REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO BECOME A HACKER AND HOW BEST TO START YOUR HACKING JOURNEY
In this article we are going to x-ray the topic "Reasons why you need to become a Hacker and how best to start your Hacking journey*. Make sure to read till the end to get the most out of this article.
This guide is all about how to become hacker. It includes detailed information on the role a hacker plays, some of the skills and experience necessary to become a hacker in the 2021, and strategies for landing a job as an ethical hacker.
By definition, I normally define hacking an unconventional way of accessing data either through an electronic device or by a manual method. Hacking have always been in a existence from the inspection of computer and ICT in general.
Historically, defensive and offensive Cybersecurity pursuits have been described using the monikers of white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers respectively. These nicknames were used to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. While both of these terms are still commonly used, at least one of them may not be adequately descriptive of the various roles found in today’s modern Cybersecurity ecosystem.
Although a black-hat hacker is still just the bad guy, the good guys are now better described using expressions such as red team, blue team, purple team, ethical hacker, and penetration tester. More specifically, red teams provide offensive security services and blue teams provide defensive services. Purple, being the combination of red and blue, identifies those teams that provide some of each flavor of security service.
The term ethical hacker includes all security professionals that provide offensive services, whether red team, pentester, or freelance offensive consultant.
Security analysts or engineers are also job titles that may include offensive elements. Often these offensive security services will be rolled up under a threat and vulnerability management group within a company.
While there are some subtle technical differences, say between the services provided by an independent offensive cybersecurity consultant and an in-house pentester, for this guide these various names for ethical hackers are used interchangeably.
An ethical hacker’s primary purpose is to view security from the adversary’s perspective in an effort to find vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors. This provides defensive teams the opportunity to mitigate by devising a patch before a real attack can occur. This objective is served by executing simulated cyberattacks in a controlled environment.
While much of the value that an ethical hacker provides is related to testing security controls and devices for perimeter penetration vulnerabilities, they also look more broadly for weaknesses that can be exploited deep within a network or application such as data exfiltration vulnerabilities.
Role Of An Ethical Hacker
Ethical hackers can be independent freelance consultants, employed by a firm that specializes in simulated offensive cybersecurity services, or they can be an in-house employee protecting a company’s website or apps.
Knowledge of current attack methods and tools is a requirement across these employment options, however, the in-house ethical hacker may be required to have an intimate knowledge of only a single software or digital asset type.
While relatively new to the security industry, one advantage that an in-house red team may provide is that the team will necessarily have a more intimate understanding of how their own systems and applications are constructed than would an independent consultant. This insider knowledge provides the red team an advantage, as long as they can avoid becoming myopic in their view. It would take real attackers years to replicate this advantage. In-house teams are largely thought to be less expensive than the continuous use of a consulting firm as well.
Conversely, a benefit that an external ethical hacker may provide is a fresh set of eyes to identify vulnerabilities that may be overlooked by the internal team. Even organizations that employ an internal red team may occasionally contract an external ethical hacker to provide this fresh look at their defenses.
For any external offensive security service provider, it is especially important to obtain written permission from the client before beginning any offensive activities. This permission should detail the systems, networks, applications, and web sites that will be included in the simulated attack. Do not increase the scope of the service without additional written permission to do so.
In keeping with the industry’s use of colors to delineate between various cybersecurity roles and functions, there are white-box, black-box, and gray-box ethical hacker engagements. A white-box engagement is when the security professional is given as much information about the target system and application as is possible. This allows the simulated attack to go wide and deep very quickly looking for vulnerabilities that it would take a real bad actor a very long time to uncover.
Conversely, a black-box engagement is when no insider information is given to the ethical hacker. This more closely reflects the circumstances of a real attack and can provide valuable insight into what a real attack vector may look like. As the name implies, a gray-box engagement then denotes the simulation of an attack where the attacker has already penetrated the perimeter and may have spent some time inside the system or application.
Many firms enlist the help of all three engagement types in conjunction with both in-house and external ethical hackers. This variation of applied knowledge can provide the best view of what protections must be deployed but is also much more expensive to undertake.
Possessing ethical hacker skills and knowledge is helpful for many other security roles.
These skills are vital to network security analysts and network engineers. Purple teams need people with offensive skills. Application security developers benefit from an understanding of offensive methods and tools. Security researchers, commonly known as bug hunters, depend highly on their knowledge of offensive tactics. Many successful bug hunters display an understanding that reaches deeper than the application layer to the network layer and other areas that can be exploited.
