# FreeBSD could be used for hacking?



## Ancient (Mar 19, 2019)

I am not thinking of doing damage to other people. Just a question that came to my mind when I saw that there are Linux distros used for hacking, but find nothing about the BSD.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2019)

Yes. In the right hands _everything_ can be used for hacking.


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## D-FENS (Mar 19, 2019)

Hacking is an activity, just like writing an email. It can be practised on any kind of platform, including FreeBSD.
Also, hacking is not synonymous to doing damage. It means mostly changing a system to do things that it was not designed to do.
Just like a car can be used for robbing a bank, hacking  _can_ be used to do damage, but it can be used for constructive and quite legal purposes as well.

And last remark, some people insist on calling the OS you mentioned "GNU/Linux". Linux is just the kernel part.


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## Ancient (Mar 19, 2019)

roccobaroccoSC


> It means mostly changing a system to do things that it was not designed to do.


 As I understand, FreeBSD is used mostly in servers. Sometimes for make a new OS, or fork. What if I do what you say and modify it for what I want? In other words: how much versatile is?


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> What if I do what you say and modify it for what I want? In other words: how much versatile is?


You have access to the complete source code for the whole OS. You can change anything and everything. What more versatility would you need?

But most Linux distributions used for hacking are tools. Does it really matter if a hammer is made by company A or company B? It's still a hammer you use to hit nails with. Linux, FreeBSD or even Windows are just tools to get the job done.


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## Ancient (Mar 19, 2019)

It is right. But I heard that FreeBSD has around of 9 millions of line of code. I think I can only modify a few. More lines will take more time and energy inverted on it.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> But I heard that FreeBSD has around of 9 millions of line of code.


I have no idea if that's correct or not. But keep in mind that FreeBSD is a complete OS. Linux is essentially only a kernel. Distributions use that kernel and add a bunch of other stuff (typically from the GNU project) to create something that resembles an OS.


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## Ancient (Mar 19, 2019)

I already know that FBSD is a complete OS. And a one very robust. In fact...I will say what I have in mind to do with this system: you had seen before a RTOS? Well, I am planning to one of those. I am not very familiar with programming, I test systems to see what they are about. But since a few months, a idea came to my mind. That idea was: what if I make a system resistant at damage? A system that will continue functioning with no matter what occur: you could throw the motherboard to a wall, shoot it, even bur it. And it will continue working. Even when I have most knowing of GNU/Linux, I think FreeBSD has its own potential. Or perhaps make a mix of both. I am learning C, C++, and assembler language.
So, according to the fact that most of hackers do something new, I will make something new. Of course it will take a long time, because I never learned none language before. Just learn a few of PHP and Java, whose could not be used for something like this.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> A system that will continue functioning with no matter what occur: you could throw the motherboard to a wall, shoot it, even bur it. And it will continue working.


This actually has very little to do with the OS. This is mostly hardware design. And costs are going to be your limiting factor. It's easy enough to design a system like that but it's probably going to cost about 10 times the current price of regular mainboard. 

Note that a lot of enterprise server hardware is, to a certain extent, already built like this. ECC RAM, hot-spare CPUs, dual disk controllers, dual power supply, dual/quad network connections, etc. All done in a way that a failure of a single component doesn't result in a catastrophic failure of the entire system.


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## Ancient (Mar 19, 2019)

Sorry, my bad. I forgot to explain that I will use FreeBSD on the aspect of soft. You mentioned that GNU/Linux is a kernel independent of the programs. It is right. Do you think that GNU tools will be compatible with BSD? Although the compatibility will be a low-level.


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## Wozzeck.Live (Mar 19, 2019)

I don't understand.
If FreeBSD is designed basically for server, this is the same thing for Linux, this kind of debate is useless... and what does exactly mean "server" ?
You can run a server on a Raspberry pi...

I first thought that "hacking" meant using an OS to develop web attacks...", any OS can be used to hack.
But reading the exchanges, the meaning of "hacking" changes and if I understand well.... you mean "hacking" in the way customizing an OS.

Everybody know that Linux distros are out of the box OSes. This means that this is much easy to setup BUT THIS ALSO MEANS that it is harder to hack.
If you hack your Linux distros, you may break various things, and for example you can break the update process.
Out of the box means... you accept standard packages, this is the contrary of hacking.

