Dear all Friend Tuk sementara waktu Ndeso gak bisa jalan jalan lagi d sini dan gak bisa kliling ronda tuk saling menyapa. i feel tired and alots of problem that drive me going crazy. but Ndeso kan Kembali dalam suasana yang baru dan segar
Saturday, April 26, 2008
IBU
Engkau wanita yang Mulia pengorbanan dan jasamu tiada tara. Tapi kenapa aku menangis merindukanmu kasih sayangmu dan belaianmu sebegai seorang Ibu. Engkau tidak pernah adil memberikan kasih sayang terhadap anak anakmu, Kenapa??
Dimata anakmu ibu sangat kejam Tak pernah kudapatkan kasih sayang mu dan air susumu pun tak pernah kurasakan tetapi sungguh aku sangat merindukan belaian kasih sayangmu dan lembutnya sentuhan tanganmu di kepalaku. Walaupun anakmu kini sudah menikah tapi sampai saat ini dan sampai kapanpun ku tetap merindukan belaianmu ooh Ibu....
Kenapa pembelaan dan kasih sayang itu tak kau berikan pada anak anakmu tapi justru kau berikan itu smua pada orang lain yang bukan anakmu? Apakah aku ini bukan darah dagingmu? tapi aku terlahir dari rahimmu ibu
Oh Tuhan... Kembalikanlah kasih sayang Ibu terhdapku dan saudaraku
Tunjukanlah jalan yang terang buatku agar aku tak membenci ibuku yang saat ini sedang di gelapkan mata hati lupa terhadap anak anaknya
Sandarkanlah ibuku untuk kembali kejalan yang benar
Kumenangis berharap kasih sayang ibu ku sangat merindukanmu ibuuuuuuuuuu...
tetapia ku membencimu karena kumerasa kau tidak adil terhadap anak anakmu dengan kasih sayangmu kau berikan pada orang lain yang bukan anakmu. Kau hanya bisa marah marah terhadap kami sebagai anakmu, Tepi dia yang buka anakmu kau selalu menyanjungnya dan menutupi segala kesalahannya apapun yang dia minta ibu selalu memberikannya. Sunnguh ibu kau tak adil aku membencimu.
Ya Alloh maafkan aku jika aku membenci ibu kandungku, Maafkanlah segala Dosa ibuku dan sadarkanlah ibu serta kembalikanlah kasih sayang ibu terhdap Kami.
Ibu aku tak sanggup menjalani derita ini tanpamu aku sungguh tak sanggup ibu Kembalilah terhdapku Bantulah aku dengan segala masalah yang menimpa anakmu ini aku tak sanggup jika terus begini ibuuuuuuu
Dimata anakmu ibu sangat kejam Tak pernah kudapatkan kasih sayang mu dan air susumu pun tak pernah kurasakan tetapi sungguh aku sangat merindukan belaian kasih sayangmu dan lembutnya sentuhan tanganmu di kepalaku. Walaupun anakmu kini sudah menikah tapi sampai saat ini dan sampai kapanpun ku tetap merindukan belaianmu ooh Ibu....
Kenapa pembelaan dan kasih sayang itu tak kau berikan pada anak anakmu tapi justru kau berikan itu smua pada orang lain yang bukan anakmu? Apakah aku ini bukan darah dagingmu? tapi aku terlahir dari rahimmu ibu
Oh Tuhan... Kembalikanlah kasih sayang Ibu terhdapku dan saudaraku
Tunjukanlah jalan yang terang buatku agar aku tak membenci ibuku yang saat ini sedang di gelapkan mata hati lupa terhadap anak anaknya
Sandarkanlah ibuku untuk kembali kejalan yang benar
Kumenangis berharap kasih sayang ibu ku sangat merindukanmu ibuuuuuuuuuu...
tetapia ku membencimu karena kumerasa kau tidak adil terhadap anak anakmu dengan kasih sayangmu kau berikan pada orang lain yang bukan anakmu. Kau hanya bisa marah marah terhadap kami sebagai anakmu, Tepi dia yang buka anakmu kau selalu menyanjungnya dan menutupi segala kesalahannya apapun yang dia minta ibu selalu memberikannya. Sunnguh ibu kau tak adil aku membencimu.
Ya Alloh maafkan aku jika aku membenci ibu kandungku, Maafkanlah segala Dosa ibuku dan sadarkanlah ibu serta kembalikanlah kasih sayang ibu terhdap Kami.
Ibu aku tak sanggup menjalani derita ini tanpamu aku sungguh tak sanggup ibu Kembalilah terhdapku Bantulah aku dengan segala masalah yang menimpa anakmu ini aku tak sanggup jika terus begini ibuuuuuuu
Monday, April 21, 2008
Kopdar Pertama
Perencanaan pertemuan dengan para penulis dunia maya yang di rencanakan oleh Rie RieInilah saat pertama kali pertemuan karo para penulis dunia maya seperti blogspot dan multiply di HongKong. Inilah wajah wajahnya walo sebagian gk kliatan hehehe
Kayak lagi Yasinan huaahaaaa
Acara ini di hadiri oleh Nina Dian, Folresita , Nadro Cahyani, Niswana ilma agustia, Tryana, dan aku sendiri yang datang telat heheh Sebenarnya acara ini di rancang sama Rie dah lama dan invitationya tuk banyak orang sekitar more dari 20 orang tapi karena alesan cuaca yg tidak baik semalaman dah hujan gak da hentinya di tambah lagi dengan storm jadi pagi harinya banyak yang gak pada libur.
Niat dari pertemuan ini sebenarnya selain ingin melihat wajah wajah para penulis Dunia maya yang berada di HongKong agar bisa saling mengenal. Dengan tujuan bisa saling sharing pengetahuan dalam bidang menulis dan apapun tentang dunia maya.
Pertemuan ini akan berlanjut yang akan diadakan setiap sebulan sekali untuk membahas tentang kelanjutannya karena kami berencana akan membuat komunitas The Power Of Girls in HongKong hi..hii power girls hebat ya tapi, jangan salah nama komunitas untuk para penulis di HongKong ini akan di publishkan pada postingan berikutnya yang mungkin akan di tulis oleh salah satu yang hadir dalam pertemuan berikutnya.
Dah dolo ach Mo nglanjutin Ronda lagi ~~**~~
Acara ini di hadiri oleh Nina Dian, Folresita , Nadro Cahyani, Niswana ilma agustia, Tryana, dan aku sendiri yang datang telat heheh Sebenarnya acara ini di rancang sama Rie dah lama dan invitationya tuk banyak orang sekitar more dari 20 orang tapi karena alesan cuaca yg tidak baik semalaman dah hujan gak da hentinya di tambah lagi dengan storm jadi pagi harinya banyak yang gak pada libur.
Niat dari pertemuan ini sebenarnya selain ingin melihat wajah wajah para penulis Dunia maya yang berada di HongKong agar bisa saling mengenal. Dengan tujuan bisa saling sharing pengetahuan dalam bidang menulis dan apapun tentang dunia maya.
Pertemuan ini akan berlanjut yang akan diadakan setiap sebulan sekali untuk membahas tentang kelanjutannya karena kami berencana akan membuat komunitas The Power Of Girls in HongKong hi..hii power girls hebat ya tapi, jangan salah nama komunitas untuk para penulis di HongKong ini akan di publishkan pada postingan berikutnya yang mungkin akan di tulis oleh salah satu yang hadir dalam pertemuan berikutnya.
