# Conceptual question: Passive vs Active Information Gathering (web apps vs networks)

**URL:** <https://legacy-community.ine.com/t/conceptual-question-passive-vs-active-information-gathering-web-apps-vs-networks/6095>\
**Category:** Penetration Testing Student (SP)\
**Tags:** red, networking, security, cybersec, ejpt\
**Created:** [December 17, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://legacy-community.ine.com/t/conceptual-question-passive-vs-active-information-gathering-web-apps-vs-networks/6095 "2025-12-17T17:18:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![marianodifonzo2-7a92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6bbea6/32.png) [@marianodifonzo2-7a92](https://legacy-community.ine.com/u/marianodifonzo2-7a92)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://legacy-community.ine.com/t/conceptual-question-passive-vs-active-information-gathering-web-apps-vs-networks/6095/1 "2025-12-17T17:18:10Z")

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Hi,

Based on what I’ve seen in the course, I got the impression that:

Passive information gathering is used for web applications or a domain that is in a search engine. Examples are whois, netcraft, dnslookup, dig, wafwoof, etc.

but then when whe talk about active information gathering is for more for getting information of hosts in a network rather than web applications. So i do not understand the connection between both tools because it seems to me that they point in different directions. examples of tools is nmap where we discover hosts in a network, look for open ports in a host, we try to detect the operative system.

I want to know if they are connected in some way. Thanks