Hello there ! Let me take a wild guess: You just saw the Hackers The Movie,
thought: \" Wow, awesome, i wanna do that too\", you did a search on the web,
and this file came up. Am i right ? Am I right ?

First off : Hackers does not show real hacking. Sure, those graphics really
look cool, but real hacking mostly shows you nothing more then a black screen
with grey text. Another hint. If you're out to learn how to fuck up people's
computers, FUCK YOU ! You're not a real hacker. Real hackers have ethics. If
you do not agree with those rules, do not read on. This file is not meant for
you.

1. Do not damage anything / anyone intentionally. 2. Do not alter files, other
then to hide the fact that you were/are in the system.

Simple, huh ? A true hacker is someone who is interested in computers, who
wants to learn how they work, why they work, and is always after more knowledge.
Real hackers don't hack to wreak havoc, or to make money off of secret files.
Real hackers hack for the thrill of hacking, to satisfy their thirst for knowledge,
to give in to their curiosity. Real hackers do not look onto others as possible
threats. They think of other hackers as colleagues / friends / fellow outlaw
members. A real hacker is never afraid to share his knowledge or to educate
newbies.

You're probably all set, sitting behind your computer with a tray of JOLT-cola,
a stack of smokes, your door locked, some relaxing music in your stereo, your
friends all got a note telling them that you were not gonna see them in a while,
your dog has been brought to your neighbor who will walk him, in short, you
took care of everything, right ?

Good. To start, get that poor dog back, and tell your friends you will see
them after all (unless you wanna stay locked up for years that is). You don't
learn hacking overnight. It takes literally years and years before you can pull
off your very first real hack. This is the real hacker's very first quality
: PATIENCE. Without patience, you might learn a few tricks (for instance, you
might find out how to 'nuke'
a person. Wow. Impressive!), but if you wanna go for the real fun, you'll have
to learn for quite a while.

Once you got a nuking program, and some proxies, making you able to flood your
most hated chat, you're feeling quite the man already! I mean, see that guy
insult you ? You check for his IP address
(The chat you're in allows you to see full IPs), fire up the nuker, and with
a satisfying smirk on your face you watch him go idle. Bravo, you just managed
to make an ass out of yourself. If you're lucky, he's not running any interception
programs. If you're not-so-lucky, he is, but he's not gonna report you to your
ISP.
If you're unlucky, he does so, and gets you disconnected from it (Yes, so-called
nukes are a federal offence in the US), and if you're the most unlucky person
in the whole wide world, you just tried to bomb a hacker. Within the next few
minutes (you're behind your computer trying to figure out why this guy didn't
go idle) your computer starts acting all weird. They never told you that smoke
was able to come out of it, did they ? (This is a bit overdoing it, but i wanna
make an example). You're hacking days are over. The lesson to be learned here
: NEVER GET ARROGANT. There's always someone out there who knows more then you.

You decided to learn a little more. You wanna be able to check other people's
e-mails. You wound up on a wwwboard,
where you did not really bother to read other posts, but just typed (in all
caps off course, or you might not be noticed) :\"HOW DO I HACK HOTMAIL ?\". The
next day, you find out you can't get into that board anymore. Isn't that something
? They banned you. And you only wanted to know how to hack hotmail. Wait a minute
. You recall seeing a message at the top of the wwwboard, stating not to ask
about hotmail hacking. Damn. If you wind up on a WWWBoard, there are a few rules
of etiquette :

1. Do not use all caps. This is considered shouting, and extremely rude. You
   use caps, you'll probably wind up getting flamed
   or ignored.
   
2. Read the previous questions first. Maybe your answer is in there.
   
3. Read the rules of the board. Do they have any links to helpful pages, or
   a faq ?
   
4. Do not flame. (Flaming is ridiculing other people's posts, calling them
   names, or posting the same question). Flaming is lame. Flaming makes you look
   stupid, no matter what. Besides, you could be flaming someone who knows a
   shitload more about computers, and who just got dumped by his wife. He decides
   to take out his aggression on you. (I never said hacking wasn't dangerous).
   
5. Don't be afraid to do some stuff yourself. If someone mentions a certain
   program, don't ask where you can find it . Do a search on it with a search
   engine
   (i.e. Altavista.com). Someone who always asks questions on where to get this
   or that is not appreciated, and is considered lame.
   Show initiative.
   
6. Do not ask general questions like :\"How do i hack...\". Be specific. Include
   as much info as possible (i .e. \"How can i enter a UNIX
   machine with my telnet program. I'm running Windows, and the UNIX system they
   use is System V\"). Do NOT tell exactly what you are doing though! (I.e. i'm
   hacking into the CIA servers by using a hacked telnet account (By the way.
   NEVER hack a government computer. You WILL get caught!) And don't brag (i.e.
   Yesterday, I hacked into a yahoo server and stole their password file) Be
   paranoid remember the X-files? Trust no one).
   

