14 ms·

How to Become a Hacker

533 points by g-garron 6y ago

Siddharth_joshi 6y ago
Interesting!
luord 6y ago
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.
hummel 6y ago
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 :(
- elsjaako 6y ago
  There is a certain kind of person that will become some kind of hacker no matter what, but with advice and guidance they will get a lot further than without.
  - wiz21c 6y ago
    Definitely. I had an hacker's mind from age 0. Mind you, I felt in love with hackers of my time when I was 12 years old. But unfortunately, I had to learn by myself. I didn't have a mentor around me (and my parents could not keep up) for a number of years. Eventually, I ended in the demo scene and there I found a bit of help. It took me so much time. And when I compare to other hackers who had friends in the business, they just learned faster than me :-( So, even though it sounds obvious : the number one priority is meeting other people, sharing information. Social skills are sooo important if you're not an absolute genius...
  - neatze 6y ago
    personally, I think it is false to think about skills as linear model, it is more inverse exponential model a like. In another words, what I am trying to is that; if you have sustained environment, discipline, and some luck, it is straight forward to become worst of the best. How fast you get there will depend to some extent of advice and guidance, but one has ask self; does he want to become in shortest time worst of the best or become worst of the best no matter what.
- lvice 6y ago
  Surely if someone is interested in the topic of "how to become a hacker", it shows the kind of curiosity that you are talking about. PS: Congratulations? How is this relevant, gate-keeping aside?
- 5m17h 6y ago
  You mean you have to acquire the ability to actively collect and discriminate?
- viraptor 6y ago
  I think this is phrased wrong. I get what you mean, but this is just gate keeping. First, what do you even mean by hacker? There are many ways to describe this. Sure, if you mean the creativity, bending the rules of what's possible, general interest in discovery... that's traits people have in the first place before being called hackers. But that's not the only way.
  - whynotminot 6y ago
    I find gatekeeping in the hacker world to be some of the worst in tech. There's a strong "if you can't figure it out on your own you're too stupid to help" vibe to it, while the rest of the dev world has actually made some decent strides toward valuing inclusion and education.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      I find that this is largely the American hacker community - European hackers, and especially Germans, tend to be incredibly supportive of people with the drive to learn. They also tend to expand their hacker mindset to things other than computers - wherever there's a complex system, they're critical of it, enjoy learning how it works, learning how to break it and bend it.
- nuclearnice1 6y ago
  Note the article is about a different and older definition of hacker than you seem to be using. From the ESR article linked: “The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.”
- mettamage 6y ago
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I normally don't call people out on this as we are human and we need wiggle room for conversation and the formulation of opinions. Plus, everyone is guilty of this, me included. In fact, the previous statement is me doing it as well. We are human after all. But I do tend to call people out on this when people stifle curiosity with these type of claims. Knowing myself, I know that 10 years ago I might've taken your advice to heart as I didn't know any better. I know that I've done this in other areas of my life and it has had a negative impact. So I am here to produce a counter voice loudly proclaiming that one should be very sceptical about taking your opinion to heart. Some people claim God exists. And I therefore should live quite differently than I am right now. I require extraordinary evidence. Some people claim that you can't become a hacker if you need to ask it. I require extraordinary evidence. In spirit of my sentiment, I'm going to give you a counterexample. I'm the counterexample. Step 1: Go to http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html 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 Step 4b (bonus, I mean, you're there now anyway): Complete Kernel Programming at the Vrije Universiteit Step 5: Go to https://hackthebox.eu https://hackthebox.eu, hack at least 1 easy, 1 medium, 1 hard and -- for good measure -- 1 insane box 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. If you think this is my whole path then that's not true. This is simply the happy path that I uncovered. It's not optimal, but it works. It might not work for everyone, but I'm sure it will work for more people than just me. I am now a hacker. And I'm sure there are more counter examples stemming from the VUSec group that started hacking real machines after that. That's my evidence. I don't expect that you have enough evidence as your position is much tougher and I wouldn't even know how to begin on starting an argument that does. My point simply is: please be a bit careful about the accuracy of your statements if it implies negative consequences. Inconvenient truths are fine, but simply opinions without any backing that leads to something negative really feels disheartening to read. Note: I didn't downvote. I don't think you had any ill intentions. And you do provide your actual view in a succinct manner (something I could learn from O:) ). And that's what discussion is all about, albeit a bit rough at times, perhaps.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jtaft 6y ago
