Security fundamentals

OK, I want to know if there is any tutorial on here or that someone could link me to outside that would be informative to a complete newbie in the security area. I have looked up a wealth of information since hearing of RATs and looking up all of the information that I could find on trojans and types of hacking etc... Basically I have heard a million and one new terms and I want something to tie everything together and teach me what the heck is going on in the whole process of computer communications.... I do not know what terms to even use in a search engine. I have heard alot of packet sniffers and ip scanning and well it is like greek to me so where do I begin to even understand what all of this stuff is, means, and how it works?

I am very inquisitive so just knowing what a port scanner does is not what I am after. I want to know the hows and whys of the entire process and if I have to get down to binary code to do so then by all means.... I mean I had an online program run a port scanner on me because it is suppose to tell me if I have security issues but I want to know how it does its job. I also had a friend trying to teach me how to go into a cmd prompt and type netstat there to see if someone actually had connected to me through that stupid sub7 program. It amazes me to say the least. Now I want to know what I was actually doing in both those instances.

I dabble in everything computer. I learned to build, rebuild, fix hardware and software, build websites, and more. Now I am interested in learning how they tick from the inside out. On one of my many searches I found a tutorial on about.com about IP Networking which seems to be a good starting place if I could decipher all of the technical jargon and foreign terms enough to reconstruct sentences that I actually understand with attention deficit disorder!
Perhaps I could find IP networking for dummies? LMAO

So basically I want to start at the very beginning with quarks and leptons of how computers communicate with one another. Unfortunately I have a hard time concentrating to read so it has to be written in mostly lay terms with definitions because that article on about.com was written for computer programming grad students or something.

I apologize in advance if I ramble. I should have been in bed four hours ago. But if anyone can push me in the right direction or has the patience to teach me the basics, please ignore my delerium and reply. I am not always having manic fits over learning new things.... Sometimes I even SEEM sane. :p

http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Dumm...ETWORKING.html

Learning how portscanners, packet sniffers, subseven and the like is impossible without a solid understanding of whaty lies beneath. Don't even bother trying. Learn how it wors first, the worry about figuring out how these tools work. Kind of like learning the basics of internal cobustion before trying to figure out how to interpret an engine diagostics.

Start with something simple like a Dummies book, then work your way into heavier reads like TCP/IP Fundamentals. I found Cisco's Internetworking Technologies Handbook to be a great resource. Basically, it's a lot of reading. A lot. Need I say that again? Find everything you can and read it. Don't worry about port scanners and sub seven and packet sniffers until you understand the protocols they are dependent on.

Once you have a basic understanding, THEN fire up a packet sniffer and have a lok at the traffic you generate, and compare it to what you have learned, and you can begin to apply it to more advanced topics.

Just like Striek said, definitely start with a dummies book and work your way to cisco books. After you finish the dummies book I would reccommend looking at the OSI model and how each part builds on another. When I first started, I bought myself 5 cisco routers and basically setup a lan to get started. After I did that things came together for me and made sense, where as I read books and books and nothing made sense till I got my hands dirty. You might need to do the same yourself. If you do want to buy equipment I definitely recommend EBAY. If you have the basics down with microsoft, get some unix/linux books then use a bootable distro "knoppix" and start playing around and getting yourself fimilar.

I also recommend learning how to subnet www.learntosubnet.com it will explain some missing links for you. Take your time and really understand, don't just try to breeze thru everything before you know the basics.

OK LMAO there actually IS a dummies book for networking.... Is that the best place to start? I actually love to read as long as it is simplified like those books are. Are there other dummies books that relate to this as well? I know I need to learn networking but I wouldnt know what else relates to it. If I am going to go ebay some books, I might as well get all the best stuff at one time and save on shipping.

Thank you all very much!

Network Security for Dummies.

:D

Cheers: