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[big_bad_al]

Today's nerdtacular tip is brought to you by the letter π and the number e: if you telnet into port 80 of a webserver, you can write your HTTP requests by hand. I haven't quite figured out how to use this to my advantage yet, but I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere... I can now fill in my own custom values when submitting forms, without bothering

Comments

[code65536]

Hehe. Telnet has been used a lot for this sort of low-level testing with HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and just about any protocol where the communication's done via plain text. It's limited though, because because it's a pain to try to send HTTP headers (e.g., when connecting to a server with VirtualHosts, you must send the Host header) using the Telnet method. Of course, a truly easy and robust way to do this would be the 2-minute Perl script method. :)

[macdaddyfrosh]

My favorite telnet abuse is connecting to port 25 and sending mail by hand. It's not actually very hard, because simple mail headers are easy.

[sneaselcouth]

Regardless of whether they are conservative Democrats or liberal Republicans, they are a check and balance for the insanity that the Bushites and other fundamentalists were pushing through Congress before. I fear a more left Congress may make discussion and compromise more challenging. As things stand now, I would just like to get back to an older status quo - call me a conservative for that right now, that's fine, I wouldnt label the Bushites conservative. Lets get Habeas Corpus back, keep government out of my body and family life, and try to find a way to clean up this Iraq mess. (The current talk is to send more troops in - 20,000 - which many think wouldnt be enough to make a difference except in the number of casualties. Some argue for 100,000, though from where others havent a clue. I havent read this yet, but Andrew Sullivan linked to it: 8000 troops to Afghanistan Me, Im just worried about sending more people to die there.

[big_bad_al]

I agree with you that we need more checks and balances to stop the horrible things the Bush regime is doing (including all the examples you gave). I'm worried that conservative Democrats and almost all Republicans are too willing to make compromises with the neocons (for instance, I thought that the "compromise" over warrantless wiretaps, where the president can choose whether they get reviewed or not, didn't seem like a compromise at all to me). I think we need more people who are willing to stand up and say that Habeus Corpus is vital to this country and it shouldn't be compromised no matter what. I feel that the Bush administration has gotten away with mind-boggling amounts of illegal and impeachable crimes (warrantless wiretaps, Guantanamo Bay, the willful manipulation and suppression of intelligence to start a war in Iraq, the Military Commissions Act, not to mention all the scientific studies that have been repressed because they don't fit with the current agenda, etc) because too many people are willing to compromise with him