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How to Become a Hacker

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Re: How to Become a Hacker

#71

Post by mettamage »

neatze wrote: post #61
elwell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people claim God exists. And I therefore should live quite differently than I am right now. I require extraordinary evidence. Just curious, theoretically speaking, what are some evidences that would be 'extraordinary enough' for you to believe? For sake of argument, let's assume we're talking about the Judeo-Christian god as described in the standard Bible.

I think you will find this debated interesting: https://youtu.be/9wLtCqm72-Y

Oh! Penrose! I'm watching this. Thanks!

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#72

Post by rashkov »

mettamage wrote: post #54
rashkov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those courses at Vrije Universiteit open in some way? Is the best approach to grab the syllabus for each one and go through it that way?

No they're not. I also don't know any good alternatives. I mean, I've seen elements of it (especially of computer and network security) but it didn't feel the same. I know it's the COVID season(s) but other than that: these courses cost 1200 euro's for non-EU students, I think. I'm relatively sure about the price (range: 1000 - 1500 euro's). I'm not sure if they allow contract students from the US. Let me think about…

No problem, just wondering. Glad to be made aware that there are high quality classes on these subjects. Maybe they'll move the coursework to a more online-friendly format soon, will have to keep an eye out. Excellent list in general though, thanks for the contribution.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#73

Post by kerng »

kebman wrote: post #10

A lot of hacking is done simply because public and private databases and systems just aren't good enough to serve those that they were made to serve. This made me a "hacker," in that I created programs, crawlers and spiders to find and put together the information I needed for my everyday work as a teacher (all legal, of course, though highly unconventional). I once told my boss about one such idea I had, that I thou…

Article discusses Hacker in the broader context, not limited to security.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#74

Post by TrueDuality »

jtaft wrote: post #69
TrueDuality wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "hacker" predates electronic computers. It is originally used to refer to someone that creatively uses systems in unexpected, unconventional, and generally creative ways. Media portrayal in the mid 90s grabbed on to this term without understanding its actual context. One potential source of the term is the MIT model train club, but that is up for dispute as some claim it existed before that. There are more s…

What's your stance on the term "cracker"? I was super into reverse engineering and loved the challenge. It seemed at some point "cracker" moved away from someone who can break software protections through reversing to someone who uses tooling to break into systems, without understanding how computers work. I still prefer "cracker" as someone who can reverse and break software protections. Also, Thanks for helping out…

Thanks! FWIW I think the virtual con this year is going to be pretty cool. There are a lot of challenges, and forms of interaction that aren't possible in person we're going to try out. There sadly are a bunch of things we can't do virtually that I'll definitely miss from the in person event as well. It'll be different but still hopefully awesome.

I think the term cracker had the same media portrayal problem probably starting with the movie Sneakers (of the top of my head, no fact checking there) but it is a much more niche term in general and if you were to generally use it around people, probably even in computer adjacent jobs, they'd be more confused by what you're talking about then recognize it.

That being said yeah I'm 100% down with considering crackers being the DRM busters. I personally kind of consider demo scene wizards to be part of the "cracker" group even though it is completely unrelated. There just seems to be a heavy amount of overlap.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#75

Post by qzw »

cutler wrote: post #26

Sometime last year I was taking a short bus ride home from a local supermarket in Leytonstone (London) when a passenger boarded with a slightly louder American voice. I thought he looked familiar then it hit me - Richard Stallman. I didn't have much time to decide what to do as he was about to get off at the next stop so I left the bus at the same stop and caught up with him. After an introduction and short conversat…

I too have a Stallman encounter story from years ago. He used to work/sleep one floor below the research group I worked for as an undergrad, and he would wander up to our floor regularly. He would sometimes walk by and nod at me when I was working on the computer. One day he stopped and asked me what language I was using. I told him it was Java, and he said, unsurprisingly, that I should help contribute to gcj, gnu’s free Java alternative. Not really knowing how to respond, I kind of mumbled something to the effect that I’ll look into it, and then added that I was at least using Emacs. A few days later, I went to use the bathroom on my floor, and who should be standing at the next urinal but the man himself. He recognized me, and while we were both emptying our bladders, he asked if I had checked out gcj yet. I had to admit that I hadn’t yet and that I was hosed that semester because I was taking some tough classes. He reiterated that I should contribute if possible. Well, after that, I did checkout gcj and eventually used it quite a bit, including in production. Sometimes I wonder if I might be the only person who’s ever had a urinal conversation about free software with Stallman, but given his whole life of gnu advocacy, I believe there must be many more of us out there.

