This is the first IIB Tool Time video. This series will have short videos about the software I mention in the main articles, and a bit about the hardware needed to run such things.
If you are going to get serious about slinking around online without catching a bad case of cybercooties you will want to be able to run virtual machines to serve as compartments for your investigative environments.
The system under my desk today is a 2012 vintage HP Z420 with 128GB of ram and an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB video card driving a 27” 4k monitor with a 24” wing monitor. This is what it looked like a couple years ago, before a friend in need walked off with the left hand display, which I don’t really miss much.
The insides of the original machine have been changed out. There was a fanless 3GB GTX 1050 which in retrospect would have done all that I need. The original processor was a ten core Xeon E5-2650LV2 70 watt chip with the optional water cooling. The water cooler gave out and when I replaced it I installed a twelve core E5-2695V2 115 watt processor. The only thing I do where I wish for more power is the Gephi data visualization package, and since the free Twitter API was cancelled in April of 2023 I’ve hardly used it.
The system in the video is an HP Z420 with a six core E5-1650V2, 64GB of ram, and an older Nvidia K2000 2GB video card. If my current desktop took a lighting hit I could start over with that and the only real constraint would be the need to be less generous with ram and cores for virtual machines.
When I started doing this sort of thing I had a Dell Precision laptop with a quad core i7 and 16GB of ram, that I later upgraded to 32GB. That was an exceedingly snug fit. I might need a laptop for some new duties I’ve taken on and I see there’s a Dell Precision 7510 for $300 on Ebay. 32GB is enough to run the base OS and a couple VMs, and the quad core Xeon E3-1535M gets a Passmark of 7513, which compares quite favorably to the E5-1650V2 with a score of 9328 in the desktop.
Conclusion:
I started using Unix in 1986. I’ve been the plant engineer for a regional ISP with several thousand customers. I have not had any ISP duties for the last twelve years, but I’ve done work involving hosting. The hardware costs are trivial, the software is mostly free, the real cost of all this is developing the skills needed to run it in a disciplined fashion.
The ability to evaluate tools, pay attention to trends in the field, and craft solutions is work not everyone can do. Being able to do the things I suggest here should be within reach for most everybody.
Starter workstation for $200