So-You-Wanna-Be-A-Hacker?- by Law Enforcer

Hello the re ! Let me take a wild guess: You just saw the Hackers The
Movie, thought: " Wow, awesome, i wanna do that too", you did a search
on the web, and this fil e came up. Am i right ? Am I right ?

First off : Hackers does not show real ha cking. Sure, those graphics
really look cool, but real hacking mostly shows y ou nothing more
then a black screen with grey text. Another hint. If you're o ut
to learn how to fuck up people's computers, FUCK YOU ! You're not
a rea l hacker. Real hackers have ethics. If you do not agree with
those rules, do not read on. This file is not meant for you.

1. Do not damage anyhting / anyon e intentionally.
2. Do not alter files, other then to hide the fact that you were/are
in the system.

Simple, huh ? A true hacker is someone who is interested in computers,
who wants to learn how they work, why they work, and is always after
more knowledge. Real hackers don't hack to wreak havoc, o r to make
money off of secret files. Real hackers hack for the thrill of hac king,
to satisfy their thirst for knowledge, to give in to their curiosity.
Real hackers do not look onto others as possible threats. They think of
oth er hackers as colleagues / friends / fellow oulaw members. A real
hacker is never afraid to share his knowledge or to educate newbies.

You're probably all set, sitting behind your computer with a tray of
JOLT-cola, a stack of smoke s, your door locked, some relaxing music
in your stereo, your friends all got a note telling them that you were
not gonna see them in a while, your dog ha s been brought to your
neighbour who will walk him, in short, you took care of everything,
right ?

Good. To start, get that poor dog back, and tell y our friends you will
see them after all (unless you wanna stay locked up for years that is).
You don't learn hacking overnight. It takes literally years a nd years
before you can pull off your very first real hack. This is the real
hacker's very first quality : PATIENCE. Without patience, you might
lear n a few tricks (for instance, you might find out how to 'nuke'
a person. Wow. Impressive!), but if you wanna go for the real fun,
you'll have to learn for quite a while.

Once you got a nuking programm, and some proxies, making you a ble to
flood your most hated chat, you're feeling quite the man allready!
I mean, see that guy insult you ? You check for his ip address (The
chat yo u're in allows you to see full ips), fire up the nuker, and
with a satisfyin g smirk on your face you watch him go idle. Bravo, you
just managed to make a n ass out of yourself. If you're lucky, he's
not running any interception pr ogramms. If you're not-so-lucky, he
is, but he's not gonna report you to your isp. If you're unlucky, he
does so, and gets you disconnected from it (Yes, so-called nukes are
a federal offence in the US), and if you're the most unlu cky person
in the whole wide world, you just tried to bomb a hacker. Within t he
next few minutes (you're behind your computer trying to figure out
why this guy didn't go idle) your computer starts acting all weird.
They never t old you that smoke was able to come out of it, did they ?
(This is a bit ove rdoing it, but i wanna make an example). You're
hacking days are over. The le sson to be learned here : NEVER GET
ARROGANT. There's always someone out ther e who knows more then you.

You decided to learn a little more. You wanna be ab le to check other
people's e-mails. You wound up on a wwwboard, where you did not
really bother to read other posts, but just typed (in all caps off
co urse, or you might not be noticed) :"HOW DO I HACK HOTMAIL ?". The
next day, you find out you can't get into that board anymore. Isn't
that something ? Th ey banned you. And you only wanted to know how
to hack hotmail. Wait a minute . You recall seeing a message at the
top of the wwwboard, stating not to ask about hotmail hacking. Damn.
If you wind up on a WWWBoard, there are a few ru les of etiquette :
1. Do not use all caps. This is considered shouting, and e xtremely
rude. You use caps, you'll probably wind up getting flamed or
ignored.
2. Read the previous questions first. Maybe your answer is in the re.
3. Read the rules of the board. Do they have any links to helpfull
pages, or a faq ?
4. Do not flame. (Flaming is ridiculing other people's post s, calling
them names, or posting the same question). Flaming is lame. Fla ming
makes you look stupid, no matter what. Besides, you could be
f laming someone who knows a shitload more about computers, and who
just got dumped by his wife. He decides to take out his aggression
on you. (I neve r said hacking wasn't dangerous).
5. Don't be afraid to do some stuff yoursel f. If someone mentions a
certain programm, don't ask where you can find it . Do a search on
it with a search engine (i.e. Altavista.com). Someone who always
asks questions on where to get this or that is not appreciated, an d
is considered lame. Show initiative.
6. Do not ask general questions like :"How do i hack...". Be specific.
Include as much info as possible (i .e. "How can i enter a
UNIX machine with my telnet programm. I'm running Windows, and the
UNIX system they use is System V"). Do NOT tell exactly w hat you
are doing though! (I.e. i'm hacking into the CIA servers by using
a hacked telnet account (By the way. NEVER hack a government
comput er. You WILL get caught!) And don't brag (i.e. Yesterday, I
hacked into a yahoo server and stole their password file) Be paranoid
remember the X-fil es? Trust no one).