Dah dolo ach Mo nglanjutin Ronda lagi ~~**~~
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
MUSIM PANAS DAH TIBA
Nang HongKong musim panas wis teka dan saatnya tuk berSeksiRia maksude "berpakaian celana pendek baju tipis ato rok mini dan Lekton sing keleke keton
" Wis kebiasaane si Boz nek musim panas mesthi kulkase kebek isine jyan panganan enak
Jane si anu nyediakna puthune nek dina setu malam minggu pada dateng ke rumah tuk makan malam di restoran trus kalo dah kenyang pada mampir ke rumah SiMbah "Bozku" tuk makan buah buahan dan es krim
Tapi babune kie pancen kurang ajar panganan sing nang kulkas malah biasane ntek nang aku nek awan utawa bengi kepansan ya kulkas sing di bukak es krim di cekel, Sprite karo 7Up wis dadi klangenanku. dasare siBoz anu apikan panganane ntek ya ora ngomeih soale nek diomong jawabku mung "Lha wong tek rewangi manangan daripada ora dipangan mengko kadarluasa malah eman eman"
Alhamdulillah aku di paringi Boz apik sabar lan Pengertian ra tau ngomeih solae nek aku domaeih mengko ra doyan mangan malah ra nana sing ngrewangi ngentekna berase heheheh
Sapa sing wani nek di omeih juragane jawabe kayakakue hayooo
" Wis kebiasaane si Boz nek musim panas mesthi kulkase kebek isine jyan panganan enakJane si anu nyediakna puthune nek dina setu malam minggu pada dateng ke rumah tuk makan malam di restoran trus kalo dah kenyang pada mampir ke rumah SiMbah "Bozku" tuk makan buah buahan dan es krim
Tapi babune kie pancen kurang ajar panganan sing nang kulkas malah biasane ntek nang aku nek awan utawa bengi kepansan ya kulkas sing di bukak es krim di cekel, Sprite karo 7Up wis dadi klangenanku. dasare siBoz anu apikan panganane ntek ya ora ngomeih soale nek diomong jawabku mung "Lha wong tek rewangi manangan daripada ora dipangan mengko kadarluasa malah eman eman"
Alhamdulillah aku di paringi Boz apik sabar lan Pengertian ra tau ngomeih solae nek aku domaeih mengko ra doyan mangan malah ra nana sing ngrewangi ngentekna berase heheheh
Sapa sing wani nek di omeih juragane jawabe kayakakue hayooo
Monday, April 7, 2008
HOT WATER AT CIPARI "Pemandian air Panas" CILACAP
jan pemerintah cilacaplah mbuh kepriwe luh sumber apik apik koh ora di urus kur di jorna thok
ngisin ngisin lah kayakiena sumber pariwisata yg langka pemandian air panas andaikan di dandani di rapini di bersihin mbok malah dadi mendatangkan duit selain akan menjadi terkenal
Untuk keterangan lebih lanjutnya dalam bahasa endonesia baca di cilacapmedia
At CIPARI the hot tourist attraction of the water bathing place busy was visited by tourists on the normal day and the holiday day, at first when the deliberate holiday season came to bathe hot water.
Many visitors who came from outside the area like Ciamis, Tasikmalaya and Banyumas.
It seems hot water that came from the source similar to this well and contained the sulphur could cure the illness, especially the skin illness.
Many visitors who came to feel appropriate, all the illnesses that were suffered by him could recover.
They who bathed this hot water usually not only one time, but up until several times so that his illness get well soon.
But The Cilacap regency apparently was not so serious worked on the potential for the available tour
At this time many potentials for the tour that was deliberate Did not heed because they think in the value not all that imported the profit
If Regional Government Cilacap preceptive and immediately straightened out the Air Panas Cipari Bathing Place tourist attraction.
It is not impossible that the place of the Hot water Cipari Bathing Place will be more interesting tourists from outside the area
they say Hot water that originated in the place that was similar to this well emerged since the 1930 's.
When the Netherlands were still occupying several territories in Indonesia, including in the Cipari
Subdistrict
its was poested by CILACAPMEDIA
Thursday, April 3, 2008
SUARA KORAN
Dina kie mau inyong meng konsulat "KJRI" anu tes memperpanjang pasport, mbarang wis beres inyong meng toko indo lah blanja jajan karo buku jyan nemu buku apik kie judule DIBALIK KETAJAMAN MATA HATI tp rung sempet tek waca karena aku njikot koran gratisan berbasa endonesia jenenge SUARA
kaget lho ketika tk buka halamane eh ana warta sing memberitakan kayakie
Keberadaan terminal baru pemulangan Buruh migran Indonesia "BMI" yang berlokasi di Selapanjang Cengkareng diragukan akan membawa perubahan terhadap carut marut perlindungan "BMI" yang terjadi selama ini.
Beberapa organisasi "BMI" dan lembaga yang bergerak dibidang Advokasi BMI menghawatirkan bahwa terminal yang diresmikan permerintah pada selasa 18 maret kemarin ini, justru akan jadi lahan baru eksploitasi BMI.
Migrant care dan Asosiasi tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Hong Kong "ATKI" bersuara cukup keras terhadap keberadaan terminal ini
Migran care, lembaga advokasi yang berbasis di Jakarta, menghawatirkan bahwa keberadaan terminal ini akan melestarikan birokrasi eksloitatif yang selama ini terjadi di terminal 3.
Sementara ATKI menilai keberadaan terminal baru ini justru menunjukan kegagalan pemerintah dalam menangkap aspirasi BMI, kususnya terkait dlam persoalan terminal 3. Terlebih proses Pembangunan Terminal baru ini tak melibatkan konsultasi publik.
tidak ada jaminan bahwa gedung yang baru akan membawa efek bagi perbaikan sistem pelayanan pada saat BMI sebagai stakeholder yang hendak di layani tidak pernah dilibatkan, bahwa, bukan tidak mungkin, gedung baru ini akan menjadi kamuflase baru untuk membungkus praktek praktek penindasan dan penghisapan terhadap BMI. "ungkapan ketua ATKI Eni Lestari"
lain lagi pendapat yang di ungkapkan oelh Koalisasi Organisasi tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Hong Kong "Kotkiho" mengatakan bahwa pihaknya masih berharap terminal baru ini membawa perbaikan bagi upaya perlindungan BMI
"kami berharap terminal baru ini bisa dikelola secara lebih transparan terlebih karena departemen yang mengelolanya jelas. jadi kalo ada apa-apa terhadap BMI ato yg lainnya, bisa dilacak"
Sumiati sebagai juru bicara dari "Kotkiho" mengaku bahwa pihaknya belum yakin sepenuhnya terhadap perbaikan pelayanan bagi BMI diterminal baru ini. tapi setidaknya ia punya harapan bahwa terminal baru ini punya rubahan signifikasi dibanding terminal 3.
kami meminta para petugas jaga diterminal baru itu memegang identitas jelas sehingga kalau ada apa apa mudah dilacaknya.
Ia menambahkan bahwa Pihaknya juga bekerja sama dengan Serikat Buruh Migran indonesia "SBMI" yang berbasis di jakarta. sehingga jika ada hal buruk terjadi di tempat tersebut maka tindakan advokasi cepat dapat dilakukan.
sing tek jaluk si ya mudah mudahan lewih apik lah daripada terminal telu sing di anggap kaya hantu menakutkan hehehe
cul lah nyong arep turu wis esuk ya ternyata kie arep jam 6 urung turu blas hiks tapi jyan rasane koh ora ngantuk gara gara nginum kratingdaeng apa ya hehehe
kaget lho ketika tk buka halamane eh ana warta sing memberitakan kayakie
TERMINAL BARU DIRESMIKAN
Keberadaan terminal baru pemulangan Buruh migran Indonesia "BMI" yang berlokasi di Selapanjang Cengkareng diragukan akan membawa perubahan terhadap carut marut perlindungan "BMI" yang terjadi selama ini.
Beberapa organisasi "BMI" dan lembaga yang bergerak dibidang Advokasi BMI menghawatirkan bahwa terminal yang diresmikan permerintah pada selasa 18 maret kemarin ini, justru akan jadi lahan baru eksploitasi BMI.
Migrant care dan Asosiasi tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Hong Kong "ATKI" bersuara cukup keras terhadap keberadaan terminal ini
Migran care, lembaga advokasi yang berbasis di Jakarta, menghawatirkan bahwa keberadaan terminal ini akan melestarikan birokrasi eksloitatif yang selama ini terjadi di terminal 3.
Sementara ATKI menilai keberadaan terminal baru ini justru menunjukan kegagalan pemerintah dalam menangkap aspirasi BMI, kususnya terkait dlam persoalan terminal 3. Terlebih proses Pembangunan Terminal baru ini tak melibatkan konsultasi publik.
tidak ada jaminan bahwa gedung yang baru akan membawa efek bagi perbaikan sistem pelayanan pada saat BMI sebagai stakeholder yang hendak di layani tidak pernah dilibatkan, bahwa, bukan tidak mungkin, gedung baru ini akan menjadi kamuflase baru untuk membungkus praktek praktek penindasan dan penghisapan terhadap BMI. "ungkapan ketua ATKI Eni Lestari"
lain lagi pendapat yang di ungkapkan oelh Koalisasi Organisasi tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Hong Kong "Kotkiho" mengatakan bahwa pihaknya masih berharap terminal baru ini membawa perbaikan bagi upaya perlindungan BMI
"kami berharap terminal baru ini bisa dikelola secara lebih transparan terlebih karena departemen yang mengelolanya jelas. jadi kalo ada apa-apa terhadap BMI ato yg lainnya, bisa dilacak"
Sumiati sebagai juru bicara dari "Kotkiho" mengaku bahwa pihaknya belum yakin sepenuhnya terhadap perbaikan pelayanan bagi BMI diterminal baru ini. tapi setidaknya ia punya harapan bahwa terminal baru ini punya rubahan signifikasi dibanding terminal 3.
kami meminta para petugas jaga diterminal baru itu memegang identitas jelas sehingga kalau ada apa apa mudah dilacaknya.
