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Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by p4bl0 on Monday November 02, 2015 @09:56AM (#10492062)
I always find these kind of tutorial very strange. On one hand, it is supposed to be addressed to people who would be able to make use of an offensive security portable linux install, but on the other hand, it is written for people who need to be reminded to change the default root password.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by TeMPOraL on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:10AM (#10492138)
Personally I'm happy for such tutorials. If you were to follow all the "before you learn X, learn Y and Z", you'd end up in a big, cyclic dependency graph and probably give up before learning anything. Fortunately, humans are good at jumping straight into the middle of a complicated topic and learning by figuring things out as they go. Such tutorials are great entry points.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by sithadmin on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:03AM (#10492104)
I wouldn't say it's really that strange. LifeHacker content is geared at the casual tinkerer and hobbyist that knows a thing or two about electronics and/or IT, but may not have much formal exposure to the subject matter being discussed. On balance, it's probably better to include a few words about ideal security practices.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by ChuckMcM on Monday November 02, 2015 @12:23PM (#10493313)
Is there a hardware equivalent to script kiddies?
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by n7c3c1 on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:02AM (#10492562)
It's Lifehacker, a branch of Gawker. So quality isn't a high priority.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by antsar on Monday November 02, 2015 @09:58AM (#10492070)
All from a Raspberry Pi. Why?!
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by arbitrage on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:02AM (#10492095)
Because it's small? Portable? Cheap? Unobtrusive? Creative? Fun?

In short, a hack?

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by antsar on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:16AM (#10492183)
It seemed like a somewhat pointless hack to me, but sithadmin (your sibling comment) points out some valid use-cases.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by mhurron on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:28AM (#10492267)
Not everything has to be productive.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by sithadmin on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:06AM (#10492115)
Because it's the sort of thing you can tape to the underside of a desk, or slip into a ceiling plenum without it getting noticed very quickly?
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by dagw on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:20AM (#10492214)
Surely a normal tablet or closed laptop will look far more inconspicuous just lying around an office.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by toxican on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:52AM (#10492980)
Depends on the environment. If I saw a new laptop in my office I'd notice it immediately because we've only got one laptop. A huge office with machines all over the damn place, sure that would probably work just as well.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by sithadmin on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:47AM (#10492936)
Not in an environment with any level of decent IT management going on. Most managed IT environments look fairly homogenous in terms of gear, and anything that's not an exact or very close match will immediately draw attention.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by mhd on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:13AM (#10492652)
They namedropped the Pi in Mr. Robot, which might make it interesting to some newcomers to the, erm, "penetration testing" scene.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by morganvachon on Monday November 02, 2015 @01:28PM (#10493887)
Ditto with Kali Linux. I noticed a huge uptick in seeders/leechers on the Kali ISOs I seed, after the show came out. And if I'm not mistaken, the distro was never actually named in the show, but the background image on Elliot's computer is the Kali logo.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by venomsnake on Monday November 02, 2015 @01:51PM (#10494068)
You can shape some case for it as an charger
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by AdmiralAsshat on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:42AM (#10492394)
This is a cool project if you have a Raspberry Pi you need to repurpose and/or tinker with.

On the other hand, I'd also like to note that you can get Kali Linux running on a Nexus 5 or a Nexus 7, which in my opinion is a much sleeker hacking device and probably less work to setup:

https://www.kali.org/kali-linux-nethunter/

EDIT: Been about a year since I last looked at that page. It looks like nearly the entire Nexus line is supported now. As is the OnePlus One.

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by nine_k on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:56AM (#10492518)
Also, an RPi is probably noticeably less powerful than a Nexus 7 which is quad-core.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by smcl on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:56AM (#10493011)
The RPi 2 is also quadcore but clocked at 900 MHz - so maybe less powerful but perhaps not as much as you might think
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by chippy on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:54AM (#10492998)
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b/

900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU

1GB Ram

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by morganvachon on Monday November 02, 2015 @01:31PM (#10493914)
Yep, about the same as a modern budget cellphone, but much more open to experimentation. It can also be overclocked, and it does make a noticeable difference. The Pi 2 is more or less usable as a desktop PC at this stage, though it's not going to replace even a 10 year old workstation or laptop in that regard.
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by thebouv on Monday November 02, 2015 @12:23PM (#10493316)
My little brother wants to get into network security and I've been sending him tons of articles, some career advice from colleagues in the field and such.

I am both tempted to show this link to him and also thinking he doesn't need to get his hands on something so portable. As smart and interested as he is, he's also only 16 and has some immature tendencies still.

