Greetings,
I essentially ranted on this forum about my frustrations with Helix no longer being available at no cost. I just listened to the March 15 CyberSpeak podcost and it has an interview with Drew, the e-fense CTO and Helix developer. If you're interested in the history and future of Helix, it is worth listening to.
After listening to the podcast, my major criticism of e-fense isn't that they stopped distributing Helix for free, it is that their communication throughout the transition was confusing, inconsistent, poorly thought out, and frustrating.
I will now go buy a copy of Helix 3 Pro, which is a yearly subscription and it comes with access to the "old" Helix 3.
I still have a lot of questions about the future of the old version, and about the reliability of the Pro version which is all new code, but I'll invest in a copy and see for myself.
-David
Greetings,
A project has been established to continue the free version of Helix, now known as HelixCE - Community Edition. The web site for the project is here
http//forum.charlestendell.com/
-David
Yes, there's one more that I *really* like for previews Its called "10-23 OSI" (10-23 must be the radio code for 'on-scene') and is at http//
Also, when I've asked questions of the author on the website, he's been very helpful and prompt.
Paul
I have not read all the posts in this thread so forgive me if I should have.
Helix is a great 'free' tool and I am a big fan.
If e-fense has decided that Helix should become a great 'subscription' based tool maybe this may make it even better!
However, I see no reason why a community as large and competent as this can not start to develop our own great free tool in order to preserve the 'ideal' that gave rise to 'Helix'.
Any takers? D
Greetings,
There is a community of people already working on continuing a "free" Helix.
See my post two above yours….
-David
Kovar,
Thank you for your support.
The HelixCE project has released its first release candidate. This beta RC is ready for download at http//forum.charlestendell.com
The aim of this project is to combine computer forensics, data recovery and network security tools into and complete incident response toolkit. Please help support this project.
**WARNING RANT BELOW**
Now on a personal note. I for one feel that E-fense has turned its back on the very community that made Helix3 great. Not to go into too much detail, but the Managing Director of E-fense contacted me recently to request that I not use the Helix name in the CE project, " to avoid confusion". And informed me that Helix3's ENULA states that Helix3 cannot be redistributed. I was also informed, by a member of the CE forum, that the E-fense sales team were telling patrons that asked about the CE project, "it is an improper use of our trademarks and intellectual property."
The CE project has nothing to do with E-fense, in fact I honored her request not to redistribute Helix3 by removing it from my site as well as removed the E-fense developed tools, Adepto, Retriever and Mac_grab from the release. She went on to tell me that the interface was also trademarked by E-fense. Which is simply the original Ubuntu/Gnome interface with available useful plungins activated.
As far I can tell and even in Helix3's documentation. Drew and the other developers thank this community for its support and go on to thank the original developers of the tools contained within Helix3.
The Helix3 project started with the FLOSS community under the GPL and IMHO should stay there. A perfect example of how this can be both productive and profitable is Ubuntu. Ubuntu's community support is second to none in the linux world; and ubuntu itself has become the defacto standard for a lot of project baselines. Ubuntu is successful because it understands that thousands of minds are better than few. It makes its money providing enterprise level, dedicated support to users that seek it out.
Drew and the other developers thank this community for its support and go on to thank the original developers of the tools contained within Helix3.
I was talking to Drew about some of these issues (I am the co-author of the Helix3 manual, and wrote the thank yous to the community), and one thing that needs to be pointed out is that Drew when to great efforts to obtain permission to include many of those tools on the Helix3 CD. While some of those tools are free downloads, they are not all open source, and some of them have actual licensing issues that prevent them from being included on live CDs without permission (such as EnCase's Winen and Linen, FTK Imager, etc).
As for the naming issue, I think even Microsoft would have a problem with someone creating a tool called "Microsoft Office CE", so that's why it is called "Open Office". While Helix is a common word, (there is a Helix media player, and many other utilties), another organization creating a forensic CD called Helix could cause a lot of confusion (Apple's "moron in the Hurry" argument), so I could see why e-fense would be concerned.
On the other hand, I'm downloading your iso as I type this and am interested in taking a look at it.
Good luck,
bj
BJ,
Thank you for your support please let me know if you feel the project is headed in the right direction. It is in its very early stages at the moment.
It went through some very rapid changes at the last moment.
one thing that needs to be pointed out is that Drew when to great efforts to obtain permission to include many of those tools on the Helix3 CD.
I understand this and Drew we all love you and your team for your effort. The issues is simply that E-fense forgot about the those very people when they made this decision. Helix3 was built on the backbone of thousands of people world wide. Yes I know that E-fense attempted to keep it alive by asking for donations and few people responded. Economically that should have been expected. However, closing them all off from even contributing further, why? If they are willing to donate their time and energy to helping a project, it may have proved to be invaluable.
As for the naming issue, I think even Microsoft would have a problem with someone creating a tool called "Microsoft Office CE"
Microsoft is a trademarked name. That only became as well know as it is because of the company, both good and bad, that trademarked it. I make every effort to inform people that this is a completely different project that E-fense has absolutely no involvement with.
While Helix is a common word, (there is a Helix media player, and many other utilties), another organization creating a forensic CD called Helix could cause a lot of confusion (Apple's "moron in the Hurry" argument), so I could see why e-fense would be concerned.
Fantastic argument! "(Apples's moron in a Hurry)" I would like think that the target audience, newbie, novice and expert, would realize where the software is coming from. I make certain to repeatedly inform the user that this is not an E-fense project. The name HelixCE was chosen because it conveys the message that this community does not want this collection of tools to die because a company wants to profit from it.
I would LOVE to be able to include the E-fense tools, Adepto, Retreaiver etc. In CE and be able continue the legacy of the Helix3 line. I would like to be able to have Drew and his team give their insight to this project. I understand how hard it is to maintain a project and battle with these trying economic times.
The aim of CE is to give this community a chance to keep alive the very tools that help it stay alive.
On the other hand, I'm downloading your iso as I type this and am interested in taking a look at it.
Thank you! please let me know your thoughts. Again it was rushed at the last minute so some things need to be fixed, IE Grub. As the requests pour in I'm making changes to the software. In fact I'm adding Truecrypt as I write this.
I make certain to repeatedly inform the user that this is not an E-fense project. The name HelixCE was chosen because it conveys the message that this community does not want this collection of tools to die because a company wants to profit from it.
But instead of your distro constantly living in the shadow of Helix, why not give it a unique name, and add just a tag comparing it to Helix? That avoids all the potential issues, and allows you to create your own brand.
Look at Caine and DEFT Linux - both have many of the same functionalities of Helix, and are compared to Helix, and are now getting a lot of attention because of the changes at e-fense.
And by using the Helix name, you are always going to be compared to them - but with the upcoming release of Helix3 Pro, it really won't be a fair comparison, as they will be very different tools. And if you can't include the tools from e-fense, it wouldn't even be a very fair comparison to the older versions of Helix.
I think you are doing something important and exciting, and think that you should try to build your reputation on the strength of your distro, not by constantly reminding others of the past.
But hey, I could be wrong (and I only speak for me… and even I object to some of the things that I say ;-).
bj
Perhaps your right. As this is a community driven project I'd like to let them decide. Does HelixCE stay HelixCE or do I change it to D.R.A.F.T (Digital reconnaissance and forensics toolkit) as I was originally planning?
Please vote