  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.
kebman 6y ago
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 thought would be beneficial to the rest of my collegues. He told me, "Go to the principal, and word your idea so it sounds like it's his idea, and I'm sure he'll give you the go-ahead for it." I told him straight up, that, "Nah, then I'll rather keep it to myself."
- mettamage 6y ago
  I think this idea is what the OSINT community does. Step 1: scrape websites, step 2: put it in a database. Well, I guess you actually found databases instead of scraping sites. The OSINT community does that too.
- ghostpepper 6y ago
  In this article the word "hacker" is actually used in the original meaning - nothing to do with breaking into systems.
  - kebman 6y ago
    I didn't break into any system. I merely streamlined the gathering of restricted data that I was entitled to anyway through my work. Then I made graphical representations of those data for my own use, in order to do a better job. I figured, if this works for me, it would work for my collegues as well, but I wouldn't want to divulge how I did that for free, and certainly not by letting someone else take all the credit for it. And thus I became a "hacker"...
    - ghostpepper 6y ago
      sorry, I re-read your original comment and now I'm not sure how I assumed it was about criminal hacking
- 6y ago
arexxbifs 6y ago
My best advice to any budding hacker would be for them to find a job as unrelated to computers as possible, but which leaves them with enough free time to tinker with whatever currently tickles their fancy.
- markus_zhang 6y ago
  Pretty much what I'm doing but I do hope for a coding job...
  - arexxbifs 6y ago
    Like most things, hacking is a lot like angling in the respect that it's a fun, relaxing and rewarding pastime, but most often neither of these when depended upon for survival.
    - Enginerrrd 6y ago
      Ha... boy this describes several phases of my life (with lessons learned) remarkably well. Thanks for the chuckle. Poker, sports betting arbitrage, bug bounties... All were fun before I tried making them my day job.
- qzw 6y ago
  I’m sure this works for some people in the right context, but so many great OG hackers were career computer scientists and engineers. I mean, people like the original Xerox PARC guys, Woz, Cerf, Diffie, the RSA guys, TBL, and too many more to name. They were all working in jobs or started companies that allowed them to devote the bulk of their time and energy to hacking and building. There are only so many hours in the day. If you’re devoting a third of it to something completely unrelated to your passion, it’s pretty hard to get the best out of yourself. And forget it if you want to have any other kind of “life” besides. Edit: readability
  - arexxbifs 6y ago
    Most of those guys operated under circumstances vastly different from today. If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. Considering how many IT professionals there are now and how few there were back then, I'd say those kinds of jobs are even more scarce now than they used to be. It's not impossible, but it's not a realistic expectation. > If you’re devoting a third of it to something completely unrelated to your passion A programming job is likely to be as far from any kind of hacking passion as any other, with the added disadvantage of possibly poisoning the well, so to speak.
endgame 6y ago
Warms my heart to see the old ways kept alive.
ldeangelis 6y ago
Interestingly, the initial article [0] is still alive and updated. The most recent addition was about Go. I'm always impressed by how many people do things with this language. It seems to really hit a sweet spot for small to big tools. [0]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
mettamage 6y ago
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 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 and Network Security at the Vrije Universiteit Step 4: Complete Hardware Security at the Vrije Universiteit Step 4b (bonus, I mean, you're there now anyway): Complete Kernel Programming at the Vrije Universiteit Step 5: Go to https://hackthebox.eu https://hackthebox.eu, hack at least 1 easy, 1 medium, 1 hard and -- for good measure -- 1 insane box 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. This took me 8 months, personally (60 hours per week). I found it a lot of fun. It could take you a lot less time or more time. ----- I'm assuming you already know how to program, if you don't then get the following prerequisite knowledge. Step 1: do CS50 in order to learn programming and learn how to learn programming languages. What I've seen in students is that the first 6 weeks are experienced as more difficult than the last 6 weeks (hint: it's because you start off with C). So don't get discouraged. If this is not you and it is the other way around, I've seen that too (though, I've seen it less. It depends on the default