The skills required to become an ethical hacker
While there are plenty of anecdotal stories of blackhat hackers being converted to be whitehats in a bygone era, the most important requirement for becoming a successful ethical hacker today is to have, as is found in the name, high ethical standards. Ethics are what separate the good guys from the bad guys. There are plenty of blackhat hackers that have adequate technical skills to be an ethical hacker, but they lack the discipline of character to do the right thing regardless of the perceived benefits of doing otherwise.
A history of cybercrime poses an unacceptable risk for a member of a cybersecurity team. For a large organization with an astute legal team, this type of risk would represent a nonstarter. A word to the wise then is, when looking for work as an ethical hacker, a resume that includes any work that even smells of unauthorized work or unethical behavior is a fast way to be disqualified. While people can certainly change over time, most employers accept that developing a set of ethical life-guiding standards is much more involved than just desiring a career change.
Second to having the “ethical” part of this colloquial nickname covered is the need to have the “hacker” part covered as well. A candidate for an ethical hacker job must be able to demonstrate advanced cybersecurity technical skills. The ability to recommend mitigation and remediation strategies are a part of the desired experience.
To become an ethical hacker a candidate must understand networks, both wired and wireless. They must be proficient with operating systems, especially Windows and Linux. They need to understand firewalls and file systems. They must know how file permissions work and be familiar with servers, workstations, and computer science generally.
Strong coding skills are essential and direct, manual, and hands-on attack methods must be clearly understood and demonstrated. In short, an ethical hacker should have defended so many assets over their career that imitating and then thinking a few steps ahead of the adversary comes almost as second nature.
Above and beyond good ethics and strong technical skills is a special mix of creative and analytical thinking. Ethica hackers need to be able to think like the adversary. They must understand what motivates the bad actors and be able to estimate how much time and effort the blackhat may be willing to apply toward any specific target. To do this, the pentester must understand the value of the data and systems they protect.
Ethical hacker certifications and education
The two certifications that are specific to ethical hacking are Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP).
EC-Council describes their CEH certification is these terms: “A Certified Ethical Hacker is a skilled professional who understands and knows how to look for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in target systems and uses the same knowledge and tools as a malicious hacker, but in a lawful and legitimate manner to assess the security posture of a target system(s). The CEH credential certifies individuals in the specific network security discipline of Ethical Hacking from a vendor-neutral perspective.”
Any number of other cybersecurity professional certifications offered by EC-Council will lend themselves toward becoming more hireable as an ethical hacker.
Offensive Security describes their OSCP certification, saying “The OSCP examination consists of a virtual network containing targets of varying configurations and operating systems. At the start of the exam, the student receives the exam and connectivity instructions for an isolated exam network that they have no prior knowledge or exposure to.
The successful examinee will demonstrate their ability to research the network (information gathering), identify any vulnerabilities and successfully execute attacks. This often includes modifying exploit code with the goal to compromise the systems and gain administrative access.
The candidate is expected to submit a comprehensive penetration test report, containing in-depth notes and screenshots detailing their findings. Points are awarded for each compromised host, based on their difficulty and level of access obtained.”
A bachelor’s degree in a computer-related field is a good place to start your career. Computer science or network engineering education provides a recommended foundation for work in the security field. When considering a bachelor’s program in the field of cybersecurity give priority to programs with a strong interdisciplinary focus.
Good programs will emphasize computer engineering, computer science, and business management skills. Look for programs that include courses in technical writing and legal issues surrounding technology and ethics. The best cybersecurity professionals are well-rounded individuals who can see their field through a wide-angle lens.
Even with a degree and a professional certification or two, self-study is needed to keep up on current attack methods and offensive strategies. A home lab can be very useful. Youtube videos, internet groups and forums, and social media posts and exchanges are all methods used by successful ethical hackers to keep their edge over blackhat hacker.
How to get experience as an ethical hacker
Experience with vulnerability testing tools, such as Metasploit, Netsparker, and OpenVAS, is very helpful for ethical hackers. These tools and there are many more of them, are designed to save time when searching for known vulnerabilities. These or similar tools may provide a useful framework for vulnerability scanning and management but should represent only the starting point for an experienced ethical hacker. Manual simulated attacks must be directed toward the target as well. Knowledge and experience related to how these attacks are performed are essential.
The path to finding work as an ethical hacker will almost invariably pass through many years as a member of a security team providing defensive security services.
