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How to Become a Hacker

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Re: How to Become a Hacker

#121

Post by sk0g »

qorrect wrote: post #101
arexxbifs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20+ years on I've had some good, some bad and some occasionally wonderful. It's not a bad profession, as professions go: things are generally very cushy and you can, from time to time, experience the same elation as when exploring on your own (though, for me, it's getting increasingly rare). It's a big difference between sating your own curiosity in a hackeresque way, learning about what interests you, programming wh…

Programming would be awesome without having to mess with customers.

Unfortunately, we get paid to translate business requirements to a language a computer can understand. Is that programming? Maybe, but a limited, rigid subset, that I at least don't find particularly stimulating.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#122

Post by Mandatum »

And don't forget the synchronous communities! All hackers have at some stage had a collection of friends in MSN, IRC, ICQ, XMPP, Slack, Discord, Mattermost -- something where they can regularly collaborate and talk among individuals with relevant interests.

Check out your local subreddits, find links to invites and start forming relationships with people you may never meet. Because more often than not, these are the people that will introduce you to concepts, jobs and cool shit you'd never find out on HN, Reddit or blogs.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#123

Post by elwell »

mettamage wrote: post #103
elwell wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, thanks for the reply. Just curious, what would be the 'MVE' (minimum viable evidence) such that you would choose to believe? For example, if instead of flying and zapping to another planet, what if they just fly (without some mechanical invention)? > Oh, and it should be done in such a way that I can know 100% that it wasn't because of some weird mushroom/drug trip. How you can you know 100%? That doesn't make an…

> Just curious, what would be the 'MVE' (minimum viable evidence) such that you would choose to believe? I'm simply answering this honestly and I'll confess that I'm not a model citizen on this. In any case, I'm too lazy to think about it. That's the answer. It's why I have a bit of an over the top heuristic. But I also think: surely if one is all powerful, that's not an issue. > How you can you know 100%? That doesn…

I appreciate your thorough response. I was questioning the usage of the phrase "know 100%" because I'm very curious about the relationship between "knowing" something and "believing" something. I would argue that there is no such thing as "knowing". And, I think this is an important distinction to make because the common view is that science is somehow fundamentally different to faith, and so we can magically trust it. Actually, science is simply the presupposition by faith that one's senses, mental computations, memory, and experiments are accurate. That's not to say that there aren't qualitative differences, but fundamentally it still rests on faith.

To the extreme, we don't 'know' that 1 + 1 = 2. In fact, you can't be quite certain that you just read that equation correctly. Or perhaps, after you read it your memory (mental or computer) was corrupted: it actually said 2 + 1 = 2.

You believe that 1 + 1 = 2. First, you believed it because someone told you (you trusted your ears). And then you reasoned about it for yourself, and you saw how if you have 1 object and another 1 object and combine them, then you had 2 objects (you trusted your eyes). And eventually you figured that this equation is perfectly knowable because it a metaphysical truth, but you still had to trust your mind to be infallible for that. Even if we believe 1 + 1 has always equaled 2 in the past, we have to take on faith that that is still true in this moment.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#124

Post by mettamage »

elwell wrote: post #123
mettamage wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just curious, what would be the 'MVE' (minimum viable evidence) such that you would choose to believe? I'm simply answering this honestly and I'll confess that I'm not a model citizen on this. In any case, I'm too lazy to think about it. That's the answer. It's why I have a bit of an over the top heuristic. But I also think: surely if one is all powerful, that's not an issue. > How you can you know 100%? That doesn…

I appreciate your thorough response. I was questioning the usage of the phrase "know 100%" because I'm very curious about the relationship between "knowing" something and "believing" something. I would argue that there is no such thing as "knowing". And, I think this is an important distinction to make because the common view is that science is somehow fundamentally different to faith, and so we can magically trust i…

Ah, fair enough. I agree with this. They call this epistemology right?

In any case, I always thought this type of stuff was a bit pendantic. And in some perspectives, I still think it is. Such as the "I need to get stuff done" perspective.