On the other side, FreeBSD IS NOT an out of the box OS, this means that it is much more difficult to setup BECAUSE users have greater liberty to setup their system as they want.
So FreeBSD IS BY DESIGN the system you can hack. Most people using FreeBSD use FreeBSD because of "FreeBSD port system" where anyone define his own building options.

FreeBSD is not designed only for big servers, this is FALSE. FreeBSD can be modified, hacked in various way to create embedded system for various appliances, as FreeBSD can run big servers.

If you want to use Linux in embedded systems, you must use special lightweight distros, you can't use Ubuntu which is designed for desktop and heavy servers.

In fact FreeBSD is closer to "linux from scratch" than Ubuntu...

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

With FreeBSD there is no "systemd", and today "systemd" is known to be a obstacle for users who want to "hack" their systems.

OpenBSD is a security oriented OS, and I would say that it is more "big server / desktop" oriented.
FreeBSD and NetBSD remain the most full versatil BSD systems.
Today, if you want to hack, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux from scratch are the best solutions

With Linux from scratch you build your own Linux distro. For example you can discard "systemd" and use SystemV or any other alternative....

With FreeBSD you can build custom kernels, you can build custom worlds.... the only thing.... it will require some skills. Doing such things is not given to everybody... or you must take the time to learn.


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## rigoletto@ (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> you had seen before a RTOS?



RTOSes are 99% of cases purpose designed OSes, there is no general purpose RTOS (unless you are a talking about soft real-time) and also there are reasons for that. The closer you will get from a general purpose hard real-time OS is VxWorks.

Just curious, why do you want a RTOS? Are you aware they are slower since all times should always match - I mean, no preemption at all?


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 19, 2019)

Just because I can...

Your original question is about "cracking", not "hacking". Hacking is for bending software to do their bidding. Cracking is for breaking into things where one should not be. All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.

One can be proud to be a hacker. One should hide themselves and not announce they are a cracker.

This error in interpretation came about by the uninformed "news" media, reddit, and other misinformed hobbyists.


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## tedbell (Mar 19, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.



No need to get racial.


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## ralphbsz (Mar 19, 2019)

The debate about what is the right and wrong interpretation of the word "hacker" predates the web-based internet; I remember participating in that discussion in the days when usenet and uucp ruled.  The original version of the what today has become the "hacker's dictionary" was the jargon file of the 70s and 80s, which used to be downloadable on arpanet sites.

The the OPs question: If you want to build a system that is resilient to damage, the best approach is probably to read about the Tandem servers, and understand their design philosophy, architecture, and implementation.  There is a whole series of good papers out there, from the 70s and 80s; search the web for "Tandem Nonstop", or search at the wikipedia page for "Tandem Computers".

Focussing on hacking "a few lines of code out of 9 million" is unlikely to get results.  To get a resilient system, you start by understanding requirements, then architecting the system around the requirements.  Once you have that architecture, you will find that the choice of OS is the least of your problems.


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## D-FENS (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> roccobaroccoSC  As I understand, FreeBSD is used mostly in servers. Sometimes for make a new OS, or fork. What if I do what you say and modify it for what I want? In other words: how much versatile is?


I am not aware of the statistics about the usage. I use FreeBSD for storage, for routing and as a workstation. But you could do anything with it, it's not only a server OS.
As a matter of fact, it's just as workstation friendly as any other OS, because the graphics server Xorg and all kinds of GUI software runs on it.
For most purposes it's more than enough. And if you have some uncovered use case, you could patch it because the source is public. Building the OS is very easy and well documented. Also, building from source is baked in the cake by default, which is not always the case with other OS-es.


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## ctaranotte (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> I already know that FBSD is a complete OS. And a one very robust. In fact...I will say what I have in mind to do with this system: you had seen before a RTOS? Well, I am planning to one of those. I am not very familiar with programming, I test systems to see what they are about. But since a few months, a idea came to my mind. That idea was: what if I make a system resistant at damage? A system that will continue functioning with no matter what occur: you could throw the motherboard to a wall, shoot it, even bur it. And it will continue working. Even when I have most knowing of GNU/Linux, I think FreeBSD has its own potential. Or perhaps make a mix of both. I am learning C, C++, and assembler language.
> So, according to the fact that most of hackers do something new, I will make something new. Of course it will take a long time, because I never learned none language before. Just learn a few of PHP and Java, whose could not be used for something like this.



