I have learned from quite a few places.. back in jr high school, I would visit a message board on phreak.org. There was a guy that posted there named DataWar, he was incredibly intelligent, and did not mind answering any question. That board got shut down, so I started visiting security/IT channels on IRC. I found that some of those guys were pretty arrogant... and I got kind of turned off of message boards/chat servers... I started reading books and websites on the subject. Trial and error played a big part too. It wasn't until I found AO that I got back into the forums. AO has been a great learning tool. Search old threads and tutorials. There is a wealth of information here.