Can someone explain to me logs, tracking, shell, proxies

[Daniel]

How does the logs in the game work? The game seems to encourage you to use rm * on the log folder, but logging out after doing so still leaves a record of you being in the system. Can it be used to track you down?

Is there a way to selectively delete files? like grep?

Also shells, I'm slightly confused by the concept in general. When you run the shell command it runs a shell on the computer you are logged on into? But I'm already using a shell to run the command shell.

The whole shell <-> proxy interaction isn't really clear to me. Do I need to delete all the logs on all the computers I used to overload a proxy or is it enough to delete the logs from the overloaded computer only?

[Daniel]

Anyone?

[ChillPlayer]

Shells gave me an headache too until I figured them out. Once you do, it's simple:
Say your target is A, you control 3 other nodes named 1, 2, 3. Login to 1 and type shell. Disconnect an do the same on 2 and 3. Then login to A and probe the target. You see a bar "Proxy Detected". On your messages window you should see the 3 shells you opened, click on "overload" and observe how the Proxy bar gets shaded out until the Proxy is "bybased". Continue with sshcrack, porthack & co.

What I'm unsure though is if logfiles have to be deleted. I was wondering the same thing about the log-off entry and only every 5-10 hacks did I clear the logs on the servers I use as overloard shells - btw you can use the same 3 throughout the game, no need to switchem apparently. I did clear the logs on all my targets, so maybe that prevented something, I don't know.

[Daniel]

Thanks for the info. I'll be the testing rabbit and won't delete any logs on shell computers. I'll report if something will happen to me.

[WingNova]

logs- logs are your actions on the computer you should always "rm *" the logs before leaveing. So "rm *" logs then "dc". Now why do we do this.... B/c when an other active user is looking for you they can find you in the logs(your ip address) and what you did in the system. I know that your ip address is still displayed when you disconnect but there is nothing assoicating you with any actions. This is all game logic too so take it with a grain of salt. In real life a computer could easly connect and disconect to and from many ip addresses just being idle so a single disconnect really isnt all that suspicious.

tracking-

• active tracking- nix when he kils your computer[\spoiler]
  
• passive tracking- the mini-game wih the contdown timer
  shell- proxi program on another computer that can attack another computers for you.
  
• overload- is used when you have a proxi in the way of a remote host computer
  
• trap- not sure how to use it.
  

[ChillPlayer]

It would be kind of a live hack if the game managed to manipulate us into spending a considerable amount of gametime with deleting logfiles when it was all for nothing ;) But yeah I'd sure want to know what the consequences may be, guess the missions which explicitly tell you to delete your trail would fail otherwise?