Okay, okay, you're REALLY set now. You became a regular at a certain
WWWBoard of your choice, you downloaded some nifty tools mentioned
by others, you read some text-files, but you wanna learn more. Where
to go now ? Ever heard of books ? READ some. To really start hacking,
is not a m atter of getting lots and lots of programms that will do
all kinds of stuff f or you (though there are a few tools every
hacker should have), REAL hacking is knowing WHY a certain something
works, and what's more HOW exactly it wor ks. Suppose something in
the system gets changed. Your programms don't work a nymore. If you do
know why it worked at first, you might be able to find a wa y around
the new system. The best to start with, is understanding how the
Internet works. Get a book on TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/
Internet Protocol). A Protocol is an agreement made. The Internet
works with certain agreements on how to contact a webpage, on how
a download is transmitted etc. Another good start is learning about
your OS (Operating System). Learn how t o solve small problems you
encounter while running Windows. Learn what tools are included with
Windows (The most powerfull ones are actually available in DOS. Tools
like PING, FINGER, TRACERT and NETSTAT. You won't find much info
about those unless you try them. (They're in your /windows/ folder)).
(Som e other neat stuff included with windows are some different
client programms to connect to servers. Tools like TELNET and FTP are
also to be found in the windows folder).

Well. You know (and understand) TCP/IP now, and know enough about
Windows to do some basic problem solving. You are aware of the
cool programms etc. Any other tools you need ? The answer is Yes.
Basic tools sh ould in my opinion at least be :

- A good trace programm in case TRACERT does n't show too much. I use
PingPlotter and Visual Router myself.
- A portscanner to scan ranges of IP's for specific servers in that
ra nge. I use Netlab for this. (It also contains Whois,
Finger and a Tra cer).
- A Brute force hacker for servers. Read our e-mail hacking FAQ for
some usefull tools.
- A Brute force hacker for UNIX password files. S ome usefull ones
are CrackerJack and John The Ripper.

Remember, tho se are really basic tools. Next up to be learning about is
UNIX. UNIX is, lik e Windows, an Operating System, except UNIX is run
on large networks (kinda l ike NT), with many users. UNIX is not
graphically based, it's (like DOS) a p arser that reacts to your input.
About 80% of all servers connected to the In ternet run one or another
version of UNIX. To hack them, you'll need to be ab le to know how they
work. Try getting a free shell account somewhere, and get familiar
with the OS. Better yet, you have 1 GB of free disk space ? Why don 't
you start running Linux, a freeware version of UNIX, which is commonly
available on the net, or supplied with books. Learn it inside and
out.

You 're starting to become quite the wizkid, aren't you ? You know
TCP/IP, windo ws, UNIX, you have some really cool programms, and on the
WWWBoard you're sta rting to become the guru who gets asked the most
difficult questions. You hac ked some servers, made sure you messaged
the admin how to solve the problems etc. Now how can you become even
more knowledgeable ?

The answer is by learning about programming. After all, it would not be
enough to always hear from others about exploits they found.It would be
way cooler, if you yourself could announce a security flaw you
discovered. But, unless you don't know how the system works, you'll
never ever find holes in it. By learning a few programming languages
it's possible to look at the source code of a programm, and check it
to see if you do find any holes that the programmers overlooked.
Personally, i would recommend learning Ansi C (usefull for UNIX etc).
Pick up a book, and away you go. If you don't have any programming
skills yet, it would prolly be best if you first learn an easier
language. Try Visual Basic, or PERL. Both are pretty easy to learn,
and do not require lots of programming knowledge to create something
with them.

Once you learn how to programm, the sky is the limit. Be creative,
look at which areas of hacking you like, and specialise in those.
If you know UNIX inside out, why not proceed to other OS's ? There is
so much left to learn out there.

Remember, just because you are new, you are not automatically a lamer. You
are not warranted the allowance to be a lamer. A newbie possess ignorance,
but a lamer possesses stupidity. A newbie is not a bad thing, a lamer is!
Don’t be lame.

Happy hacking !

-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-

Shoutouts go to :

An Eyewitness, Ashes, Bazza, Blade Surfer, Cougar, Cry Tough, cypress hill,
deej, Frosty, Ganga, Lathem, MarquisdeSade, Pennywise, petr0lb0mb, R-2r, RaVeN,
sna, tress, and WhooptyFuckingDoo

Don't be lame, we put many hours of work into this file. Don't rip our names, or
we will track you down, and offer you a sniff of our feet !

Copyright (c) July 99, ETM.