I want to become an ethical hacker. Noobie looking for advice

[SageModeAustin]

People who are ethical hackers right now, what would you have done differently when you started learning about programming?

Right now my plan is to just learn all of the languages which will take years so in the meantime get a job at Best Buy or something and just start from the bottom and surround myself with other people interested in tech and go from there.

Gonna sign up for a computer science class at my local community college and start reading some books on C programming.

Anything else? What am I missing?

[Leo Gura]

Seems like a lot of demand for this in the future.

You don't need to learn all languages. Focus on learning one really well. In such a field your success will depends on highly narrow specialization and expertise.

You can find coding tutorials and courses online. That's the beauty of coding. You can master it all from your bedroom. Don't wait for some community college class. Start now at home.

Reading books on coding is tedious. Just follow online tutorials and make up your own projects.

[allislove]

Real programmer here LoL.

• practice is everything, rather than reading bunch of books on programming build simple application. Then, gradually increase complexity of your application
• I agree with Leo, first, nail one mainstream language really well
• then, explore different approaches - don't stuck in one paradigm:
  You can learn
  • some functional programming with Haskell
  • some theorem proving with Coq
  • some logical programming with Prolog
  • some embedded programming with C
  • some scripting with Perl
  • ...
 Explore different paradigms to see the whole picture

---

So, If I were you I would self-study 1 language, find the job, explore different paradigms, become the master of some area of programming in 5-10 years, enjoy life  

Also, really good tool to improve your programming apart from job tasks is to have side open-source projects with bunch of friends.

Most importantly is to have fun while coding  

Edited May 18, 2020 by dimitri

[Joyboy]

Hi @SageModeAustin, hope this might help you, to your journey to become a hacker
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

[electroBeam]

My part time job is ethical hacking.

Hacking is very different to software engineering, and learning and mastering a particular language or set of languages isn't going to boost your career.

Instead try and break into as much stuff as possible. Buy smart appliances or devices from shops and try to hack into them. Find websites on the internet which allow hacking and try to hack into them. Download websites and github repositories or applications, without looking at the source code, run them locally and try and hack into them. 

If you want to be a hacker, start hacking! The really fun stuff is hacking embedded systems and electronics. Also hacking operating systems is one of my favourites. Once you got some skill, try hacking websites in the dark web. 

[Frosty97]

This site might help you as well.^^

https://github.com/ossu/computer-science

[Huz]

6 hours ago, electroBeam said:

My part time job is ethical hacking.

Hacking is very different to software engineering, and learning and mastering a particular language or set of languages isn't going to boost your career.

Instead try and break into as much stuff as possible. Buy smart appliances or devices from shops and try to hack into them. Find websites on the internet which allow hacking and try to hack into them. Download websites and github repositories or applications, without looking at the source code, run them locally and try and hack into them. 

If you want to be a hacker, start hacking! The really fun stuff is hacking embedded systems and electronics. Also hacking operating systems is one of my favourites. Once you got some skill, try hacking websites in the dark web. 

How do you get into AI? What skills do you needs?

[Rinne]

@SageModeAustin https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3sccPO4v8YqCTn8sezZGTw

[SageModeAustin]

@electroBeam thing is I have no idea how to hack. I have zero knowledge on it or anything so I’m starting by learning programming so I can understand the language but hacking into smart appliances and websites is a good idea once I learn some more about it thanks

@Leo Gura Thankyou for your response yes I have already started doing online tutorials learning C programming atm. When you say learn one thing and master it, so basically tunnel in one thing and become really good at that? Like just one language? Then move on to the next right  but hopefully it’s not too late of an age by then coz a lot of programmers seem to start young since there’s so much to learn 

 @dimitri

yes ty, it’s all about having fun right now I’m 23 so by the time I’m in 30s ill know enough to get paid for it but hopefully it’s not too late of an age by then coz alot of programmers seem to start young when did u start?

@Joyboy ty I’ll check it out

@Rinne yo whatsup dude I’ll check it out@Frosty97 ty

[EnlightenmentBlog]

[allislove]

@SageModeAustin to hopefully inspire you, I share my programming story:

I was graduating university as radio-engineer and I realized that it's almost impossible to find good job as radio-engineer in the country where I lived. So, I went to my friend who was working as programmer and he helped me to get started. After around half a year, after like 5 failed interviews I found the first job, with a good starting salary - 500$. This is really good salary for country where I lived.

I think I was your age when I found the first job. Next 5 years programming was my main hobby, I spent almost all my free time on it. So, you can easily multiply those 5 years by two to have rough idea of the experience. So, last two years I let go of programming as a main hobby, just doing it for a little of fun and for having good money. So, now I am 30, I started work professionally at 23, I think I have the same level of expertise as people who worked around 12 years in programming. I worked as automation tester, front-end developer, back-end developer, mobile application developer, compiler developer, virtual machine developer. I feel pretty comfortable on the market, I worked in quite successful companies, with a lot of moneys, in different areas (I worked in security company or company which is in 100 most visited sites in the world...), I have open source project contributions. It's all good now. I can just code a little bit, like few hours per day, enjoy life to the fullest, relax  

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by dimitri

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, EnlightenmentBlog said:

Just like spirituality but with a computer

[Preety_India]

 

 

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Just like spirituality but with a computer

This is what you do to us every day not using a hand though but with a whip of your tongue. 

 

That was such a cute picture meme though with the hand on the head. 

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Preety_India

[SageModeAustin]

@Leo Gura ahahaha fuck. You so right. Thankyou @EnlightenmentBlog

@dimitri HOW DID U FIND A JOB IN PROGRAMMING AAFTER ONLY STUDYING IT FOR HALF A YEAR FROM A FRIEND??! WTF 

Edited May 20, 2020 by SageModeAustin

[allislove]

@SageModeAustin during my studies I had the highest score all the time, so I consider that I can easily study any science.
So, during this half year, it was like a full time job for me - reading books, coding, code reviews/conversations with programmer-friend. So, after half a year I already could code something.

I was going on one programming interview after another and couldn't get the job.... until one day my friend comes to me and says: "Do you want to be automation tester?" I am: "Yes, sure". So, one of his experienced friends was changing job and his position should be fulfilled, so I got that position, after successful interview. I even got "Junior" position, usually people had "Trainee" position with 0 experience. That's why I've got 500$ and not 200$  

After 8 months of working I've got "Middle" position and my salary more than doubled LoL 1250$
But that's story for another day

Edited May 20, 2020 by dimitri

[SageModeAustin]

@Leo Guraits interesting coz I came back to coding in high school I learned HTML for a couple days I remember u saying something like recurring interest in your life purpose course

 

@dimitriwell good for you, to hat advice would u give me for landing a job like u? 

[allislove]

@SageModeAustin 

On 5/19/2020 at 10:23 AM, EnlightenmentBlog said:

?

[DreamScape]

@EnlightenmentBlog Haha! so funny.