0How do I become a hacker?
I have received this question countless times on formal and informal occasions. I feel the need to put a small sum up on the rules for you.
Step 1. Ask yourself the Why.
Do I want to be a hacker, or do I want to be "called" a hacker?
Understand the difference, having a nerd trick up your sleeve is excellent to level-up among your friends, but that motivation is not enough, because there will be ups and downs, there will be failures, and there will be monotonous days when for hours you might have to see gibberish data. If you are inspired by the Matrix green code, or by that neighbour in a black hoodie in his bean bag with terminals on laptop jampacked with green text, stop right here. Ask and search your ground-zero motivation.
Step 2. Don't say NO to anything.
I love the Metasploit, but I won't deal with the ruby code, I hate the programming stuff.
Really? I don't think you will ever rise from a script kiddie. Never say never, be it SQL, Python, CSS, assembly, or something outrageously alien to you. If you cant bear hundreds and hundreds of lines of code, you are not ready yet. Curiosity never killed the cat, Ignorance did, and Ignorance in cyber world will kill your ambition-cat.
Step 3. Patience!
Why the heck am I getting the same compilation error from the past three freaking days!!
Okay, maybe I exaggerated a bit, but this will happen. Things will fall apart, and they won't work and damn! A machine doesn't understand your emotions, well at least not yet. You will have streaks of hours, maybe days, coffee after coffee, stuck with a problem. In those times, have patience. Remember at the root (no pun intended); hacking is a form of Art. And the greatest of artists need off times. Maybe go for a walk, or have a cricket match, you know the drill.
Step 4. Focus on what's important.
I am the jack of all trades lol.
Hold on, its nothing to show off about. I would instead wish you be an ace of one and sub-jack of others. You are doing nothing significant if you have got the breadth of network, wireless, system, servers or forensics but the depth of none. Find your specialisation and tear through it. Curiosity will automatically get you the breadth you desire; it's the mind-numbing toil that will take you all the way through the rabbit hole of one.
Step 5. Communicate.
Yes, this is it! One of the prime reasons you will enjoy this will be via the communication with your peers, friends or maybe me :)
Talking to a machine day in and out is not an easy deal. Especially if she is not telling you the problem, she is facing. Talk it out! Spring open the queries, doubts and the questions, however silly they are (just not on StackOverflow, the moderators tend to get offended quickly). Communication is one of the original keys of the meaningful human existence. Use it to advantage. Make it worthy!
