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The Basics of Hacking - Moralitas - Jun 5, 2011
Basics
What is Hacking?
Hacking is usually misinterpreted as a something bad related to cyber crime. Hacking is the practice of modifying the features of a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the creator's original purpose. This guide will be based on computer hacking. For more click here.
What's a Hacker?
The person who is consistently engaging in hacking activities, and has accepted hacking as a lifestyle and philosophy of their choice, is called a hacker. A hacker tries to learn about how the system works and how to make it do things it was not made to do, or you have not got the privileges to do. There are three kind of hackers; White Hat, Black Hat, and Grey Hat.
- A White Hat hacker is someone who hacks the system for ethical/legal reasons.
- A Black Hat hacker is someone who hacks the system for malicious reasons, or personal gain. These are the type of hackers media usually give attention to, which is pretty unfair.
- A Grey Hat hacker is a combination of both White Hat, and Black Hat. An example of this would be hacking Sony, notifying the administrator about the exploit, and than asking a small fee for the fix.
By default, a hacker is White Hat, and a cracker is black hat.
How does one become a hacker?
First decide if you want to be a White Hat, or a Black Hat hacker. From there you can start reading tutorials, or if you know someone that can teach you, try asking him for being your 'master'. I found the following poem on WhatIsHacking, and thought I'd add.
- To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.
Finding someone to teach you the path is pretty hard, not many people want to spend their time teaching people about things that can be self-learned. The best thing would be to read tutorials, watch videos, and join forums related to your type of hacking. There are groups like for example HJT on HF, that teach people hacking related things. Of course you have to find one that suits the type of hacking your interested in. Click here for a list of some of the top tutorials.
First programming language
A good hacker must know how the box works before messing with it. In my opinion, choosing your first language is not very important. Your first language shouldn't have have complex syntax, meaning it should be really basic because your still learning how to program. Starting with languages like Java, and C++ is not recommended because they are for 'intermediate' programmers. It's not to say YOU MUST NOT pick these, but you should really start with basic languages. Pascal, Visual Basic, and Turing are great for educational purposes. Visual Basic has tons of tutorials on the web. Once again, there is no best programming language. Some are good for doing X, others for Y. Once you learn a language, you can start off with one that you wish to work on, it'll be almost the same thing, but different syntax.
Recommendations
Get Unix based operating systems! Good ones would be those with the Linux kernel, but it's up to you. Sure Windows is easy to work with, but it's not open source! Unless you get open source windows🤫, you should try an OS where you can do your own big things.
Think outside the box, a hacker should know alternate ways.
Join communities, this is very helpful! If you join communities, you generally tend to be up-to-date with technology. Communities can help you gain knowledge, and the other way around.
Glossary for Hacking & Cracking
Spoiler (Click to View)
Will add more when I think of them, post below if I forgot any. Thanks Paranaio for reminding most of these names.
Frequently asked Questions
Q: I know someone's IP can I use it to get access to his computer?
Not unless you know how to use Metasploit, and related tools. Even these fail mostly. here's a tutorial.
Q: How do I crack a WEP encryption?
The amount of videos, and tutorials available for this are unbelievable. Search.
Q: Can do I hack a Facebook password?
It's possible, but not easy. You can Social Engineer the target and get information, and use the information to reset the password. Alternates would be keylogging.
Q: What's a good language to start?
Visual Basic is great for educational purposes. Once you learn the main concepts of programming, learning other languages won't be a problem because it's usually just the syntax. Turing is another basic language for educational purposes.
I'm a human after all, I make mistakes. If you notice something that shouldn't be there, PM me. If you have suggests for FAQ let me know.
* - Trance™ - Jun 5, 2011
"Q: I know someone's IP can I use it to get access to his computer?
No."
Bullshit, If they're running on an unpatched win XP SP1 or something, I'm sure metasploit has over 9000 exploits. Your generalizing because metasploit almost never works.
