Social/Misc Forum?

[Agarax]

Has there been any consideration to create a social/misc forum? A kind of catchall place for things like HFC, Nerf Guns that also hack wireless networks, ect.

[Archangel-Amael]

Ok, yes it has been considered, and I will let this thread run it's course, but in order for this to even be more than a passing thought, you and or others should post convincing reason(s) why another section should be added, that will also need to be moderated to keep out the riff-raff, spam, and other undesirable junk.
If this gains enough traction I will bring it up to the Admin's/ mut's attention. I will tell you they are a hard sale, so don't just go posting any old generic answers.

[voidnecron]

Isn't it easier to make a poll for the main count, and leave open for comments as Archangel-Amael/other mods require?
Just a thought...

PS: I'd vote 'no thanks', there are enough social thingies on the web.

[Barry]

Polls suck.

[macphail]

meh.
im not so sure i care about a 'coffee shop' type forum or whatever (Hey Ed, how's your mother? Who here has seen the latest episode of Lost? blah blah frickin' blah)

but i will say that occasionally I'll see someone ask a question about the functionality of a tool that is included with BT and they'll be told that these forums are for BackTrack, not the use of the tools.

I agree that tools most often have a support forum for technical or usage issues, however it strikes me that this forum is uniquely positioned to assist it's members with not only the functionality of Backtrack (which would include the tools supplied) but moreover the methodologies that we employ to do our jobs (which encompasses much more).

After all, we use BT for a specific purpose and it is the inclusion of these tools that make BT more than just a linux distro (and linux has plenty of its own forums as well, now that we mention it).

If we can somehow strip out the skiddies who are desperately trying to hack into their neighbor's net (like setting a minimum post count to enter the proposed forum, for instance), these forums are dedicated to professional pentesters. Brothers in arms and all that. If, during the course of our jobs we find issues or have questions about what we are seeing, we should be able to rely on each other and our collective wealth of professional skills to help us solve the problems.

It does seem fitting that there should be a professional forum for professional issues that we face. A 'water cooler forum' of sorts wherein we can share ideas and techniques of the trade. This could include professional opinions or experiences with OWASP tools/procedures, FDCC or NIST requirements, the sorts of problems that one might face with a DITSCAP or NIACAP C&A...

These and other topics of the sort that we could benefit from tossing around amongst ourselves, but may not be directly related to BT in and of itself.

just my two cents.

[Agarax]

I think the fact that this was moved to the Beginners forum kinda proves my point (not bashing the mods here). There is a lot of expert talk that is related to BT without being BT.

I might make it a sub forum of the experts forum to keep out the "how do i use backtrack on windows?" and "WTF is a NOOP sled?" crowd.

A good example would be those who went to DEFCON (not me this year, bosses decided to send someone else) could discuss the different talks, ect that they saw and what they liked/didn't like.

Or maybe the cantenna I'm going to start working on this week to get ghettotastic long-range wifu. It's not really experts forum since it doesn't have to do so much with backtrack, but getting the proper waveform measurements sure as hell isn't newbie "how do i burn an iso?!?!?!?" forum.

[grillparzerkarma]

Perhaps having a social/misc forum would help keep the regular forums more focused because there would be separate, designated areas for "work vs play"? Sort of like going to the library to study because you get more done, or the advice people give to insomniacs--not to do anything else in your bed other than sleeping so you associate it with sleeping instead of being awake?

For example I am interested in knowing what energy drinks people like for long hacking runs...

[CKing]

I think its fine the way it is, but possibly more clarification of what belongs in the experts forum is required. The experts forum ReadMe says "Here you can discuss scripts, projects, and ideas that you are working on that are related to computer/network security and penetration testing using Back Track 4." You could probably find a way to justify any computer security topic as related to backtrack ie the cantenna PROJECT you want to use with Backtrack, the Defcon IDEA you want to implement with Backtrack. However I'm not sure if this is the reality or my augmented version of it because I've seen interesting ideas shot down before, for example " http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forum...ia-mobile.html " (I'm only using this for an example because It was something that interested me and I would have appreciated seeing peoples replies.) This post brings up 2 issues in my opinion (1)An interesting idea (most likely based on https://svn.berlin.ccc.de/projects/airprobe/ )was shut down even though it could be used on Backtrack, most likely do to (2)poor formatting. Just a humble suggestion here but why not add a bit about how to go about asking questions, slang, details of the problem you might be having. It would hopefully clean up some peoples posting habits and certainly show just who is actually reading the rules.

I've also seen the "this forum is for Backtrack, not its tools" comments, but honestly there's plenty of approved threads about the tools at the same time, another point for clarifying the ReadMe.

[Archangel-Amael]

This thread is here, since a majority of the post land here it has a better chance of being seen.

[Barry]

Personally I think it'd be alright to have a subsection for everything else. The Defcon forums has one, so does the Netstumbler forums (and that's a happening place). You're right though, it will need to be watched, you know this is where the "how to crack wep" posts will migrate to.