Hakin9 versus BackTrack

Okay, so my friends and I are going to be a part of a Information Security Talent Search for a local university. What's this mean? Basically..... war-games. Both he and I are fans of Backtrack. However, he goes to the school that the contest is being held and he tells me that several people have refered him to a distro called Hakin9. I went to download the distro and found that it was pretty old, so I told him to throw that Idea out of the window, because BT has all the tools we'll need and new ones.

My question is:
Does anyone know much about the Hakin9 live cd, and Is it comparable to Backtrack2?

The guy who's been refering him to it is a part of the group of guys who'll be running the competition I think, but when I downloaded the software it really looked like it sucks in comparison to BackTrack. I sorta guessed that a lot of the tools are not readily accessable from the gui.

I'm not afraid of a command line, and I'm not sure about the other guys in the group, but I know that the guy who was told about hakin9 isn't exacly comforable with the command line in linux.

Why dont you just stick with backtrack, its the best one distro ive used and its still being developed...

Instead of using a live cd, why don't you load linux on a laptop and compile your own tools. Even backtrack 2 has dated tools and signatures.

Thats a good idea, if you have a spare laptop laying around, and are not too lazy to find all your tools =)

or just use backtrack cuz it does have (like you said) all the tools you will need!

ahh Hackin9 is a customised version of BT.... well the disk I had was.. and your correct it is not exactly upto date.. like mid 2006.. not good for security testing..

stick with BT

And further to Net2Infinity & ArPaNET's suggestion.. why not load BT in VMware.. either as a disk image or installed.. used for checking wep/wpa security on Wireless Lans

You cant load it in vmware because it does not support direct access to wireless cards or pcmcia/usb devices...

Why not just use windows and run your linux tools under cygwin...

hmm probably because:

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# Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows.
# Cygwin is not a way to magically make native Windows apps aware of UNIX ® functionality, like signals, ptys, etc. Again, you need to build your apps from source if you want to take advantage of Cygwin functionality.

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other than that, no reason...

Quote:

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You cant load it in vmware because it does not support direct access to wireless cards or pcmcia/usb devices..

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..you can and it does.....

Am I the only one who while checking out BT2 saw the "update tools" ability it has?

Really you can update the tools and exploits on the CD... When you load it there is an option to update it to grab and use the newer stuff released since it was made so you aren't using old crap, and also you can install it to disk.

Then you can update it whenever, but the just using it as a LiveCD part, you can update that while it's running without installing, and obviously once you reboot the updates are gone and you'll have to again, but the ability to do it is there.

As for that guy saying run Windows and Cygwin, that's a GREAT idea!!! If you can get your opponent to do that you'd win for sure! ;)

Yes, I realist he thought it was in fact an option, I'm making it funny.... Or trying at least.

maybe he meant you can learn a little about the linux environment (if you have never used it before) by using Cygwin...

I am trying to justify it, really I am :)

As for the update ability on BT2, if you are not aware of this, you should not be entering into a war-game type contest... Even though I don't know many people that dedicate a machine to backtrack, most use it as a liveCD, but to not use the most up-to-date tools is pretty much giving the competition the trophy lol...

As I said, you can update the tools while it's running as a LiveCD only. You'll just have to do it again next time you run it.