How to Become a Hacker

Most of us are very curious to learn Hacking and want to become a Hacker, but don’t know where to start. If you are in the same situation, then this is the right place for you.

Everyday I get a lot of emails where people ask me – How to Become a Hacker?. In fact this question is not easy to answer because, hacking is not an art that can be mastered overnight. It requires knowledge, skills, creativity, dedication and of course TIME. Everyone can become a Hacker provided they learn it from the basics. So if you wanna become a hacker, then all you need is to fallow the bellow steps

Skills

1. Learn how to program :-
This is the fundamental hacking skill. It means you'll have to learn a programming language.Preferably more than one; you can learn a lot by comparing two languages and look for similarities and differences in the way they handle a situation. But programming is more than writing code.

2. Learn to run an operating system :-
The Hacker community is much Unix/Linux oriented (nowadays). There are several reasons,an important one being that with (open-source) Unixes you get the code as well. You can actually read how the operating system is written, you can get to know it well enough to modify if you want to Unix / Linux is also very
network/internet oriented : learning to understand Unix / Linuxnwill help for the next skill you'll need to acquire. And it comes with free programming tools. (get your hands dirty : Learn Linux Hands-On) :

3. Learn about datacommunication and networks :-
How do computers talk to each other ? Learn the concepts of networking

4.Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML :-
Technically, the internet is just a collection of computer networks. But it has become an important communication medium as well, and can be used for many things. Sharing information is one. You'll need to know how to write HTML to publish on the web. Designing a web site with a good logical structure and a matching directory structure is also an exercise worth doing to sharpen a skill or two.
5. If you don't have functional English, learn it. A lot of information, be it on the web or in books, is only available in English. And apparently English has developed a richer technical vocabulary so that a lot gets lost in translations.

Style

Style matters. Not as much as competence though. In a way, your style is an expression of your personality, and as in any group of kindred spirits, hackers recognize certain personality traits. Apart from intelligence, the ability to learn, concentration, analytical thinking, hackers usually also show signs that they use both hemispheres of the brain, not just the left side, the logical, analytical mind. This ability allows them to dig in to the logic of a problem, then step out of it again to see the bigger picture or try a completely different, unexpected approach, or to intuitively know where to start.

Activities that show you may have this ability, and can help you to improve it, are

Learn to write your native language well. Expressing your thoughts (in writing) helps to organize your thoughts, see relationships, approach a subject from different angles.
Read science fiction. Among my favorites are

o Star Trek (Captain Kirk is a hacker. So is Scotty.)
o Isaac Asimov
o Kurt Vonnegut. I never thought of Kurt Vonnegut as a science fiction writer, but he seems to fit in here. I like the way he can put together a good story with unique humor, consistently elaborating pleasantly bizarre starting points.
o The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Study Zen (and/or take up martial arts - the mental discipline seems similar in important ways). You may start by reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig. Although, in the author's words "it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either", it provides an interesting way of looking at technology, some insight on how the analytical mind works, a few Zen like things, and something about Quality. Quality is good.
Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing. Discover the mathematics of music, and the beauty in the mathematics. (Read Blues for Nerds as a first introduction)
Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.(Here may be a good starting point.)

The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material.

Attitude

Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. Hacker Attitude has to do with finding pleasure in solving problems and building things, looking for new problems to solve rather than re-invent the wheel time and time again. Hackers are open-minded, towards the problems they want to solve as well as towards the world in general. Hackers avoid boredom and brain-dead repetitive work (they rather invent a way to automate it instead). Most important : they believe that attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be accepted as a hacker, you

Or, as the following modern Zen poem has it:

to follow the path,
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.

(from How to Become a Hacker by Eric S. Raymond)

Style and Attitude are important, but can never be a substitute for competence. Attitude without competence means your posing. Attitude and style are things you develop in time. Hacker skills require intelligence, and hard work. The 'Library' part of this site is a collection of tutorials and other information that could be useful to acquire some of these skills.

Status
There are hackers and hackers. Some hackers obviously are more well-known than others. Some Hackers' names are pronounced with reverence, also by other hackers. There is something like status in the hacker community

Ethics
With knowledge comes power, and with power comes responsibility.Many books have been written about ethics, many more will be written. I won't add to that discussion. Star Wars said it all : there are hackers, so there is also the temptation of The Dark Side.

If you think Star Wars childish, try Tao.