Modifying (instead of hacking) FreeBSD is quite delicate and potentially breaking. TrueOS is a popular (and respectable) Mod of FreeBSD. This Mod includes a bare-bone kernel, a base system and a truckload of scripts to customize it. As far as I understand, the devs have not really modified the FreeBSD kernel and base code.

If you are looking for a RTOS,  you should maybe look at NetBSD instead. They have a bottom up approach at modifying their OS (as opposed as the top down approach of FreeBSD).

At my company, we are using FreeBSD for our servers and workstations as well as ChromeOS for the non-technical staff.

I personally use OpenBSD for my laptop because of X and flexibility.


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## Minbari (Mar 19, 2019)

Ancient said:


> I am not thinking of doing damage to other people. Just a question that came to my mind when I saw that there are Linux distros used for hacking, but find nothing about the BSD.


Using FreeBSD is hacking. Sometimes a port it's outdated or not maintained so you had to get your "hands dirty" and fix things or some software you want to use it's not on FreeBSD ports, you have to somehow make it run on FreeBSD, that it's hacking!  If your question it's about software which can be installed on FreeBSD like that which exist on GNU/Linux for pentesting & co. you'll have to search on ports such software or if you ask for a pentesting "distribution" based on FreeBSD, it does not exist.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 19, 2019)

SirDice said:


> But most Linux distributions used for hacking are tools. Does it really matter if a hammer is made by company A or company B? It's still a hammer you use to hit nails with. Linux, FreeBSD or even Windows are just tools to get the job done.



Many of those same tools are in the ports tree. More precisely programs to automate the task. There is even one to hack FreeBSD, though that's not as easily done now as previously thought.

I used to write XHTML and CSS for a small group of web designers. I was the only one who could write it, the rest all used programs like PhotoShop to make these box style things the Guy in charge thought was the cat's meow in web design. I did all the real work.

I got fed up with him and said a monkey could do what they did by pressing buttons, that I was the only one who could do it by hand and yanked my material off his server before he knew I was gone.



Minbari said:


> if you ask for a pentesting "distribution" based on FreeBSD, it does not exist.



It used to, it was called Frenzy. I have a live disk somewhere from years ago.


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## Minbari (Mar 19, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> It used to, it was called Frenzy. I have a live disk somewhere from years ago.



I know about it. Was developed by some guy in Ukraine but it's discontinued since 2012/2013.


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## Ancient (Mar 20, 2019)

Sorry if I not answered your questions, but it's too late and in a few time I'll go to bed. Tomorrow I'll ask you what I mean. Thanks for the replies, I'll read the projects and articles that you've linked. My eyes are burning like fire.
Edit: I think it will alike a FBSD with jails, or so.


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## unitrunker (Mar 20, 2019)

If you are looking for pentest tools - the ports tree may have what you need.

security/zenmap

security/metasploit (uses pgsql 9.5 and lots of ruby)

When locking down a server, desktop or laptop, these tools help to verify.


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## Ancient (Mar 21, 2019)

Well. I think I'm with more energy right now, so I'll try to ask what I mean by "hacking": part of both. You see...in part I want to customize, but at a deep level. I want to use this OS in embedded systems: they must take care about at least one or more aspects of a complex machine. I don't know if you saw cyborgs or big machines. Something alike. For example, one of the artifacts inside the machine will inform about the temperature, another see the pression, and so on. The machine (or cyborg) will move two arms. It will remove earth like a shovel. The machine will be something alike a excavator.


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## SirDice (Mar 21, 2019)

A big part of learning is doing. Take stuff apart and put it back together again. Break things, then try to fix it again. Nobody became an expert "hacker" overnight.


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## Phishfry (Mar 21, 2019)

Infosecuritygeek.com


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## forquare (Mar 22, 2019)

Heard about *SecBSD* on *BSDNow* on the way to work this morning.  It's based on OpenBSD and not _currently_ available for public use, but may be of future interest to the OP and others.