Assignment to an elite offensive team is most commonly a progression through the ranks of the department. Often beginning with work as a security specialist, security administrator, or security software developer, additional experience and education will qualify a candidate for a place on one of the security specialty teams or work as a freelance consultant.
Helpful experience extends beyond past IT security work. Social engineering and physical penetration tests are also applicable skills. Many attacks begin with intel gathered using an extended social engineering campaign. Knowledge of social engineering strategies and tactics can be very helpful in understanding the entire threatscape.
Physical breaches to a server room or data center will also sometimes precede a digital attack. An understanding of what physical assets are vulnerable will help an ethical hacker identify the types and methods that are likely to be used in a real event.
Cybercriminals must become evermore innovative as security professionals deny them the use of their previous methods and tactics. Physical attacks, including the use of drones to sniff out unprotected networks, are becoming more frequently employed to gather intel and initiate cyberattacks. An ethical hacker must anticipate and simulate the use of traditional and non-traditional attack vectors to provide the most comprehensive threat analysis possible.
Typical assignments
Typical work assignments for an ethical hacker include threat modeling, security assessments, vulnerability threat assessments (VTA), and report writing. Assuredly the responsibilities of this role will vary from company to company but these staples will nearly always be included in the job description.
Threat modeling
Threat modeling is a process used to optimize network security by identifying vulnerabilities and then determining countermeasures to prevent an attack or mitigate the effects of an attack against the system. In the context of threat modeling, a threat is a potential or actual adverse event that may be malicious (such as a denial-of-service attack) or incidental (such as the failure of computer hardware), and that can compromise the assets of the enterprise. An ethical hacker would contribute to this process by providing a comprehensive view of the possible malicious attacks and their resultant consequences for the organization.
The objective of effective threat modeling is to conclude where the greatest focus should be to keep a system secure. This can change as new circumstances develop and become known, applications are added, removed, or improved, and user demands unfold. Threat modeling is an iterative process that consists of defining assets, recognizing what each application does with respect to these assets, creating a security profile for each application, identifying potential threats, prioritizing potential threats, and documenting adverse events and the actions taken in each case.
The ethical hacker’s role is imperative in that it allows the threat modeling to remain theoretical rather than post mortem after an actual attack.
Security assessment
An ethical hacker, whether a pentester or a red team leader, will often be assigned the task of providing a security assessment. Simply put, an information security assessment is a risk-based measurement of the security posture of a system or enterprise. Security assessments are periodic exercises that test an organization’s security preparedness. They include checks for vulnerabilities related to the IT systems and business processes, as well as recommending steps to lower the risk of future attacks.
Security assessments are also useful for determining how well security-related policies are adhered to. They help to shore up policies designed to prevent social engineering and can identify the need for additional or enhanced security training. Culminating in a report that identifies weaknesses and makes recommendations, the security assessment is an invaluable risk management tool.
Vulnerability threat assessment
A vulnerability threat assessment is a process used to identify, quantify, and rank the vulnerabilities relevant to a system along with the threats that could possibly exploit those vulnerabilities. While closely related to a security assessment, the VTA is conducted to identify and correlate specific threats and vulnerabilities. The basic security assessment, described above, is used to identify vulnerabilities and evaluate the security posture of the enterprise independent of any specific threat. The VTA is a more threat-based assessment.
Examples of systems for which vulnerability threat assessments should be performed include, but are not limited to, information technology systems, energy supply systems, water supply systems, transportation systems, and communication systems. Such assessments may be conducted on behalf of a range of different organizations, from small businesses up to large regional or national infrastructure entities. Each of these system types and/or enterprises will require someone in an ethical hacker role to perform the VTA.
Report writing
A crucial element for carrying out the assignments of an ethical hacker is the ability to write clear and concise professional reports. Gathering data, identifying vulnerabilities, and correlating threats are of little value if the appropriate information can not be articulated to risk management leaders. Reports submitted from the red team are often the impetus for significant security resource expenditures. Risk management professionals need to have total confidence in the findings of ethical hackers in their organization. In some cases, an ethical hacker will be an outside consultant retained by a firm to provide the information needed to justify security expenditures for upper management or board of directors. In the world of security consulting, the report is the primary deliverable and is of the utmost importance.
When considering possible professional certifications and educational opportunities to elevate a career to include ethical hacking, do not underestimate the importance of business writing expertise. The ability to produce a well-written report will boost an individual’s career over an otherwise equally qualified peer.