Edit: spelling

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#76

Post by gonehome »

Thanks for sharing my blog post! :)

I think something I would have included that I thought about later is being curiosity driven. It's more personal, but I've found a lot of what I've really enjoyed (and where I've learned the most) has been from allowing myself to go down random rabbit holes to play with different things.

There's some risk to this if you never go deep enough, but I think the benefits are worth it.

I think there's also something to PG's essay about liking debugging specifically too.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#77

Post by elwell »

mettamage wrote: post #63
elwell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people claim God exists. And I therefore should live quite differently than I am right now. I require extraordinary evidence. Just curious, theoretically speaking, what are some evidences that would be 'extraordinary enough' for you to believe? For sake of argument, let's assume we're talking about the Judeo-Christian god as described in the standard Bible.

Hmm... God comes down, allows the person that tries to convince me to fly and zaps us to another planet where other lifeforms are. If there aren't any others, then he zaps us to a planet that God thinks is simply amazingly cool (and comfortable enough for us humans). God tells us something that humans may found out in 100k years from now. It doesn't have to be knowledge that is valuable for me to use right now. It sh…

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 any sense. Are you just referring to believing something with faith such that it feels certain?

> God is all powerful

Yes, but he can't make illogic logical. Therefore, I don't see how he could make you 'know 100%' something. He could convince you with evidences, sure.

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#78

Post by diablo1 »

I wrote a comment about a recent article that talks about doing the cybercrimes as non glamorous[0]. Here was my response:

(I bring it up because too many people see hacking as glamorous when it often is not, except for the payoff at the end)

Like anything, it's usually the payoff that is exciting and glamorous. I know the old hacker mantra: 'boredom and drudgery are evil' hence why we automate everything, but I don't think the mantra holds true for most hackers. The best hackers know that programming essentially works against you when you do it, because there's no instant gratification. You have to constantly bang your head against the wall (even because of simple syntax mistakes that make you feel like a n00b all over again).

The payoff is always fantastic though. Whitehat or blackhat, knowing that all that hard work and grunt pays off is a wonderful feeling. I tend to veer towards whitehat stuff though because of the old saying: 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime'.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23355084

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#79

Post by Robelius »

gonehome wrote: post #76

Thanks for sharing my blog post! :) I think something I would have included that I thought about later is being curiosity driven. It's more personal, but I've found a lot of what I've really enjoyed (and where I've learned the most) has been from allowing myself to go down random rabbit holes to play with different things. There's some risk to this if you never go deep enough, but I think the benefits are worth it. I…

Reading your blog post brought back memories. The first Hacker News article that got me to make an account was How To Become A Hacker[1]. That led me down a rabbit hole as a high schooler that got me into software and later hardware. There's definitely a direct line from me reading that article to me becoming a hardware engineer.

I hope your article helps create the same effect on an unknowing high schooler. Thanks for putting it out there!

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#nerd_connect...

Re: How to Become a Hacker

#80

Post by jtaft »

hummel wrote: post #2

If you need to ask How to Become a Hacker, you are not going to be one. It all depends on your personal curiosity, either you have it or you don't. PS: Found 0day on Paypal when I was 12 in the early '00s, never got paid or recognized for it :(

This is quite false! The mere fact that someone asks how to be a hacker shows they are curious.

A true hacker asks a lot of questions. Lots and lots of questions. The longer you hack, the more obscure, interesting, and fascinating the questions become.

In fact, a key part of becoming a hacker is figuring out the right questions to ask. You learn to do so by asking the wrong questions. As you gain experience, revisiting old questions can lead to beautiful solutions.

Another important aspect of being a hacker is sharing knowledge! Hacking is about learning. A lot of what I learned is from reading what others have wrote. Also by failing and experimenting.

When I was a kid, I did ask my friends "how do i become a hacker" and "how do I hack". I'm glad I did, because I've been enjoying the journey ever since.

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