Being a Hacker

by Jo

Since I was young, I've been interested in the idea of being a hacker, the definition of which I'm aware is rather fluid.

To be honest, I most likely first heard the term while watching the movie Hackers.  Even though it lacked any real substance on the matter, it nonetheless was stylistic and pretty damn fun to watch much in the way Swordfish was years later.

As to why I wanted to be one myself?  I'm not really sure, perhaps it was the idea of going somewhere I wasn't supposed to while raising the proverbial middle finger.

Maybe it was that by doing so, it meant finding something which had been hidden away, something only certain people were allowed to see, and acquiring that privilege for myself.  There was no other real goal involved; it wasn't about changing the world, raising some political point, or financial gain, but rather the pure desire to break through the haze and explore unimpeded.  I suppose that's what it means to be a hacker, at least in my view: freedom.

I was born in the late-1980s and grew up in the 1990s (yes, it really was the best decade Xp) and so was present in an area where the Internet and desktop computers weren't relegated to outsiders and the like, but rather were becoming more and more mainstream.

The first interaction I recall having with such a device was at about the age of seven or so, a period of dial-up, floppy disks, and America Online.  I used to play video games on AOL, none of the names of which I can remember, only that one of the games had to do with bugs crawling around and having to use the cursor to squash them on screen.

Other than that, I honestly struggled to find much else to do with it.  Amazon sold mainly books and not much else, there was no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even MySpace wasn't to debut for another eight years or so.  That left one to just search and surf through the large amounts of popup ads through the relatively simplistic web pages one happened upon.

In doing this, I managed to learn more about what it meant to actually hack something - that there were those out there who knew the languages behind the systems, about study and practice and everything else that a true practitioner of the craft generally needs to know.  Then again, I also learned what it meant to be a script kiddie and how passwords could be broken just by entering a bunch of potential passwords in the hope that one would break through.  Being one to prefer the path of least resistance, I thus chose the latter.

It started in fits really, nothing overly concerning.

Every now and again after scanning through the web in search of information on Pokémon, The Anarchist Cookbook, and playing on Newgrounds, I'd look for a site, any site really, though I was particularly interested in state or government ones.

The idea was to look for an admin page with a login section and type in a bunch of random passwords and keys.  Maybe something would happen... that was the notion.  What I'd do if it ever worked was another matter entirely.  I'm not sure I thought that far ahead, nor about any real consequences.

I failed constantly, as one would expect.  Each attempt, after all, was about as brute, simplistic, and, well, stupid, as one such as myself could manage but somehow after doing this on and off for a good long while, at some point it actually worked.

Even now, nearly two decades later, I can remember the site page changing as it accepted whatever gibberish I had entered and I was in.  As to what the site itself was, I can't fully recall that part either.

I had tried so many, the most I can make of the success was that it was on a civilian site I had most likely mistaken for something either state or federal.  I also recall it having to do with retired police officers, a list of which was then opened to me, along with their information.

In hindsight, the most likely culprit was something akin to the Association of Retired Police website.  That said, it was still an unexpected result.

When one breaks into a site, there's the initial high, that feeling of "Damn, I did it, wait, how?  It worked, it worked!"  Everyone probably has their own unique reaction, but mine at the age of ten or so was to freeze, realize that I had done something that could get one into a good deal of trouble, and log out soon after without saving anything, whether it be the data from the site or a copy of the credentials used to get in in the first place.

From there on, I slacked off on any similar attempts.

Having accomplished something I'd initially intended on doing, this somehow made me feel at least somewhat satisfied.  I suppose it's worth noting that at one point down the line, I became a bit enamored with viruses, but due to my still considerable lack of programming knowledge had very little idea of how I could further examine or make use of them.  Honestly, I think it was just the idea of having something seemingly cool and destructive at my command that made the subject as enticing as it was.

This lull in both interest and study on the subject lasted, well, until I was in my thirties, much closer to the present.  Frankly, it's hard to believe that I'm now 35, but I'm a staunch believer that one can remain as young as they feel until the moment they keel over dead.  With that being the case, I still count myself as a particularly angsty 14-year-old (I'm not even sure if I'm being serious or cynical right now).

The rekindling of both my desire and willingness to learn more in the field of computers, programming, and what it means to truly hack came about after a decision to pursue cyber security as a career choice.

They say one's never too old to return to college, something that unbeknownst to me was somehow taken to heart.  For the past 15 years or so, I'd been a third-shift security guard and had lately decided it was probably a good idea to start considering something a bit more.  That said, already having an associate's degree in criminal justice, it made the choice to go for a bachelor's in cyber security all the more logical.  It was pretty much a leap from protecting people and property physically to doing so virtually.

Of course, my intentions weren't entirely financial, nor benevolent.  I was merely following a path I thought would be doable.  In addition to that, it was guessed that skills taught in a college-level program could not only teach what was needed to move up in the way of a better job but also allow me to pursue my more curious if not dubious hobbies that had until then lay dormant.

The course provided was to be two years with an unpleasant assortment of statistics, calculus, form and essay writing, humanities, several programming languages, and finally after all of that was out of the way, the actual classes dealing with cyber security itself.

As of this writing, I'm about six months away from graduation, having finished the majority of it all.  I understand that the math portion is to teach critical thought and how to pursue a task logically, but I nonetheless hated/hate it with a passion.  The programming, less so.

Programming is like any language - it requires practice and passion to not only learn but keep ingrained over the long term.  The people who become truly wonderful programmers are the sort who not only learn it from others, but continue to practice and hone that ability whenever they can on their own.

Suffice it to say, I didn't have that passion before and still don't.  Of course, I knew this beforehand.  It's why I chose cyber security over, say, computer science or software development, primarily because at its core it dealt more with using already present tools and systems rather than having to create the same from scratch.

Again, it was the notion that it was doable and, after having taken these first steps, has been undoubtedly worthwhile.  After all, it's because of it that I've been able to fully appreciate the Linux operating system and the beauty of virtual machines, explore the dark web, converse with interesting people in shady chatrooms that look strangely similar to one Neo was in at the beginning of the first The Matrix movie, peruse the long lists of illegal substances and products shown on Silk Road-esque storefronts, and have wonderful fun with penetration testing software.

In the end, knowing what I know now has shown me how talented some people are, just how much effort goes into learning these skills, and what can be done with them whether they be white hat, gray, black, or otherwise.  There's a difference between seeing something and doing something, obvious as that sounds.

It gives you a much more significant appreciation for it all and shows you just how much further there is to go, staying with you in the back of your mind and nudging you forward all the while.