Interview with Arne Vidstrom, techical editor of the "HackNotes Windows Security Portable Reference"

Who is Arne Vidstrom? Introduce yourself to our readers.

I'm a 29 years old Swedish security reseacher who run the web site ntsecurity.nu, where I publish a collection of my own security tools for Windows and some other things. I work as an IT Security Research Scientist at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, and prior to that I worked as a Computer Security Engineer at the telecom operator Telia. I hold a university diploma in electronic engineering and a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Karlstad. Aside from sitting at a computer several hours a day I read books about psychology, do fitness training, practice martial arts, and in the summer I go inline skating a few hours a week.

How did you get interested in computer security?

In senior high school there was a guy who planted a simple "logic bomb" in some of the school computers. A few other guys managed to "hack" supervisor rights in the school network. I got frustrated by the fact that some people with knowledge (although quite basic in those cases) about "hacking" could destroy and snoop around in computers as they wished. So I decided to learn more than them about it so I would be able to feel more in control of things. At the time I didn't have a clue about how much there was to learn about security, but I've continued to learn ever since.


What operating system(s) do you use and why?

I use several different operating systems, but as a desktop system I prefer Windows XP since I think it has the best GUI (at least after a bit of tweaking). For doing experiments I have a wide range of operating systems and hardware in my private lab. I have most Windows versions, a few Linux distributions, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, AIX, HP/UX, Solaris, IRIX, and a couple of 2500-series and 2600-series Cisco routers, as well as some other stuff.

You are the author of various security tools, which one is your favorite creation?

Although I never wrote a completely stable version of Inzider - the port to process mapping tool - it's one of my favourites since I had the idea for over a year before I wrote it and I tried many different approaches before finding one that worked. Another favourite is WinZapper - the security log editing tool - also because I had the idea for a long time and tried various approaches before finding one that worked. Both became the first tools capable of doing what they do (with the reservation that I don't know if there were any others available in the "underground" before them). I really enjoy picking a new problem to solve and do lots of work trying to figure out a solution, running into other strange problems on the way.

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