* - +Pirate - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:48 AM)Peter Chao Wrote: Glossary for Hacking & Cracking
DDoS - Short for Denial-of-service attack; An attempt to take down site, or a computer by flooding the bandwidth or resources.
Hacktivist - Hacker + Acticist; Someone that hacks because they want social, political, economic, or environmental change. Anonymous would be an example.
Just saying
DDoS- Distributed Denial Of Service
DoS- Denial of Service
#2
Hacktivist - Hacker + Activist;
* - Sidi0u5 - Jun 5, 2011
Good work mate, interesting read.
Sidi0u5
* - Moralitas - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:49 AM)Trance™ Wrote: "Q: I know someone's IP can I use it to get access to his computer?How do you determine if they're using 'unpatched win XP SP1 or something' via the IP. As for the Metasploit, someone asking this question in this section probably doesn't know how to use it, but i'll edit it though, like I said I make mistakes.
No."
Bullshit, If they're running on an unpatched win XP SP1 or something, I'm sure metasploit has over 9000 exploits. Your generalizing because metasploit almost never works.
(Jun 5, 2011 07:52 AM)Paranoia™ Wrote: DDoS- Distributed Denial Of ServiceThanks, I can't believe I missed the DoS one since when creating this, someone asked me a question about these two. o.o
DoS- Denial of Service
#2
Hacktivist - Hacker + Activist;
* - Trance™ - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:52 AM)Peter Chao Wrote: How do you determine if they're using 'unpatched win XP SP1 or something' via the IP. As for the Metasploit, someone asking this question in this section probably doesn't know how to use it, but i'll edit it though, like I said I make mistakes.
Okay, I remember the tutorial that a staff member put of hacking a computer with only the ip via metasploit, using nmap and the db_autopwn command. Problem is, that most patched computers are not exploitable.
And metasploit is a pretty easy tool. It's like the havij of non SQLi tools.
* - Sky- - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:55 AM)Trance™ Wrote: Okay, I remember the tutorial that a staff member put of hacking a computer with only the ip via metasploit, using nmap and the db_autopwn command. Problem is, that most patched computers are not exploitable.
And metasploit is a pretty easy tool. It's like the havij of non SQLi tools.
Pretty sure that was Vince.
Nice read though, Peter.
* - Brilliant™ - Jun 5, 2011
Another High Quality thread. This will be very helpful for the newcomers. :)
* - +Pirate - Jun 5, 2011
Also, for the section on White hat hackers...
From Wikipedia Wrote:The term "white hat"refers to an ethical hacker, or a computer security expert, who specializes in penetration testing and in other testing
I thought white hats tried to help people, by testing out securities, and helping people get rid of malware; etc
* - Trance™ - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:56 AM)sky- Wrote: Pretty sure that was Vince.
Nice read though, Peter.
Yeah, it was Vince. Link to that tutorial if you can.
* - Moralitas - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:55 AM)Trance™ Wrote: Okay, I remember the tutorial that a staff member put of hacking a computer with only the ip via metasploit, using nmap and the db_autopwn command. Problem is, that most patched computers are not exploitable.Yeah it was Tony.
And metasploit is a pretty easy tool. It's like the havij of non SQLi tools.
Paranoia™ White Hat hacker also do penetration testings, they don't need to just help people.
* - Sky- - Jun 5, 2011
(Jun 5, 2011 07:59 AM)Trance™ Wrote: Yeah, it was Vince. Link to that tutorial if you can.
https://hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=1120351
That one?
* - +Pirate - Jun 5, 2011
PM'd you some more stuff that you can add
* - Anonymous.7654 - Jun 5, 2011
Thanks for detail Information,nice thread.
* - +Pirate - Jun 5, 2011
Proxy's?
VPN's? (Or VPN's for short) are used...
Socks?
TV-Team Viewer. A program that lets two people look at the same computer screen. EXTREMELY useful when trying to help out people, and can be cut of instantly, if a user suspects foul play.