mode of thinking that a person uses). Step 2: do https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ to understand computer systems and get some assembly under your belt. Step 3: if you feel like this road is too rigid, do a project that you're interested in here. Get it out of your system now, because the above mentioned stuff took me 10 months, personally. Create a computer graphics engine with OpenGL and Java. Yes, you could do C++ but that's complicating things for now. If you really want to though, go ahead, C++ is a fine choice if you're burning with passion. These 3 steps probably take between 4 to 8 months. Some people with a hacker mindset could do this within 2 months, or 1 month even (email me if you did!). Some people that have other stuff going on in their lives will do this in 8+ months. It's all fine.
- rramadass 6y ago
  >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.
ProAm 6y ago
Being a programmer is not being a hacker. This article is about how to become a decent programmer .
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  I think any decent programmer is also a decent hacker. Because it's hard to imagine someone being a decent programmer if they can't get the computer to do what they want. Which is the classic definition of a hack: to force the computer to do what you want, whether the computer wants to or not.
- porknubbins 6y ago
  The more I learn I’ve started to think more and more there is not a separate skill of hacking except maybe to learn a few tools- the best engineers to reverse engineer a system are generally the ones capable of forward engineering it.
HugoDaniel 6y ago
Somehow reminded me of the original Hacker Test https://www.elfqrin.com/hackertest.php https://www.elfqrin.com/hackertest.php
cutler 6y ago
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 conversation about Emacs and the Free Software Foundation he drew his sword upon which I kneeled and was dubbed a hacker. That's how it's done. Aw, alright - the sword bit is fictitious but the rest is true. Contact with a deity can confer status.
- daffy 6y ago
  You kneeled on his sword?
  - watwut 6y ago
    Hackers rites are different then knight rites.
  - Normal_gaussian 6y ago
    upon which ~ at which time. Possibly more of a British English usage; I'd appreciate somebody with better formal language knowledge giving a less shallow insight.
    - cutler 6y ago
      Or even thereupon.
- zitterbewegung 6y ago
  Does this make me a hacker? Donald Knuth was giving a presentation to celebrate someones birthday by debugging his old FORTRAN code. He was having trouble giving it since his PDF of his presentation was autoforwarding using Adobe Acrobat. I figured out that Preview would avoid this outcome. I think this is the largest contribution I will have to Computer Science.
m1117 6y ago
This is confusing. "Hacker" is a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. "Software Engineer" is the right approach. "Hacker Spirit" lol
- m1117 6y ago
  *word
- brunoqc 6y ago
  You can't use "engineer" in Canada without complete studies in engineering and paying money every year to be a member of their club.
- TrueDuality 6y ago
  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 self-described hackers that do good and creative things, and not just related to computer security than the malicious types. Fun fact, the "maker" movement was a branded version of the "hackerspace" movement for people. Any time you hear about a Maker they're also a Hacker just kind of a subset of them. Source: I'm senior staff of DEFCON, the largest hacker conference on the planet.
  - jtaft 6y ago
    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 with Defcon! Been there a couple times and plan to go again. At the next live con i'm down to meet and talk about hacker lore!
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
looking at the ESR version the updates only go back to 2007, but I thought I originally read it in 1996. Whatever it was, it was very similar. I miss that feeling of finding mysterious text files from the elders of the internet. I used to think the changes in technology killed that feeling, but now I have a hunch that I just got older.
- SmallPeePeeMan 6y ago
  Yep. Those files are still there, but the mystery is gone. Like when you figure out your parents are regular people, too.
platz 6y ago
Kevin Mitnick destroyed any faith I had in what being a hacker was about.
- aortega 6y ago
  He's a corporate man now, but in his youth he was legit.
  - platz 6y ago
    I felt his story was spun in a way that accredited far more moral weight than I learned was actually warranted
- wbsun 6y ago
  I have given up educating people I met in daily life who misunderstand "hacker" and "cracker", but now I feel sad even on HN and with ESR's article [1] that people here still misunderstand these two. Hope most HN readers are not coming here looking for new system breaches or vulnerabilities. [1]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
UweSchmidt 6y ago
A hacker might be the modern independent scholar. You can follow your tech curiosity, self-study and work on your own little projects and be intellectually and creatively rewarded. Start anywhere, any programming tutorial, or any arduino project recipe. Get immersed and always figure out how the stuff really works. You are most likely smart enough to do it. If employment is an issue, well, what you learned from the above should take you at least halfway to a job and probably make your career better.
