How does one get started and quickly learn to be a hacker? Explain please like I am a 10 year old because he is. More inside

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• Gust@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  https://www.smashthestack.org/main.html

  A pretty neat wargaming server that uses outdated server software to practice/display different exploits. Its been ages since I’ve touched it, but iirc the first few levels show off some shell exploits as well as like some strcpy exploits and a buffer overflow with a nop slide. If you know the basics of using a Unix terminal and have some familiarity with any c language, it’s pretty accessible. Even if you dont, it has been around long enough that you could probably find a solutions guide or tutorials somewhere online. Thats the quickest way I can think of to get somebody without much time some legal “hacking” experience

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• GatesMcBalmer@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I grew up in the era of where you could download a program, ie napster, limewire, icq and be on your way

  That’s not a hacker that’s a media pirate. It’s the same today. Get a VPN, a torrent client and go to piratebay. You’re there.

  So what is a Hacker? Simply someone who is deeply curious about how things work and has a high aptitude for visual reasoning, making them able to figure out how to get things to do stuff the designer never intended. Such a person cannot be stopped from exploring how things work. Its in their blood. As such they will deeply learn anything they study.

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• webghost0101@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It really depends what the expectation is here.

  On face value this wish is not different then “i want to be a doctor, marine biologist, astronaut” These things require years of professional expertise.

  But does the kid really want to become an degree holding expert in a field… or do they just want to feel like what they think the job entails.

  Its definitely incorrect that being a “hacker” is illegal. In many interpretations a hacker is simply someone who uses technology creatively in sometimes unintended ways. But i am assuming they mean computer hacker specifically.

  My suggestion would be to start with giving the kid a laptop with linux and to follow some guides on how to use the terminal, you learn a lot about how computers work that way. There are also apps to emulate a linux terminal on a phone/tablet which can be complementary to the laptop to experiment with a small network of devices.

  A starter project would be to build a bootable usb that you can plug in any laptop/pc usb port. They could use that as their personal “hacker os” that can be kept safe seperatly from their device. With this technically any wild pc with an unlocked bios can be temporarily be turned in your pc where you are admin with your tools and files where you are admin.

  Another cool project they could learn is how to setup a remote connection to acces a terminal on a pc on another network (using ssh-key (secure), not passwords (insecure) it does mean someone needs to setup that pc with an open port but the first time i tunnelend into my own network this way it definitely made me feel like a hacker. And a “real hacker” would need to know those basics first anyway.

  You might also want to check sdf.org they provide free unix shells and guides for all kinds of stuff.

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• artwork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Sincere apologies for the person condition…

  As you provided no actual points to consider important to invest much time into the answer, let’s make it quick, too.

  It’s not illegal to be a hacker. It’s illegal to illegal actions via hacking. There are two common ways to distinguish hacker’s scopes of actions: 1) team colors; 2) hat colors.

  The concept of red teaming and blue teaming emerged in the early 1960s.
  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team#History

  -–

  A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons…
  A black hat hacker is a hacker who “violates computer security for little reason beyond maliciousness or for personal gain”…
  A grey hat hacker lies between a black hat and a white hat hacker, hacking for ideological reasons… Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_hacker#Classifications

  It’s impossible to “quickly” learn to be a hacker. The security subjects shift each fraction of a second, and you have to train your intuition layering it on the experience you gain from theories and practice.

  Some of known ways to get in-depth are:

  1. Public Capture-the-Flag (CTF) events as you may find at: https://defcon.org/html/links/dc-ctf.html;
  2. Bounties, like: https://www.hackerone.com/bug-bounty-programs;
  3. Serious contribution to open-source projects (e.g., KDE, Mozilla, programming language compilers as C++, Rust);
  4. Contributions to dirvers/middlewares, and databases as: https://www.aircrack-ng.org/;
  5. Contributions to exploits databases as: https://www.metasploit.com/contribute, https://www.exploit-db.com/;
  6. Contributions to CVEs as: https://www.cve.org/ReportRequest/ReportRequestForNonCNAs;

  There are relatively not serious but still options as: https://tryhackme.com/

  In other words, you just find your love in the security subjects you consider closer to the heart, and go in deeper…
  Then, you just use the tools you want to achieve the requirements:

  # Let's just use the lovely Bash v5+ to get our IP addresses (no cURL etc.).
  exec 3<>'/dev/tcp/ipinfo.io/80';
  printf 'GET /ip HTTP/1.0\r\nHost:ipinfo.io\r\n\r\n' >&3;
  while read -r l || (( ${#l} )); do [[ $l =~ ^([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}$ ]] && printf '%s\n' "$l"; done <&3;
  

  Yet, please do consider that actual hackers do never expose their actual identities. Since, your identity is a single and permanent key to your life and your family…
  Once you’re in, and you become responsible for your actions, you become a loner, and not a single soul will ever support you in the end.

  The quieter you are, the more you are able to hear.
  ~ BackTrack Linux (by Offensive Security)

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• slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Depending where you are in the world https://www.hackerspaces.org/ could help but be aware that “hacker” means different things to different people.

  Even your local Linux user group may be able to run up a honeypot for the kid to learn how to “hack”. Anything beyond that an you start getting outside the scope of white hat hacking

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• Zedd00@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Quick is a problem. Whitehat or “security researcher” are what you’re looking for. Tryhackme is a good place for him to start. You can also check for a local hackerspace or makerspace, there’s a good chance someone at either would be willing to help a kid out.

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• nocturne@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  is illegal just to be a hacker for good

  No it is not.

  A white hat (or a white-hat hacker, a whitehat) is an ethical security hacker.[1][2] Under the owner’s consent, white-hat hackers deliberately hack software or system with the aim of identifying any vulnerabilities or security issues it has, helping to reinforce it from black hat hackers. [3]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)

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• MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’m no hacker, but I program off and on. If you’re searching for hacking advice and hitting a dead end because of reputation stuff, look up “white hat hacking”. White hat hackers are ethical hackers who look for weaknesses in software and security so they can patch defenses before people with bad intentions find them.

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  • Patnou@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How does one go about white hacking? Or learn how to do it from the base level? Is there a website like the kaanacademy or whatever?

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    • MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Again, I’m not a good resource here, but I this seems like a decent start.

      https://whitehatplaybook.com/

      u/Zedd00 also suggested TryHackMe which seems to also be a good resource: https://tryhackme.com/

      I’ve had decent luck with Udemy courses if you can find decent reviews and don’t mind paying a little, too. Those got my foot in the door programming pretty quickly.

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