Girls, girls... you're all pretty.

Let's all ease up a bit. Thangvt asked a vague question, and English is obviously not his first language. So let's ask for clarification first before jumping down his throat. Granted his answer was still vague, but let's show him how we do things here.

This is the "Ethical" Hacker Network. Most people here take that very seriously, and thus can be a little overzealous in protecting that unique philosophy on this site. So we can also cut some slack to those who respond that way.

This site has always been kind to newbies yet firm with those who even slightly appear to be unethical. But we've always been polite in doing so. Let's not change that.

So let's try to get the communication on this site back on track before we start looking like other sites out there that are rude and do not foster an open and sharing community of professionals.

Agreed?

Don

Agreed and your pointing him to a couple books was a kewl way to help regardless of whether he had permission or not. You're also correct as I stated earlier that sometimes we are overzealous. But if I'm being fair, your stating that asking if permission is in place is BS... I respectfully disagree.

All in all, if the end result is that we all understand each other better and are more tolerant and polite, then that will make this community even better.

Don

Agreed. I'm glad I'm pretty, Don


I would say that in general, sure, there are lots of places that are exactly as you've described. I think that a very strong majority of the posts here end with answers. If you take a look at ones you've described, the failure is more due to the fact that the person seeking the answer didn't put forth enough initiative in following-up (just like this thread). Wouldn't you agree?

I understand what you're saying. I've asked questions that weren't answered in the past. Yes, of course it was irritating, but if I needed to re-clarify my question or provide more information I typically did so... I wanted the answer


There is enough information available here, and elsewhere on the web, to be useful for someone with malicious intent. Not every question receives a "do you have permission"' response from the get go. If you were to post a specific/detailed security question, you're more than likely to receive some good answers. This goes back to my earlier reply of asking questions properly. Aside from giving information away that in turn is used for malicious intent, from my perspective it's more about not specifically supporting people that want to gain that knowledge for unethical purposes. Make sense?

*Puts down his Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster* Yeah, I suppose it would have been easier to answer his question if he'd used the terminology and jargon we use.  And been very specific in his post. Something like:

"I have permission, and what I'm trying to do is learn how to tunnel over port 80 into a computer to pen test it.  Any suggestion?" 

In that case, I WOULD still be temped honestly to simply google "port 80 tunneling" and paste the link like so:

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=port+80+tunneling&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&safe=active

I guess part of the frustration I see, is when the exact same questions are asked over and over, without the poster having done a quick google search or even better, looked through the multitude of thread titles for something that might be applicable and done a little reading.  Wow... that sounds a bit grumpy of me, could be due to the fact I'm off the back meds. :/ 

I think for the most part, the vast majority of questions I see asked are answered fairly quickly if possible, and generally with some good links for followup for the poster. I've lurked around other forums, and I would have to say ours is rather friendly, and I don't feel the need to watch for port scanning on my comp after I make a post that not everyone would like .  But no, I agree with Bill and Don both.  We SHOULD be polite and helpful, but I also think that taking time to think out a question fully, do a little personal research, and word it as to be clear is a responsibility of a poster as well.  We all have responsibilities, and we should live up to them.

Heh... well Opera is my browser of choice.    I suppose I COULD copy a link over in IE, but that would be such a... pain.  Love the Opera heh.  I can't stand a slow browser.

Nice, an old Finish friend of mine turned me onto it a while back.  I used Mozilla for a bit... and IE when I had to, but neither really grabbed me.  I've found Opera rather quick, minimalist, easy to tweak, and generally just a better browser.  It's actually one of my 'No nos' I insist upon at work.  We're only supposed to use IE, but I can't stand how slow some of our web based custom programs are... Opera helps a little with the speed which helps me keep my sanity.  Last couple incarnations of it have fixed a number of the formatting issues they were having too. (Opera)

I'm not the best hacker around, but you might use a reverse HTTP shell for that.