How to Hack
This was one of the first and most influential texts on hacking I ever read. Copied here, because it seems to be no longer available from mc2.nu, which is where I originally found it. (anyone remember mc2? jabukie? the original hackers.com? HNC? AS-Mag? dtmf.org? nmrc? get in touch, I'd love to share archives)
You stay up all night on the PC typing and typing. No, you're not hacking. You're begging someone on IRC to teach you how to hack! Let's look at the facts:
1. You're a luser and you're annoying. No one likes you if you ask others how to hack without taking the least amount of initiative. 2. You're not worthy of any title even resembling hacker, cracker, phreaker, etc., so don't go around calling yourself that! The more you do, the less likely you are to find someone willing to teach you how to hack (which is an infinitesimal chance, any way). 3. You're wasting your time (if you couldn't infer that in the first place). Many real hackers (not those shitty script kiddies) spend all their insomniac hours reading and, yes even, HACKING! (Hacking doesn't necessarily (but usually does) mean breaking into another system. It could mean just working on your own system, BUT NOT WINDOWS '9x (unless you're doing some really menacing registry shit, in which case, you're kind of cool).)
You're probably thinking, "Then what should I do. If no one's going to help me, how can I learn to hack?" Have you ever tried READING (I assume this far that you are literate). Read anything and everything you can get your hands on! I recommend hitting a computer store and looking for discount books (books that are usually out of date, but so are a lot of the systems on the 'net, so they're still relevant!). You'll be surprised what you can learn from a book even when you're paying a dollar for every hundred pages. I recommend the following books to start off with:
* Maximum Security I or II: this is not a guide to hacking, despite what you might have heard, but
You stay up all night on the PC typing and typing. No, you're not hacking. You're begging someone on IRC to teach you how to hack! Let's look at the facts:
1. You're a luser and you're annoying. No one likes you if you ask others how to hack without taking the least amount of initiative. 2. You're not worthy of any title even resembling hacker, cracker, phreaker, etc., so don't go around calling yourself that! The more you do, the less likely you are to find someone willing to teach you how to hack (which is an infinitesimal chance, any way). 3. You're wasting your time (if you couldn't infer that in the first place). Many real hackers (not those shitty script kiddies) spend all their insomniac hours reading and, yes even, HACKING! (Hacking doesn't necessarily (but usually does) mean breaking into another system. It could mean just working on your own system, BUT NOT WINDOWS '9x (unless you're doing some really menacing registry shit, in which case, you're kind of cool).)
You're probably thinking, "Then what should I do. If no one's going to help me, how can I learn to hack?" Have you ever tried READING (I assume this far that you are literate). Read anything and everything you can get your hands on! I recommend hitting a computer store and looking for discount books (books that are usually out of date, but so are a lot of the systems on the 'net, so they're still relevant!). You'll be surprised what you can learn from a book even when you're paying a dollar for every hundred pages. I recommend the following books to start off with:
* Maximum Security I or II: this is not a guide to hacking, despite what you might have heard, but