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## Phishfry (Mar 23, 2019)

Here are some recent attempts to compromise my webserver using lighttp on Linode.


```
2018-12-07 13:30:24: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: index.php/admin
2018-12-07 13:30:26: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for:
2018-12-07 13:31:06: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: odoo_cmr/web/login
2018-12-07 13:31:06: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: CMR/web/login
2018-12-07 13:31:18: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for:
2018-12-07 13:31:26: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: zenbership-master/admin/login.php
```


```
2018-11-17 23:19:07: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: http://www.123cha.com
2018-11-17 23:23:37: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.baidu.com:443
2018-11-17 23:23:38: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.voanews.com:443
2018-11-17 23:23:42: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: cn.bing.com:443
2018-11-20 12:35:53: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.baidu.com
2018-11-20 12:35:54: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: http://www.123cha.com
2018-11-20 12:35:56: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: cn.bing.com:443
2018-11-20 12:35:57: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.voanews.com:443
2018-11-20 12:36:01: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.baidu.com:443
2018-11-26 01:16:32: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.baidu.com
2018-11-26 01:16:36: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: cn.bing.com:443
2018-11-26 01:16:42: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.baidu.com:443
2018-11-26 01:16:43: (request.c.648) request-URI parse error -> 400 for: www.voanews.com:443
```
As found in /var/log/lighttp/lighttpd.error.log


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## Spartrekus (Mar 24, 2019)

Ancient said:


> I am not thinking of doing damage to other people. Just a question that came to my mind when I saw that there are Linux distros used for hacking, but find nothing about the BSD.



FreeBSD is the best swiss util for hacking, surely yes.
You have all plethora of tools, right in the hand with "pkg".

@above user:
You can use illustrator 7 with wine, or photoshop 5 or 6, for your website, under FreeBSD. It works fast. 
EPS is good for your site.


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## mod3777 (Mar 25, 2019)

There was a time when DefCon was full of Linux guys, now they come with FreeBSD. I have visited DEFCON 26, it was 50/50 BSD/Linux users. I would say more BSD users as Linux was mostly thrown inside a VM of macOS. As they said, ZFS rollback was the primary reason they switched to FreeBSD. I had been pen-testing with a Debian stable machine since long, until few years ago I moved to FreeBSD. Now I hack around breaking various architectures, trying to port FreeBSD, even for my HTC M8 (bricked now, but still working on it). It's something so fun that you won't understand without actually doing it.


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## Spartrekus (Mar 25, 2019)

mod3777 said:


> There was a time when DefCon was full of Linux guys, now they come with FreeBSD. I have visited DEFCON 26, it was 50/50 BSD/Linux users. I would say more BSD users as Linux was mostly thrown inside a VM of macOS. As they said, ZFS rollback was the primary reason they switched to FreeBSD. I had been pen-testing with a Debian stable machine since long, until few years ago I moved to FreeBSD. Now I hack around breaking various architectures, trying to port FreeBSD, even for my HTC M8 (bricked now, but still working on it). It's something so fun that you won't understand without actually doing it.



The cool thing with NetBSD and OpenBSD, it is much much more secured than Linux.


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## mod3777 (Mar 25, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> The cool thing with NetBSD and OpenBSD, it is much much more secured than Linux.



In a private conversation with theo, I remember him advising me, "knowing the flows of your system matters more than automated hardening". Damn! So true.


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## youngunix (Apr 5, 2019)

Out of curiosity, why is NetBSD so difficult when it comes to finding answers to issues and surprisingly dealing with ports and packages! I'd love for it to become just like FreeBSD.


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## kpedersen (Apr 5, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Hacking is for bending software to do their bidding. Cracking is for breaking into things where one should not be. All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.



A bit off topic but I always thought it was the other way round. An example of "cracking" software is removing stupid DRM; surely this more aligns with the idea of bending software to do the users bidding.

And then hacking is about constantly trying crap until you get through. That is why you can hack on code, hack into mainframes, etc.

I agree that all crackers are hackers though. Because multiple ways of patching the binary often need to be tried before one works without undesirable side effects.

That said, I have never read an actual book on hacking so I could easily have been wrong all these years. As for cracking, this one is fantastic! (Possibly a bit dated now but the concepts still work)




__





						Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering: Amazon.co.uk: Eilam, Eldad: 9780764574818: Books
					

Buy Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering 1 by Eilam, Eldad (ISBN: 9780764574818) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.



					www.amazon.co.uk


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 5, 2019)

kpedersen No. If you have to crack something open, you're getting into things you shouldn't and breaking things in the process.

