created these silly stickers that look great on the back of an iPhone. They are available at http://iphone4ssticker.com. This was just a fun idea and not something typical that Hammertech Engineering Solutions – Software Consulting does.