How to be a Hacker

Introduction

There are an infinite amount of people in the world. Everyone is different. There are no duplicates. The same can be said in the world of hackers. Not all hackers are the same, and a lot of hackers have different views on “Hacking”, but it is not the fact that we are all identical that makes us one entity; it is the big idea. See, what makes us hackers is the desire to learn, the urge to tweak any object we encounter, we want control, we don’t want to be controlled, we want to be anonymous, and we are intellectually years ahead of others

What To Learn

There are so many things that you need to learn in order to be a successful hacker, it is almost overwhelming. But I will try to sum this up for you:

• Security (PC & Network)
• Website Hacking (SQLi/XSS/etc.)
• The Jargon (Slang)
• Social Engineering (Human Hacking)
• Encryption
• WiFi Hacking
• Linux/Unix
• Programming (Any language)

There are things that can and should be added to that list, and it is by no means in order. This is not a tutorial on how to do each and every one of the things on this list, but it is here to point you in the right direction.

If I were to tell you where to start-- assuming that you have very little experience-- I would tell you to learn html. This is not meant to be your main programming language (unless you get unbelievably good at it), but it is a great starting point. Html will help you understand a lot of the problems that you will encounter online, and if there is ever a point where you would like to make a website, it would help you there too.

If I were to tell you where to go from there, I would tell you to learn a minimal amount of batch coding. This field is very much meant for beginners, and most hackers start out just trying to learn more about it (which then develops in to much more useful skills). Batch is just Command Prompt and Notepad.. Learning this won’t make you an Elite Hacker, but it will get you used to two things:

• Basic Programming
• Basic Command Line
  

Programming will help you all around, but the command line is mostly for Linux. If you don’t already know, Linux is an operating system. Linux is evolved from the Unix Operating system, which was developed in 1969-- That’s 12 years before windows! Linux was released in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux actually stands for “Linux is not Unix”. Now, if you are still reading after that boring history lesson, then that means you are showing a great virtue that every hacker needs.... Patience. I would advise you to head on down to Ubuntu and pick up your own version of Linux. NOTE: Linux will run side by side with windows, you can have two operating systems on one machine.

Social Engineering is another thing that is vital for you to become a successful hacker. Social Engineering is the art of human hacking, and is often abbreviated at SE. It will do countless things for you in your career. See, flaws in a computer network get patched, but human flaws will never diminish. Kevin Mitnick was said to be one of the greatest social engineers ever. Kevin could convince anyone that he was someone else-- whether it be on the phone, or emailing, he was perfect at getting his way. The great thing about social engineering is that you can use it in everyday life, wherever you go. Out of all the skills that you could learn to be a great hacker, this may be one of the most important.

Further Resources

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html This is the document that I read that got me started hacking. It is a great starting point.

http://www.google.com/ This website is very secret, and not many people know about it. It will answer any question that you will have on your journey.

http://whatishacking.org/ Is a small site with the purpose of showing the world hacking isn’t bad. It has a couple of the same resources listed here.

http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html The hacker manifesto. This was listed in the document as well.

http://www.social-engineer.org/ Social Engineering hub