Nah, we stayed inside. There were labs and such that were known to be disused, so we used them to conduct experiments with various chemicals and bunsen burners and such. All unsupervised.
For the most part, the staff at the academy didn't care about what we did. The administration operated under the assumption that if nobody knew they were there, nobody would act out.
but yeah TNT is easy. just get some benzene and methyl chloride, and aluminium chloride powder, and mix together to make toluene. then you just need a 50/50 mix of nitric acid and sulphuric acid to make nitrating mixture - add it to the toluene and you get nitrotoluene. distil the nitrotoluene out and add more concentrated nitrating mixture, at very carefully temperature controlled ~30C (you'll need a heat bath and an ice bath)
when you're done, you'll have a mixture of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitrotoluene (DNT)
just keep in mind that the nitration is exothermic, so you'll need that ice bath at the ready, and an accurate thermometer ;]
We knew we were being watched by the administration from cameras that were abundantly visible. I think they even left labs empty to entice us to conduct experiments.
We made piezoelectric crystals one time. That was fun. We hooked some softball sized crystals up to a headphone port with an amplifier, under a microscope you could see waves of sound forming on the surface of the crystal as it deformed and reshaped itself.
We took the smaller pieces of crystal and bonded wires to them using conductive adhesive, then ground one side flat and made contact microphones for windows.
We used them as early-detection systems for approaching staff. There are a few occasions where we got into trouble for making unstable flammable compounds
@tylerl . Yep . I wrote i what i understood from it . Its Hex encoded . And what attacker might have been trying but you are right . I should have decoded it before answering .
Right now the front page Popular tab is fairly broken -- it's a simple descending sort by views. As Joel said in podcast #18, it is "a self-fulfilling prophecy." But this is not intentional, it's only because we haven't had time to improve it yet!
As I sit down to write a better algorithm, I tho...
Although the amount of valid questions that float through here, it might be difficult to answer a ton per day. It's a bit different farming rep on StackOverflow.
@Adnan I'm actually dying. I came here to make friends before my death and all you did was laugh at me constantly and complain about my question-answering productivity.
@Adnan You can still show off, but there is no badge. For instance, I can say that I have done one Epic beyond Legendary (+200 rep for 204 days, currently).
@RoryMcCune I'm looking to apply to UK IT Sec management jobs in the UK and I was wondering if I could ask a couple questions about the hiring logistics. I'm getting conflicting reports.
1) is all hiring done through recruiters? 2) is negotiating salary an expectaed part of the process or not, and if so, do you negotiate with the recruiter or the employer?
@Schroder . Never go Through Recruiters. Join forums , make contacts in industry and you will find a foot in the door . Quite a few jobs are not advertised and most of the times if an existing employee refers you , you are in atleast for a interview and a real chance .
@schroeder 1) depends on the company. I've had jobs through recruiters and direct. Some large companies have approved panels, but in most cases they'll take direct CVs
@schroeder 2) yep salary negotiations would be part of the process with employers. You might if you're using an agent give them an idea of range so that they can not put you in for vacancies in the wrong range altogether (assuming you trust them of couse :) )
In larger companies they may have their hands tied somewhat as the role will be at a grade and that grade will have a range
@schroeder . Not sure about UK but in asia as well it happens the same way . Plus if you are good and have written research papers , have done some responsible disclosures and all you are already a few leaps ahead of Competition .That's what i have seen in my couple of years of career .
@schroeder if you're looking for security roles I'd say that Ben Colbert at Proprius, Chris holt at DCL or barclay simpson would be good people to speak to
