How to Become a Hacker(ZT)

How to Become a Hacker
by Gary D. Robson
Blacklisted! 411 (Dec 2003)
This article is based on an essay I wrote in December of 1998.
Looking for advice on learning to crack passwords, sabotage systems,
mangle websites, write viruses, and plant Trojan horses? You came to the wrong
place. I'm not that kind of hacker.
Looking for advice on how to learn the guts and bowels of a system or
network, get inside it, and become a real expert? Maybe I can help there. How
you use this knowledge is up to you. I hope you'll use it to contribute to
computer science and hacking (in its good sense), not to become a cracker or
vandal.
This little essay is basically the answers to all the emails I get asking
how to become a hacker. It's not a tutorial in and of itself. It's certainly
not a guaranteed success. Just give it a try and see what happens. That said,
here's where to start:
Be curious
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

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