How Did You Start Out With Hacking?

[ChangedReality]

Alright so here's the deal... I'm a 24 year old university student (urban planning) and I'm a little more handy with computers than most people I know; however, then I watch this show (which is awesome) and realize how little I know.

So how did y'all start out with hacking? How did y'all learn this information? I mean I know there's not hacking kindergarten or something, so where do you start at?

[H@L0_F00]

I think my first real "hacking experience" (maybe it'll be considered cracking) was when I installed Windows XP on a laptop I had just gotten for real cheap, made the first letter of the password uppercase without thinking about, and then couldn't log in... I don't know why I didn't just reinstall Windows, maybe I didn't have the disc or something, but I googled and googled for a way to find out my password and finally came across Ophcrack. I had to look up how to burn an iso, burnt it, booted from the CD, followed the on screen instructions... and waited as it cracked the password. Not to mention I felt dumb for not trying my password with the first letter capitalized originally...

I think that was my first experience. Of course, I downloaded all the "1337 H@x0r P@xxx" with trojans, executable binders, bruteforcers and tutorials that were in excess of 5 years old from TPB and stuff... thinking it would be cool to mess with my friend and bind a trojan (which I had NO IDEA how to use...) to the Limewire installer and laugh when he would tell me how his computer's CD tray would open/close, background would change, etc... although I never got the trojan to work because I was a COMPLETE noob... lol (I was like 13)

For some reason, I started trying to find out how I could crack my neighbor's (friend mentioned above) wifi... I found Back|Track either 2 or 3, although I think it was 3, and successfully cracked his WEP after realizing it didn't HAVE to take a month to collect all the IVs if I used injection... after I found out how to get it working of course...

I really don't recall what even brought me to Hak5, but it was like the 3rd season when I started watching regularly.

Anyways, that's a bit about how I got started.

[Charles]

A friend of mine mentioned Revision3 and Systm, then moved on to Hak5 as an alternative after the show ended. Haven't been disappointed.

Computer guy who needs to find lost passwords and other things. I ended up setting up a server running Ubuntu to store my files and do backups, learning a bit more about linux in the process. Kinda went from there, and while I am not a l33t hax0rz I can do basic stuff. All it takes is persistence.

[Infiltrator]

A friend of mine mentioned Revision3 and Systm, then moved on to Hak5 as an alternative after the show ended. Haven't been disappointed.

Computer guy who needs to find lost passwords and other things. I ended up setting up a server running Ubuntu to store my files and do backups, learning a bit more about linux in the process. Kinda went from there, and while I am not a l33t hax0rz I can do basic stuff. All it takes is persistence.

There are so many ways to learn about hacking, I guess watching the hack5 shows would be a good starting place. And if you don't understand something, that's why Google is out there as well as the hack5 forum.

[Infiltrator]

There are so many ways to learn about hacking, I guess watching the hack5 shows would be a good starting place. And if I don't understand something, I would always Google it or use internet forums to search on the subject.

I guess reading books on the subject will also help develop the knowledge and understanding of how things works and as well as practicing on your own very important.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Infiltrator

[metatron]

It was the early 90's, dial up internet was very expensive and so were phone calls. You learned because you had too.

[VaKo]

Ahhh, the 90's, I remember pirating software back then, it used to be a commitment, not a pastime. 2hrs for a single MP3, weeks for an episode of the Simpsons.

[metatron]

Ahhh, the 90's, I remember pirating software back then, it used to be a commitment, not a pastime. 2hrs for a single MP3, weeks for an episode of the Simpsons.

Yes the days when you were happy with a pornographic photo that took a minute or so to load

Edited April 5, 2010 by metatron

[P0k3_P1e]

I've always enjoyed messing with computers. Two days after first getting one in the 90's I ended up corrupting Windows by editing various files, and losing access to my CD-ROM drive (damn you AUTOEXEC.BAT!!)

I didn't get into 'Hacking' until I started college. During our spare time, me and a mate used to just mess about trying to break thing. We'd do things little thing like getting around the storage quota, downloading stuff from IRC directly to 'read only' network drives, using a keylogger to get the admin password then setting up our own admin accounts etc.

Back then I was using pay as you go dial-up internet, so I used to use trojans (Sub7 was the weapon of choice) to 'borrow' other peoples BT Anytime account details, giving me unrestricted internet for free 24/7 (This resulted getting be banned from my ISP, Freeserve). After that I drifted away from hacking and got involved quite heavily in piracy, becoming a releaser for the HUGE ED2k site, Sharereactor.com...until there was a raid and it got shut down. I think it's back now, but it's not the same.

*sighs*

Those were the days! Eventually I got a job, a girlfriend and everything went down hill from there! ;) I'm now trying to get back into things as a white hat so I can perform PEN tests at work.

Ahhh, the 90's, I remember pirating software back then, it used to be a commitment, not a pastime. 2hrs for a single MP3, weeks for an episode of the Simpsons.

haha! I wasn't really online much in the 90's, but I do remember in 2000-2001 getting into big downloads and it taking a week to download the Windows XP beta off an FTP, and taking 2 weeks (100mb per night) to download a 2 disc VCD cam with Chinese subs of Tomb Raider the movie! I've still got it somewhere I think.