However, when I took truffles in Amsterdam (that's legal), this is exactly what I went through. And from that experience I can truly only know that: I experience therefore I am.

It's a spin on Descartes, but suffice to say I couldn't really think (not logically anyway), but I could still experience. It's really unsettling to be corrupted. You have no clue what comes next really.

Other than that, the idea that I assume reality to be true is already a leap of faith. It might all be a fantasy world or a dream. It also might be what we think it is: real.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#125

Post by mettamage »

wbsun wrote: post #118
mettamage wrote: post #19

I'm reposting part of a comment I wrote (and adding to it). My version on how to become a hacker. It's just another reference point. Step 1: Go to http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html Step 1b (bonus): read Hacker News (it actually helped, it also really distracted, the latter part is why it's labeled as bonus ) Step 2: Complete Binary and Malware Analysis at the Vrije Universiteit Step 3: Complete Computer…

So you read ESR's definition of hacker in step 1 but instead focus on what he called "cracker"[1] in step 2/3/4 (not 4b)/5? Either you misunderstood "hacker" or unintentionally gave a misleading example of learning... [1]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is

No, I used both definitions. As you can clearly see I stated:

> Congratulations, you are now a hacker in every sense of the word:

> 1. You broke into computer systems.

> 2. You needed to be curious in order to do it.

There are multiple ways to get to 2. This is one of them. There are multiple ways to get to 1. This is one of them.

I simply leave it in the middle as to who gets to decide what the definition of a hacker is. I simply took both definitions that I know to be defined by hackers themselves (point 2) and the media/general public (point 1).

Subverting computer systems to let it do other things that you want is very very much a part of the definition of 2. Which is how breaking into computer systems and following your technical curiosity can overlap.

But I would totally agree with you that we'd live in a sad world if my path was the only way in which people became hackers.

Also note that Hacker News is on there as a bonus and if it wasn't as distracting as it is, then I'd put it there as mandatory. HN stimulates purely the curiosity part of hacking.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#126

Post by dmos62 »

arexxbifs wrote: post #86
dmos62 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you have bad computer job experiences.

20+ years on I've had some good, some bad and some occasionally wonderful. It's not a bad profession, as professions go: things are generally very cushy and you can, from time to time, experience the same elation as when exploring on your own (though, for me, it's getting increasingly rare). It's a big difference between sating your own curiosity in a hackeresque way, learning about what interests you, programming wh…

Sort of tangential, but I find that when I escape one set of annoyances, another pops up. I don't mean that worse problems are replaced by better problems, but rather that I seem to create them myself. The pain point isn't really in what's required or what's happening, but how I react to things.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#127

Post by badpun »

markus_zhang wrote: post #95
non-entity wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. I wonder what the modern version of these are.

I'd say research position at Google of Microsoft. If research positions are not available then any position that gives you some freedom to poke at whatever you like. I do agree that such positions are much rarer nowadays than the Cold War in which states were willing to invest X% for scientific progression. Nowadays? Let's cut everything that doesn't have a strong political backer.

Judging by the output of Google and Microsoft research units, they seem to be watered down variants of academia (with a lot more practical bent) and they certainly don't allow you freedom to pursue interests.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#129

Post by luord »

The author's experience mirrors mine almost exactly, down to being inspired to study computer science by that how-to.

And, maybe not coincidentally, I agree with everything in that post.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#130

Post by rramadass »

mettamage wrote: post #19

I'm reposting part of a comment I wrote (and adding to it). My version on how to become a hacker. It's just another reference point. Step 1: Go to http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html Step 1b (bonus): read Hacker News (it actually helped, it also really distracted, the latter part is why it's labeled as bonus ) Step 2: Complete Binary and Malware Analysis at the Vrije Universiteit Step 3: Complete Computer…

>Step 2: Complete Binary and Malware Analysis at the Vrije Universiteit

>Step 3: Complete Computer and Network Security at the Vrije Universiteit

>Step 4: Complete Hardware Security at the Vrije Universiteit

Can you share the resources i.e. Books, Videos etc used in the above courses? Might be a good starting point for those who want to delve into the subjects.

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