A port opens up when there's a service listening on it. In this case, port 80 is usually open if you have a webserver running on the machine. If you're just playing around with nmap, then you can use netcat to listen on port 80 so nmap sees it as open. Of course if you plan on playing with exploits that specifically attack a webserver, you'll need to install the actual webserver to get it working.

The whole inability to upgrade the new line annoys me. In any case, as I mentioned, I run BT5R2 on VMware Fusion, no issues. I don't use VirtualBox, so I can't comment on that (work pays for the VMware license, so...).

It was even funnier, when the submission was wrong, and several people submitted the exact same code. Failage.

@cyber.spirit: A blog is specific to one thing: posting information for people to read. That's it. If you plan on doing something else with your online presence, like merchandising, or setting up an enterprise front, then yeah, a blog isn't the way to go.

@unicityd: Informative blog, looking forward to future posts.

If you already have a domain name, there's no charge to set it up with Blogspot. If you don't have one, you can buy one through them. http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1233381&page=ts.cs

Again, nothing stopping you from designing your own template without mentioning Blogspot anywhere. Just an example:  http://btemplates.com/2012/blogger-template-musicplus/

Of course you can do everything yourself if you have plenty of time and want to manage everything on your own. The point is, many people just want to provide information online without having to worry about the hassle of maintaining a webserver. Same reason why most people use Gmail instead of setting up their own mail servers.

Here are some reasons why I'd use Blogspotr:

1. I don't want to pay for extra bandwidth.
2. If a power failure hits, I don't want my site to go down because it's hosted at home.
3. I don't have redundancy at home compared to the infrastructure Blogspot has setup.
4. I maintain enough servers as it is at work, and when I have free time, it's spent doing hacking and research, not debugging a webserver so people can read my posts.
5. I need to pay for a static IP.
6. If Blogspot goes down, I don't really care. I know some Blogspot employee is getting up at 3am to fix the problem.

The list goes on. It's all about using the right tool for the right job. Most people just don't care about maintaining a personal webserver when all they're going to be using it for, is a blog.

That's actually not true. Blogspot and Wordpress both allow you to use your own domain name. There's also nothing stopping you having your own server to host your files and linking it through your blog.

I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to design your blog freely. Have you looked beyond the basic templates that Blogger and Wordpress provide? There's nothing stopping you from creating your own CSS and designing the look of the site.

It's a bash script. Yes, you run it on Linux, or if you use Windows, cygwin should be able to handle it.

Well I suppose we should all be using different passwords for each account anyway to begin with

My MBP is mid-2009. Popped in a 1TB drive and maxed it out to 8GB. I run BT5 R2 on it with 2GB and it works without any issues. For serious password cracking though, I usually delegate that to a much more powerful machine. I'm not sure about the newer models.

Congrats Regarding your issue with hashcat, I don't know what your setup is, but you mentioned you had problems running it in Win7/XP. Just for your information, it's also included in Backtrack. See /pentest/passwords. Works out of the box.

Not really a new idea. When I was a Teaching Assistant at the University several years ago, we had issues with students using sites like these to get their programming homework done. Another similar site is http://www.rent-acoder.com/

1. Yes
2 and 3. Yes. Read the manual.

Additional reading: http://adaywithtape.blogspot.ca/2011/05/creating-wordlists-with-crunch-v30.html

That all depends on which company you want to work with and what their requirements are. I suggest you look up some US companies and see what they want from their interns.

If you're slow with reading, maybe watching videos might get you moving forward a bit faster: http://www.securitytube.net/groups?operation=viewall&groupId=0

As for books, Metasploit and Grey Hat are good. I'd also suggest playing around with vulnerable machines (De-ICE, Kioptrix, Holynix, etc, found here http://g0tmi1k.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vulnerable-by-design.html).

Reading is one thing, but experience is another. You have to immerse yourself in it, don't give up, ask questions, read, learn from your mistakes, try again.

crunch (included in BT5) can easily do this for you.