My Thoughts

Hello All,

I'm not sure where to post this. So if the Mods think of any other appropriate forum, please do move it.

First I like to *Thank* the people that make Firewall.cx such a great place to come and Learn.

But, I've noticed members/visitors that come to the site with 'Teach me to hack', 'Can someone hack into this site' type of questions/attitudes and I don't see any kind of responses either from the Moderators or the Editorial team. Is this something that is encouraged here at f.cx?

I don't see anything of What is expected of f.cx and what is expected of the members of f.cx.

How about a FAQ for the newcomers? Like, the forum rules and how to ask questions, etc. The reason I say this is because I read the questions and they look like this 'This is my problem, Fix it for me'. How about the forum rules say to be specific while asking questions like, the OS, What the error is, if there is any error message, anything that could help knowledgeable people to provide solutions and make it sticky on every forum.

Thankyou
FallenZer0

Very good question. This is one of those *fine line* topics. Firewall.cx does NOT encourage hacking of any kind nor do we promote it.
But on the other hand we do promote education and the only way to be a good sysadmin is to be a good hacker!
You need to know how the hackers work in order to secure your network, catch 22.

A few times Chris and I have had a private discussion on some topics if they lean more towards malicious then education.
We strongly encourage education through proper means such as a test network. But we don't encourage asking how to hack your ex-bosses network.

FAQ / EULA, this is something that I have been planning on doing, and is needed. The only thing that I'm a where of is when a new user signs up he is presented with it. I need to review it my self before I comment on its content. As with most of our members and visitor's, we (the Firewall team) have other projects / jobs / life's to tend with and things get a little backlogged but rest assure not forgotten.


Hope this helps.

Best Wishes,

Thankyou Jack. Looking forward to the FAQ/EULA.

Have a great day.

But, I've noticed members/visitors that come to the site with 'Teach me to hack', 'Can someone hack into this site' type of questions/attitudes and I don't see any kind of responses either from the Moderators or the Editorial team.

Could you provide a link to any such questions, we are usually pretty thorough cleaning them up and I haven't seen any of these in a long time.

Usually what happens is that there is a quick consensus taken over email if its a controversial post and then someone will erase it.. occasionally this discussion goes on for a bit and the post remains.

We don't like playing censor, especially where information is concerned. I have personally posted many times in Security & Firewalls what could be considered objectional by some. I would say the basic criteria a post has to meet for it not to be removed are:

1. It should not be discriminatory, racist, insulting, or verbally crass
2. It should not be flamebait
3. It should not be a request for cracks / serials / commercial s/w
4. It should be either:
a. Informative
b. Humourous
c. A reasonable question - properly framed

To understand properly framed - see the sticky post on how to ask questions in the 'Basic Concepts' forum.

As far as questions go, yeah we see lots of people who come here, post one question like 'I have zoozoo hardware, help me fix it'.. get their response, and never come back. This is something that always happens in a public forum, and frankly it doesn't bother us too much. The site is here to help people... I remember once I was struggling with something in Photoshop, I hit a Photoshop forum, asked one question, got my response and never went back.

The key is in how the question is asked.. Once again I point to the sticky post in Basic Concepts.

Jack is absolutely right about a FAQ.. for the most part the 'regulars' here understand these unwritten rules and its a pretty close knit community... of course google in its blind innocence points many a moron here..

Perhaps one day the team will regale you all with some of the 'types' we've effectively handled... from people trying to rent elephants, to cyber-wars, to just plain simple nutcases... we've had em all

Still going strong aren't we !?

Cheers all, I yield to Mr.Partsenidis who will undoubtedly have an input on this.

hi to all,

i agree on the FAQ and it would really be a great help for the whole community of Firewall.CX.

but we must also be considerate to those who have troubles/problems who are unable to express themselves wholly in the forums. those that really need solutions right away and those that needs information for study purposes. we must be able to clearly define these factors since the main reason why this site was created in the first place was to help those in need of solutions specifically pertaining to IT and networking.