FAQ - The Alt.Hacker Frequently Asked Questions Written By de savant [8]savant@althacker.org HTML Formating by Ed [9]ednoad@lycosmail.com ______________________________________________________________________ The Second Draft Posted: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 06:14:15 CDT Newsgroups: alt.hacker What is this thing? My ideas were it is a faq, and not rules. Rules are carved in stone and in this ng we handle people on a case by case basis, so rules won't be effective here. ______________________________________________________________________ Topics Covered: [+]How can I hack this web site/ server? [+]xxx passwd's? [+]Will you help me get back at this ass hole? AKA how do I hack a hacker? [+]How to hack hotmail, AOL, yahoo ...etc? [+]How do I get this persons passwd? [+]I need a credit card number. [+]Hacking t%lz; where can I get them, and how do I use them? [+]Will you teach me how to be a hacker? AKA will you teach me how to hack? [18]How do I start to become a hacker? [+]What programming lang.'s should I learn? [+]What books do I need to read? [+]What projects can I help the hacker community with? Kind of an open source initiative. [+]What is a hacker (as defined by the users of this ng)? [+]How is a hacker different than a cracker, or a script kiddie? [+]What do I do if someone has hacked my passwd? [+]I think I've been hacked; what should I do now? [+]Why should I use Linux, or Unix? AKA how is it better than Mac0s, or Windows(95/98/NT/2k)? [+]What is alt.hacker, and what is "on topic" when on this news group? ______________________________________________________________________ How can I hack this web site/ server? On this ng we will not tell you how to break into web sites. We don't think it is right, and even if you think you have a good reason we won't help because it is off topic. If you still want to do it we may suggest doing a web search on the keywords your looking for, or looking into alt.cracks or some other type of ng. ______________________________________________________________________ xxx passwd's? We don't have any; you could do a keyword search by typing @ ulr: search then hit enter. ______________________________________________________________________ Will you help me get back at this ass hole? AKA how do I hack a hacker? Use some common sense! If somebody flames you on a hacker ng and you get mad. Who would be the last people you would want to ask? Answer: more hackers. The reality is, a lot of us (not all) do crack on odd acations. If you tell a whole ng how somebody broke into your system what do you think they heard? Blah blah blah he hacked blah blah and this is how he did it. ... Which I haven't had a chance to fix yet ... Now we will tell you how to get them caught; how to track them down, or even how to secure your box. So in short the answer to this is NO. We won't help you get back at somebody, by cracking their box. My mom used to tell me that: "The best revenge is to live well." ______________________________________________________________________ How to hack hotmail, AOL, yahoo ...etc? This is another no brainer. Do you really think we will tell you how to break into our mail accounts? Think if you can do it to one you can do it to them all. Right? About a million people read this ng daily; do you want them to read your mail too? No. *pssst* If you really want to hack hotmail ....SUBSCRIBE! Then you can get any password, login combination you want. ______________________________________________________________________ How do I get this persons passwd? Ask them for it. I'm sure they would be happy to tell you what it is ...after they go and change it. *See the section on hacking web sites/server. ______________________________________________________________________ I need a credit card number. Go hack a pamplet we all get about a hundred of them in the mail a year. If you can hack a pamplet go hack a dictionary and then try again. ______________________________________________________________________ Hacking t%lz; where can I get them, and how do I use them? We won't discuss tools like this. We think they are un-ethical, and are offended people think this is what hacking is ALL about. If you ask you may get the response that: try to write your own tool. This is because we believe that hacking is about learning and doing things your self. If you really want help with these types of tools got to a ng like: something.something.133t.scriptkiddz ....etc. ______________________________________________________________________ Will you teach me how to be a hacker? AKA will you teach me how to hack? Some people have it in their mind that hacking is about breaking into web sites on the internet, or that hacking is like the movie hackers. That stuff is done, but hackers have a different name for it. We call it cracking. So no, we will not tell you how to crack. Now that you know what we will not talk about you can understand why we can't tell you how to be a hacker. Either you are or you are not. It is defined by a desire to learn about things, any thing. You are so consumed by curiosity that you just can't help it. We can't tell you how to develop that kind of interest. There is no degree form Hack U. (niversity); no guide to guide you in this quest. No one can dub you Sir Hacker, and with that said a quote from a post to our ng. "Sure. Let me just pull out my trusty little hacker guide. (We each get a copy when we graduate to hacker, ya know.)" ...what's this..?... "Beware the individuals known as 'wannabes'. These creatures often lurk in usenet, in any