A Minutes With Hacx

    Somebody keep asking me, " Will you teach me how to hack ?". Mmm...unfortunately, I don't have time or energy to do this; my own hacking projects take up 150% of my time. Even if I did, hacking is an attitude and skill you basically have to teach yourself. You'll find that while real hackers want to help you, they won't respect you if you beg to be spoon-fed everything they know.

    Learn a few things first. Show that you're trying, that you're capable of learning on your own. Then go the hackers you meet with questions. Anyone who still ask me how to crack a system or how to crack after surfing this site is too stupid to be educable even I had the time for tutoring. Any e-mail requests of this kind that I get will be ignored or answered with extreme rudeness.

    The best way for you to reach some real hackers to talk with is to find a Unix or Linux users group local to you and go to their meetings ( you can find links to several lists of users group on the LDP page at Sunsite ). I used to say here that you wouldn't find any real hackers on IRC, but I'm given to understand this is changing. Apparently some real hacker communities are attached to things like GIMP and Perl have IRC channels now.

    The first things you have to do is learn HTML language, if you don't already know it. There are a lot of glossy, hype-intensive bad HTML books out there, and distressingly few good ones. The one I like best is HTML: The Definitive Guide. When you're ready to start programming, I would recommend starting with Perl or Python. C is really important, but it's also much harder.

    To be a hacker you need a motivation and initiative and the ability to educate yourself. When you're ready, start now.....