Ia menambahkan bahwa Pihaknya juga bekerja sama dengan Serikat Buruh Migran indonesia "SBMI" yang berbasis di jakarta. sehingga jika ada hal buruk terjadi di tempat tersebut maka tindakan advokasi cepat dapat dilakukan.
sing tek jaluk si ya mudah mudahan lewih apik lah daripada terminal telu sing di anggap kaya hantu menakutkan hehehe
cul lah nyong arep turu wis esuk ya ternyata kie arep jam 6 urung turu blas hiks tapi jyan rasane koh ora ngantuk gara gara nginum kratingdaeng apa ya hehehe
WHAT IS HACKER PART TWO
lanjutane dari postingan what is Hacker?
met membaca mumet mumeta gulih maca intersting tentang hacker baca penuh sampe ntek ya
If you want to be a hacker, keep reading. If you want to be a cracker, go read the alt.2600 newsgroup and get ready to do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't as smart as you think you are.
The Hacker Attitude
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really believe the attitude.
But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for you — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well
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.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you believe them:
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done.)
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re-address old ones.
Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical, legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used and force people to re-invent wheels.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow hackers while doing it.)
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the time he spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians want is not on offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. And you have to be willing to act on that belief.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you a hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers waste their time, but they worship competence — especially competence at hacking, but competence at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play rather than drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker.
Basic Hacking Skills
1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
The hacker attitude is vital, but skills are even more vital. Attitude is no substitute for competence, and there's a certain basic toolkit of skills which you have to have before any hacker will dream of calling you one.
This toolkit changes slowly over time as technology creates new skills and makes old ones obsolete. For example, it used to include programming in machine language, and didn't until recently involve HTML. But right now it pretty clearly includes the following:
1. Learn how to program.
This, of course, is the fundamental hacking skill. If you don't know any computer languages, I recommend starting with Python. It is cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well suited for large projects. I have written a more detailed evaluation of Python. Good tutorials are available at the Python web site.
Java is also a good language for learning to program in. It is more difficult than Python, but produces faster code than Python. I think it makes an excellent second language. Unfortunately, Sun's reference implementation is still proprietary. This is not so much an issue with the Java language itself, as high-quality open-source Java interpreters are readily available; the real problem is the class libraries that travel with the language. The open-source class libraries lag behind Sun's. So, if you do choose to learn Java, do it with one of the open-source implementations rather than becoming dependent on Sun's proprietary code.
But be aware that you won't reach the skill level of a hacker or even merely a programmer if you only know one or two languages — you need to learn how to think about programming problems in a general way, independent of any one language. To be a real hacker, you need to get to the point where you can learn a new language in days by relating what's in the manual to what you already know. This means you should learn several very different languages.
If you get into serious programming, you will have to learn C, the core language of Unix. C++ is very closely related to C; if you know one, learning the other will not be difficult. Neither language is a good one to try learning as your first, however. And, actually, the more you can avoid programming in C the more productive you will be.
C is very efficient, and very sparing of your machine's resources. Unfortunately, C gets that efficiency by requiring you to do a lot of low-level management of resources (like memory) by hand. All that low-level code is complex and bug-prone, and will soak up huge amounts of your time on debugging. With today's machines as powerful as they are, this is usually a bad tradeoff — it's smarter to use a language that uses the machine's time less efficiently, but your time much more efficiently. Thus, Python.
Other languages of particular importance to hackers include Perl and LISP. Perl is worth learning for practical reasons; it's very widely used for active web pages and system administration, so that even if you never write Perl you should learn to read it. Many people use Perl in the way I suggest you should use Python, to avoid C programming on jobs that don't require C's machine efficiency. You will need to be able to understand their code.
LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot. (You can get some beginning experience with LISP fairly easily by writing and modifying editing modes for the Emacs text editor.)
It's best, actually, to learn all five of Python, C/C++, Java, Perl, and LISP. Besides being the most important hacking languages, they represent very different approaches to programming, and each will educate you in valuable ways.
I can't give complete instructions on how to learn to program here — it's a complex skill. But I can tell you that books and courses won't do it (many, maybe most of the best hackers are self-taught). You can learn language features — bits of knowledge — from books, but the mind-set that makes that knowledge into living skill can be learned only by practice and apprenticeship. What will do it is (a) reading code and (b) writing code.
Learning to program is like learning to write good natural language. The best way to do it is to read some stuff written by masters of the form, write some things yourself, read a lot more, write a little more, read a lot more, write some more ... and repeat until your writing begins to develop the kind of strength and economy you see in your models.
Finding good code to read used to be hard, because there were few large programs available in source for fledgeling hackers to read and tinker with. This has changed dramatically; open-source software, programming tools, and operating systems (all built by hackers) are now widely available. Which brings me neatly to our next topic...
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
I'll assume you have a personal computer or can get access to one. (Take a moment to appreciate how much that means. The hacker culture originally evolved back when computers were so expensive that individuals could not own them.) The single most important step any newbie can take toward acquiring hacker skills is to get a copy of Linux or one of the BSD-Unixes, install it on a personal machine, and run it.
Yes, there are other operating systems in the world besides Unix. But they're distributed in binary — you can't read the code, and you can't modify it. Trying to learn to hack on a Microsoft Windows machine or any other closed-source system is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast.
Under Mac OS X it's possible, but only part of the system is open source — you're likely to hit a lot of walls, and you have to be careful not to develop the bad habit of depending on Apple's proprietary code. If you concentrate on the Unix under the hood you can learn some useful things.
Unix is the operating system of the Internet. While you can learn to use the Internet without knowing Unix, you can't be an Internet hacker without understanding Unix. For this reason, the hacker culture today is pretty strongly Unix-centered. (This wasn't always true, and some old-time hackers still aren't happy about it, but the symbiosis between Unix and the Internet has become strong enough that even Microsoft's muscle doesn't seem able to seriously dent it.)
So, bring up a Unix — I like Linux myself but there are other ways (and yes, you can run both Linux and Microsoft Windows on the same machine). Learn it. Run it. Tinker with it. Talk to the Internet with it. Read the code. Modify the code. You'll get better programming tools (including C, LISP, Python, and Perl) than any Microsoft operating system can dream of hosting, you'll have fun, and you'll soak up more knowledge than you realize you're learning until you look back on it as a master hacker.
For more about learning Unix, see The Loginataka. You might also want to have a look at The Art Of Unix Programming.
To get your hands on a Linux, see the Linux Online! site; you can download from there or (better idea) find a local Linux user group to help you with installation. From a new user's point of view, all Linux distributions are pretty much equivalent.
You can find BSD Unix help and resources at www.bsd.org.
I have written a primer on the basics of Unix and the Internet.
(Note: I don't really recommend installing either Linux or BSD as a solo project if you're a newbie. For Linux, find a local Linux user's group and ask for help.)
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
Most of the things the hacker culture has built do their work out of sight, helping run factories and offices and universities without any obvious impact on how non-hackers live. The Web is the one big exception, the huge shiny hacker toy that even politicians admit has changed the world. For this reason alone (and a lot of other good ones as well) you need to learn how to work the Web.
This doesn't just mean learning how to drive a browser (anyone can do that), but learning how to write HTML, the Web's markup language. If you don't know how to program, writing HTML will teach you some mental habits that will help you learn. So build a home page. Try to stick to XHTML, which is a cleaner language than classic HTML. (There are good beginner tutorials on the Web; here's one.)
But just having a home page isn't anywhere near good enough to make you a hacker. The Web is full of home pages. Most of them are pointless, zero-content sludge — very snazzy-looking sludge, mind you, but sludge all the same (for more on this see The HTML Hell Page).
To be worthwhile, your page must have content — it must be interesting and/or useful to other hackers. And that brings us to the next topic...
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
As an American and native English-speaker myself, I have previously been reluctant to suggest this, lest it be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism. But several native speakers of other languages have urged me to point out that English is the working language of the hacker culture and the Internet, and that you will need to know it to function in the hacker community.
Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second language use it in technical discussions even when they share a birth tongue; it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for the job. For similar reasons, translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all).
Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.
Being a native English-speaker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as a hacker. If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including me) will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the correlation to be strong — and we have no use for sloppy thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to.
Status in the Hacker Culture
1. Write open-source software
2. Help test and debug open-source software
3. Publish useful information
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
Like most cultures without a money economy, hackerdom runs on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting problems, but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are really good, is something that only your technical peers or superiors are normally equipped to judge.
Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to keep score primarily by what other hackers think of your skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other hackers consistently call you one). This fact is obscured by the image of hacking as solitary work; also by a hacker-cultural taboo (gradually decaying since the late 1990s but still potent) against admitting that ego or external validation are involved in one's motivation at all.
Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a gift culture. You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by having things other people want, but rather by giving things away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your creativity, and the results of your skill.
There are basically five kinds of things you can do to be respected by hackers:
1. Write open-source software
The first (the most central and most traditional) is to write programs that other hackers think are fun or useful, and give the program sources away to the whole hacker culture to use.
(We used to call these works “free software”, but this confused too many people who weren't sure exactly what “free” was supposed to mean. Most of us now prefer the term “open-source” software).
Hackerdom's most revered demigods are people who have written large, capable programs that met a widespread need and given them away, so that now everyone uses them.
But there's a bit of a fine historical point here. While hackers have always looked up to the open-source developers among them as our community's hardest core, before the mid-1990s most hackers most of the time worked on closed source. This was still true when I wrote the first version of this HOWTO in 1996; it took the mainstreaming of open-source software after 1997 to change things. Today, "the hacker community" and "open-source developers" are two descriptions for what is essentially the same culture and population — but it is worth remembering that this was not always so.
2. Help test and debug open-source software
They also serve who stand and debug open-source software. In this imperfect world, we will inevitably spend most of our software development time in the debugging phase. That's why any open-source author who's thinking will tell you that good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms clearly, localize problems well, can tolerate bugs in a quickie release, and are willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines) are worth their weight in rubies. Even one of these can make the difference between a debugging phase that's a protracted, exhausting nightmare and one that's merely a salutary nuisance.
If you're a newbie, try to find a program under development that you're interested in and be a good beta-tester. There's a natural progression from helping test programs to helping debug them to helping modify them. You'll learn a lot this way, and generate good karma with people who will help you later on.
3. Publish useful information
Another good thing is to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, and make those generally available.
Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much respect as open-source authors.
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
The hacker culture (and the engineering development of the Internet, for that matter) is run by volunteers. There's a lot of necessary but unglamorous work that needs done to keep it going — administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical standards.
People who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect, because everybody knows these jobs are huge time sinks and not as much fun as playing with code. Doing them shows dedication.
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
Finally, you can serve and propagate the culture itself (by, for example, writing an accurate primer on how to become a hacker :-)). This is not something you'll be positioned to do until you've been around for while and become well-known for one of the first four things.
The hacker culture doesn't have leaders, exactly, but it does have culture heroes and tribal elders and historians and spokespeople. When you've been in the trenches long enough, you may grow into one of these. Beware: hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly reaching for this kind of fame is dangerous. Rather than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status.
The Hacker/Nerd Connection
Contrary to popular myth, you don't have to be a nerd to be a hacker. It does help, however, and many hackers are in fact nerds. Being a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the really important things, like thinking and hacking.
For this reason, many hackers have adopted the label ‘nerd’ and even use the harsher term ‘geek’ as a badge of pride — it's a way of declaring their independence from normal social expectations.
If you can manage to concentrate enough on hacking to be good at it and still have a life, that's fine. This is a lot easier today than it was when I was a newbie in the 1970s; mainstream culture is much friendlier to techno-nerds now. There are even growing numbers of people who realize that hackers are often high-quality lover and spouse material.
If you're attracted to hacking because you don't have a life, that's OK too — at least you won't have trouble concentrating. Maybe you'll get a life later on.
Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.
Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are very able writers.
Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, various forms of Karate, Wing Chun, Aikido, or Ju Jitsu. Western fencing and Asian sword arts also have visible followings. In places where it's legal, pistol shooting has been rising in popularity since the late 1990s. The most hackerly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness.
Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among hackers is Zen (importantly, it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you already have). Other styles may work as well, but be careful to choose one that doesn't require you to believe crazy things.
Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing.
Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material. Why these things in particular is not completely clear, but they're connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice.
Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play", "work", "science" and "art" all tend to disappear, or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness. Also, don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most hackers self-describe as programmers, they are very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, web design, and PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. A hacker who's a system administrator, on the other hand, is likely to be quite skilled at script programming and web design. Hackers don't do things by halves; if they invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.
Finally, a few things not to do.
Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.
Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).
Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.
Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.
The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.
The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.
Other Resources
Paul Graham has written an essay called Great Hackers, and another on Undergraduation, in which he speaks much wisdom.
Peter Seebach maintains an excellent Hacker FAQ for managers who don't understand how to deal with hackers.
There is a document called How To Be A Programmer that is an excellent complement to this one. It has valuable advice not just about coding and skillsets, but about how to function on a programming team.
I have also written A Brief History Of Hackerdom.
I have written a paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which explains a lot about how the Linux and open-source cultures work. I have addressed this topic even more directly in its sequel Homesteading the Noosphere.
Rick Moen has written an excellent document on how to run a Linux user group.
Rick Moen and I have collaborated on another document on How To Ask Smart Questions. This will help you seek assistance in a way that makes it more likely that you will actually get it.
If you need instruction in the basics of how personal computers, Unix, and the Internet work, see The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO.
When you release software or write patches for software, try to follow the guidelines in the Software Release Practice HOWTO.
If you enjoyed the Zen poem, you might also like Rootless Root: The Unix Koans of Master Foo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I tell if I am already a hacker?
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
Q: How can I get started, then?
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
Q: Are Visual Basic or C# good languages to start with?
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
Q: What language should I learn first?
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
Q: I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
Q: How do I tell if I am already a hacker?
A: Ask yourself the following three questions:
Do you speak code, fluently?
Do you identify with the goals and values of the hacker community?
Has a well-established member of the hacker community ever called you a hacker?
If you can answer yes to all three of these questions, you are already a hacker. No two alone are sufficient.
The first test is about skills. You probably pass it if you have the minimum technical skills described earlier in this document. You blow right through it if you have had a substantial amount of code accepted by an open-source development project.
The second test is about attitude. If the five principles of the hacker mindset seemed obvious to you, more like a description of the way you already live than anything novel, you are already halfway to passing it. That's the inward half; the other, outward half is the degree to which you identify with the hacker community's long-term projects.
Here is an incomplete but indicative list of some of those projects: Does it matter to you that Linux improve and spread? Are you passionate about software freedom? Hostile to monopolies? Do you act on the belief that computers can be instruments of empowerment that make the world a richer and more humane place?
But a note of caution is in order here. The hacker community has some specific, primarily defensive political interests — two of them are defending free-speech rights and fending off "intellectual-property" power grabs that would make open source illegal. Some of those long-term projects are civil-liberties organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. and the outward attitude properly includes support of them. But beyond that, most hackers view attempts to systematize the hacker attitude into an explicit political program with suspicion; we've learned, the hard way, that these attempts are divisive and distracting. If someone tries to recruit you to march on your capitol in the name of the hacker attitude, they've missed the point. The right response is probably “Shut up and show them the code.”
The third test has a tricky element of recursiveness about it. I observed in the section called “What Is a Hacker?” that being a hacker is partly a matter of belonging to a particular subculture or social network with a shared history, an inside and an outside. In the far past, hackers were a much less cohesive and self-aware group than they are today. But the importance of the social-network aspect has increased over the last thirty years as the Internet has made connections with the core of the hacker subculture easier to develop and maintain. One easy behavioral index of the change is that, in this century, we have our own T-shirts.
Sociologists, who study networks like those of the hacker culture under the general rubric of "invisible colleges", have noted that one characteristic of such networks is that they have gatekeepers — core members with the social authority to endorse new members into the network. Because the "invisible college" that is hacker culture is a loose and informal one, the role of gatekeeper is informal too. But one thing that all hackers understand in their bones is that not every hacker is a gatekeeper. Gatekeepers have to have a certain degree of seniority and accomplishment before they can bestow the title. How much is hard to quantify, but every hacker knows it when they see it.
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
A: Since first publishing this page, I've gotten several requests a week (often several a day) from people to "teach me all about hacking". Unfortunately, I don't have the time or energy to do this; my own hacking projects, and working as an open-source advocate, take up 110% of my time.
Even if I did, hacking is an attitude and skill you basically have to teach yourself. You'll find that while real hackers want to help you, they won't respect you if you beg to be spoon-fed everything they know.
Learn a few things first. Show that you're trying, that you're capable of learning on your own. Then go to the hackers you meet with specific questions.