- vsareto 6y ago
  Interestingly, John Carmack talked about doing a “gentleman scientist” approach with AI
jasoneckert 6y ago
Great post. It's equally refreshing to read an article that uses the word "hacker" appropriately, and not like mass media does (i.e. kid in hoodie with a stickered laptop trying to steal your credit card number).
crumbshot 6y ago
Their first mistake was taking heed of anything ESR has to say, including his archaic opinion on what hacking is. If it's nothing to do with software or hardware security, then it's not hacking. And yes, this site is itself woefully misnamed.
- feanaro 6y ago
  I don't know, this matches closely the meaning I was taught when I was first introduced to the word. I've never found Hacker News to be misnamed.
rashthedude 6y ago
Brought a smile to my face. The original article by Eric Raymond had a huge impact on my life.
fossuser 6y ago
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.
- Robelius 6y ago
  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_connection http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#nerd_connect...
  - eliasbagley 6y ago
    Very similar for me - there is also a direct line from me reading that article to me being a software engineer today.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Thanks! There's a pretty direct line for me too. I'd be happy if my post helps others in a similar position.
- croh 6y ago
  Thanks for putting this down. I too have sweet memories of original article. After reading ESR article, I chose Python over Perl few years back, and kick off my career. But the most important thing article taught me is about hacker mindset.
diablo1 6y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23355084
systems 6y ago
I dont understand what he means when he said "(a good example book for this currently is Designing Data Intensive Applications)." I got this book recently and was planning to read it soon, does he thinks the tools and techniques mentioned in the book are a waste of time, or the opposite?
- fossuser 6y ago
  Ah sorry that's unclear, I meant I thought that book was really good for, "just learning more about the craft of programming in general".
pacomerh 6y ago
I don't like this new definition of the word "hacker". I wish people would call builders and tinkerers something else. We have all this strong history with hackers who are the ones that infiltrate systems. And now someone makes an app and he/she is a hacker. Somehow I feel like there's a necessity to feel special and unique. This word is so soft now.
- bitwize 6y ago
  The builder/tinkerer meaning predated the infiltrator meaning by like a couple of decades, but whatever, okay, zoomer.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  Absolutely agreed, the word used to carry a good bit of street cred but now everyone and their grandma is a hacker.
  - pacomerh 6y ago
    This is exactly what I mean. But I guess I'm a minority here
- jmknoll 6y ago
  Based on your comment and some of the other ones on here, I looked this up and it looks like the original meaning of “working on a tech problem in a different way than what’s outlined in the manual” dates back to the 1950’s. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/a-short-history-of-hack/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-o...
- hvis 6y ago
  Curious to see this comment on "Hacker News". Did you think this resource was about the infiltration profession?
  - pacomerh 6y ago
    Yup, on hacker news, that doesn't mean I like the name of this page, right?
jtth 6y ago
We would be a lot better off if this term went away.
alexashka 6y ago
For me, there is a checklist of ideas one has to grok and then computers connected over a network and talking to one another is comprehensible. I think a lot of the complexity of modern software development is powers that be, entrenching their powerful positions by layering more and more complexity, so that no team of a dozen people can ever hope to compete. There is no attempt to re-factor our current way of doing things to reduce the complexity 10x. We're stuck with multiple OSes, multiple languages, multiple tools for each language, a plethora of frameworks that do the same thing but slightly differently and none of them do anything uniquely excellent, they're different for historical reasons, not pragmatic. Half the web developer jobs are a matter of manually solving SQL <-> user interface problem, specific to a business domain. Why we don't sit down and create protocols/specs for each business domain that span across SQL, UI, security and permissions levels so that each bank doesn't have to hire a team of IT people to do the same thing slightly differently is beyond me - I can only guess it is because nobody in government understands how computers work. We're seeing some reduction in complexity with cloud providers, but it is of the worst kind - it is consolidation combined with vendor lock-in, proprietary software and pay-as-you-go pricing, yikes!
n0there 6y ago
I appreciate this blog post very much. Glad I read it 4 years into my programming journey rather than 14 years.
Mandatum 6y ago
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.