Hacking is building fine furniture with an axe. Thus the phrase, "Hack away at something until it works."


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## Sevendogsbsd (Apr 5, 2019)

I have to weigh in, lol. I am a web application penetration tester (white hat). I break into web applications and test vulnerabilities because that's what my employer pays me to do. I use Kali Linux at work, only because I am not allowed to use FreeBSD and I use FreeBSD at home to do the same thing in my test lab. FreeBSD works perfectly well for this. I need a minimum of tools to do this because frankly, most of what I do is manual.

I believe the OP meant "hacking" in the sense of breaking into apps. I know the term "hacking" meant something different originally and am aware of its history, but the term's meaning has morphed over the years. I still call myself a hacker because I (with authorization), break into web apps. I don't call myself a "cracker" because that has a negative racial connotation, or used to anyway.  I am definitely not a hacker in the sense that RMS intended when he (I think?) coined the term.


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 5, 2019)

In the end, it doesn't matter, but it irritates me when I hear the "news" media--the source of this confusion in my opinion--promulgates the misinformation that a hacker is a bad guy and the cause of all our grief when, to me, being a hacker is something one can be proud of.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Apr 5, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> That said, I have never read an actual book on hacking so I could easily have been wrong all these years.



I own a copy of Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions I bought new in 1999. 

That's when I got the first PC of my own and figured the best way to keep from being exploited was to know how they were carried out. It was all news to me at the time and I still consider Win98 the Swiss Cheese of Operating Systems. 

A bit dated now but it does have a UNIX section. I've seen this and more recent editions covering other areas in .pdf form so they still publish them. I hate to read .pdf format, have several laptops of my own and don't need access to anyone else's.


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## SirDice (Apr 5, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> I own a copy of Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions I bought new in 1999.


I have that one too 

I also have a copy of "Hacker Disassembling Uncovered" from Kris Kaspersky. That was a difficult read but extremely interesting. 





__





						Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming: Kaspersky, Kris: 9781931769228: Amazon.com: Books
					

Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming [Kaspersky, Kris] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming



					www.amazon.com


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## Sevendogsbsd (Apr 5, 2019)

I have that book (Hacking Exposed) as well - 2005 edition, actually have never read it


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 5, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> have never read it


True for most books I've bought.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Apr 5, 2019)

I try to read every night before I go to bed: staring at monitors all day I want to help my mind wind down. I have many books in my library I haven't read but this one I didn't buy. If I remember correctly my mother bought me this years ago. I never was much into reading tech books, mainly fantasy, philosophy and humor.


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## mod3777 (Apr 6, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> I have to weigh in, lol. I am a web application penetration tester (white hat). I break into web applications and test vulnerabilities because that's what my employer pays me to do. I use Kali Linux at work, only because I am not allowed to use FreeBSD and I use FreeBSD at home to do the same thing in my test lab. FreeBSD works perfectly well for this. I need a minimum of tools to do this because frankly, most of what I do is manual.
> 
> I believe the OP meant "hacking" in the sense of breaking into apps. I know the term "hacking" meant something different originally and am aware of its history, but the term's meaning has morphed over the years. I still call myself a hacker because I (with authorization), break into web apps. I don't call myself a "cracker" because that has a negative racial connotation, or used to anyway.  I am definitely not a hacker in the sense that RMS intended when he (I think?) coined the term.



Sorry, but I would like to call myself cracker over hacker, honestly. Cracking is always more fun to me. However, it doesn't always work long and vendors patch it on next update. I am against white hat hacking, can't personally stand by info sec people helping some nasty corporations. No hard feelings either.


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## ralphbsz (Apr 6, 2019)

mod3777 said:


> I am against white hat hacking, can't personally stand by info sec people helping some nasty corporations.


Extrapolating from that attitude, you probably don't like fire fighters or fire safety inspectors either.  That implies that you prefer to die by burning.  Obviously, I don't mean that remark literally.  Instead, I'm just trying to demonstrate the ethical implications of what you just said.


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## hukadan (Apr 6, 2019)

mod3777 said:


> I am against white hat hacking, can't personally stand by info sec people helping some nasty corporations.


I hope my bank hired few white hats when it designed its website. Same for the national healthcare website. Don't you ?