If you do email a hacker asking for advice, here are two things to know up front. First, we've found that people who are lazy or careless in their writing are usually too lazy and careless in their thinking to make good hackers — so take care to spell correctly, and use good grammar and punctuation, otherwise you'll probably be ignored. Secondly, don't dare ask for a reply to an ISP account that's different from the account you're sending from; we find people who do that are usually thieves using stolen accounts, and we have no interest in rewarding or assisting thievery.
Q: How can I get started, then?
A: The best way for you to get started would probably be to go to a LUG (Linux user group) meeting. You can find such groups on the LDP General Linux Information Page; there is probably one near you, possibly associated with a college or university. LUG members will probably give you a Linux if you ask, and will certainly help you install one and get started.
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?
A: Any age at which you are motivated to start is a good age. Most people seem to get interested between ages 15 and 20, but I know of exceptions in both directions.
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
A: That depends on how talented you are and how hard you work at it. Most people can acquire a respectable skill set in eighteen months to two years, if they concentrate. Don't think it ends there, though; if you are a real hacker, you will spend the rest of your life learning and perfecting your craft.
Q: Are Visual Basic or C# good languages to start with?
A: If you're asking this question, it almost certainly means you're thinking about trying to hack under Microsoft Windows. This is a bad idea in itself. When I compared trying to learn to hack under Windows to trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast, I wasn't kidding. Don't go there. It's ugly, and it never stops being ugly.
There are specific problems with Visual Basic and C#; mainly that they're not portable. Though there are prototype open-source implementations of these languages, the applicable ECMA standards don't cover more than a small set of their programming interfaces. On Windows most of their library support is proprietary to a single vendor (Microsoft); if you aren't extremely careful about which features you use — more careful than any newbie is really capable of being — you'll end up locked into only those platforms Microsoft chooses to support. If you're starting on a Unix, much better languages with better libraries are available. Python, for example.
Visual Basic is especially awful. Like other Basics it's a poorly-designed language that will teach you bad programming habits. No, don't ask me to describe them in detail; that explanation would fill a book. Learn a well-designed language instead.
One of those bad habits is becoming dependent on a single vendor's libraries, widgets, and development tools. In general, any language that isn't fully supported under at least Linux or one of the BSDs, and/or at least three different vendors' operating systems, is a poor one to learn to hack in.
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?
A: No. Anyone who can still ask such a question after reading this FAQ is too stupid to be educable even if I had the time for tutoring. Any emailed requests of this kind that I get will be ignored or answered with extreme rudeness.
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
A: This is cracking. Go away, idiot.
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
A: This is cracking. Get lost, moron.
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
A: This is cracking. Begone, cretin.
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?
A: No. Every time I've been asked this question so far, it's been from some poor sap running Microsoft Windows. It is not possible to effectively secure Windows systems against crack attacks; the code and architecture simply have too many flaws, which makes securing Windows like trying to bail out a boat with a sieve. The only reliable prevention starts with switching to Linux or some other operating system that is designed to at least be capable of security.
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?
A: Yes. Go to a DOS prompt and type "format c:". Any problems you are experiencing will cease within a few minutes.
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
A: The best way is to find a Unix or Linux user's group local to you and go to their meetings (you can find links to several lists of user groups on the LDP site at ibiblio).
(I used to say here that you wouldn't find any real hackers on IRC, but I'm given to understand this is changing. Apparently some real hacker communities, attached to things like GIMP and Perl, have IRC channels now.)
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?
A: I maintain a Linux Reading List HOWTO that you may find helpful. The Loginataka may also be interesting.
For an introduction to Python, see the introductory materials on the Python site.
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
A: No. Hacking uses very little formal mathematics or arithmetic. In particular, you won't usually need trigonometry, calculus or analysis (there are exceptions to this in a handful of specific application areas like 3-D computer graphics). Knowing some formal logic and Boolean algebra is good. Some grounding in finite mathematics (including finite-set theory, combinatorics, and graph theory) can be helpful.
Much more importantly: you need to be able to think logically and follow chains of exact reasoning, the way mathematicians do. While the content of most mathematics won't help you, you will need the discipline and intelligence to handle mathematics. If you lack the intelligence, there is little hope for you as a hacker; if you lack the discipline, you'd better grow it.
I think a good way to find out if you have what it takes is to pick up a copy of Raymond Smullyan's book What Is The Name Of This Book?. Smullyan's playful logical conundrums are very much in the hacker spirit. Being able to solve them is a good sign; enjoying solving them is an even better one.
Q: What language should I learn first?
A: XHTML (the latest dialect of HTML) if you don't already know it. There are a lot of glossy, hype-intensive bad HTML books out there, and distressingly few good ones. The one I like best is HTML: The Definitive Guide.
But HTML is not a full programming language. When you're ready to start programming, I would recommend starting with Python. You will hear a lot of people recommending Perl, and Perl is still more popular than Python, but it's harder to learn and (in my opinion) less well designed.
C is really important, but it's also much more difficult than either Python or Perl. Don't try to learn it first.
Windows users, do not settle for Visual Basic. It will teach you bad habits, and it's not portable off Windows. Avoid.
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
A: It used to be that personal computers were rather underpowered and memory-poor, enough so that they placed artificial limits on a hacker's learning process. This stopped being true in the mid-1990s; any machine from an Intel 486DX50 up is more than powerful enough for development work, X, and Internet communications, and the smallest disks you can buy today are plenty big enough.
The important thing in choosing a machine on which to learn is whether its hardware is Linux-compatible (or BSD-compatible, should you choose to go that route). Again, this will be true for almost all modern machines. The only real sticky area is modems; some machines have Windows-specific hardware that won't work with Linux.
There's a FAQ on hardware compatibility; the latest version is here.
Q: I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?
A: No, because I don't know your talents or interests. You have to be self-motivated or you won't stick, which is why having other people choose your direction almost never works.
Try this. Watch the project announcements scroll by on Freshmeat for a few days. When you see one that makes you think "Cool! I'd like to work on that!", join it.
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
A: No, you don't. Not that Microsoft isn't loathsome, but there was a hacker culture long before Microsoft and there will still be one long after Microsoft is history. Any energy you spend hating Microsoft would be better spent on loving your craft. Write good code — that will bash Microsoft quite sufficiently without polluting your karma.
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?
A: This seems unlikely — so far, the open-source software industry seems to be creating jobs rather than taking them away. If having a program written is a net economic gain over not having it written, a programmer will get paid whether or not the program is going to be open-source after it's done. And, no matter how much "free" software gets written, there always seems to be more demand for new and customized applications. I've written more about this at the Open Source pages.
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
A: If you're looking for a first project to do, don't ask me for one. Instead, go watch the project and release announcements on Freshmeat for a project that looks interesting to you, and join it.
If you don't even have a Unix installed on your machine yet, elsewhere on this page I include pointers to where to get the most commonly used free Unix. To be a hacker you need motivation and initiative and the ability to educate yourself. Start now...
By MARIO HANNA
met membaca mumet mumeta gulih maca intersting tentang hacker baca penuh sampe ntek ya
If you want to be a hacker, keep reading. If you want to be a cracker, go read the alt.2600 newsgroup and get ready to do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't as smart as you think you are.
The Hacker Attitude
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really believe the attitude.
But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for you — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well
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.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you believe them:
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done.)
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re-address old ones.
Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical, legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used and force people to re-invent wheels.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow hackers while doing it.)
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the time he spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians want is not on offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. And you have to be willing to act on that belief.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you a hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers waste their time, but they worship competence — especially competence at hacking, but competence at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play rather than drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker.
Basic Hacking Skills
1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
The hacker attitude is vital, but skills are even more vital. Attitude is no substitute for competence, and there's a certain basic toolkit of skills which you have to have before any hacker will dream of calling you one.
This toolkit changes slowly over time as technology creates new skills and makes old ones obsolete. For example, it used to include programming in machine language, and didn't until recently involve HTML. But right now it pretty clearly includes the following:
1. Learn how to program.
This, of course, is the fundamental hacking skill. If you don't know any computer languages, I recommend starting with Python. It is cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well suited for large projects. I have written a more detailed evaluation of Python. Good tutorials are available at the Python web site.
Java is also a good language for learning to program in. It is more difficult than Python, but produces faster code than Python. I think it makes an excellent second language. Unfortunately, Sun's reference implementation is still proprietary. This is not so much an issue with the Java language itself, as high-quality open-source Java interpreters are readily available; the real problem is the class libraries that travel with the language. The open-source class libraries lag behind Sun's. So, if you do choose to learn Java, do it with one of the open-source implementations rather than becoming dependent on Sun's proprietary code.
But be aware that you won't reach the skill level of a hacker or even merely a programmer if you only know one or two languages — you need to learn how to think about programming problems in a general way, independent of any one language. To be a real hacker, you need to get to the point where you can learn a new language in days by relating what's in the manual to what you already know. This means you should learn several very different languages.