533 points by g-garron 6y ago

Interesting!

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.

hummel 6y ago

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 :(

elsjaako 6y ago
There is a certain kind of person that will become some kind of hacker no matter what, but with advice and guidance they will get a lot further than without.
- wiz21c 6y ago
  Definitely. I had an hacker's mind from age 0. Mind you, I felt in love with hackers of my time when I was 12 years old. But unfortunately, I had to learn by myself. I didn't have a mentor around me (and my parents could not keep up) for a number of years. Eventually, I ended in the demo scene and there I found a bit of help. It took me so much time. And when I compare to other hackers who had friends in the business, they just learned faster than me :-( So, even though it sounds obvious : the number one priority is meeting other people, sharing information. Social skills are sooo important if you're not an absolute genius...
- neatze 6y ago
  personally, I think it is false to think about skills as linear model, it is more inverse exponential model a like. In another words, what I am trying to is that; if you have sustained environment, discipline, and some luck, it is straight forward to become worst of the best. How fast you get there will depend to some extent of advice and guidance, but one has ask self; does he want to become in shortest time worst of the best or become worst of the best no matter what.
lvice 6y ago
Surely if someone is interested in the topic of "how to become a hacker", it shows the kind of curiosity that you are talking about. PS: Congratulations? How is this relevant, gate-keeping aside?
5m17h 6y ago
You mean you have to acquire the ability to actively collect and discriminate?
viraptor 6y ago
I think this is phrased wrong. I get what you mean, but this is just gate keeping. First, what do you even mean by hacker? There are many ways to describe this. Sure, if you mean the creativity, bending the rules of what's possible, general interest in discovery... that's traits people have in the first place before being called hackers. But that's not the only way.
- whynotminot 6y ago
  I find gatekeeping in the hacker world to be some of the worst in tech. There's a strong "if you can't figure it out on your own you're too stupid to help" vibe to it, while the rest of the dev world has actually made some decent strides toward valuing inclusion and education.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    I find that this is largely the American hacker community - European hackers, and especially Germans, tend to be incredibly supportive of people with the drive to learn. They also tend to expand their hacker mindset to things other than computers - wherever there's a complex system, they're critical of it, enjoy learning how it works, learning how to break it and bend it.
nuclearnice1 6y ago
Note the article is about a different and older definition of hacker than you seem to be using. From the ESR article linked: “The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.”
mettamage 6y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I normally don't call people out on this as we are human and we need wiggle room for conversation and the formulation of opinions. Plus, everyone is guilty of this, me included. In fact, the previous statement is me doing it as well. We are human after all. But I do tend to call people out on this when people stifle curiosity with these type of claims. Knowing myself, I know that 10 years ago I might've taken your advice to heart as I didn't know any better. I know that I've done this in other areas of my life and it has had a negative impact. So I am here to produce a counter voice loudly proclaiming that one should be very sceptical about taking your opinion to heart. Some people claim God exists. And I therefore should live quite differently than I am right now. I require extraordinary evidence. Some people claim that you can't become a hacker if you need to ask it. I require extraordinary evidence. In spirit of my sentiment, I'm going to give you a counterexample. I'm the counterexample. Step 1: Go to http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html 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 Step 4b (bonus, I mean, you're there now anyway): Complete Kernel Programming at the Vrije Universiteit Step 5: Go to https://hackthebox.eu https://hackthebox.eu, hack at least 1 easy, 1 medium, 1 hard and -- for good measure -- 1 insane box 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. If you think this is my whole path then that's not true. This is simply the happy path that I uncovered. It's not optimal, but it works. It might not work for everyone, but I'm sure it will work for more people than just me. I am now a hacker. And I'm sure there are more counter examples stemming from the VUSec group that started hacking real machines after that. That's my evidence. I don't expect that you have enough evidence as your position is much tougher and I wouldn't even know how to begin on starting an argument that does. My point simply is: please be a bit careful about the accuracy of your statements if it implies negative consequences. Inconvenient truths are fine, but simply opinions without any backing that leads to something negative really feels disheartening to read. Note: I didn't downvote. I don't think you had any ill intentions. And you do provide your actual view in a succinct manner (something I could learn from O:) ). And that's what discussion is all about, albeit a bit rough at times, perhaps.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jtaft 6y ago
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.

