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- ___________________________________________________________
-
- GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING
-
- BeginnersÆ Series #1
-
- So you want to be a harmless hacker?
- ____________________________________________________________
-
-
- ôYou mean you can hack without breaking the law?"
-
- That was the voice of a high school freshman. He had me on the phone because
- his father had just taken away his computer. His offense? Cracking into my
- Internet account. The boy had hoped to impress me with how "kewl" he was.
- But before I realized he had gotten in, a sysadmin at my ISP had spotted the
- kidÆs harmless explorations and had alerted the parents. Now the boy wanted
- my help in getting back on line.
-
- I told the kid that I sympathized with his father. What if the sysadmin and
- I had been major grouches? This kid could have wound up in juvenile
- detention. Now I donÆt agree with putting harmless hackers in jail, and I
- would never have testified against him. But thatÆs what some people do to
- folks who go snooping in other peopleÆs computer accounts -- even when the
- culprit does no harm. This boy needs to learn how to keep out of trouble!
-
- Hacking is the most exhilarating game on the planet. But it stops being fun
- when you end up in a cell with a roommate named "Spike." But hacking doesn't
- have to mean breaking laws. In this book we teach safe hacking so that you
- donÆt have to keep looking back over your shoulders for narcs and cops.
-
- What we're talking about is hacking as a healthy recreation, and as a free
- education that can qualify you to get a high paying job. In fact, many
- network systems administrators, computer scientists and computer security
- experts first learned their professions, not in some college program, but
- from the hacker culture. And you may be surprised to discover that
- ultimately the Internet is safeguarded not by law enforcement agencies, not
- by giant corporations, but by a worldwide network of, yes, hackers.
-
- You, too, can become one of us.
-
- And -- hacking can be surprisingly easy. Heck, if I can do it, anyone can!
-
- Regardless of why you want to be a hacker, it is definitely a way to have
- fun, impress your friends, and get dates. If you are a female hacker you
- become totally irresistible to men. Take my word for it!;^D
-
- These Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking can be your gateway into this
- world. After reading just a few of these Guides you will be able to pull off
- stunts that will be legal, phun, and will impress the heck out of your friends.
-
- These Guides can equip you to become one of the vigilantes that keeps the
- Internet from being destroyed by bad guys. Especially spammers. Heh, heh,
- heh. You can also learn how to keep the bad guys from messing with your
- Internet account, email, and personal computer. YouÆll learn not to be
- frightened by silly hoaxes that pranksters use to keep the average Internet
- user in a tizzy.
-
- If you hang in with us through a year or so, you can learn enough and meet
- the people on our email list and IRC channel who can help you to become
- truly elite.
-
- However, before you plunge into the hacker subculture, be prepared for that
- hacker attitude. You have been warned.
-
- So...welcome to the adventure of hacking!
-
- WHAT DO I NEED IN ORDER TO HACK?
-
- You may wonder whether hackers need expensive computer equipment and a shelf
- full of technical manuals. The answer is NO! Hacking can be surprisingly
- easy! Better yet, if you know how to search the Web, you can find almost any
- computer information you need for free.
-
- In fact, hacking is so easy that if you have an on-line service and know how
- to send and read email, you can start hacking immediately. The GTMHH
- BeginnersÆ Series #2 will show you where you can download special
- hacker-friendly programs for Windows that are absolutely free. And weÆll
- show you some easy hacker tricks you can use them for.
-
- Now suppose you want to become an elite hacker? All you will really need is
- an inexpensive "shell account" with an Internet Service Provider. In the
- GTMHH BeginnersÆ Series #3 we will tell you how to get a shell account, log
- on, and start playing the greatest game on Earth: Unix hacking! Then in
- Vol.s I, II, and III of the GTMHH you can get into Unix hacking seriously.
-
- You can even make it into the ranks of the Uberhackers without loading up on
- expensive computer equipment. In Vol. II we introduce Linux, the free
- hacker-friendly operating system. It will even run on a 386 PC with just 2
- Mb RAM! Linux is so good that many Internet Service Providers use it to run
- their systems.
-
- In Vol. III we will also introduce Perl, the shell programming language
- beloved of Uberhackers. We will even teach some seriously deadly hacker
- "exploits" that run on Perl using Linux. OK, you could use most of these
- exploits to do illegal things. But they are only illegal if you run them
- against someone elseÆs computer without their permission. You can run any
- program in this book on your own computer, or your (consenting) friendÆs
- computer -- if you dare! Hey, seriously, nothing in this book will actually
- hurt your computer, unless you decide to trash it on purpose.
