The Intermediate Guide to Hacking

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO HACKING

  -VISHWAS AITHAL

The Internet was born in 1969. Researchers were confronted with a disturbing fact almost immediately after the network was established: The Internet was not secure and could easily be cracked. Today, writers are trying to limit this fact, reminding you that the security technologies were primitive at that time. This holds no weight. Security technology is pretty complex today and the Internet is still easily cracked.   

                                                               We work in the dark

We do what we can

We give what we have

Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task

The rest is the madness of art.

                                                -- Henry James

• A hacker is someone who is intensely interested in the complicated process of any computer. Most often, programmers are hackers. As such, hackers gain advanced operating system and programming language knowledge. They may know about cracks and the reasons behind such voids within systems. Hackers are constantly looking for some new information, freely posting what they have discovered and never intentionally damaging data.

• A cracker is a person who breaks into remote computers, with malicious intent, or otherwise violates the device integrity. Crackers, having gained unauthorized access, destroy vital data, deny service to legitimate users or, in essence, cause their target problems. It is easy to recognize crackers since their acts are malicious.

• The Jargon File -a major source for basic skills, lore, and translations. The jargon file contains a set of definitions for the term hacker, mostly related to technical expertise and pleasure in problem-solving and consequence overcoming.

  The Hacker Attitude

1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.

    Basic Hacking Skills

1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source UNIX and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.

    Familiarization with Some Tools

• SCANNER: A Scanner is a program that automatically detects security weaknesses in a remote or localhost.

• PASSWORD CRACKER: A Password Cracker is any program that can decrypt passwords or otherwise disable password protection. Sometimes a dictionary attack is performed.

• TROJAN HORSE: A Trojan Horse an unauthorized program contained within a legitimate program. This unauthorized program performs functions unknown (and probably unwanted) by the user.

• SNIFFER: A Sniffer is any device, whether software or hardware, that grabs information traveling along with a network. That network could be running any protocol: Ethernet, TCP/IP, IPX, or others (or any combination of these). The purpose of the sniffer is to place the network interface into promiscuous mode and by doing so, to capture all network traffic.

    The Hackers

• Richard Stallman: Stallman joined the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT in 1971. He received the 250K McArthur Genius award for developing software. He ultimately founded the Free Software Foundation, creating hundreds of freely distributable utilities and programs for use on the UNIX platform. He worked on some archaic machines, including the DEC PDP-10 (to which he probably still has access somewhere). He is a brilliant programmer.

• Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and Brian Kernighan: Ritchie, Thompson, and Kernighan are Bell Labs programmers, all of whom played a key role in developing the UNIX operating system and the C programming language. Take these three individuals out of the picture, and the Internet would probably not exist (or would be much less functional if there were one). They're all hacking. (For instance, Ritchie is busy working on Bell Labs' Plan 9, a new operating system likely to supplant UNIX as the industry-standard super-networking operating system.)

    The Crackers

• Kevin Mitnik: Mitnik, also referred to as Condor, is probably the best-known cracker in the world. Mitnik had started his career as a nerd on the phone. Since those early years, Mitnik has successfully cracked every form of secure site you can imagine including, but not limited to, military sites, financial corporations, software firms, and other technology companies. (Mitnik cracked the North American Aerospace Defense Command when he was still a teenager)

• Kevin Poulsen: Following a very similar path to Mitnik, Poulsen is best known for his unusual ability to take control of the Pacific Bell telephone system. (Poulsen once used these abilities to win a radio contest where the Porsche prize was won. He manipulated the telephone lines so that his call would be the winning one.) Poulsen often breached almost any form of the site, but had a particular fondness for defense sites. This complicated his final detention period, which lasted five years, considerably. (This is the longest time a hacker has ever served in the United States.) Poulsen was released in 1996, and apparently reformed.