newsgroups with the word "hack" in the name. They often post totally at random, with only one identifying pattern...their inability to write a post which does not have the words 'tell', 'me', and 'hack(er/ing/)' in close proximity. "Unfortunately for you, these poor ignorant souls do not realize the true nature of the Internet, and the immense amounts of information stored therein. They have no awareness of the ability to search the 'Net via sites like http://www.dogpile.com, http://www.mamma.com, http;//astalavista.box.sk, and others. They are unable to find sites the likes of http://www.l0pht.com, http://packetstorm.securify.com, or http://www.cotse.com . Nay, they will invariably assume that you exist solely to give others remedial information, and that you have been sitting in a newsgroup for years just in case someone might decide to step in to ask a stupid question." Well, damn. It looks like i can't help you. :) It's against the hacker secret by-laws and stuff. -- cHaoTiCa (tm) cha0tica at mindspring dot com. All rights reserved. *reproduced with the authors permission* ______________________________________________________________________ How do I start to become a hacker? If you got a `puter running well enough to read this FAQ then your on the way. Read allot and I mean a lot. The Internet is an incredible source of information. You can find almost anything. If you can't figure out how to learn to become a hacker with this kind of resource at your disposal then you should log your browser out of your pornosite that's eating up your systems RAM by pilling your screen full of "pop-ups" and point it to slashdot and read a while. The point of this exercise is to see your level of integrity in the face of this kind of overload of possible information & what you intend on doing with it. The next exercise is to point your browser at theregiser.co.uk and get your daily dose of cynicism. :) Example: You now the emails that pop up in your email from time to time? The ones everybody calls spam. They always have the "if you don't want to get any more of these emails reply to blah blah blah with unsubscribe as the subject. What do you think happens? Do you think they really remove your address? Think again. They add it to their special subscription list to be sold (yes sold) to other companies as a valid, and working address for their unwanted advertisements. Now you learned two qualities of a hacker. ______________________________________________________________________ What programming lang.'s should I learn? Start on something like C and work your way up from there. Mac0s is written in pascal, assembly lang. & C++. Windows is primarily in C++, and Unix (the kernel) is written in C. AI is in lisp, or prolog. ______________________________________________________________________ What books do I need to read? [These were graciously provided by Digital Overdrive with some minor additions by me.] Routers: Introduction To Cisco Router Config Cisco IOS Essentials Security and Firewalls: Firewalls Complete Handbook Of Info Security Management Navy Network Security Maximum Security Upgrading and Repairing Networks Building Linux OpenBSD Firewalls (ISBN 0-471-35366-3) TCP/IP: Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 14 Days Apache Server Survival Guide Using Samba TCP/IP Clearly Explained 3rd E. (ISBN 0-12-455826-7) Un*x: UNIX Unleashed, Internet Edition UNIX Unleashed, System Administrator's Edition Windows NT Internet and Intranet Development Linux System Administrator's Survival Guide RedHat Linux Unleashed Linux Command Reference Linux System Administrators Survival Guide Harley Hahn's Student Guide to Unix 2nd E. (ISBN 0-07-025492-3) Windows NT Security Handbook (ISBN 0-07-882240-8) WindowsNT: Windows NT4 Administrator's Survival Guide (ISBN 0-672-31008-2) Networking: DNS & BIND (O'Reilly) TCP/IP (O'Reilly) Sendmail (O'Reilly) Sendmail Desktop Ref (O'Reilly) Internet Firewalls (O'Reilly) UNIX & Internet Security (O'Reilly) Client Server Computing [Second Edition] How Intranets Work Programming C and C++: Teach Yourself C in 21 Days ANSI/ISO C++ Professional Programmer's Handbook Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days 2E Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days Linux Programming Unleashed (ISBN 0-672-31607-2) Perl Books: Perl 5 Complete (McGraw-Hill) Perl 5 By Example Programming Perl 5.0 CGi Web Pages Teach Yourself CGI Programming with perl 5 in a week Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 days Perl 5 Unleashed Using Perl for Web Programming Perl Quick Reference Web Programming With Perl 5 Java: JFC Unleashed Special Edition Using Java 1.1 Java Programming Gurus Intranet Applications with Java Java 1.2 Unleashed Java Expert Solutions Using Java, Second Edition Java Unleashed Java Unleashed, Second Edition Java Unleashed, Third Edition Java Developer's Edition Hacking: Hacking Exposed The Hacker crackdown Hackers Encyclopedia Maximum Linux Security (ISBN 0-672-31670-6) General CGI: Using CGI CGI Developer's Guide CGI Programming Unleashed Misc Programming/Web: Visual Basic 6 Database How-To Using Visual Basic 6 Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days Teach Yourself CORBA In 14 Days Object-Oriented System Development How to Use HTML 3.2 Developing ActiveX Components with VB ActiveX Unleashed Teach Yourself ActiveX in 21 Days ______________________________________________________________________ What projects can I help the hacker community with? Kind of an open source initiative. Linux is always needing drivers for USB, PCMCIA ...etc. Mozilla