kebman 6y ago

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 thought would be beneficial to the rest of my collegues. He told me, "Go to the principal, and word your idea so it sounds like it's his idea, and I'm sure he'll give you the go-ahead for it." I told him straight up, that, "Nah, then I'll rather keep it to myself."

mettamage 6y ago
I think this idea is what the OSINT community does. Step 1: scrape websites, step 2: put it in a database. Well, I guess you actually found databases instead of scraping sites. The OSINT community does that too.
ghostpepper 6y ago
In this article the word "hacker" is actually used in the original meaning - nothing to do with breaking into systems.
- kebman 6y ago
  I didn't break into any system. I merely streamlined the gathering of restricted data that I was entitled to anyway through my work. Then I made graphical representations of those data for my own use, in order to do a better job. I figured, if this works for me, it would work for my collegues as well, but I wouldn't want to divulge how I did that for free, and certainly not by letting someone else take all the credit for it. And thus I became a "hacker"...
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    sorry, I re-read your original comment and now I'm not sure how I assumed it was about criminal hacking
6y ago

arexxbifs 6y ago

My best advice to any budding hacker would be for them to find a job as unrelated to computers as possible, but which leaves them with enough free time to tinker with whatever currently tickles their fancy.

markus_zhang 6y ago
Pretty much what I'm doing but I do hope for a coding job...
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  Like most things, hacking is a lot like angling in the respect that it's a fun, relaxing and rewarding pastime, but most often neither of these when depended upon for survival.
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    Ha... boy this describes several phases of my life (with lessons learned) remarkably well. Thanks for the chuckle. Poker, sports betting arbitrage, bug bounties... All were fun before I tried making them my day job.
qzw 6y ago
I’m sure this works for some people in the right context, but so many great OG hackers were career computer scientists and engineers. I mean, people like the original Xerox PARC guys, Woz, Cerf, Diffie, the RSA guys, TBL, and too many more to name. They were all working in jobs or started companies that allowed them to devote the bulk of their time and energy to hacking and building. There are only so many hours in the day. If you’re devoting a third of it to something completely unrelated to your passion, it’s pretty hard to get the best out of yourself. And forget it if you want to have any other kind of “life” besides. Edit: readability
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  Most of those guys operated under circumstances vastly different from today. If you can land a job like those at PARC or Bell Labs, then yes, "carreer hacking" is certainly possible. Considering how many IT professionals there are now and how few there were back then, I'd say those kinds of jobs are even more scarce now than they used to be. It's not impossible, but it's not a realistic expectation. > If you’re devoting a third of it to something completely unrelated to your passion A programming job is likely to be as far from any kind of hacking passion as any other, with the added disadvantage of possibly poisoning the well, so to speak.

endgame 6y ago

Warms my heart to see the old ways kept alive.

ldeangelis 6y ago

Interestingly, the initial article [0] is still alive and updated. The most recent addition was about Go. I'm always impressed by how many people do things with this language. It seems to really hit a sweet spot for small to big tools. [0]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

mettamage 6y ago

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 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 and Network Security at the Vrije Universiteit Step 4: Complete Hardware Security at the Vrije Universiteit Step 4b (bonus, I mean, you're there now anyway): Complete Kernel Programming at the Vrije Universiteit Step 5: Go to https://hackthebox.eu https://hackthebox.eu, hack at least 1 easy, 1 medium, 1 hard and -- for good measure -- 1 insane box 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. This took me 8 months, personally (60 hours per week). I found it a lot of fun. It could take you a lot less time or more time. ----- I'm assuming you already know how to program, if you don't then get the following prerequisite knowledge. Step 1: do CS50 in order to learn programming and learn how to learn programming languages. What I've seen in students is that the first 6 weeks are experienced as more difficult than the last 6 weeks (hint: it's because you start off with C). So don't get discouraged. If this is not you and it is the other way around, I've seen that too (though, I've seen it less. It depends on the default mode of thinking that a person uses). Step 2: do https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ to understand computer systems and get some assembly under your belt. Step 3: if you feel like this road is too rigid, do a project that you're interested in here. Get it out of your system now, because the above mentioned stuff took me 10 months, personally. Create a computer graphics engine with OpenGL and Java. Yes, you could do C++ but that's complicating things for now. If you really want to though, go ahead, C++ is a fine choice if you're burning with passion. These 3 steps probably take between 4 to 8 months. Some people with a hacker mindset could do this within 2 months, or 1 month even (email me if you did!). Some people that have other stuff going on in their lives will do this in 8+ months. It's all fine.

rramadass 6y ago
>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.

