Do things a little bit different if you find a way that works for you

 Ok so today's is one of those things where I am not proud it took so long but I am proud that I finally came up with a solution. 

On pentesterlab I have been trying for a couple hours to use burp repeater to do a file upload injection but for some reason it wouldn't work. So, I decided to switch to using OWASP Zap to try on that tool and it didn't work.  I started getting frustrated and decided I would step back and try and think about a different way to do things.

Then I realized all I was trying to do was rename a file from test.php to test.php3 and upload it and repeater was just stopping me from having to rewrite the file on my desktop. SO, I figured I had already written the php code, so I went in copied what was in the file and created a new file with the test.php3 name and uploaded it the regular way. Now I know this is not the way pentesterlab has it set up BUT....

I would argue this. I spent probably 3 hours trying to do it their way. And time and again in the learning material you hear people say that sometimes you have to figure out a way to achieve the hack, and that, how you hack will not always be how someone else hacks.

So, if I were on a job and I couldn't figure out one way, but I knew another way that would take me less time and achieve the same results, don't you think my employer/client would want the one that achieved the results in the timeliest manner so I could move onto the next objective. 

I would argue that a hacker's real job isn't to copy and paste what other people have done to get a result but rather to achieve the objective any way that makes sense to them. copy and pasting that code took me less than 2 minutes in VI. then uploading to objective whereas trying it the other way took up 3 hours. So, in the future my plan is to learn what the core of being taught, learn the objective so that way I can learn the next thing and not get hung up on exact methods. Now it frees me up to learn more, achieve the next objective and consult someone a little more knowledgeable on what i was doing wrong when I get the chance. 

One thing I am trying to get is use my notes and screenshots to be able to show exactly what I am talking about with my lessons, but I need to get better using the tools and its hard cause I use 2 different computers so for now I am just writing the lessons I learn every day and sharing my struggles.

Don't get stagnant, move forward