If you get into serious programming, you will have to learn C, the core language of Unix. C++ is very closely related to C; if you know one, learning the other will not be difficult. Neither language is a good one to try learning as your first, however. And, actually, the more you can avoid programming in C the more productive you will be.
C is very efficient, and very sparing of your machine's resources. Unfortunately, C gets that efficiency by requiring you to do a lot of low-level management of resources (like memory) by hand. All that low-level code is complex and bug-prone, and will soak up huge amounts of your time on debugging. With today's machines as powerful as they are, this is usually a bad tradeoff — it's smarter to use a language that uses the machine's time less efficiently, but your time much more efficiently. Thus, Python.
Other languages of particular importance to hackers include Perl and LISP. Perl is worth learning for practical reasons; it's very widely used for active web pages and system administration, so that even if you never write Perl you should learn to read it. Many people use Perl in the way I suggest you should use Python, to avoid C programming on jobs that don't require C's machine efficiency. You will need to be able to understand their code.
LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot. (You can get some beginning experience with LISP fairly easily by writing and modifying editing modes for the Emacs text editor.)
It's best, actually, to learn all five of Python, C/C++, Java, Perl, and LISP. Besides being the most important hacking languages, they represent very different approaches to programming, and each will educate you in valuable ways.
I can't give complete instructions on how to learn to program here — it's a complex skill. But I can tell you that books and courses won't do it (many, maybe most of the best hackers are self-taught). You can learn language features — bits of knowledge — from books, but the mind-set that makes that knowledge into living skill can be learned only by practice and apprenticeship. What will do it is (a) reading code and (b) writing code.
Learning to program is like learning to write good natural language. The best way to do it is to read some stuff written by masters of the form, write some things yourself, read a lot more, write a little more, read a lot more, write some more ... and repeat until your writing begins to develop the kind of strength and economy you see in your models.
Finding good code to read used to be hard, because there were few large programs available in source for fledgeling hackers to read and tinker with. This has changed dramatically; open-source software, programming tools, and operating systems (all built by hackers) are now widely available. Which brings me neatly to our next topic...
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
I'll assume you have a personal computer or can get access to one. (Take a moment to appreciate how much that means. The hacker culture originally evolved back when computers were so expensive that individuals could not own them.) The single most important step any newbie can take toward acquiring hacker skills is to get a copy of Linux or one of the BSD-Unixes, install it on a personal machine, and run it.
Yes, there are other operating systems in the world besides Unix. But they're distributed in binary — you can't read the code, and you can't modify it. Trying to learn to hack on a Microsoft Windows machine or any other closed-source system is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast.
Under Mac OS X it's possible, but only part of the system is open source — you're likely to hit a lot of walls, and you have to be careful not to develop the bad habit of depending on Apple's proprietary code. If you concentrate on the Unix under the hood you can learn some useful things.
Unix is the operating system of the Internet. While you can learn to use the Internet without knowing Unix, you can't be an Internet hacker without understanding Unix. For this reason, the hacker culture today is pretty strongly Unix-centered. (This wasn't always true, and some old-time hackers still aren't happy about it, but the symbiosis between Unix and the Internet has become strong enough that even Microsoft's muscle doesn't seem able to seriously dent it.)
So, bring up a Unix — I like Linux myself but there are other ways (and yes, you can run both Linux and Microsoft Windows on the same machine). Learn it. Run it. Tinker with it. Talk to the Internet with it. Read the code. Modify the code. You'll get better programming tools (including C, LISP, Python, and Perl) than any Microsoft operating system can dream of hosting, you'll have fun, and you'll soak up more knowledge than you realize you're learning until you look back on it as a master hacker.
For more about learning Unix, see The Loginataka. You might also want to have a look at The Art Of Unix Programming.
To get your hands on a Linux, see the Linux Online! site; you can download from there or (better idea) find a local Linux user group to help you with installation. From a new user's point of view, all Linux distributions are pretty much equivalent.
You can find BSD Unix help and resources at www.bsd.org.
I have written a primer on the basics of Unix and the Internet.
(Note: I don't really recommend installing either Linux or BSD as a solo project if you're a newbie. For Linux, find a local Linux user's group and ask for help.)
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
Most of the things the hacker culture has built do their work out of sight, helping run factories and offices and universities without any obvious impact on how non-hackers live. The Web is the one big exception, the huge shiny hacker toy that even politicians admit has changed the world. For this reason alone (and a lot of other good ones as well) you need to learn how to work the Web.
This doesn't just mean learning how to drive a browser (anyone can do that), but learning how to write HTML, the Web's markup language. If you don't know how to program, writing HTML will teach you some mental habits that will help you learn. So build a home page. Try to stick to XHTML, which is a cleaner language than classic HTML. (There are good beginner tutorials on the Web; here's one.)
But just having a home page isn't anywhere near good enough to make you a hacker. The Web is full of home pages. Most of them are pointless, zero-content sludge — very snazzy-looking sludge, mind you, but sludge all the same (for more on this see The HTML Hell Page).
To be worthwhile, your page must have content — it must be interesting and/or useful to other hackers. And that brings us to the next topic...
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
As an American and native English-speaker myself, I have previously been reluctant to suggest this, lest it be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism. But several native speakers of other languages have urged me to point out that English is the working language of the hacker culture and the Internet, and that you will need to know it to function in the hacker community.
Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second language use it in technical discussions even when they share a birth tongue; it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for the job. For similar reasons, translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all).
Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.
Being a native English-speaker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as a hacker. If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including me) will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the correlation to be strong — and we have no use for sloppy thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to.
Status in the Hacker Culture
1. Write open-source software
2. Help test and debug open-source software
3. Publish useful information
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
Like most cultures without a money economy, hackerdom runs on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting problems, but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are really good, is something that only your technical peers or superiors are normally equipped to judge.
Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to keep score primarily by what other hackers think of your skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other hackers consistently call you one). This fact is obscured by the image of hacking as solitary work; also by a hacker-cultural taboo (gradually decaying since the late 1990s but still potent) against admitting that ego or external validation are involved in one's motivation at all.
Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a gift culture. You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by having things other people want, but rather by giving things away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your creativity, and the results of your skill.
There are basically five kinds of things you can do to be respected by hackers:
1. Write open-source software
The first (the most central and most traditional) is to write programs that other hackers think are fun or useful, and give the program sources away to the whole hacker culture to use.
(We used to call these works “free software”, but this confused too many people who weren't sure exactly what “free” was supposed to mean. Most of us now prefer the term “open-source” software).
Hackerdom's most revered demigods are people who have written large, capable programs that met a widespread need and given them away, so that now everyone uses them.
But there's a bit of a fine historical point here. While hackers have always looked up to the open-source developers among them as our community's hardest core, before the mid-1990s most hackers most of the time worked on closed source. This was still true when I wrote the first version of this HOWTO in 1996; it took the mainstreaming of open-source software after 1997 to change things. Today, "the hacker community" and "open-source developers" are two descriptions for what is essentially the same culture and population — but it is worth remembering that this was not always so.
2. Help test and debug open-source software
They also serve who stand and debug open-source software. In this imperfect world, we will inevitably spend most of our software development time in the debugging phase. That's why any open-source author who's thinking will tell you that good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms clearly, localize problems well, can tolerate bugs in a quickie release, and are willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines) are worth their weight in rubies. Even one of these can make the difference between a debugging phase that's a protracted, exhausting nightmare and one that's merely a salutary nuisance.
If you're a newbie, try to find a program under development that you're interested in and be a good beta-tester. There's a natural progression from helping test programs to helping debug them to helping modify them. You'll learn a lot this way, and generate good karma with people who will help you later on.
3. Publish useful information
Another good thing is to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, and make those generally available.
Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much respect as open-source authors.
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
The hacker culture (and the engineering development of the Internet, for that matter) is run by volunteers. There's a lot of necessary but unglamorous work that needs done to keep it going — administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical standards.
People who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect, because everybody knows these jobs are huge time sinks and not as much fun as playing with code. Doing them shows dedication.
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
Finally, you can serve and propagate the culture itself (by, for example, writing an accurate primer on how to become a hacker :-)). This is not something you'll be positioned to do until you've been around for while and become well-known for one of the first four things.
The hacker culture doesn't have leaders, exactly, but it does have culture heroes and tribal elders and historians and spokespeople. When you've been in the trenches long enough, you may grow into one of these. Beware: hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly reaching for this kind of fame is dangerous. Rather than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then be modest and gracious about your status.