ProAm 6y ago

Being a programmer is not being a hacker. This article is about how to become a decent programmer .

sillysaurusx 6y ago
I think any decent programmer is also a decent hacker. Because it's hard to imagine someone being a decent programmer if they can't get the computer to do what they want. Which is the classic definition of a hack: to force the computer to do what you want, whether the computer wants to or not.
porknubbins 6y ago
The more I learn I’ve started to think more and more there is not a separate skill of hacking except maybe to learn a few tools- the best engineers to reverse engineer a system are generally the ones capable of forward engineering it.

HugoDaniel 6y ago

Somehow reminded me of the original Hacker Test https://www.elfqrin.com/hackertest.php https://www.elfqrin.com/hackertest.php

cutler 6y ago

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 conversation about Emacs and the Free Software Foundation he drew his sword upon which I kneeled and was dubbed a hacker. That's how it's done. Aw, alright - the sword bit is fictitious but the rest is true. Contact with a deity can confer status.

daffy 6y ago
You kneeled on his sword?
- watwut 6y ago
  Hackers rites are different then knight rites.
- Normal_gaussian 6y ago
  upon which ~ at which time. Possibly more of a British English usage; I'd appreciate somebody with better formal language knowledge giving a less shallow insight.
  - cutler 6y ago
    Or even thereupon.
zitterbewegung 6y ago
Does this make me a hacker? Donald Knuth was giving a presentation to celebrate someones birthday by debugging his old FORTRAN code. He was having trouble giving it since his PDF of his presentation was autoforwarding using Adobe Acrobat. I figured out that Preview would avoid this outcome. I think this is the largest contribution I will have to Computer Science.

m1117 6y ago

This is confusing. "Hacker" is a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data. "Software Engineer" is the right approach. "Hacker Spirit" lol

m1117 6y ago
*word
brunoqc 6y ago
You can't use "engineer" in Canada without complete studies in engineering and paying money every year to be a member of their club.
TrueDuality 6y ago
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 self-described hackers that do good and creative things, and not just related to computer security than the malicious types. Fun fact, the "maker" movement was a branded version of the "hackerspace" movement for people. Any time you hear about a Maker they're also a Hacker just kind of a subset of them. Source: I'm senior staff of DEFCON, the largest hacker conference on the planet.
- jtaft 6y ago
  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 with Defcon! Been there a couple times and plan to go again. At the next live con i'm down to meet and talk about hacker lore!

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

looking at the ESR version the updates only go back to 2007, but I thought I originally read it in 1996. Whatever it was, it was very similar. I miss that feeling of finding mysterious text files from the elders of the internet. I used to think the changes in technology killed that feeling, but now I have a hunch that I just got older.

SmallPeePeeMan 6y ago
Yep. Those files are still there, but the mystery is gone. Like when you figure out your parents are regular people, too.

platz 6y ago

Kevin Mitnick destroyed any faith I had in what being a hacker was about.

aortega 6y ago
He's a corporate man now, but in his youth he was legit.
- platz 6y ago
  I felt his story was spun in a way that accredited far more moral weight than I learned was actually warranted
wbsun 6y ago
I have given up educating people I met in daily life who misunderstand "hacker" and "cracker", but now I feel sad even on HN and with ESR's article [1] that people here still misunderstand these two. Hope most HN readers are not coming here looking for new system breaches or vulnerabilities. [1]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

UweSchmidt 6y ago

A hacker might be the modern independent scholar. You can follow your tech curiosity, self-study and work on your own little projects and be intellectually and creatively rewarded. Start anywhere, any programming tutorial, or any arduino project recipe. Get immersed and always figure out how the stuff really works. You are most likely smart enough to do it. If employment is an issue, well, what you learned from the above should take you at least halfway to a job and probably make your career better.