It's a real challenge for me and I'm going to have to think it over.

Maybe show it to him, build it with him and use this as another opportunity to talk about ethics.

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by TeMPOraL on Monday November 02, 2015 @09:55PM (#10497124)
> and has some immature tendencies still

Sure, do talk about ethics, but keep in mind that "immature tendencies" is how people learn effectively. Also, in adult world, "mature" often means "boring" and "soul-dead" and "detached from reality", so it's not a very good standard to judge things on.

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by mtw on Monday November 02, 2015 @11:54AM (#10492996)
It's a nice hack but a small chromebook (HP chromebook, $199) will save you time and also more convenient. Also you will "fit in" more anywhere than having a raspberry pi with odd-looking parts. The guy with a chromebook looks like a student or a tourist while the guy with the raspberry screams "hacker"
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by awqrre on Monday November 02, 2015 @06:35PM (#10496198)
You could build something like this with your RPi: http://www.3ders.org/articles/20151025-build-a-portable-rasp...
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by mtw on Monday November 02, 2015 @09:12PM (#10496924)
nice. could be cool in a home automation project
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by lol768 on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:04AM (#10492107)
Seems like a neat use for the Pi. I'd be interested to know if its CPU is powerful enough to say, crack a WEP password, in a reasonable amount of time.

Also interesting is the WiFi card the article recommends. This GitHub thread https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/369 suggests that monitor mode doesn't work with the default driver for this card provided in the kernel that's used in Raspbian etc. Does the image provided by Offensive Security use a different kernel?

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by comrh on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:05AM (#10492112)
I've cracked WEP on the first version on a Raspberry Pi very quickly (~5 minutes).
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by uberneo on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:20AM (#10492215)
Who needs a full fledged Pi , this can be done using a small Wifi router as well - http://minipwner.com/
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by agumonkey on Monday November 02, 2015 @04:46PM (#10495518)
For even more smallessnes I'd use a CHIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx1uTWF7qRA (watch the video, just for the team groovy spirit)

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by mrweasel on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:01AM (#10492093)
Could we please NOT shorten Raspberry Pi to RasPi? It breaks searches and looks childish. You wouldn't short Hacker News to HacNe, so don't shorten Raspberry Pi
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by spdustin on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:58AM (#10492534)
It's the de facto shorthand for Raspberry Pi. Language evolves; it's a beautiful thing to behold evolution in ones own lifespan! I have found something my mother used to say to be very helpful here, if you're feeling particularly curmudgeonly about such things: "you can be right, or you can be happy."

She went on to say that being "right" isn't true as often as one thinks, and in any case, forcing your "rightness" on others can sometimes exclude you from groups, opportunities, and experiences, which takes away happiness. Being happy doesn't mean abandoning your principals, either. It means knowing when it's worth picking a battle versus letting something go because you may, in fact, be wrong according to those in the know, and in any case, when principals aren't involved, it's often easier to simply let it go.

This is all a polite way of suggesting what another might say in three semi-rude words, and that I'll only repeat here to potentially prevent someone else from being abrasive, not because I mean too say them directly myself: "get over it."

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by TeMPOraL on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:04AM (#10492108)
Long too late for that. Everyone uses it in speech already, "Raspberry" is too unwieldy a word. Hell, you've even got (the most popular) operating system called "Raspbian".
Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by morganvachon on Monday November 02, 2015 @01:35PM (#10493941)
I prefer RPi or Pi myself, but why the fuss? Google at least is smart enough to match RasPi to Raspberry Pi, at least within my search bubble.

As for it looking childish...I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but I have to wonder if you also consider people who call Apple Macintosh computers "Macs" to be childish as well? My point being, even the folks at the Raspberry Pi Foundation use the common shorthand sometimes. If they are okay with it, I'm okay with it.

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by radiorental on Monday November 02, 2015 @10:08AM (#10492128)
guilty, I was trimming the title to fit under the limit and went too far.

That said, we interchangeably use rpi, raspi and raspberry pi at work. A web search for raspi confirms it's quite a common pattern for the board.

I even have a 'raspi' motor hat on one of my robots, the "raspirobotboard v2" https://github.com/simonmonk/raspirobotboard2

Re:Portable Hacking with a RasPi and Kali Linux by runjake on Monday November 02, 2015 @01:09PM (#10493748)
Good luck with that effort, even the official raspberrypi.org uses that shorthand (Google "raspi" site:raspberrypi.org).