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## mod3777 (Apr 6, 2019)

hukadan said:


> I hope my bank hired few white hats when it designed its website. Same for the national healthcare website. Don't you ?



I worked at infosec industries for few years. I quit because I can't stand by that personally. However there are some areas where pen-testing is must. I do not want to defend my statement, in fact sometimes things really go out of hand that I feel so frustrated about something... anyway.. leave it. Don't throw tomatoes on me


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## mod3777 (Apr 6, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> Extrapolating from that attitude, you probably don't like fire fighters or fire safety inspectors either.  That implies that you prefer to die by burning.  Obviously, I don't mean that remark literally.  Instead, I'm just trying to demonstrate the ethical implications of what you just said.


Just leave it


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## Phishfry (Apr 6, 2019)

net-mgmt/aircrack-ng is in ports so we can say yes, you can defiantly hack with FreeBSD.


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## Afflospark (Apr 7, 2019)

Well, it depends on the person and on what they're doing.

Linux is the most experimental, On the other hand BSD is specilly designed to run on servers.
Linux means you can either do more or cause your computer to explode, depending on how much testing has been done.
Linux has more options than BSD, so you get to see a great many more ideas in actual action.


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## Spartrekus (Apr 10, 2019)

youngunix said:


> Out of curiosity, why is NetBSD so difficult when it comes to finding answers to issues and surprisingly dealing with ports and packages! I'd love for it to become just like FreeBSD.



well, if you compile our own free packages, there is no need of much things. 
Netbsd is highly performant.  

I don't need X11, so maybe that's why I can do all I what I need with Netbsd.


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## zux0x3a (Aug 22, 2019)

FreeBSD is the greatest one for hacking purposes , customize it with tools you need to do


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 22, 2019)

Ancient said:


> A system that will continue functioning with no matter what occur: you could throw the motherboard to a wall, shoot it, even bur it. And it will continue working. Even when I have most knowing of GNU/Linux, I think FreeBSD has its own potential. Or perhaps make a mix of both. I am learning C, C++, and assembler language.


I'm not sure about fire resistance.  But the idea of an OS that cannot crash is what MINIX is built on. Everything runs in user space and a reincarnation server will restart any drivers that have issues. See here.


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## userxbw (Aug 22, 2019)

Hacking:
my take on Hacking...

it is/was when someone was sitting in front of a terminal and keyboard, just hacking away on the keyboard until the user could get whatever he was working at to work, then passwords showed up and well someone took to hacking away on the keyboard to get that to work and it just took off from there, or the rest is history as "they" say.


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## p0six (Sep 16, 2019)

BSD is lightweight and high speed
Of course - if you use without a desktop.
BSD can be the gateway to a secure network.
In security - Excellent defense.
In my opinion - FreeBSD is the last giant in security .


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## walterbyrd (Nov 11, 2019)

forquare said:


> Heard about *SecBSD* on *BSDNow* on the way to work this morning.  It's based on OpenBSD and not _currently_ available for public use, but may be of future interest to the OP and others.



There is also PCLite which is based on NetBSD.

https://www.pclite.net/page/irbsd


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## walterbyrd (Nov 11, 2019)

Ancient said:


> I am not thinking of doing damage to other people. Just a question that came to my mind when I saw that there are Linux distros used for hacking, but find nothing about the BSD.



I was also wondering about that. A few concerns I would have:

1. BSDs are usually not able to access as many different file systems as Linux. 
2. I am not sure if there are any "live" BSDs.
3. I have had issues with FreeBSD not running newer versions of applications. 
4. Sometimes there are no BSD versions of Linux apps. 
5. I am afraid that, at some future point in time, Linux apps will require systemd, and therefor not run on any BSD.


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## userxbw (Nov 11, 2019)

if you got a keyboard and a OS and you're trying to do something without actually knowing how to do it. just start hacking away on your keyboard until you get the OS to do what it is you are trying to get it to do. 

you are now a hacker.


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## scottro (Nov 11, 2019)

To address your fears, some of which are valid.
Usually, sooner or later someone creates a program enabling FreeBSD to access a different file system, but your statement is correct, I believe. (Though I'm not positive and am too lazy to google).

