I have come to see that the same quest for knowledge and skill prosecuted by the old school hackers is the same process used by those mastering other fields of endeavor from astrophysics to knitting. Many would argue that this definition is too broad and would include endeavors outside the scope of technology, computers, and networks. Therefore, the simplest definition of hacking is the process by which you discover the difference between what something was designed to do and what it is capable of doing. Hacking has evolved to address not just the use of skills but the process by which you acquire those skills. For more on this see " Why Teach Hacking." However, the word hacker has morphed and mass media uses it to mean a person who uses specialized technical skills to commit a crime. Many hackers today define themselves based on the roots of hacking, which you can read about in "A Brief History of Hackerdom" and the Hacker Wikipedia article. The meaning of hacker has evolved/devolved over time depending on your point of view (whether you are a hacker or not). I have learned that the term hacker can mean many things to many people and is a highly debated topic. I am often asked, "How do I learn to hack?" If you think all hackers are criminals, then see " Why Teach Hacking" before continuing. I use them daily to defend systems from both criminals and state actors and I am actively training the next generation of hackers to do the same. My skills were acquired through a lifetime of training on my own, with the United States Navy, and as an information security professional. They are famous for saying " your offense should inform your defense." The SANS Institute is one of the premier information security training and certification organizations. How would our military protect us if they did not know the enemies tactics and have the skills to repel them? How would police officers catch criminals if they did not know how they think and what methods they used? Is it possible to defend without knowing the methods used by your adversary? It is easy to see how shallow thinking, fear, and logical fallacies has lead mass media to portray hacking as always being a crime.
This is obliquely saying that learning to hack is akin to black magic and only evil people do black magic so all hackers are evil.Ĥ: Take all this and wrap it in a syllogistic fallacy.
When I talk with people outside hacking/ information security circles about learning to hack the most common question I get is, "Isn't teaching people how to hack dangerous? What if they use it to do bad things?" The question is rooted in a mashup of several overly simplistic and misapplied ideas, and syllogistic fallacies.ġ: Hacking requires "specialized" skills.Ģ: Learning "specialized" skills is a "dark art" and are only pursued by someone intent on doing evil.