The Hacker/Nerd Connection
Contrary to popular myth, you don't have to be a nerd to be a hacker. It does help, however, and many hackers are in fact nerds. Being a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the really important things, like thinking and hacking.
For this reason, many hackers have adopted the label ‘nerd’ and even use the harsher term ‘geek’ as a badge of pride — it's a way of declaring their independence from normal social expectations.
If you can manage to concentrate enough on hacking to be good at it and still have a life, that's fine. This is a lot easier today than it was when I was a newbie in the 1970s; mainstream culture is much friendlier to techno-nerds now. There are even growing numbers of people who realize that hackers are often high-quality lover and spouse material.
If you're attracted to hacking because you don't have a life, that's OK too — at least you won't have trouble concentrating. Maybe you'll get a life later on.
Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.
Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are very able writers.
Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, various forms of Karate, Wing Chun, Aikido, or Ju Jitsu. Western fencing and Asian sword arts also have visible followings. In places where it's legal, pistol shooting has been rising in popularity since the late 1990s. The most hackerly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness.
Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among hackers is Zen (importantly, it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you already have). Other styles may work as well, but be careful to choose one that doesn't require you to believe crazy things.
Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing.
Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material. Why these things in particular is not completely clear, but they're connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice.
Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play", "work", "science" and "art" all tend to disappear, or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness. Also, don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most hackers self-describe as programmers, they are very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, web design, and PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. A hacker who's a system administrator, on the other hand, is likely to be quite skilled at script programming and web design. Hackers don't do things by halves; if they invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.
Finally, a few things not to do.
Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.
Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).
Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.
Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.
The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.
The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.
Other Resources
Paul Graham has written an essay called Great Hackers, and another on Undergraduation, in which he speaks much wisdom.
Peter Seebach maintains an excellent Hacker FAQ for managers who don't understand how to deal with hackers.
There is a document called How To Be A Programmer that is an excellent complement to this one. It has valuable advice not just about coding and skillsets, but about how to function on a programming team.
I have also written A Brief History Of Hackerdom.
I have written a paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which explains a lot about how the Linux and open-source cultures work. I have addressed this topic even more directly in its sequel Homesteading the Noosphere.
Rick Moen has written an excellent document on how to run a Linux user group.
Rick Moen and I have collaborated on another document on How To Ask Smart Questions. This will help you seek assistance in a way that makes it more likely that you will actually get it.
If you need instruction in the basics of how personal computers, Unix, and the Internet work, see The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO.
When you release software or write patches for software, try to follow the guidelines in the Software Release Practice HOWTO.
If you enjoyed the Zen poem, you might also like Rootless Root: The Unix Koans of Master Foo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I tell if I am already a hacker?
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
Q: How can I get started, then?
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
Q: Are Visual Basic or C# good languages to start with?
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
Q: What language should I learn first?
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
Q: I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
Q: How do I tell if I am already a hacker?
A: Ask yourself the following three questions:
Do you speak code, fluently?
Do you identify with the goals and values of the hacker community?
Has a well-established member of the hacker community ever called you a hacker?
If you can answer yes to all three of these questions, you are already a hacker. No two alone are sufficient.
The first test is about skills. You probably pass it if you have the minimum technical skills described earlier in this document. You blow right through it if you have had a substantial amount of code accepted by an open-source development project.
The second test is about attitude. If the five principles of the hacker mindset seemed obvious to you, more like a description of the way you already live than anything novel, you are already halfway to passing it. That's the inward half; the other, outward half is the degree to which you identify with the hacker community's long-term projects.
Here is an incomplete but indicative list of some of those projects: Does it matter to you that Linux improve and spread? Are you passionate about software freedom? Hostile to monopolies? Do you act on the belief that computers can be instruments of empowerment that make the world a richer and more humane place?
But a note of caution is in order here. The hacker community has some specific, primarily defensive political interests — two of them are defending free-speech rights and fending off "intellectual-property" power grabs that would make open source illegal. Some of those long-term projects are civil-liberties organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. and the outward attitude properly includes support of them. But beyond that, most hackers view attempts to systematize the hacker attitude into an explicit political program with suspicion; we've learned, the hard way, that these attempts are divisive and distracting. If someone tries to recruit you to march on your capitol in the name of the hacker attitude, they've missed the point. The right response is probably “Shut up and show them the code.”
The third test has a tricky element of recursiveness about it. I observed in the section called “What Is a Hacker?” that being a hacker is partly a matter of belonging to a particular subculture or social network with a shared history, an inside and an outside. In the far past, hackers were a much less cohesive and self-aware group than they are today. But the importance of the social-network aspect has increased over the last thirty years as the Internet has made connections with the core of the hacker subculture easier to develop and maintain. One easy behavioral index of the change is that, in this century, we have our own T-shirts.
Sociologists, who study networks like those of the hacker culture under the general rubric of "invisible colleges", have noted that one characteristic of such networks is that they have gatekeepers — core members with the social authority to endorse new members into the network. Because the "invisible college" that is hacker culture is a loose and informal one, the role of gatekeeper is informal too. But one thing that all hackers understand in their bones is that not every hacker is a gatekeeper. Gatekeepers have to have a certain degree of seniority and accomplishment before they can bestow the title. How much is hard to quantify, but every hacker knows it when they see it.
Q: Will you teach me how to hack?
A: Since first publishing this page, I've gotten several requests a week (often several a day) from people to "teach me all about hacking". Unfortunately, I don't have the time or energy to do this; my own hacking projects, and working as an open-source advocate, take up 110% of my time.
Even if I did, hacking is an attitude and skill you basically have to teach yourself. You'll find that while real hackers want to help you, they won't respect you if you beg to be spoon-fed everything they know.
Learn a few things first. Show that you're trying, that you're capable of learning on your own. Then go to the hackers you meet with specific questions.
If you do email a hacker asking for advice, here are two things to know up front. First, we've found that people who are lazy or careless in their writing are usually too lazy and careless in their thinking to make good hackers — so take care to spell correctly, and use good grammar and punctuation, otherwise you'll probably be ignored. Secondly, don't dare ask for a reply to an ISP account that's different from the account you're sending from; we find people who do that are usually thieves using stolen accounts, and we have no interest in rewarding or assisting thievery.
Q: How can I get started, then?
A: The best way for you to get started would probably be to go to a LUG (Linux user group) meeting. You can find such groups on the LDP General Linux Information Page; there is probably one near you, possibly associated with a college or university. LUG members will probably give you a Linux if you ask, and will certainly help you install one and get started.
Q: When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?
A: Any age at which you are motivated to start is a good age. Most people seem to get interested between ages 15 and 20, but I know of exceptions in both directions.
Q: How long will it take me to learn to hack?
A: That depends on how talented you are and how hard you work at it. Most people can acquire a respectable skill set in eighteen months to two years, if they concentrate. Don't think it ends there, though; if you are a real hacker, you will spend the rest of your life learning and perfecting your craft.
Q: Are Visual Basic or C# good languages to start with?
A: If you're asking this question, it almost certainly means you're thinking about trying to hack under Microsoft Windows. This is a bad idea in itself. When I compared trying to learn to hack under Windows to trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast, I wasn't kidding. Don't go there. It's ugly, and it never stops being ugly.
There are specific problems with Visual Basic and C#; mainly that they're not portable. Though there are prototype open-source implementations of these languages, the applicable ECMA standards don't cover more than a small set of their programming interfaces. On Windows most of their library support is proprietary to a single vendor (Microsoft); if you aren't extremely careful about which features you use — more careful than any newbie is really capable of being — you'll end up locked into only those platforms Microsoft chooses to support. If you're starting on a Unix, much better languages with better libraries are available. Python, for example.
Visual Basic is especially awful. Like other Basics it's a poorly-designed language that will teach you bad programming habits. No, don't ask me to describe them in detail; that explanation would fill a book. Learn a well-designed language instead.
One of those bad habits is becoming dependent on a single vendor's libraries, widgets, and development tools. In general, any language that isn't fully supported under at least Linux or one of the BSDs, and/or at least three different vendors' operating systems, is a poor one to learn to hack in.
Q: Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?
A: No. Anyone who can still ask such a question after reading this FAQ is too stupid to be educable even if I had the time for tutoring. Any emailed requests of this kind that I get will be ignored or answered with extreme rudeness.
Q: How can I get the password for someone else's account?
A: This is cracking. Go away, idiot.
Q: How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?
A: This is cracking. Get lost, moron.
Q: How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?
A: This is cracking. Begone, cretin.
Q: I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?
A: No. Every time I've been asked this question so far, it's been from some poor sap running Microsoft Windows. It is not possible to effectively secure Windows systems against crack attacks; the code and architecture simply have too many flaws, which makes securing Windows like trying to bail out a boat with a sieve. The only reliable prevention starts with switching to Linux or some other operating system that is designed to at least be capable of security.