Ethical hacking in review
Being a member of an in-house red team or working as a freelance whitehat hacker are exciting vocations. As far as operations level positions go, they are highly sought after positions that can engender a level of respect and provide a degree of prestige within the cybersecurity community. Ethical hacker jobs are necessary for the effective protection of networks, systems, and applications. This expertise is required throughout national infrastructure entities and to secure critical or sensitive data across all industries.
For many, the term ethical hacker is an oxymoron. It indicates two opposing notions. One is that of high ethical standards and the other that of “hacking” which is usually associated with nefarious activity.
An offensive security professional may be a better description, but ethical hacker is often used to describe this genre of security professionals because let’s face it, ethical hacker is more mysterious sounding.
Regardless of whether or not the word hacker is used in the job description, these jobs are not for the morally questionable and certainly not for anyone who has a history of being a bad actor. Ethical hackers are necessarily privy to sensitive information, the divulging of which could be catastrophic for the enterprise. A security clearance is often required for government employees and government contractors. Obtaining a security clearance will include a background investigation and an examination of financial and social media data.
With the relatively rare exception of the independent freelance offensive cybersecurity consultant, ethical hackers normally work as part of a team. If on a red team the other team members will be like-skilled ethical hackers or pen-testers and the team will be part of the overall security department. In a smaller organization, the ethical hacker may be the only person with an offensive role, but will invariably be a part of a larger security team. The ability to work well with other team members and to communicate effectively is critical to success. An ethical hacker is not the stereotypical hoodie-wearing young person working out of his parent’s basement – that decided to trade their black hat in for a white one. She is more often an educated, experienced, skilled, and articulate professional that is dedicated to making the world a safer place to live and work.
While history may provide examples of self-taught gritty individualists pulling themselves up by their digital bootstraps to the pinnacle of cybersecurity ops, an education with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, combined with one or more specialized professional certifications, is the standard for ethical hackers. Years of mettle-proving experience in software development and/or more traditional defensive security roles is not at all unusual for successful ethical hackers
7 Reasons You Should Study to Become a Hacker
The ethical hacking profession is a relatively new and very lucrative industry. It’s so fast-growing that there is a massive shortage of workforce to fill vacant job roles.
This is the best time for anyone to take advantage of the very many career opportunities available and begin studying to develop the essential skills to become a master hacker.
So I present you our top 7 reasons why you should consider a career in ethical hacking:
1. You will be getting into one of the most sought-after professions in the World
Before one can be great at hacking, a great deal of training must have gone in. And the skill set required to be a hacker cuts across many IT roles. This is why individuals with this specialist skillset and talent are in high demand.
Companies around the world are looking to hire such hackers who can ensure their defenses can keep cyber criminals out of their businesses. And when they find one they tend to retain them with all alacrity.
The U.S. alone currently has 313,735 unfilled cybersecurity job openings. And this is expected to rise up to an estimated 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity job openings by the year 2021. That is about a 10 fold increase in just a very short period.
Whereas in India, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) recently estimated that 1 million cybersecurity professionals will be needed by this year 2020 to meet the demands of its rapidly growing economy.
It may also interest you to know that there has been a zero percent cybersecurity unemployment rate from 2011 to date (2020).
So it’s about time you began your hacking training already! As you can see, cybersecurity experts are hotcakes and are must-hire candidates even right now.
2. You will earn more than just a decent living given the high salaries
Ethical hackers are in short supply. So employers make their job openings very attractive with high payout to net in the limited available professionals.
According to ZipRecruiter, the majority of cybersecurity job salaries across the United States currently range between $60,000 to $145,500 per annum, with a median salary of $85,500.
For more experienced and typically the highest-ranking cybersecurity employees, the salaries can go up as high as $304,500 every year.
This salary range does differ according to location, and ethical hackers in certain regions can get paid higher or lesser salaries.
To be more specific, the following are the payouts for hackers:
Penetration testers earn on average $109,961 (according to Indeed, 2018).
Ethical hackers earn on average $71,331 per year (according to InfoSec Institute in the US).
Bug bounty or freelance ethical hackers earn from $1,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the severity of the issue they find and the company involved (according to HackerOne, 2019).
One common theme to take away here is that anything security-related is expensive. To hire someone who is knowledgeable in the cybersecurity field the pay is always significantly high.
3. You will always have a job because cyber threats will never cease
Ethical hacking as a profession guarantees permanent job security for the ethical hacker because cyber threats will never go away.
This is especially true because as technology expands and more widely used, so also will new security vulnerabilities be discovered.
And criminal hackers are not about to stop. They will either develop new tactics or methods to exploit new vulnerabilities or adapt old classic attacks.
