HIR Issue 9: Teach me how to hack !@#$
by Ixl
Teach me how to hack ! i wanna be a hacker ! how do i use winnuke ? I'm sure most of you either hear these questions or are the one's asking them. I'm writing this article for the people who are asking them, i've decided that i'm sick of hearing these questions on irc and everywhere else for that matter. So load up ms word kiddy's and start reading.
Now i'm sure most of you wannabe-hackers must think that "hacking" is something glorious and the "in" thing these days, let me fill you in on a little secret, it's not ! First off let's define hacking, in my opinion hacking is not defacing websites, it is not launching denial of service attacks against servers ,it's not running the latest exploit against unpatched boxes. These are all things that *almost* anyone can do, they are not very complicated and do not take much technical ability. What is hacking you ask ? Well depending on whom you ask, you will get a different answers, if your asking me, i would have to say hacking == the pursuit of knowledge ,that is the simplest way i can put it, it's not the pursuit of knowing how to run the latest version of winnuke, it's the pursuit of learning how an operating system works, how programs are written, why certain things work the way they do. In all honesty this is not an overnight thing, it is a life long journey which never ends, to be a hacker is to strive day in, day out to educate yourself and move ahead. Now you might be thinking at this point that i'm full of shit because i don't type in l33t hax0r sp3ak , the truth is ,i think it's pointless, and nobody understands what the fuck your saying, don't do it ! Also i'd like to point out that i'm *not* claiming to be a hacker, nor have i ever made that claim, i simply love computer's, i love hacking my config files, i love shiny new boxes to old 386's, i love seeing something i never have and experiencing the joy's of learning about it. That is what "hacking" is about, creating things and doing things for positive instead of negative.
Now i'm sure at this point your probably wondering, "when is this guy gonna teach us how to be hackers ? " ,well i can't do that, nobody can, only you can do that.What i can do is point you in the right direction. I'm sure i've lost about 75% of you reading this because i'm not giving out "10 steps to root" or "cracking porn sites",but for the rest of you 25% that are actually interested in moving ahead and actually understanding how that big white box on your desk works, i will help you out. First off if you don't love your computer and enjoy sitting in front of it for endless hours, your probably not gonna get very far, learning takes much time and patience, it is not an easy task, but if you are motivated and are willing to put in the time, your already ahead of the 75% of the kids who just want to brake into things for no reason. Let's start with the machine right next to you, have you ever taken it apart and looked inside ? Do you know how your machine boots up and communicates with your hardware ? If the answers are no then you should definitely start there. Go out and look for some text files on the basics of how computer's work, almost any old dos book will cover the boot process, how programs are loaded into memory and why, how the operating system is the "shell" between you and your hardware. You must start at the beginning and learn about the basics before you can move on, there are millions of text files out there, more than you could read in a lifetime. Instead of using your internet account to lounge on irc and ask people for answers, go out and find them ! If you don't know how to do that, then load up your browser and go to www.yahoo.com , it will be a great help to you. After you've learned about your machine and all the pieces inside you will have a better understanding of why your computer behaves the way it does, and why the operating system is so important. I'm assuming the majority of you are running win95, and are comfortable with it, i'm not going to tell you to switch to another one, but i will tell you this, win95 is not the only operating system out there. There are many other's that are much nicer (IMHO),if you want to get into networking and understanding how computer's communicate, start with an operating system that has more features and was designed with networking capabilities in mind, try freebsd or linux, you'll be amazed at how much more you will understand when your editing all your configuration files by hand, instead of some stupid wizard doing it for you.
Now at this point i'm hoping your interested and want to go even further to your quest of being a hacker, i'm sure you've realized by now that a unix based operating system is very important and can help you a lot more. Also i would like to point out that if you've installed linux or bsd that there is plenty of documentation that comes with them, and that reading them before you ask questions is the smart thing to do. Next on the list would be learning about networking, learn how computer's communicate on a network, there are unlimited texts on this and i'm sure by now you know how to find them. After that move on to a programming language, if your not ready for that start writing small shell scripts, then eventually move on to C . After all this you will realize the joy of learning on your own, the thrill of solving a problem all by yourself, i'm not saying don't ask questions, just make sure you've tried to answer them for yourself before asking someone else.
In conclusion, you've now probably have a good idea of where you can go with all this, the possibility's are endless. No longer will you have to rely on other people to get where you want to go, you will hopefully be self-reliant and eager to push yourself, and this is what *hacking* is about.
