How to Post to Null Byte [4.10.15 Revision]

Hello readers, and welcome to Null Byte.

Before we start, for those of you who may not know me, my name is ghost_; I'm a relatively active member of our community and have been around for a while.

During my time here, I've seen our community cultivate into the brilliant one we have today, people from all over the world with varying skillsets, excited to learn and help each other.

Now, I know you're excited to start hacking and reenact the scenes from your favourite movies like Swordfish or The Italian Job, but first I think you should read through this to understand the appropriate way to post to Null Byte.

Null Byte's Layout

First of all, you will notice the 5 links at the top of the page; I'm going to be walking you through those so that we have a solid understanding of the layout here.

World Home: This is the entry point to Null Byte, it showcases the most recent activity here. You don't really post anything through this link, it's more of a starting point.

How-To: Now some people have been getting confused with the function of the How-To section. This is where you post if you have written a step-by-step guide on hacking. Do not post things like, "How do I hack a WiFi hotspot?", because it's not for your questions.

Inspiration: This is where you post if you have something you want to share with the community that you find inspiring or interesting.

Forum: This is where you post your questions or discussions.

Creators: This is where you find a list of the contributors in the Null Byte community, you'll notice OccupyTheWeb, Bryan Crow, and Justin Meyers are always the top three. These three people are the administrators and moderators, everyone else is simply a user just like yourself.

However, there are a few of us who have been around for a while and will gladly help you, such as CyberHitchHiker, Ciuffy, Cracker Hacker, Phoenix750 and of course, myself. With that being said, we are not the only contributors around, there are a lot more who will gladly help you with questions.

I know it may seem a little bit nitpicky, but organisation is very important so that people can easily navigate around the site. Please stick to this.

Speaking of navigation, there is a search function at the top. If you have a question like "How do I hack a WiFi hotspot?" do a quick search here first, there's most likely already a guide available. Simply type something like "wifi hack" and you'll get all relevant results in Null Byte, neat huh?

Null Byte Etiquette

Now, before you start posting like crazy, there is a bit of etiquette I feel we should cover.

1. Please use the best spelling, grammar, and punctuation you know. If English is not your native language, that's okay, I said earlier that we're from all over the world. But if you have a firm grasp of the English language, please post legibly. It not only makes our lives much easier, but it simply looks better. None of this, "how do u do dis lol", or "y does dis hapen?" as it looks awful and simply degrades the quality of Null Byte. This goes the same for swearing, please refrain from doing so, it's not constructive.

2. Please address one another with respect, we're not your dude, man, or bro. But particularly do not speak to OTW in that manner, he's your teacher, address him as such.

3. Do a bit of digging before you post a question. Don't give up at the first obstacle, do a bit of your own problem solving, it's very important that you develop this skill as it's paramount to hacking. Look around the site, look in the comments sections, look offsite.

With that said, I'm not discouraging you to ask for help, please do. Just do a bit of your own research before you do, you may even find the answer yourself and that feels awesome.

4. Please be patient. I can understand that you're eager to hack and you may have posted your question hours ago, but we all have our own lives to live. Your question will be answered, it may just take some time.

5. Do not verbally attack, degrade, or bully one another. We're all here for the same reason and no-one should have to put up with that. If you have a differing opinion to someone else, keep it to yourself or bring it up in a constructive and civil manner.

If you've noticed that what someone has posted is wrong, please let them know in a constructive and civil manner.

Get the pattern here? Fantastic, let's keep going.

6. Plagiarism is not tolerated at all. If you find something worth sharing with the community, please share it, but provide a link back to the original source and paraphrase the parts you find interesting. Cracker Hacker recently created a post about this very subject, and trust me, we can and will find out very quickly if you plagiarise.

7. If you are an already experienced hacker wanting to learn more techniques, first I say welcome. You may have noticed that we are a very welcoming community and we would like to keep it that way. If you decide to begin to help newbies; then please do so with the respect you have received. We do not tolerate malicious behaviour in any way, if you feel that the new user does not have enough knowledge to begin hacking, please direct them to this post here. Do not do something such as tell a newbie to run a command that will delete their OS, that kind of action will result in this.

8. Please be specific with your questions. We can't help you if you give us no information to work on. Tell us what you want to do. What your end goal is. As much information as you can possibly give us, it leaves less guesswork for us, and more accurate information for you.

Where Do I Start?

It can be a bit daunting at first, but there are posts to help you out. I'm going to consolidate those posts here as a starting reference for new users.

Firstly, a solid, foundational understanding on computers is absolutely necessary to begin hacking. Learning the basics is important because you will always be using that knowledge, hence why it's foundational knowledge. If we look at it in terms of building a house, if you don't have a solid foundation, the rest of the building is unstable and likely to collapse. Simple, right? Therefore, you must have a good understanding of computers before you start here. It's incredibly important.

The Legal Consequences of Hacking, this is a very important post. I urge you all to read this and know that there are very real consequences to what we can do and what is taught here, so please be cautious.

How to Use Null Byte to Study to Become a Professional Hacker, this is a post made by OTW and it shows you his layout for the tutorials.

Linux Basics for the Aspiring Hacker, Linux is the hackers OS of choice. Learn it, use it, master it. Almost all the tools available for hacking are built for Linux.

Kali Linux Portability, this is a great guide made by another member Ciuffy. It's all about getting portable with Kali so that you can use it with any machine you have available. It's also pretty much become the Kali installation guide, so there's a lot of information here on Kali installations, not just in the guide itself, but in the comments section.

How to Create a Virtual Hacking Lab, a big part of hacking is the practical application of it. Your knowledge is pretty useless if you can't apply it; however, hacking is illegal and can carry heavy penalties. This is where virtual labs come into play, you can create pretty much any scenario you need and then hack away.

The Hacker Methodology, this goes through the steps you will need to carry out in order to perform a successful hack. Each step is significantly important, so read up and learn these backwards.

Essential Skills to Becoming a Master Hacker, if you're like me and you want to make hacking into your career, you will be very interested in what exactly you'll need to know in order to be able to carry out your job. And let me tell you right now, it's a lot. But don't let that deter you, it's a lot of fun learning about all of these things.

The Purpose of Null Byte

Null Byte is, first and foremost, an educational community. Meaning we are here to learn, not commit crimes.

We are not your personal tech support team and we are not for hire.

Please do not make posts or send us emails asking us to perform a hack for you.

Finally, if you make a post wanting to know how to do something simple like cracking the password for an AP, or hacking your school's network, with no intention of actually learning anything, you are a script kiddie.

I, personally, don't help script kiddies and I don't think anyone else should either. Not only is it a waste of our time, but it's probably for the best that you don't know how to do whatever it is that you want to do either.

If you are an existing member, please feel free to link this to new users you feel could benefit.

ghost_

Changelog

Changelog as of 25.9.15:

Added number 6, plagiarism in the Null Byte Etiquette section.

Added malicious behaviour to number 7 in the Null Byte Etiquette section.

Added swearing to number 1 in the Null Byte Etiquette section.

Added number 8, information when asking questions in the Null Byte Etiquette section.

Added Changelog section.

Added Phoenix750 to the Null Byte Layout section.