How to Be A Generic Hacker For Good

This guide will provide you with the very basic fundamentals of how to be a hacker.  No specific techniques will be written here. 

Warnings

• Hacking for nefarious purposes is very illegal and can get you a large fine and jail time
• If you are going to hack make sure you protect yourself and cover your tracks.
• If you are going to hack something specific, get written documented permission to cover yourself. 
• Stay legal.  Protect yourself on paper before going after something specific.

Education

Education is the place to start when starting to learn to hack.  First and foremost, you will want to learn to program in at least one programming language.  The more the merrier.  Some good languages to start off with are: Python, C/C++, or Java.  Down the line you probably will want to pick Perl or Lisp. 

Be able to program in general terms as well,  independent of a specific language.  As you learn your way though the different languages, the algorithms you develop could be easier in one language over another. 

Other things to do is to learn to use Unix or Linux for an operating system and learn to use open source software.  It can provide you access to lots of the source code to how operating systems should work or you could potentially find weaknesses to exploit. Help develop open source software, it can show you what security is implemented and any potential weakness to potentially exploit in other systems.

Curiosity

After a while you will have a grasp of computer programming and how aspects of computer systems work.  Poke around different systems and find vulnerabilities.  Open source programs like Google will pay users to find vulnerabilities in their systems.  More than likely other programs will have a similar program.  This is a good way to make a buck and protect yourself and others in using the particular program. People will be most appreciative for your efforts in making their favorite program a bit more secure. 

Tips

• If you do participate in the Google vulnerability reward program, DOCUMENT what steps you take so Google can reproduce your findings and attribute proper credit and cash to you.
• Think out side the box.  Be creative. Finding weaknesses will not always be obvious.  The obvious ones will generally be protected.  Unorthodox solutions will usually be needed. 
• There are no shortcuts to this stuff.  It will take a lot of work, learning, and poking around.

Hacking Tools

There are lots of hacking tools out there.  Try them out in isolated systems for the purposes of learning what they do and how to defend against of them. Try them on computers that you own that are networked together. Dissect their programs and learn other people technique.  Some will be good, most bad, and a rare few extraordinary.  Try to find more extraordinary tools and learn the most from these. 

Warnings

• Hacking for nefarious purposes is very illegal and can get you a large fine and jail time
• If you are going to hack make sure you protect yourself and cover your tracks.
• If you are going to hack something specific, get written documented permission to cover yourself. 
• Stay legal.  Protect yourself on paper before going after something specific.