vsareto 6y ago
Interestingly, John Carmack talked about doing a “gentleman scientist” approach with AI

jasoneckert 6y ago

Great post. It's equally refreshing to read an article that uses the word "hacker" appropriately, and not like mass media does (i.e. kid in hoodie with a stickered laptop trying to steal your credit card number).

crumbshot 6y ago

Their first mistake was taking heed of anything ESR has to say, including his archaic opinion on what hacking is. If it's nothing to do with software or hardware security, then it's not hacking. And yes, this site is itself woefully misnamed.

feanaro 6y ago
I don't know, this matches closely the meaning I was taught when I was first introduced to the word. I've never found Hacker News to be misnamed.

rashthedude 6y ago

Brought a smile to my face. The original article by Eric Raymond had a huge impact on my life.

fossuser 6y ago

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.

Robelius 6y ago
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_connection http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#nerd_connect...
- eliasbagley 6y ago
  Very similar for me - there is also a direct line from me reading that article to me being a software engineer today.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Thanks! There's a pretty direct line for me too. I'd be happy if my post helps others in a similar position.
croh 6y ago
Thanks for putting this down. I too have sweet memories of original article. After reading ESR article, I chose Python over Perl few years back, and kick off my career. But the most important thing article taught me is about hacker mindset.

diablo1 6y ago

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

systems 6y ago

I dont understand what he means when he said "(a good example book for this currently is Designing Data Intensive Applications)." I got this book recently and was planning to read it soon, does he thinks the tools and techniques mentioned in the book are a waste of time, or the opposite?

fossuser 6y ago
Ah sorry that's unclear, I meant I thought that book was really good for, "just learning more about the craft of programming in general".

pacomerh 6y ago

I don't like this new definition of the word "hacker". I wish people would call builders and tinkerers something else. We have all this strong history with hackers who are the ones that infiltrate systems. And now someone makes an app and he/she is a hacker. Somehow I feel like there's a necessity to feel special and unique. This word is so soft now.

bitwize 6y ago
The builder/tinkerer meaning predated the infiltrator meaning by like a couple of decades, but whatever, okay, zoomer.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
Absolutely agreed, the word used to carry a good bit of street cred but now everyone and their grandma is a hacker.
- pacomerh 6y ago
  This is exactly what I mean. But I guess I'm a minority here
jmknoll 6y ago
Based on your comment and some of the other ones on here, I looked this up and it looks like the original meaning of “working on a tech problem in a different way than what’s outlined in the manual” dates back to the 1950’s. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/a-short-history-of-hack/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-o...
hvis 6y ago
Curious to see this comment on "Hacker News". Did you think this resource was about the infiltration profession?
- pacomerh 6y ago
  Yup, on hacker news, that doesn't mean I like the name of this page, right?

jtth 6y ago

We would be a lot better off if this term went away.

alexashka 6y ago

For me, there is a checklist of ideas one has to grok and then computers connected over a network and talking to one another is comprehensible. I think a lot of the complexity of modern software development is powers that be, entrenching their powerful positions by layering more and more complexity, so that no team of a dozen people can ever hope to compete. There is no attempt to re-factor our current way of doing things to reduce the complexity 10x. We're stuck with multiple OSes, multiple languages, multiple tools for each language, a plethora of frameworks that do the same thing but slightly differently and none of them do anything uniquely excellent, they're different for historical reasons, not pragmatic. Half the web developer jobs are a matter of manually solving SQL <-> user interface problem, specific to a business domain. Why we don't sit down and create protocols/specs for each business domain that span across SQL, UI, security and permissions levels so that each bank doesn't have to hire a team of IT people to do the same thing slightly differently is beyond me - I can only guess it is because nobody in government understands how computers work. We're seeing some reduction in complexity with cloud providers, but it is of the worst kind - it is consolidation combined with vendor lock-in, proprietary software and pay-as-you-go pricing, yikes!

n0there 6y ago

I appreciate this blog post very much. Glad I read it 4 years into my programming journey rather than 14 years.

Mandatum 6y ago

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.