-
- We will also open the gateway to an amazing underground where you can stay
- on top of almost every discovery of computer security flaws. You can learn
- how to either exploit them -- or defend your computer against them!
-
- About the 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 http://www.infowar.com, and on
- the Happy Hacker email list (email hacker@techbroker.com with message
- ôsubscribeö).
-
- 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.
-
- How to Not Get Busted
-
- One slight problem with hacking is that if you step over the line, you can
- go to jail. We will do our best to warn you when we describe hacks that
- could get you into trouble with the law. But we are not attorneys or experts
- on cyberlaw. In addition, every state and every country has its own laws.
- And these laws keep on changing. So you have to use a little sense.
-
- However, we have a Guide to (mostly) Harmless Hacking Computer Crime Law
- Series to help you avoid some pitfalls.
-
- But the best protection against getting busted is the Golden Rule. If you
- are about to do something that you would not like to have done to you,
- forget it. Do hacks that make the world a better place, or that are at least
- fun and harmless, and you should be able to keep out of trouble.
-
- So if you get an idea from the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking that
- helps you to do something malicious or destructive, it's your problem if you
- end up being the next hacker behind bars. Hey, the law won't care if the
- guy whose computer you trash was being a d***. It won't care that the giant
- corporation whose database you filched shafted your best buddy once. They
- will only care that you broke the law.
-
- To some people it may sound like phun to become a national sensation in the
- latest hysteria over Evil Genius hackers. But after the trial, when some
- reader of these Guides ends up being the reluctant "girlfriend" of a convict
- named Spike, how happy will his news clippings make him?
-
- Conventions Used in the Guides
-
- You've probably already noticed that we spell some words funny, like "kewl"
- and "phun." These are hacker slang terms. Since we often communicate with
- each other via email, most of our slang consists of ordinary words with
- extraordinary spellings. For example, a hacker might spell "elite" as
- "3l1t3," with 3's substituting for e's and 1's for i's. He or she may even
- spell "elite" as "31337. The Guides sometimes use these slang spellings to
- help you learn how to write email like a hacker.
-
- Of course, the cute spelling stuph we use will go out of date fast. So we do
- not guarantee that if you use this slang, people will read your email and
- think, "Ohhh, you must be an Evil Genius! I'm sooo impressed!"
-
- Take it from us, guys who need to keep on inventing new slang to prove they
- are "k-rad 3l1t3" are often lusers and lamers. So if you don't want to use
- any of the hacker slang of this book, that's OK by us. Most Uberhackers
- don't use slang, either.
-
- Who Are You?
-
- We've made some assumptions about who you are and why you are reading these
- Guides:
-
- ╖ You own a PC or Macintosh personal computer
- ╖ You are on-line with the Internet
- ╖ You have a sense of humor and adventure and want to express it by hacking
- ╖ Or -- you want to impress your friends and pick up chicks (or guys) by
- making them think you are an Evil Genius
-
- So, does this picture fit you? If so, OK, d00dz, start your computers. Are
- you ready to hack?
-
- _________________________________________________________
- Want to see back issues of Guide to (mostly) Harmless Hacking? See either
- http://www.vcalpha.com/silicon/void-f.html or
- http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/loukas.halo8/HappyHacker/
- http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/4594
-
- We have a discussion group and archives hosted at
- http://www.infowar.com/cgi-shl/login.exe.
-
- Chat with us on the Happy Hacker IRC channel. If your browser can use Java,
- just direct your browser to www.infowar.com, click on chat, and choose the
- #hackers channel.
-
- Subscribe to our email list by emailing to hacker@techbroker.com with
- message "subscribe"
-
- Want to share some kewl stuph with the Happy Hacker list? Correct mistakes?
- Send your messages to hacker@techbroker.com. To send me confidential email
- (please, no discussions of illegal activities) use carolyn@techbroker.com
- and be sure to state in your message that you want me to keep this
- confidential. If you wish your message posted anonymously, please say so!
- Direct flames to dev/null@techbroker.com. Happy hacking!
- Copyright 1997 Carolyn P. Meinel. You may forward or post on your Web site
- this GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING as long as you leave this notice at
- the end..
- ________________________________________________________
- Carolyn Meinel
- M/B Research -- The Technology Brokers
-
-
-