Nmap

Nmap is a powerful security scanner and getting acquainted with the usage of this software mite be your first step towards ur hacking career .

Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source (license).

read more at.. http://insecure.org/nmap/ 

Nmap featured in the Matrix Reloaded

We have all seen many movies like Hackers which pass off ridiculous 3D animated eye-candy scenes as hacking. So I was shocked to find that Trinity does it properly in The Matrix Reloaded [Under $10 at Amazon]. She whips out Nmap version 2.54BETA25, uses it to find a vulnerable SSH server, and then proceeds to exploit it using the SSH1 CRC32 exploit from 2001. Shame on them for being vulnerable (timing notes). Congratulations to everyone who has helped make Nmap successful! And thanks to Jason Algol, Titney, Thorsten Delbrouck, and others for sending pics! Click them for higher-res or see more pics here.