So companies and organizations have to constantly be on their toes to combat this menace, and they heavily depend on ethical hackers, now and in the future.
Unlike a few other industries, there is no fear for the day when robots or artificial intelligence (AI) will take over a hacker’s job completely because cyber threats are constantly evolving and the human hacker is not dispensable.
4. You can hack legally without getting into trouble
Hacking is a lot of fun. If you’ve ever been a hacker, you will know how fun it is to go hunt for vulnerabilities, try exploiting them when you do find one, and when you gain access, you do the hackers’ victory dance. Yaay!!!
Imagine being able to do all of that without fear of the law catching up with you now or many many years later in the future.
You get to work with companies and government agencies who will hire you to hack their systems and then fix vulnerabilities found. Afterward, you are rewarded with good money for the job. All of this without the risk of breaking the law.
5. You’ll find fulfillment and satisfaction on the job
There is this joy of accomplishment that I derive, as an ethical hacker, from being able to fight off and win bad guys doing bad things to others with hacking!
I feel a great deal of satisfaction just to think that it’s because of my work:
Companies and organizations can secure their systems and protect millions of customer’s data.
My family and friends can stay secure and safe online.
Being able to genuinely help people like this gives ethical hackers the feeling that they are a part of something grand, which is actually true.
6. You have the opportunity to switch from criminal to ethical hacking
A lot of people who studied hacking through self-education are usually tempted to start off on the wrong foot by becoming black hats or criminal hackers.
(A good example is world’s famous hacker, Kevin Mitnick, convicted in 1995 for criminal hacking, now turned cybersecurity consultant).
However, in recent years hacking has been rebranded more as a profession rather than used only for malicious purposes.
So black hats have an opportunity to cross carpets from doing evil with their hacking skills to helping humanity and still get paid good money for doing what they love.
The amazing thing is that the information security industry is ever ready and willing to accept cross-carpeting black hat hackers into the fold.
Because not only do they have the propensity for being the best, they are also armed with invaluable experience from the black hat world to better stop their ex-comrades.
7. You get to have a cool job title and earn the hackers’ respect
People are aware that hackers are a very intelligent and ingenious set of individuals. They have natural talent and/or have acquired the skills which enables them to be able to proffer solutions to technical problems less tech-savvy people have.
So when people ask you what you do for a living, and you say you are a hacker, you tend to get an interesting response. They immediately start to see you as a demi-god of some sort.
Your friends and family will be proud to be associated with you. They will be more than happy to bring technical or puzzle problems to you because they know you can solve them, and fast!
In conclusion, the future of the ethical hacking profession is very bright. It promises an interesting high paying career opportunity, with 100% job guarantee. It’s not too late now to jump on the bandwagon and begin studying to become an ethical hacker.
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HOW TO BECOME A HACKER
[1] Learning Fundamentals
Run a UNIX-like OS, such as Linux. UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems are the operating systems of the Internet. While you can learn to use the Internet without knowing UNIX, you can't be an Internet hacker without understanding UNIX. For this reason, the hacker culture today is pretty strongly UNIX-centered. There are many types of UNIX-like operating systems, the most popular being Linux, which you can run alongside Microsoft Windows on the same machine. Download Linux online or find a local Linux user group to help you with installation.[i] A good way to dip your toes in the water is to boot up a device called a live CD or USB, a distribution that runs entirely off a CD or USB without modifying your hard disk. A way to get a look at the possibilities without having to do anything drastic.
[ii] There are other UNIX-like operating systems besides Linux, such as the *BSD systems. The most popular *BSD systems are FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD. All are open source just like Linux. However, it's important to remember that they are BSD and not Linux.
MacOS on Darwin, a UNIX operating system that's on FreeBSD. Darwin is fully free and open source and is available from http://opensource.apple.com. Because the core of the system is UNIX, and macOS is very popular, many people have ported over Linux applications to macOS. You can get those programs with a package manager like homebrew, fink or MacPorts. Alternatively, you can just run Linux on a Mac alongside macOS.
If you want to get super niche, you can even run an operating system like Open Indiana, which is based on the open source release of the Solaris operating system before it was acquired by Oracle and made closed source. OpenIndiana and Solaris made on UNIX System V, and, as such, are not compatible with Linux applications. That said, there are many ports of Linux applications. You're probably better off just using macOS, BSD or Linux because they are much more popular and have many more programs available for them.
