What is hacking:
What do you think of when you hear the term hacker? Most of you guys will probably think of criminal geeks who are butt hurt about something and then decide to take revenge or “hacking” groups like Anonymous. In that case you are wrong. Those people have nothing in common with real hacking and they are using their knowledge for bad things. The correct term for people like Anonymous would be Cracker(lookup the definition if you don’t know why they are called that). The right definition of hacking is “Hacking is the practice of modifying the features of a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the creator's original purpose.” - www.whatishacking.org.The word hacker originates back from the fifties or the sixties. One of the places that’s commonly known for have started the hacking culture is MIT. Students from Tech Model Railroad Club joined together to create new ways of controlling and building model trains. A great improvement of the train or the system was simply called a hack. It then moved on to phone lines and later on into computers. The reason why it moved on into the phone lines was simply that there wasn’t anything else to hack.
A guy who got very famous for hacking telephones and telephone lines (also called phreaking) is John “Captain Crunch” Draper. The reason why he’s called Captain Crunch was because of a famous hack he did back in the early seventies. From the american breakfast cereal Cap’n Crunch he got a whistle which could make a sound at 2600Hz. Since AT&T’s system was running by tones he could cheat the phone system to dial up pretty much everyone for free. He later on created The Blue Box which made it easier for him to cheat the phone lines. In 1972 he got convicted for cheating the phone company for money and ended up in prison for a short amount of time. According to The Wall Street in 1978 he hand wrote the first word processor for the Apple II computer called EasyWriter. He apparently should have hand written it in prison on paper and then later typed it into a computer. Hacking was also the reason why personal computers was created by guys like Steve Wozniak. Steve Wozniak created a terminal which enabled him to play chess but at the same to lure around on ARPAnet. He then short after joined hacker groups which introduced him to microprocessors. He have later on made great contributions to the development of the microprocessor.
The precursor to Usenet newsgroup and e-mails, the boards with names such as Sherwood Forest and Catch-22 become the venue of choice for phreaks and hacker to talk, trade tips and share stolen credit card information and stolen computer passwords. Hacking groups begin to form and some of the first well known were Legion of Doom from the United States and Chaos Computer Club from Germany.
In 1983 the movie WarGames came out and changed the public view on hacking. Hacking went from being something underground and unnoticed to something big. The movie was about a boy who want’s to crack into a game company’s computer system to play a game but instead end up starting a military catastrophe.
The same year 6 teenagers known as the 414 gang get’s arrested for hacking into 60 computers. It was first in 1986 it was made a crime to break into computer systems.
The Morris worm:
In 1988 Robert T. Morris, Jr. created a self-replicating computer worm which he launches on ARP
Kevin Mitnick:
As early as the age of 12 he social engineered himself to free bus drives. He’s today known as one of the best social engineers through time. Kevin Mitnick is captured by federal agents and charged with stealing 20,000 credit card numbers.
I will encourage you to read his biography. It gives you a true sight into his journey to establish himself as one of the greatest social engineers of all time.
The book can be found--HERE
Hacking today:
What is hacking today? Hacking has grown far bigger than anyone could have expected. In the beginning is was about optimizing model trains but today it’s a whole lifestyle. We see “hackers” in the news almost everyday and the business is just getting bigger. If you ask a random person on the street what their view of a hacker is they will probably reply with something like “It’s a person who breaks into systems” but that’s wrong. A true hacker is much more than that and can never be dragged down into something as small as that description.
We need to educate the normal citizen to not be afraid of the computer.
This video has been posted before but it explains exactly what I’m trying to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA
I have shorten this article a lot. I decided to cut most of it off but if you need some specific info on the subject matter feel free to contact me. I have read a lot of books and a lot of articles about this topic and will most likely be able to answer your question. If asked and I found the time I will maybe write a larger article about this subject but it will not be on the nearest future. Also please bear over with me about the grammatical errors I wrote this in the middle of the night and I will do my best to find them when I get the time. Feel free to give me contructive feedback.
