Basic Hacking Part II - Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking
Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking
We have noticed that there are lots of books that glamorize hackers. To read these books you would think that it takes many years of brilliant work to become one. Of course we hackers love to perpetuate this myth because it makes us look so incredibly kewl.
But how many books are out there that tell the beginner step by step how to actually do this hacking stuph? None! Seriously, have you ever read _Secrets of a Superhacker_ by The Knightmare (Loomponics, 1994) or _Forbidden Secrets of the Legion of Doom Hackers_ by Salacious Crumb (St. Mahoun Books, 1994)? They are full of vague and out of date stuph. Give me a break.
And if you get on one of the hacker news groups on the Internet and ask people how to do stuph, some of them insult and make fun of you. OK, they all make fun of you.
We see many hackers making a big deal of themselves and being mysterious and refusing to help others learn how to hack. Why? Because they don't want you to know the truth, which is that most of what they are doing is really very simple!
Well, we thought about this. We, too, could enjoy the pleasure of insulting people who ask us how to hack. Or we could get big egos by actually teaching thousands of people how to hack. Muhahaha.
How to Use the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking
If you know how to use a personal computer and are on the Internet, you already know enough to start learning to be a hacker. You don't even need to read every single Guide to (mostly) Harmless Hacking in order to become a hacker.
You can count on anything in Volumes I, II and III being so easy that you can jump in about anywhere and just follow instructions.
But if your plan is to become "elite," you will do better if you read all the Guides, check out the many Web sites and newsgroups to which we will point you, and find a mentor among the many talented hackers who post to our Hackers forum or chat on our IRC server at *link removed*, and on the Happy Hacker email list (email *link removed* with message "subscribe").
If your goal is to become an Uberhacker, the Guides will end up being only the first in a mountain of material that you will need to study. However, we offer a study strategy that can aid you in your quest to reach the pinnacle of hacking.