2. Write HTML. If you don't know how to program, learning basic HyperText Mark-Up Language (HTML) and gradually building proficiency is essential. What you see when you look at a website of pictures, images, and design components is all coded using HTML. For a project, set out to learn how to make a basic home page and work your way up from there.[4]
In your browser, open the page source information to examine the HTML to see an example. Go to Web Developer > Page Source in Firefox and spend time looking at the code.
You can write HTML in a basic word processing program like Notepad or Simple text and save your files as "yourCoolFileName.HTML" so you can upload them to a browser and see your work translated.
3. Learn the language of programming. Before you start writing poems, you have to learn basic grammar. Before you break the rules, you have to learn the rules. But if your ultimate goal is to become a hacker, you're going to need more than basic English to write your masterpiece.
Python is a good "language" to start off with because it's cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is compelling, flexible, and well-suited for large projects.
If you get into serious programming, you will have to learn Java is an alternative, but its value as a first programming language has been currently questioned in its particular state.
Unlike Java, Javascript is very similar to Python as they are both a C-based language and extremely new user-friendly. Javascript is "the programming language of the web," so If you'd like to continue your learning in web development/hacking, Javascript is better to learn than Python.
An alternative to JavaScript would be PHP C, the core language of Unix. C++ is very closely related to C; if you know one, learning the other will not be difficult. C is very efficient with your machine's resources but will soak up huge amounts of your time on debugging and is often avoided for that reason, unless the efficiency of your computer is especially important.
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WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE
1. Think creatively. Now that you've got the basic skills in place, you can start thinking artistically. Hackers are like artists, philosophers, and engineers all rolled up into one. They believe in freedom and mutual responsibility. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved. Hackers take a special delight in solving problems, sharpening their skills, and exercising their intelligence.
Hackers have a diversity of interests culturally and intellectually, outside of hacking. Work as intensely as you play, and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play," "work," "science," and "art" all tend to disappear or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness.
Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions, which is a great way to meet hackers and proto-hackers.
Consider training in a martial art. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most hacker-ly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness. Tai Chi is a good martial art for hackers.
2. Learn to love solving problems. No problem should ever have to be solved twice. Think of it as a community in which the time of everyone is hackers is precious. Hackers believe sharing information is a moral responsibility. When you solve problems, make the information public to help everyone solve the same issue.
You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get the most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers.
Read older pieces, such as the "Jargon File" or "Hacker Manifesto" by The Mentor. They may be out of date regarding technical issues, but the attitude and spirit are just as timely.
3. Learn to recognize and fight authority. The enemy of the hacker is boredom, drudgery, and authoritarian figures who use censorship and secrecy to strangle the freedom of information. Monotonous work keeps the hacker from hacking.
Embracing hacking as a way of life is to reject so-called "normal" concepts of work and property, choosing instead to fight for equality and common knowledge.
4. Be competent. So, anyone who spends time on Reddit can write up a ridiculous cyberpunk username and pose as a hacker. But the Internet is a great equalizer and values competence over ego and posture. Spend time working on your craft and not your image, and you'll more quickly gain respect than modeling yourself on the superficial things we think of "hacking" in popular culture.
Hacking Well
1. Write open-source software. Write programs that other hackers think are fun or useful, and give the program sources away to the whole hacker culture to use. Hackerdom's most revered demigods are people who have written large, capable programs that met a widespread need and given them away so that now everyone uses them.
2. Help test and debug open-source software. Any open-source author who's thinking will tell you that good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms, localize problems well, can tolerate bugs in a quickie release, and are willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines) are worth their weight in rubies.
Try to find a program under development that you're interested in and be a good beta-tester. There's a natural progression from helping test programs to helping debug them to helping modify them. You'll learn a lot this way, and generate goodwill with people who will help you later on.
3. Publish useful information. Another good thing is to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, and make those available. Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much respect as open-source authors.
4. Help keeps the infrastructure working. Volunteers run the hacker culture (and the engineering development of the Internet, for that matter). There's a lot of necessary but unglamorous work that needs to be done to keep it going — administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical standards. People who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect, because everybody knows these jobs are huge time sinks and not as much fun as playing with code. Doing them shows dedication.
5. Serve the hacker culture itself. It is not something you'll be positioned to do until you've been around for a while and become well-known for one of the four previous items. The hacker culture doesn't have leaders, exactly, but it does have culture heroes and tribal elders and historians and spokespeople. When you've been in the trenches long enough, you may grow into one of these.
Hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly reaching for this kind of fame is dangerous. Rather than striving for it, you have to position yourself, so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status.
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