Bandit Level 1 to Level 2

Viewing files with dashed (-) filenames.

Host name is bandit.labs.overthewire.org 
User: bandit1
password: boJ9jbbUNNfktd78OOpsqOltutMc3MY1

Commands used for this level:
cat - used to view contents of a file.
ls - List information about the FILE's (the current directory by default).

Step 1.
 After logging in type ls
 You will see a file named -

Step 2.
  Now from the last level we might think that typing cat - would allow you to view the contents of the file, but it wont.

Usage of dash (-) in place of a filename
Using - as a filename to mean stdin/stdout is a convention that a lot of programs use. When cat sees the string - as a filename, it treats it as a synonym for stdin.
What will happen in our case is cat - echoes stdin, in this case keyboard user input, to stdout, the terminal window. Go ahead and try it to see what happens.
(if you are stuck after doing this press CTRL C to exit back to bash prompt).

The other problem is that Linux command options usually start with a dash ( - ). If you try to type that filename on a command line, the command might think you're trying to type a command option.

To get around this, you need to alter the way that cat sees the file as a regular file by "hiding" the dash from cat. The best way to do this is to cat directly to the file location by prefixing the filename with ./ or /home/bandit1/. ./ means "look in the current directory". and /home/bandit1/ means "look in directory /home/bandit1.

  Type cat ./-
  The contents of the file has the password for level 2 in it.
CV1DtqXWVFXTvM2F0k09SHz0YwRINYA9