Linux.com: CLI Magic: Netcat

“This week I’m going to tell you about a top-secret tool. It can
be real handy at times, under the right conditions. But I don’t
want you to use it. It’s too dangerous. I want you to use other
tools instead. So snap to, you fellow explorers of the CLI-scape,
let’s try to figure out what I’m talking about. Follow me down this
hole in the ground.

“Netcat is often described at the ‘Swiss Army knife’ of Internet
tools, because it can do a lot of different things, from copying
files, to forwarding ports, to logging into the shell or executing
programs remotely. The big problem with Netcat is that it’s not
secure. DO NOT USE IT OVER THE INTERNET. On your home LAN, behind a
good firewall, it’s OK. But otherwise, forget it…”

Complete
Story