Humble Beginnings

[Dr-Chambers]

You are all so skilled, so allow me to ask, what was your humble beginnings?

Who taught you all that you know? or

How did you get to the level of skills that you're at?

What is your story?

[ayu]

You are all so skilled, so allow me to ask, what was your humble beginnings?

I started out in probably a similar manner as many others.
My dad brought home a PC in 1994 or so, and then I was hooked.
I didn't begin with my programming until 2002 however, when I first tried to learn C to write viruses.
Ended up messing up my computer and later became an expert at reinstalling Windows 98 .
I ran older Windows operating systems for a long time even after a new one had been released, since I was not really interested in changing my ways.
I ran Windows 2000 on a machine even when Windows Vista had been released, and switched to Linux completely a short while after that.

Who taught you all that you know? or

Can't really point to a specific person here.
My dad got me started, and then I learned a lot from the Internet.
It really kicked off when I joined Suck-o however and went in light speed from there.

How did you get to the level of skills that you're at?

By never stopping the learning machine!
Always strive to learn something new.
Doesn't have to be about computers, as long as it keeps you interested.

[Dr-Chambers]

Wow. Did you read a lot of books?

[ayu]

Wow. Did you read a lot of books?

I'm a book worm, but I don't like to read a lot of "fact" books
In the beginning I read a lot of books on PHP and "bad" hacking books.
Then after that it was a lot of experimenting, brute force and reading on the Internet .

My learning process, historically, has been rather ineffective in a way, but enjoyable

[Dr-Chambers]

Ineffective wouldn't be the word that I would use.

So as an hacker, what do you suggest that I should learn first?

[ayu]

Ineffective wouldn't be the word that I would use.

So as an hacker, what do you suggest that I should learn first?

Depends on what type of hacking you want to focus on.
It's a rather wide spectrum.

If you want to do what I do at the very moment (web hacking), then you can learn PHP.
PHP is simple to get started with and a large amount of the Internet runs on PHP, which gives you a lot to work with in terms of finding and playing with vulnerabilities.

OWASP Top 10
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2013-Top_10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PHP Tutorial
https://www.w3schools.com/php/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lilrofl]

My dad also brought home a PC in the 1990's, it was a Tandy Color Computer and came natively with the ability to program in Q-Basic. I have been "mucking around" with computers ever since. I run Linux now after dumping Windows completely, I waited until my Windows 7 PC died though so not quite as long ago as Vista.

I must parrot Cats in that you must learn skills. Whether you are trying to be a programmer or a tailor, it takes a lot of practice and no one starts at the top. Picking up a new skill can feel fun, frustrating and more than a little humbling as you struggle with the basics, but after a time you get out what you put in to learning.

I went to school for computer science, but I also read constantly and try to match up that habit with certifications which aid in employment, I would say more than the school degree ever did. I can point to a handful of people that taught me a great deal, but certainly everyone has something that can be learned from.

[Dr-Chambers]

Thank you.

Programmimg will be the most important skill in the far future.

Those who have the skills already are gold.

Everything is tending towards computerization if it isn't already.

So thank you for the insight.