How to Become a Hacker
Take things apart. Look under the
hood. Dig through your system directories and see what's in there. View the
files with hex editors. Look inside your computer. Wander around computer
stores and look at what's there.
Read
everything in sight
If you can afford it, buy lots of
books. If you can't, spend time in libraries and online. Borrow books from
friends. Go through tutorials. Read the help files on your system. If you're
using Unix/Linux, read the man files. Check out the local college bookstores
and libraries. And as you're reading, try things (see next paragraph).
Experiment
Don't be afraid to change things,
just to see what'll happen. Do this long enough, of course, and you'll wipe out
your system (see next paragraph), but that's part of becoming a hacker. Try
command options and switches you've never tried before. Look for option menus
on programs and see what they can do. In Windows, tweak your registry and see
what happens. Change settings in .INI files. In Unix, dig around in the
directories where you don't normally go. On the Macintosh, play around in the
system folder.
Make
backups
If you start mucking around with
system files, registries, password files, and such, you will eventually destroy
your system. Have a backup ready. If you can afford it, have a system you use
just for experimenting, ready to reload on a moment's notice, and do your
serious work (or serious gaming!) on a different computer.
Don't
limit yourself
Who says a computer or network is
the only place to hack? Take apart your telephone. Figure out your television
(careful of the high voltage around the picture tube - if you fry yourself,
it's not my fault) and VCR. Figure out how closed captioning works (that was a
plug for my CaptionCentral.com Web site). Take apart your printer. Pick up the
latest issues of Nuts & Volts and Midnight Engineer (you've obviously made a good
start if you're reading Blacklisted! 411). Take apart the locks on
your doors. Figure out how your radio works. Be insatiably curious and read
voraciously. There are groups you can learn from. There are whole Web sites
devoted to hacking TiVo units, for example.
Get
some real tools
You can't cut a board in half with a
screwdriver. Well, maybe you can, but it'll take a long time. Dig around and
find the proper tools for the operating systems you're using. They're out there
on the Web. You can get some pretty good stuff as shareware or freeware
(especially on Linux). The serious power tools often cost serious money. What
kinds of tools? Hex file editors. Snoopers that analyze system messages and
network traffic. Compilers and APIs for programming. Scripting tools. Disk
editors/formatters. Disassemblers. When you get good, write some of your own.
Learn
to program
If you want to be a hacker, you're
going to have to learn to program. The easiest way to start depends on the
operating system you're using. The choice of language is very individual. It's
almost a religious thing. Suggest a programming language to a beginner, and
someone will disagree. Heck, you'll probably get flamed for it in a newsgroup.
In Unix, I'd suggest getting started with Perl. Buy a copy of the camel book (Programming
Perl) and the llama book (Learning Perl). You'll have the
fundamentals of programming really fast! The best part is that the language
itself is free. In Windows, you can get started quickly using a visual
development environment like Visual Basic or Java. No matter what the system,
if you want to get serious, you'll eventually need to learn C (or C++ or C# or
some other variant). Real hackers know more than one programming language,
anyway, because no one language is right for every task.
Learn
to type
Hackers spend a lot of time at their
keyboards. I type 90+ wpm (according to the Mavis Beacon typing tutor).
HackingWiz (of hackers.com and Hacker's Haven BBS fame) says he can type 140+
wpm. The typing tutor may be boring, but it pays off.
Use
real operating systems
Windows 95/98/Me is a shell on top
of a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit DOS. Get some real operating systems (Linux,
Windows NT, Mac OS, OS/2...) and learn them. You can't call yourself a linguist
if you only know one language, and you certainly can't call yourself a hacker
if you only know one OS. Linux is a hacker's dream. All the source code is
freely available. Play with it, analyze it, learn it. Eventually, perhaps you
can make a contribution to Linux yourself. Who knows, you might even have a
chance to write your own OS.
Talk
to people
It's hard to learn in a vacuum. Take
classes. Join users groups or computer clubs. Talk to people on IRC or
newsgroups or Web boards until you find people to learn with. That can take a
while. Every third message on newsgroups like alt.hack* is "teach me to
hack." Sigh. The best way to be accepted in any group is to contribute
something. Share what you learn, and others will share with you.
Do
some projects
It's important to pick some projects
and work until you've finished them. Learning comes from doing, and you must
follow the project through start to finish to really understand it. Start
really simple. Make an icon. Customize your system (the startup screen on
Win95, or the prompt on Unix). Make a script that performs some common
operation. Write a program that manipulates a file (try encrypting something).
Learn
to really use the Internet
Start with the Web. Read the help
for the search engines. Learn how to use Boolean searches. Build up an awesome
set of bookmarks. Then move on to other Internet resources. Get on Usenet. Find
some underground BBSs. Get on IRC. You'll find useful information in the
strangest places. Get to the point where you can answer your own questions.
It's a whole lot faster than plastering them all over various newsgroups and
waiting for a serious answer.
Once you've gone through these
steps, go out and contribute something. The Internet was built by hackers.
Linux was built by hackers. Usenet was built by hackers. Sendmail was built by
hackers. Be one of the hackers that builds something.
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