Try Hack Me

As part of my networking class, I have been asked to complete a room on Try Hack Me.

After a brief introduction (task 1), the room began by describing the OSI model in a concise summary (task 2). The description proceeded top down, starting with the application layer. I usually proceed from the physical up when I think about OSI. Their approach makes more sense, as this follows the real world movement of data.

Following that is a quiz that made me realize I have to study OSI more thoroughly.

Next was an overview of encapsulation/de-encapsulation (task 3). It is easy reading, and easy to understand. The quiz was much easier for me.

Task 4 was on the TC/IP Model

The articles impress me with how well written they are (in stark contrast to my CompTIA Network + textbook). 

The article starts by comparing TC/IP against OSI. Then the three-way-handshake, which is pretty interesting.

Then they did something I really like: They made a meme-like image of a Frank Sinatra album to illustrate a point. This is a little off topic, but I want to talk about this and it's my blog so I make the rules.

At various jobs and situations in my life, I have needed to teach or train someone. If I were ever to write another training manual I would try to get it as close to an Ikea hieroglyphics assembly manual as possible. That is what success would look like to me. Have you ever thought about the impossible task of writing those things? Little masterclasses, those things.

Task 5 is Networking tools: ping. It assumes "that you're running Linux for the rest of this room." I appreciate this. I feel like everything CompTIA so far has been a bit more Windows-centric. I've used ping many times in my early Linux distro-hopping days.

I'm surprised that neither this or my textbook mentions the importance of the -c flag. I kind of thought that was standard practice to prevent spamming.

The command line tool >traceroute was next. I've never used it before. It's really interesting (and sobering) to see all the stops along the way between my gateway and the destination.

Task 6... task 6 was WhoIs, as who is the person that owns a specific domain name. Wow. I can't believe I've never heard of this before. Just amazing.

Question 5 did confuse me a bit. If I was supposed to find it with >dig, I failed.

Overall, I really enjoyed this entire experience!