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Learn to Hack Computers

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A brief guide to hacking

What is a hacker? This isn't a trivial question to answer, because the word has two entirely separate definitions.

This lens will cover both definitions of a hacker. It will teach you everything you need to know to *legally* break into computers, and it will also point you to the resources you need to learn to write great software. If you read the essays and books linked to from this lens then you should be well on your way to having the skills necessary to move to silicon valley and launch the next great startup.

What follows is the complete beginners guide on learning how to hack!

What is a hacker?

How To Become A Hacker: This essay by Eric S. Raymond explains what it means to be a hacker, and how to become one. This is *the* classic essay about what it means to be a hacker, and what it means to be a part of hacker culture.
Hackers and Painters: Perhaps the single most important essay about what it means to be a hacker. An absolute must read for understanding what hackers do and what motivates them.
Great Hackers: An epic podcast about, "What motivates great hackers? [clip] What do they need to do their jobs? How do you recognize them? [clip] How do you get them to come and work for you? [clip] And how can you become one?" One of my all time favorite talks.
What business can learn from open source: "It's not about Linux or Firefox, but the forces that produced them. Why open source is able to produce better software, why traditional workplaces are actually harmful to productivity and the reason why professionalism is overrated." If this doesn't get you fired up to learn to hack then I don't know what will.

Hacking Tutorials for Beginners

Some free hacking games online for beginners

Hack This Site!: Hack This Site is a free, safe and legal training ground for hackers to test and expand their hacking skills. More than just another hacker wargames site, we are a living, breathing community with many active projects in development, with a vast selection of hacking articles and a huge forum where users can discuss hacking, network security, and just about everything.
Hackergames.net: A comprehensive list of hacking and security related challenges, hackits, wargames, tools, and tutorials, along with user reviews.
Try2hack: A war game for intermediate level hackers.

Learn computer programming

Online hacking tutorials for beginners

Guide to (mostly) harmless hacking: Lots of entertaining, factual, and downright hairy guides to information that you won't find in computer manuals!
_Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby: An excellent free tutorial on the Ruby programming language, which is currently considered by most great hackers to be the best programming language to learn.

Articles You Should Read

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years: Becoming a master of anything takes 10,000 hours. Forget these books that promise to teach you programming in 24 hours, and get serious about becoming great.
Math for Programmers: A great essay on just how much math you need to know in order to be a top programmer, and why it's worth it to learn.
The Law of Leaky Abstractions: Abstractions fail. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. There's leakage. Things go wrong. It happens all over the place when you have abstractions. [...] All this means that paradoxically, even as we have higher and higher level programming tools with better and better abstractions, becoming a proficient programmer is getting harder and harder.
Groupware Bad: Probably one of the 100 most-famous blog posts ever written.
Magic Ink: Perhaps the best article on user interfaces ever written
Getting Real: A guide to turning your software ideas into reality. An absolute must read.

Learn computer science

You don't need to read these books to learn basic programming techniques or to make simple websites. But if you want to be a great hacker these books are essential. You'll probably never end up coding in Scheme (the language used in these books), but learning it will make you a much better coder.

Learn Security And Social Engineering

Websites for Hackers

The Programming Reddit: If you want to keep current on what's new in the world of programming and hang out with other programmers, this is the best place to be on the web.
Joel on Software: Joel Spolsky's blog is the most famous programming blog on the web. There have been some absolutely brilliant posts over the years, and Joel's own books are considered classics. He also has his own list of book recommendations, and the forums on his website are another popular hangout for hackers.
Hacker News: This is the community for Y Combinator, a seed funding firm in Silicon Valley. The theme is:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

Next Steps

If you like hacker culture and love programming, consider starting a business!

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blazingzone Mar 29, 2012 @ 5:18 am | delete

Great lens. That's a lot of stuff to learn

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GrammaLinda Feb 15, 2012 @ 12:08 pm | delete

A discussion of the difference between white hat and black hat hacking would be helpful on this lens. Too many people do not understand the difference.

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nickirc Feb 8, 2012 @ 10:44 pm | delete

Interesting, not a topic I'd thought to explore until now. thanks again for another unique lens.

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eddgeorge Dec 13, 2011 @ 6:07 pm | delete

Great Stuff Alex! And thanks for sharing some awesome articles!

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Treasures-By-Brenda Dec 12, 2011 @ 9:12 pm | delete

Yikes, lessons for a hacker. I've never been interested in the subject, LOL and hope never to have to learn anything about it.

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rootDaemon Aug 14, 2011 @ 9:28 am | delete

Overall, some nice information. Your links were especially great, as there were many I'd never seen before. And I absolutely love 'Hackers and Painters'. Thanks for the quality lens.