There is now a live version of FreeBSD, FuryBSD, do a search for it on the forums.  I only tried it briefly and it seems as if it may server the purpose that is served by a live Linux image.

For number 3, I don't know. I've found that FreeBSD has had newer  versions of apps sometimes, but my main Linux machine runs CentOS-7 which tends to use older versions of things.  Depending what programs you are talking about the fact that it's an older version may not matter, but generally, I've found FreeBSD packages to be up to date, or close to it.

This is true that sometimes there are no BSD versions of Linux programs. Linux has a far larger user base and this is just a fact of life. 

As for systemd, I don't know. I hope not. There are still a few Linux holdouts, such as Void Linux, and while systemd hasn't turned out to be a disaster, on various Linux forums you see what happens when person who has a single user laptop gets to work on a server OS.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 1, 2019)

userxbw said:


> if you got a keyboard and a OS and you're trying to do something without actually knowing how to do it. just start hacking away on your keyboard until you get the OS to do what it is you are trying to get it to do.
> 
> you are now a hacker.



Or one of a roomful of monkeys that did not write Shakespeare.


```
# initiate machine war
sh: initiate: not found
# launch nuclear strike on California
sh: launch: not found
```

I'm no good at this...


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## Crivens (Dec 1, 2019)

An infinite number of rednecks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of roadsigns will instantly create hamlet in braille.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 1, 2019)

Crivens said:


> An infinite number of rednecks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of roadsigns will instantly create hamlet in braille.



Otherwise known as Saturday night in rural America.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 1, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> I still call myself a hacker because I (with authorization), break into web apps. I don't call myself a "cracker" because that has a negative racial connotation, or used to anyway.  I am definitely not a hacker in the sense that RMS intended when he (I think?) coined the term.



I don't consider myself to be a hacker or a cracker. I have toyed with the idea of setting up a MITM proxy for those residents who can't catch a signal from our hotspot, and not so sure someone hasn't already. I have several laptops of  my own and don't need access to others. 

However, left alone off-camera with physical access to a certain someones Windows computer long enough to enter a 22 keystroke command would be something I've longed for...

I have been targeted by hacker/crackers when I was into chat. I was an easy mark with my Mighty Win98 machine but chat is my element and I was feared and hated for my wicked words.

That was around 20 years ago and things have changed. They still watch me to this day and have an account at Personality Forge but never speak directly to me anymore. I can usually spot them if they speak to me and one told me years ago he was warned I was clever, it was not a compliment. I have a detail of new recruits assigned to keep tabs on me by my oldest mates after all these years. What stories they must tell the new people about the Demon...

That's dedication, or something I can't identify, but they have known me longer than anyone online and like no others. I don't mind if they watch me and they don't want to see me in chat.

Sometimes I do things especially for them to keep it interesting, show how much I care and have grown over the years thanks to them. This is work I did especially for them. They know what it means and seen the truth of it first hand, as I was then and am now.

But all the details will remain between us as long as the current situation doesn't change.


That's a part of hacking you probably don't hear much about.


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## Crivens (Dec 1, 2019)

Friends come and go, but a true enemy stays with you for life - Dick Brown aka Hagar the Horrible


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 2, 2019)

“A thorn in your side will drive you to find someone or thing to remove it. Therefore, don't hate your enemies. Thank them. Without them, you wouldn't have traveled as far in your life to find peace and happiness.” ― Shannon L. Alder 

My sentiments exactly. I don't hate them and as long as they don't provoke me I respect their space and what they consider home by not bothering them in chat.

"A man’s greatness can be measured by his enemies." — Don Piatt

The fact they still think it worthwhile to keep me under watch after 20 years and passed that duty on to the next generation indicates how I am measured by them.


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## golpemortal (Aug 24, 2020)

SirDice said:


> became an



Agree... I use Freebsd on anything for my network pen-testing...


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## GailFrem (Sep 13, 2021)

Being a free and open-source tool, you can easily use FreeBSD for your "project". The OS's performance is a lot better than that of GNU/Linux. But also keep in mind that it has higher and better security compared to the kernel. I'm not sure that is the tool that you need for your RTOS project, but hopefully, you know what you're doing  Let me know how it goes and if you succeed, I would love to learn more from this experience, maybe I'll find it useful in the future. Also, you never know, maybe one day I'll need to hire a hacker, and will come directly to you


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