Where to begin with hacking
So here is my opinion about how they should get around starting.
There are three types of hackers:
White Hats:
The White Hat hacker has dedicated himself to fight malware and help others with their computer problems. He is a person you can trust, and he will most likely end up in a good paying job as a computer programmer or a security consultant. He will most certainly not end up in jail.
Grey Hats:
The Grey Hat hacker are in between white Hats and Black Hats. He will most likely commit pranks at people that he thinks is harmless, but it can also be illegal. He can at one time be helpful and help you with a computer problem, but at the same time infect you with his own virus. There is a chance that the grey hat will end up in prison.
Black Hats:
The Black hat hacker also known as a cracker is the one who deface websites, steal private information and such illegal activity. It is very time consuming to become a black hat. It can be very hard for them to get a job because of the illegal activity. If law enforcements gets you, you can expect jail time.
So where to start?
You should know the answer to these questions before you start your hacking career.
- Which type of hacker do you want to be (white hat, grey hat or black hat)?
- Which type of hacking do you want to work with (website hacking, system exploits, pentesting etc.)?
- What is your end-goal?
You should meet these requirements to become a successful hacker.
- You shall be patient.
- You shall dedicate a lot of time to hacking. You will never stop learning, since hacking is a lifestyle.
- You should have a computer (I expect you to have one since you are reading this).
- You shall be interested in how the different computer systems works, and how to control them.
Now that you have an idea of what kind of hacker, you want to be we will look closer into the different topics you can work with as a hacker.
Website Hacking:
You properly already guessed it, but website hacking is about hacking websites. You use your skills to find exploits and vulnerabilities in websites and web applications. Almost all major hacking stories in the news are about websites and databases that have been hacked. Once you have enough experience in website security you will be amazed about how easy it is to find vulnerabilities in websites. However, it will take a lot of effort and time to reach that level of skills. You will need to know a large amount of server-side languages and website construction languages like PHP, HTML, JavaScript, SQL, ASP, ASP.NET and Perl. This was just some of the languages you should know about. I will recommend you to take JavaScript, SQL and PHP very serious since it is in those languages you will find the most vulnerabilities.
Pen testing and Forensics:
Pen testing and forensics can earn you big money. It is these guys the company’s call when they have been hacked. They are experts in operating systems, wireless connections and exploiting computers. This way will take A LOT of time and effort since there is so much you should know about. You shall know about how the different operating systems works, which exploit there is to them, how to exploit them, routers, encryption, malware etc. the list is almost endless.
Code exploiting:
Not many people know about this. This will require you to be a complete expert at programming. You shall be at least as good at these programming languages as your main language like English. This kind of hacking is taking a lot of time, and will require you to be patient. Do not get me wrong, every company that releases software like Symantec, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Oracle have hackers with these skills employed to check their software for vulnerabilities. Sadly, they cannot find every security hole and therefore some very smart black hat hackers are able to find them, and exploit them before the companies get the vulnerability patched. You should know the most popular languages like C++, Java and C etc.
Computer security:
The work these people do looks a lot like the pentesters. These people is able to detect and analyze new viruses and malware. They are working for companies like Symantec, KasperSky and Avira etc. Some of them are also working on labs that tests AV’s and new viruses. They are experts in how viruses works and how they infect systems.
You should now have an idea on where to start and in which direction you want to go. If you found any errors or typos feel free to contact me, and I will look into it. I will be updating this thread recently and add more details. I will soon add a dictionary, which explains the most basic hacking terms. I have put a lot of effort in this tutorial and my goal with this tutorial is to give computer-interested people an idea of where they should start.
To the so-called “noobs”, who reads this:
I hope I have inspired you to begin at hacking. I hope that I have cleared things up a little bit, so it does not seem so messy anymore. If you have any questions or something you did not understand, I would gladly explain it to you again. Welcome to the hacker’s world, a new world will open up for you and you will never regret that you chose to become a hacker.
Please read other article about what hacking is to get a better understanding.
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