is very active right now, and so is the open source DVD projects. Their is an open voice over IP project. Emulators for all of our favorite video game consoles. These are not all Linux based either Mozilla even runs on mac0s. The VoIP project is for windows as well as other 0s'. ______________________________________________________________________ What is a hacker (as defined by the users of this ng)? I think a hacker is who you are. It is NOT what you do, or can do ("if you wanted to"). It is seeing a problem and taking the high road to its solution. In older cultures they have different forms of belief and mysticism. They call this Zen mind, Buddha nature, Christos, or Samadhi. There are more, but what they all share in common is that their believers all are constantly defining them, and redefining them. This isn't to say they are unaware of their meaning, this is to say the real meaning in words is elusive. Misleading at best. I say that the meaning of a hacker is like this as well. If cyber citizens had a expression of mysticism the meaning of Hacker would be it. I have seen it defined many times, and their remains some question as to what IS a hack. [being I got some resistance in this section from the ng this is my own definition and is up for refinement] ______________________________________________________________________ How is a hacker different than a cracker, or a script kiddie? Script Kiddies are worse in a way. They want to collect a bunch of pre-written scripts that will allow them to chalk up "kills" and claim what dangerous "hackers" they are. They only want a high score of sites and enough scripts to hurt anyone who makes them mad. They will probably never write such a script them self nor will they ever be hackers. -- Gandalf Parker *reproduced with the authors permission* ______________________________________________________________________ What do I do if someone has hacked my passwd? Change it. If it was on a network tell the sysadmin, or just send an email to root. ______________________________________________________________________ I think I've been hacked; what should I do now? Change your password would be a good start. Backing up your personal files and reinstalling your operating system would be the next. ______________________________________________________________________ Why should I use Linux or Unix? AKA how is it better than Mac0s, or Windows(95/98/NT/2k)? Linux & Unix are both multitasking operating systems. This means you can do more than a single thing on them at a time along with other users. Like making a new pgp key set, logging in as a different user and surfing the web at the same time. Windows(95/98) can't do this. You could (do more than a single thing at once), but you will notice a slow down. You must know too that there are some things that will only work under Windows(95/98). Like some modems, printers, and other equipment & software simply because no one has written the drivers or ported the software yet. Mac0s is the same way. It isn't multiuser or visibly multitasking, but in a big way. You do see a major slowdown doing some things. I must say though I like to surf the web, play games (& emulators) and check my mail and read my ng's under this 0s because it is more fun. It also lacks the heavy duty networking support found under Unix, and the software to correct some of these over sights is highly expensive. Windows(NT) is multitasking, but it crashes a lot. It has it's features though. It is a networking operating system like unix, but this is its only feature. It lacks a lot of the graphics & USB support that its non-networking(98) counter part has. Windows(2k) is multitasking and I have heard caught up to its (98) counter part ( I would go for the server version if this is the 0s of choice for you. It will have more for you to learn. ), but it still has one overwhelming weakness. Acilies heal if you will. It is not open source. Linux isn't perfect. It plays some mean games, it is a networking and multitasking operating system. Netscape (its primary web browser) is still kinda unstable. It has second to none networking tools, packet sniffers, portscanners, raid tools ...etc. It is also a server 0s. Not everything is supported under this 0s (worth note here is the hardware is better supported than the people you will talk to. Companies will refuse to discuss anything with a user running this 0s. The sysadmin of my ISP assumed that if anything was wrong with my account it had to be the Linux I was running and not his servers. *it was his servers we found out later* The only thing that I can recommend is to know your linux, and tell them: "You do your job and let me handle the linux side of the issue. I can handle it." This is getting better by the day now. ) like I said it isn't perfect, but get this if it isn't YOU can change that. It is free, and open source and it runs on almost any computer architecture. This is because it is open source. Somebody like you wanted it to run on their notebook computer and ported it over to RISC ISA, or wrote the PCMCIA drivers. Linux now supports USB to a lesser degree. It is the 0s I use to get "real" work done, like hacking out programs doing research on the web, or network trouble shooting. ______________________________________________________________________ What is alt.hacker, and what is on topic when on this news group? + We will discuss almost anything. By almost I mean that we will not talk about way that you can get into trouble. We don't want spam, but almost anything else goes. Within reason of course.