Okay, okay, you're REALLY set now. You became a regular at a certain WWWBoard
of your choice, you downloaded some nifty tools mentioned by others, you read
some text-files, but you wanna learn more. Where to go now ? Ever heard of books
? READ some. To really start hacking, is not a matter of getting lots and lots
of programs that will do all kinds of stuff for you (though there are a few
tools every hacker should have), REAL hacking is knowing WHY a certain something
works, and what's more HOW exactly it works. Suppose something in the system
gets changed. Your programs don't work anymore. If you do know why it worked
at first, you might be able to find away around the new system. The best to
start with, is understanding how the Internet works. Get a book on TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol). A Protocol is an agreement
made. The Internet works with certain agreements on how to contact a webpage,
on how a download is transmitted etc. Another good start is learning about your
OS (Operating System). Learn how to solve small problems you encounter while
running Windows. Learn what tools are included with Windows (The most powerfull
ones are actually available in DOS.
Tools like PING, FINGER,
TRACERT and NETSTAT.
You won't find much info about those unless you try them. (They're in your /windows/
folder)). (Some other neat stuff included with windows are some different client
programs to connect to servers. Tools like TELNET
and FTP are also to be found in the windows folder).

Well. You know (and understand) TCP/IP now, and know enough about Windows to
do some basic problem solving. You are aware of the cool programs etc. Any other
tools you need ? The answer is Yes. Basic tools should in my opinion at least
be :

• A good trace program in case TRACERT doesn't show too much. I use PingPlotter
  and Visual Router myself.
  
• A portscanner to scan ranges of IP's for specific servers in that ra nge.
  I use Netlab for this. (It also contains Whois, Finger and a Tracer).
  
• A Brute force hacker for servers. Read our e-mail hacking FAQ for some
  usefull tools.
  
• A Brute force hacker for UNIX password files. S ome usefull ones are CrackerJack
  and John The Ripper.
  

Remember, those are really basic tools. Next up to be learning about is UNIX.
UNIX is, like Windows, an Operating System, except UNIX is run on large networks
(kinda like NT),
with many users. UNIX is not graphically based, it's (like DOS) a parser that
reacts to your input. About 80% of all servers
connected to the Internet run one or another version of UNIX. To hack them,
you'll need to be able to know how they work. Try getting a free shell account
somewhere, and get familiar with the OS. Better yet, you have 1 GB of free disk
space ? Why don 't you start running Linux, a freeware version of UNIX, which
is commonly available on the net, or supplied with books. Learn it inside and
out.

You 're starting to become quite the wizkid, aren't you ? You know TCP/IP,
windows, UNIX, you have some really cool programs, and on the WWWBoard you're
starting to become the guru who gets asked the most difficult questions. You
hacked some servers, made sure you messaged the admin how to solve the problems
etc. Now how can you become even more knowledgeable ?

The answer is by learning about programming. After all, it would not be enough
to always hear from others about exploits
they found. It would be way cooler, if you yourself could announce a security
flaw you discovered. But unless you know how the system works you'll never ever
find holes in it. By learning a few programming languages it's possible to look
at the source code
of a program, and check it to see if you do find any holes that the programmers
overlooked. Personally, i would recommend learning Ansi C (useful for UNIX etc).
Pick up a book, and away you go. If you don't have any programming skills yet,
it would probably be best if you first learn an easier language. Try Visual
Basic, or PERL. Both are pretty easy to learn, and do not require lots of programming
knowledge to create something with them.

Once you learn how to program, the sky is the limit. Be creative, look at which
areas of hacking you like, and specialise in those. If you know UNIX inside
out, why not proceed to other OS's ? There is so much left to learn out there.

Remember, just because you are new, you are not automatically a lamer. You
are not warranted the allowance to be a lamer. A newbie possess ignorance, but
a lamer possesses stupidity. A newbie is not a bad thing, a lamer is! Don’t
be lame.

Happy hacking !

-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=-=ETM=

Shout outs go to :

An Eyewitness, Ashes, Bazza, Blade Surfer, Cougar, Cry Tough, cypress hill,
deej, Frosty,
Ganga, Lathem, MarquisdeSade, Pennywise, petr0lb0mb, R-2r, RaVeN, sna, tress,
and WhooptyFuckingDoo

Don't be lame, we put many hours of work into this file. Don't rip our names,
or we will track you down, and offer you a sniff of our feet !

Copyright (c) July 99, ETM.