Demon - The Hacker Ethos

I. A bout This Book

Welcome, and thank you for choosing my book. The objective of this primer is to teach and foster new hackers and penetration testers, as well as to welcome them into the community with open arms. This e-book is focused on instructing you on the introductory elements of hacking, and instilling the Ethics of Hacking into your mind.

We, the community, are not as evil as the public would have you believe. Rather, we are masters of networking and computing, seeking to live as others do in this world, to seek understanding, find new knowledge, commune and cooperate, and change the world as we see it.

The difference between us and the rest of the world is that we understand the language of code as if we were born speaking it. We have navigated and mapped the highways of the internet, and we know the world of Cyber-space as if it were our own back yard.

We pride ourselves on outsmarting and perpetually evolving the world of modern technology through our efforts of penetration testing and hacking. We are not the criminals that the world perceives us to be. We are just smarter than the rest of you.

Those that seek to join this bold and exciting lifestyle of hacking, let me be the first to welcome you to our world. It is my sincere hope that this book will be your map, your compass, and your guide to a pursuit of a new kind of knowledge and career.

Welcome, reader, to the world of the Election and the Switch. Read on, and see what makes us who we are, and find out why

We Are All Alike
The Mentor

Good luck on your journey,

True Demon

II. Special thanks

This book is dedicated to the members of Hackforums who supported me in the creation of this book from start to finish. This was made possible because of you, it was made for you, and now it has been dedicated to you. Thank you for all your support.

ThePonyWizard , AKA Sonder, you are a gifted kid, and your contributions to HF, the programming sections of this book, and your outstanding review have been invaluable. It has been a privilege knowing you and learning from you. I look forward to our future collaborations together. Enjoy your retirement from HF, and good luck in your future career.

Omniscient and the HF STAFF , thanks for building HF for all of us to goof off and discuss all things concerning computers and security. Without HF to inspire me and be the defacto home for this publication, I would have likely never written this book, so thank you.

Respect to your cyber-deity status.

Armada, CyberGuard, Forseti, Sinister, and -zERAiT thanks for supporting the book so strongly. Your reviews, your contributions, the content you delivered, and all the people you pointed toward my e-book in its early stagesit all made a world of difference and kept me going when I questioned if the effort was worth it.

It wasand I cant thank you enough for the motivation.

Amie-san , your work on the book-cover was outstanding, and I cant thank you enough. It left me breathless.

And last, but certainly not least, the love of my life, Angel . You put up with my late-nights, my long-hours, and incessant shenanigans throughout our life together, and youve never stopped caring.

I never would have made it this far without you.

I love you, sweetheart.

III. W hat is the
The Hacker Ethos

A. Introduction

Greetings to you, the newbies, the beginners, the adept, the familiar, and the elite members as well. First, let me thank you for purchasing this e-book. If youre reading this, then its obvious that you want to start learning or want to learn more about how to hack. Well, I hope you like reading, because you're going to be doing a LOT of it. Whether you are a young programmer, an old network administrator, an experienced L33t, or a total noob, I do not care. This book covers hacking at its most conceptual level, and guides you into the culture, the mindset, and the process of hacking and learning how to hack. Contained in this book, is a very broad look at the techniques and tools used by hackers for every purpose you can imagine, ranging from simple security assessment, to the most malicious and despicable acts of theft, espionage, terrorism, and data-destruction.

Let me point out that I am an ethical hacker . I know and use the techniques contained within these pages for purely ethical purposes. I cannot take responsibility for your intentions or actions that follow you closing the back cover of this book, but what I can do is introduce you to the Ethics of Hacking , and the Hacker Ethos by which the best and brightest live. It is my intention to teach you how to use these techniques in a safe and ethical manner so that you can get an awesome job one day as a security consultant, a penetration tester, a security lab expert, forensic investigator, or application security programmer, and so on. I am not here to teach criminals how to break into bank accounts and rob the next Mt. Gox for millions worth of Bitcoin . If youre here for that, then I wish you good luck on your life as a fugitive. Youll need it.

If you truly wish to learn the methods of hacking and taking your first steps, it requires a great desire to learn and the patience of a saint. Hacking is a very meticulous, and at time-consuming, tedious process; however, it is also a creative one, and can be very rewarding. To be truly master hacking, you need tenacity, a sharp intellect, outstanding math skills, an experts understanding of program logic, a creative mind, and impeccable research skills. This is what I am here to teach you.

The beginning of this boo k is a thesis on what is called Hacker ethics, and a collective on my experience as an offensive security expert for going on 10 years now. I have lurked and engaged in dozens of Hacking Bulletin Boards, hobbyist and enthusiast sites, and web-forums. I have seen hundreds of repeat questions asked that are often shot-down by "leets" and other members of popular web-forums who are exhausted of seeing the same tiring noob questions spamming up the front page because someone was too lazy to do some Google-searching. While I understand everyone's frustrations about having to answer these same questions over and over again until your soul feels like it has bled out all of its empathy for these poor, ignorant souls; this is not the way to foster new minds into our world. The hacker community is exactly that, a community, and this goal of this book is to welcome you newbies with open arms in the hopes that you will be able to bring new and exciting things to our world, regardless of your alignment or motivations.

So, to my fellow hackers, from the beginners to the elites, white and black hats alike, I ask that you read this book with an open mind and willingness to change your perspective. It is my hope that you will not only learn how to hack, but also learn how to learn and learn how to teach .

B. W hat this E-book is NOT

This book is not a one-stop shop for all of your hacking questions nor is it going to be your one-click guide to l337-hood. It is a roadmap, a primer, a survival-guide if you will, something to prepare you for the world of hacking, the dark-web, and to teach you the security mindset. This book will teach you the basics of pen testing, explain the concepts and tools of the trade, show you an arm-full of internet resources and learning materials, and provide a general guideline for you to follow in your first few weeks of learning. This guide is meant to inform you where to start in your journey. It is not the end, only the beginning.

If ever a day comes you stop learning, it is because you are dead. Never stop learning, never lose the hunger or the passion for the knowledge. One day, when the contents of this book seem trivial and incidental to you, you will be able to look forward towards seeking new, undiscovered knowledge. This e-book has but one goal: Teach you to teach yourself.