First Post / Help

[Phoenix-Rising]

Hi, my name is Brandon.
I've browsed through the site a few times the past couple years, and recently decided to register. I consider myself relatively proficient with computers, definitely more competent than the general public.

On to my question...
I've been thinking about getting certified and getting a job in Information Security. I just don't know if I know enough yet to fully understand everything that will be covered. I currently run Ubuntu 12.04 and Backtrack 5 R3 both on my computer, and have become pretty comfortable with building the applications in Terminal. I'm pretty comfortable with bash in general also. My problem is, I have hit a wall in my learning curve. I don't know where to go from here to keep learning new things. I can't honestly say I even begin to understand most of the programs that come with Backtrack, but thats why I have it. I'm willing to learn, I just don't know the best way to keep learning. It's kinda like I have writer's block, it seems.

[-Ninjex-]

I personally went from learning how to hack, to just learning how to program. If you look at my stats, you will see I have quit a bit of challenges completed, but I don't have a single programming challenge done. If you are not fluent in some programming languages, go pick some up, as they can help you build your own tools, and help grow a better understanding on how some things work.

[Phoenix-Rising]

I started to try my hand at JavaScript, but I don't know if it was the tutorial I was looking at or what, I just couldn't quite grasp the scripts as well as I did with bash. I'm sure if I stuck to it that I could do it. And I can do a few basic things with Aircrack-ng and Wireshark, but nothing that really gets me anywhere.

-- Tue Feb 12, 2013 8:11 pm --

Also, ASCII charts and cryptography look alien to me. That's partly why I'm stuck at Basic 6 on the challenges.

[-Ninjex-]

Do some of the languages over at http://codecademy.com/ they have a wonderful thing going over there.
Yeah, if you only are well in bash, then you still have a lot to learn, don't stop now xD.

I know some python, javascript, perl, php, html, css, as well as some small knowledge in sql and c++ I still have tons to learn.

[Phoenix-Rising]

Yeah, I only recently got into all of it. I used to mess around with telnet and other command line things when I was younger, but never seriously started trying to get proficient in any of it until about a month ago. I swear the night I downloaded Ubuntu and started in on configuring it, I was dreaming command line scripts all that night haha.

[-Ninjex-]

You know about alias's? Those are always fun to work with, setting them up to start bash scripts. I make bash scripts for long commands and then call them with keywords like...

I made one recently it prompts me if I would like to list all my partitions If yes, I get the list. Then it asks for an input of a partition, once I input and hit enter, it automatically starts mounting it to my ~/mnt/ folder. I made an alias to run it in the terminal just by typing in mymount. So all I have to do is call that to run it. This is just a small example however. The possibilities are barely finite.