telnet???

I think it's good to learn about it even though it's so old. ;) It's good to know where it all started, and there are underlying concepts, I think, that can be learned and applied even to security and remote administration now. I have the same problem with playing with everything to see how it works gg. It's fun! :D They're right, however, ssh is much better.

i'd have to say i agree with everyone else here, its always a handy thing to know about, just to know the basics, how to get a file, put a file on a remote server, it can be extremely useful when you have a remote unix system and want to transfer files to an IBM compat. machine

the way we have it set up at uni is so we can (with X-win) have a virtual desktop on our novell network from our unix network, basically on unix its like X-win without the GUI parts, so it can be very handy if you have a slow net connection or havn't got an FTP program at hand :-)

"OK.Here's the deal.I'm a complete n00b to telnet/unix/anything to do with the whole thing.I'd like some help as far as the do's & don't,anything I
should know security-wise involving it,"

Yep telnet is insecure it has security risks: man in the middle attacks,password theft (because your password is in clear text this information can be captured by intruders) session hijacking by intruder do yourself a favor and avoid Telnet especially if your going to login to systems remotely. Look up Open SSH on google and read some papers on how
to install it and secure it correctly.

I'd suggest as a start to visit www.mandrakesecure.com and read the paper 'getting the most out of openssh'

Good Luck!