Welcome to Don Parker's Section

Don Parker, GCIA GCIH is lead analyst, and technical trainer at Bridon Security & Training Services located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He has worked for SANS in the capacity of Local Mentor for the Intrusion Detection In-Depth track, and has enjoyed speaking at various security conferences, as a guest speaker. Being a widely published author he continues to write for various online, and print media like Securityfocus, and SCMagazine in an effort to share knowledge. Don also does technical book editing for various publishers, and enjoys teaching various custom courses for clients. Rounding out his activites he volunteers his time to various local efforts.

You can contact Don Parker at dparker@bridonsecurity.com

Don Parker's Latest Contributions

Routing Protocols: Date - Oct 05, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; This article gives a high level overview of the routing protocols, and how they fit into our online lives.
The Spanning Tree Protocol: Date - Jun 23, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In this article we will discuss the Spanning Tree Protocol and what it does for you.
IPSec (IP Security): Part 3 - GRE: Date - Mar 09, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In Part II of the IPSec article series we went over IKE and the various phases it uses to do its work. We also left off by taking a sneak peek at what AH was and how it went about its business. In Part III we will finish looking at AH and wrap up the article series with a look at GRE. Read on!
IPSec (IP Security): Part 2 - IKE & AH: Date - Feb 28, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In this article series based on IPSec we covered ESP in part I. Part II will go on to cover what IKE is, and also looked at will be AH. Being able to understand the various parts that make up what is called IPSec is an important building block in an effort to further your knowledge. Read on to find out more!
IPSec (IP Security): Part 1 - ESP: Date - Feb 16, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; IPSec is an area that little is known about except to those who use and configure it. This is a shame as it really is an area that should gain more exposure. Within the confines of this article we will take a walk through IPSec and its conventions.
Understanding the NNTP Protocol: Date - Jan 24, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Everyone knows about peer-to-peer programs such as Napster, Kazaa, amongst others. How many people though know about binary newsgroups? I would wager not many. These binary newsgroups are based on the NNTP protocol, and this protocol will be the focus of this article. Read on to learn more about NNTP!
Understanding the DHCP Protocol (Part 2): Date - Jan 17, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part one of this article series on DHCP we went over a lot of the theory on the protocol itself. Specifically what types of messages there are, how DHCP works, and why it is normally used. In this last part we will look at two DHCP packets that exemplify what DHCP is all about.
Understanding the DHCP Protocol (Part 1): Date - Jan 10, 2006; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; DHCP is a little thought of protocol by many everyday computer users. Little do they know, though, that it plays a key role in the setup of their computer and how it is able to communicate. We shall explore its features and functionality within the confines of this two part article series.
Understanding the TFTP Protocol: Date - Dec 13, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In real life we all have relatives, some distant, some not so distant. Sometimes in the networking world you have the same parallel. In this article we will look at FTP’s cousin, TFTP, or Trivial File Transfer Protocol. They both share the same properties, while also having some key differences.
Understanding the SNMP Protocol: Date - Dec 01, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; With the advent of computer networks has come the logical need to manage them. It is simply not practical to be continually running from workstation to server back to workstation to verify all is well. Well that is where the Simple Network Management Protocol comes into play.
Understanding the DNS Protocol (Part 3): Date - Nov 22, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Over the past two articles on DNS we have seen just how big the Domain Name Service protocol actually is. It performs more then simple domain name resolution as we have seen, and also is a key player in the delivery of email via the MX resource record. In this last part on DNS we will actually break out various fields in the DNS header.
Understanding the DNS Protocol (Part 2): Date - Nov 03, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part one of the DNS article series we covered what DNS is at a high level. What we shall now do is explore the core of DNS, which are resource records. There are many types of them, and we shall look at some of the ones you will most likely encounter.
Understanding the DNS Protocol (Part 1): Date - Oct 25, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Can you imagine a world where you would have to memorize each and every IP address for the sites that you liked? The Internet certainly would not be as popular as it is today were this the case. Not to mention our beloved email, and the crucial role that DNS plays with its delivery. Read on, to learn more about one of the most unheralded protocols in existence today.
Understanding the HTTP Protocol (Part 3): Date - Oct 18, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part two of this article series we covered all of the HTTP metrics that were sent by the web server. We also expanded a bit more on HTTP, and how the Internet largely communicates using the client/server model. In this last part on HTTP we will further delve into the inner designs of HTTP, and show you a tool that you can use to further your knowledge of HTTP.
Understanding the SMTP Protocol: Date - Oct 11, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Who amongst us doesn’t like getting email? We all do of course! It is just like looking in the mailbox every morning after the postman comes by. How does email work though, and just what makes it arrive to our inbox? This will all be explained in this article giving you a far better understanding of how email works.
Understanding the HTTP Protocol (Part 2): Date - Oct 04, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part one of this article series, we covered the HTTP traffic metrics that come from a web browser client. This second part will cover what the web server itself will send, and expand a little more on HTTP itself.
Understanding the HTTP Protocol (Part 1): Date - Sep 22, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; The Internet is composed of all kinds of packets containing various types of traffic. One of the most used application layer protocols is HTTP. We will take a look at what really happens during an HTTP transaction, and thereby gain a deeper understanding of what this protocol is about.
Understanding the FTP Protocol: Date - Sep 08, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Out of the many protocols in existence today only a couple have been written for the purpose of data transfer. After all, not all of the Internet’s activity revolves around HTTP and web pages. This article will cover the FTP protocol and how it goes about actually doing your data transfers for you.
Understanding the ICMP Protocol (Part 2): Date - Aug 26, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part one of the article we covered what the ICMP protocol actually was, and what it was used for. Further to that we also looked at one of the most common ICMP message types seen; the ping packet. This last part on ICMP will cover other various types of ICMP error messages that can commonly be seen traversing the Internet.
Understanding the ICMP Protocol (Part 1): Date - Aug 18, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; Can you imagine a world where there are no traffic lights, stop signs, and other ways to control daily life? Well, just imagine what the Internet would be like then without the ICMP protocol. It would quickly become an unwieldy mess without it. In this article we will explore just what the ICMP protocol is, and how it works.
Understanding the UDP Protocol: Date - Aug 11, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; When it comes to moving all that information across the Internet there is not only one choice when it comes to transport protocols. There are two. Namely, TCP and UDP. In this article we will look at the User Datagram Protocol, aka UDP.
Understanding the TCP/IP Protocol (Part 3): Date - Aug 02, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part two we broke off analysis of the packet with the Win Size metric. In this final part we will cover the remaining metrics, as well as cover what all those hex values mean. Being able to understand what the hex values mean is also key to becoming a good network engineer.
Understanding the TCP/IP Protocol (Part 2): Date - Jul 26, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; In part one of this article series we laid out the background information necessary to tackle this article’s information. Contained in this article is the actual breakdown of a packet’s contents, and what they mean. This type of low level TCP/IP information will enable you to make far better judgement calls when investigating network issues at the packet level.
Understanding the TCP/IP Protocol (Part 1): Date - Jul 14, 2005; Section - Articles & Tutorials / Network Protocols; The world of computer networking is built upon a series of protocols. These very same protocols are the worker bees that keep the packets flowing from one computer to another. Gaining an understanding of them greatly helps one to understand how computers talk to each other. This series of articles will attempt to convey that very knowledge.