Welcome to a rambling that may contain little if anything interesting. If I get some feedback at all, I may write more.

I'd like to start with saying that I am by no means condoning anything illegal. I know how hard it is to learn without experience, so hopefully some of mine will benefit you. The Internet has become much more than we bargained for in the terms of the cracker's paradise, and we must do what we can to make it harder for those without legitamate skills to play on the same field.

For those with access to the hardware, do you have a *NIX box yet? ANYTHING? Get one. Get one now. You can do anything you like on nearly any *NIX. I prefer Linux, but I've also eaten my words on that a few times. There's an application that is particularly accurate and thorough available that you should enjoy. nmap. Brief description, network mapper. Long description, check the URL: www.insecure.org/nmap/

Stuff this onto whatever *NIX box you find, compile, and think. Over the last 4-5 years, I've seen a few too many open proxies. Win32 really brought the PC to the home, and the morons to the Internet. I should point out that there are many high speed home users intent on being foolish enough to put their unguarded Win32 machine/network online, often leaving a proxy open for anyone to use. (a certain subnet or two come to mind)

nmap one of those for fun with "nmap -O -v -v 192.168.23.1-255" as root on your favorite *NIX. Try the high ports if you're on a stable fast link, 1080 is default for more than one Win32 based proxy service. Once you've found a few services/machines that look like fun, enjoy. It's also great for a basic auditing tool for any firewall, as you can really see what is and isn't there. One thing to note, you'll be logged by any smart administrator when you hit their machine. Doing this to a .gov/.mil/.ca could get you reported at the very least.

Why this vs. any Win32 scanner out there? Well, for one I've compared this tool with nearly every Win32 scanner out there and come up with a clear vision on what I like a scanner to do. I want to know everything, clearly, now. Second is reliability, Win32 speaks for itself there. Third is the immediate availability of packet manipulation technology and the like with spak or another app on *NIX, while Win32 machines generally don't take too well to that (winnuke and the billion others like it weren't discovered Windows<->Windows).

SPAK you say? What is spak? Don't you wish you knew... ;)