@bluechill Would you recommend that tutorial over the one Kulverstukas posted? It seems to have a lot more detail. I also remember you saying  that the posted one was missing some crucial information and it seems like you know C++ pretty well so I trust your judgement. 

So I'm learning C++ from the tutorial that Kulverstukas posted. I already know a little C so I understand the extreme basics like variable types, structs, conditional statements, etc. However, pointers to structs don't seem to make much sense. I understand that a struct is really just a collection of variables grouped together under one name and that those variables must have memory addresses. However, how can you make a pointer to a struct as a whole? Stemming from that, how does the -> operator actually work when accessing members of a struct? I understand what it does, but I would really like to know how it actually works when compiled. I'd try to figure it out with GDB but it's not installed on my computer (yet) and I don't have internet access. If anyone knows, help would be greatly appreciated!

So everywhere I look stresses the value of hands on experience but, while exploitable VMs like Nebula are fine and dandy, local exploitation wont really help me at all unless I can gain access to a box in the first place. With remote exploitation, it looks to me that unless you find an 0day, you're not going to go anywhere. That brings me to my question: what are some programming projects that can teach me some knowledge I'll actually use? Coding a basic network scanner? Something that will listen to wireless data? A password brute forcer? I just don't know enough to know what's important!