Hacking Philosophy
Some my thoughts on hackers as general, and how to become one
The Hacker Manifesto
Loyd Blankenship had been involved with several prominent hacker groups in the early 1980s, including the Legion of Doom (LoD). In 1986, after his arrest for unauthorized computer access, he wrote the manifesto in a burst of emotion — more as a personal reflection than a call to action.
For me it's perfect representation of hacking culture, especially then, when it was more punk-like.
Motto
My personal motto is "Quo Non Ascendam", which is
To what heights can I not rise?
Which in easier words is just "What limits can truly contain me?". Which symbolizes
Unbounded curiosity
Defiance of imposed limits
Relentless drive to explore, understand, and control systems
How to Become Hacker
To clarify from beginning, I am also working on to becoming a hacker (no job = no title I think), but I am learning for more than 3 years slowly and not, so I was boiling in this culture for quite some time. So basically if you think about hacking as a career, you need to view your past life and think about whether you have these 4 traits
Passion for Problem-Solving
Unquenchable Curiosity
Dogged Persistence
Out-Of-The-Box Thinking
If you don't have more than one, then think more about if you really want to spend a LOT time, and insane amount of effort to get into field, and actually get a job in cyber, ESPECIALLY in offensive side of it.
But if you are, and think you could be the one who will go to the end, then I recommend to start in TryHackMe, that's an insanely good platform from absolute zero knowledge, where you can spend basically good year or more of learning. Also it's pretty cheap and has a lot of free rooms.
Then I would recommend to begin to learn in HackTheBox Academy, because comparing to other platforms, it has modules (principle of learning which is basically books + practice) with insane quality of materials. Also CBBH and CPTS are relatively cheap, same thing with certificates, which would help you test your skills and will increase chance of getting a job.
Important part is combining theory with practice, because hacking is all about learning + doing, so by doing some easy challenges in TryHackMe once or twice in a week you will retain interest in the topic, because no matter what the theory is, it is easy to overlap it. When you're knowledge will become broader, you can try crack some active machines on HTB
Also what kickstarted my learning 3 years ago is team. I was looking for fellas in CTFTime, some russian CTF team allowed me to join them, where members recommended me TryHackMe and HackTheBox.
Before that I was doing lame courses and cringe YouTube videos on "How to become Hacker in 1 hour", so you can guess that I didn't learnt a lot then ;)
So the point is - find a team, some Discord servers (as example of purplestorm server, or THM's with HTB's) or guys to hang out with, because hacking is super niche topic, not a lot of programmers or regular IT guys would truly understand what you do, and that's why hacking is a lonely road — be ready that nobody would be interested in your craft as much as you do, and not so much people would understand what do you actually DO. And that's why it's important to find team, community, and someone who you can learn from. That's more funny and more effective:
If you want to learn piano, go to pianist. If you want to learn art, go to artist. If you want to learn hacking, ask hackers. Want to learn some craft, go to Craftmaster.
And the last one important thing, which almost denies all my yap here, but:
Forge your own path, this is how I learnt what I know and what you can see here, in this project, but you are different, so just Learn, Adapt, Advance. Don't listen to anybody fully, and do what you want. Only with persistence of Sisyphus you can become master.
Media
That's not important at all, but if you want to get more into hacking as culture, you can try watch these movies, and play these games.
Awesome old-school movie about hacking culture.
Stylish German movie about hacking, which reminds me of Fight Club
My favorite series of all time, actors, music, story, themes, directing — everything is pure perfection.
Very good series of games, the most popular games about hackers. Fan of two first games, third was mid
First game is techno-thriller with Open-World Third-Person Shooter gameplay, which would make you feel like John Wick Hacker.
Second game is more fun, have more creative deep gameplay, and the vibe reminds me the Hackers (1995) movie, when it wasn't about gritty black hoodie criminals, but about geeks who's smart, rebellious and ambitious (which as I think represent hacking culture perfectly)
Love Westerns and Mysticism - Weird West
Love Dark-Steampunk - Dishonored
Love Sci-Fi and Alien - Prey
Love Cyberpunk - Deus Ex
Both are very good stealth games, which are practicing creative thinking and stealth planning, which is required for our job. Splinter Cell is good for grounded stealth missions as secret agent (I know that MGS is good, but I've never played it by now, so can't recommend), and Hitman is good for social engineering skills with creativity, which is also required for job.
Here everything is simple, these are the best puzzles in industry, which is good for brain which is good for hacks.
This is the best hacking sim, it will teach you basic terms, even a little linux commands
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