Netcat Geek Quiz

How to Tell If You Are A Netcat Geek

By Ed Skoudis

Netcat is a fantastic general-purpose network connection widget. It's incredibly flexible and highly usable by both good guys and bad. Written for Unix variants by Hobbit and for Windows by Weld Pond, you can find Netcat here.

Have you ever wondered if you are obsessed with Netcat? If so, take the following test to either assuage or confirm your concern. If you score more than 100 points, you have a Netcat obsession.

1) Have you ever used Netcat to implement a:

Command shell backdoor   Yes, 1 point

Web browser                       Yes, 3 points

DNS server                         Yes, 10 points

Lotus Notes client              Yes, 40 points

Lotus Notes server             Yes, 60 points

2) Have you ever altered the Netcat source to add one more command-line flag that you just had to have?
                             Yes 20 points
3) What is the longest chain of Netcat relays (port redirectors) you've created?

1-2 relay                        1 point

3-5 relays                      3 points

6-10 relays                    5 points

Can't count that high   10 points

4) Have you given up using the hopelessly lame FTP and now use Netcat (or better yet, Cryptcat) for all file transfers between the systems you own?
                           Yes 10 points
5) Have you ever:

Given one of your children the middle name "Hobbit"

5 points
Given one of your children the first name "Hobbit"

10 points
Given one of your children the first name and middle name "Hobbit Weld"

50 points

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