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?
A: Yes. Go to a DOS prompt and type "format c:". Any problems you are experiencing will cease within a few minutes.
Q: Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?
A: The best way is to find a Unix or Linux user's group local to you and go to their meetings (you can find links to several lists of user groups on the LDP site at ibiblio).
(I used to say here that you wouldn't find any real hackers on IRC, but I'm given to understand this is changing. Apparently some real hacker communities, attached to things like GIMP and Perl, have IRC channels now.)
Q: Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?
A: I maintain a Linux Reading List HOWTO that you may find helpful. The Loginataka may also be interesting.
For an introduction to Python, see the introductory materials on the Python site.
Q: Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?
A: No. Hacking uses very little formal mathematics or arithmetic. In particular, you won't usually need trigonometry, calculus or analysis (there are exceptions to this in a handful of specific application areas like 3-D computer graphics). Knowing some formal logic and Boolean algebra is good. Some grounding in finite mathematics (including finite-set theory, combinatorics, and graph theory) can be helpful.
Much more importantly: you need to be able to think logically and follow chains of exact reasoning, the way mathematicians do. While the content of most mathematics won't help you, you will need the discipline and intelligence to handle mathematics. If you lack the intelligence, there is little hope for you as a hacker; if you lack the discipline, you'd better grow it.
I think a good way to find out if you have what it takes is to pick up a copy of Raymond Smullyan's book What Is The Name Of This Book?. Smullyan's playful logical conundrums are very much in the hacker spirit. Being able to solve them is a good sign; enjoying solving them is an even better one.
Q: What language should I learn first?
A: XHTML (the latest dialect of HTML) if you don't already know it. There are a lot of glossy, hype-intensive bad HTML books out there, and distressingly few good ones. The one I like best is HTML: The Definitive Guide.
But HTML is not a full programming language. When you're ready to start programming, I would recommend starting with Python. You will hear a lot of people recommending Perl, and Perl is still more popular than Python, but it's harder to learn and (in my opinion) less well designed.
C is really important, but it's also much more difficult than either Python or Perl. Don't try to learn it first.
Windows users, do not settle for Visual Basic. It will teach you bad habits, and it's not portable off Windows. Avoid.
Q: What kind of hardware do I need?
A: It used to be that personal computers were rather underpowered and memory-poor, enough so that they placed artificial limits on a hacker's learning process. This stopped being true in the mid-1990s; any machine from an Intel 486DX50 up is more than powerful enough for development work, X, and Internet communications, and the smallest disks you can buy today are plenty big enough.
The important thing in choosing a machine on which to learn is whether its hardware is Linux-compatible (or BSD-compatible, should you choose to go that route). Again, this will be true for almost all modern machines. The only real sticky area is modems; some machines have Windows-specific hardware that won't work with Linux.
There's a FAQ on hardware compatibility; the latest version is here.
Q: I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?
A: No, because I don't know your talents or interests. You have to be self-motivated or you won't stick, which is why having other people choose your direction almost never works.
Try this. Watch the project announcements scroll by on Freshmeat for a few days. When you see one that makes you think "Cool! I'd like to work on that!", join it.
Q: Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?
A: No, you don't. Not that Microsoft isn't loathsome, but there was a hacker culture long before Microsoft and there will still be one long after Microsoft is history. Any energy you spend hating Microsoft would be better spent on loving your craft. Write good code — that will bash Microsoft quite sufficiently without polluting your karma.
Q: But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?
A: This seems unlikely — so far, the open-source software industry seems to be creating jobs rather than taking them away. If having a program written is a net economic gain over not having it written, a programmer will get paid whether or not the program is going to be open-source after it's done. And, no matter how much "free" software gets written, there always seems to be more demand for new and customized applications. I've written more about this at the Open Source pages.
Q: How can I get started? Where can I get a free Unix?
A: If you're looking for a first project to do, don't ask me for one. Instead, go watch the project and release announcements on Freshmeat for a project that looks interesting to you, and join it.
If you don't even have a Unix installed on your machine yet, elsewhere on this page I include pointers to where to get the most commonly used free Unix. To be a hacker you need motivation and initiative and the ability to educate yourself. Start now...
By MARIO HANNA
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Surat terbuka Kepada Roy Suryo
Kepada Yth. Sdr. Roy Suryo
ditempat
Perihal: Ajakan Dialog Terbuka Mengenai Perkembangan dan Isu Blogger Indonesia.
Mengingat
Banyaknya aspirasi para blogger yang tertuang dalam blognya masing-masing mengenai ketidaksetujuan atas komentar-komentar Sdr. Roy Suryo di media massa yang cenderung selalu memojokkan blogger.
Menimbang
Perlunya tindakan untuk meluruskan informasi-informasi yang diberikan Sdr. Roy Suryo kepada media massa, khususnya mengenai pandangan negatif Sdr. Roy Suryo kepada blogger.
Memutuskan & Menetapkan
Perlu dilakukannya dialog terbuka dengan Sdr. Roy Suryo mengenai isu-isu yang berkembang saat ini, khususnya isu-isu yang selalu menyudutkan blogger serta informasi-informasi lain yang secara umum cenderung membodohi masyarakat.
Saya mengajak kepada Sdr. Roy Suryo, untuk melakukan dialog terbuka dengan semangat sportifitas untuk saling menerima masukan guna kemajuan perkembangan teknologi informasi Indonesia khususnya perkembangan blogger di Indonesia.
Saya yakin Sdr. Roy Suryo sebagai orang yang sudah diakui pakar dalam bidang Teknologi Informasi bisa meluangkan waktu dan tempat untuk menerima ajakan dialog terbuka ini.
Catatan:
Saya yakin Sdr. Roy Suryo tidak akan mengatakan "tidak tahu" mengenai adanya ajakan dialog terbuka ini. Ajakan dialog terbuka saya posting melalui blog dan insya Allah akan tersebar dengan baik melalui search engine maupun dengan bantuan dari teman-teman melalui blog, milis dan media lainnya. Dengan demikian, saya yang tidak tahu cara menghubungi Anda bisa berharap Anda bisa mendapatkan informasi ini dengan mudah dan cepat. Bukankah ini salah satu keahlian Anda? Mencari informasi mengenai diri Anda atau informasi lainnya di internet.
Salam,
Riyogarta
Website: www.riyogarta.com
Email: me at riyogarta.com
Telp: 0855-100-7204
Kepada teman-teman blogger, wartawan maupun masyarakat luas yang kebetulan mengunjungi blog ini, mohon kiranya bisa turut membantu saya menyebarluaskan surat ini dengan cara:
Copy-paste posting ini pada blog masing-masing dengan menyertakan sumbernya.
Menyalin link dari posting ini untuk disebarkan melalui blog masing-masing atau email.
Mendownload versi PDF dari posting ini untuk disebarluaskan.
Insya Allah apa yang saya lakukan ini bermanfaat bagi kemajuan blogger di tanah air.
diambil lagi dari : http://jatiagung.multiply.com/journal/item/93/Surat_terbuka_Kepada_Roy_Suryo
ditempat
Perihal: Ajakan Dialog Terbuka Mengenai Perkembangan dan Isu Blogger Indonesia.
Mengingat
Banyaknya aspirasi para blogger yang tertuang dalam blognya masing-masing mengenai ketidaksetujuan atas komentar-komentar Sdr. Roy Suryo di media massa yang cenderung selalu memojokkan blogger.
Menimbang
Perlunya tindakan untuk meluruskan informasi-informasi yang diberikan Sdr. Roy Suryo kepada media massa, khususnya mengenai pandangan negatif Sdr. Roy Suryo kepada blogger.
Memutuskan & Menetapkan
Perlu dilakukannya dialog terbuka dengan Sdr. Roy Suryo mengenai isu-isu yang berkembang saat ini, khususnya isu-isu yang selalu menyudutkan blogger serta informasi-informasi lain yang secara umum cenderung membodohi masyarakat.
Saya mengajak kepada Sdr. Roy Suryo, untuk melakukan dialog terbuka dengan semangat sportifitas untuk saling menerima masukan guna kemajuan perkembangan teknologi informasi Indonesia khususnya perkembangan blogger di Indonesia.
Saya yakin Sdr. Roy Suryo sebagai orang yang sudah diakui pakar dalam bidang Teknologi Informasi bisa meluangkan waktu dan tempat untuk menerima ajakan dialog terbuka ini.
Catatan:
Saya yakin Sdr. Roy Suryo tidak akan mengatakan "tidak tahu" mengenai adanya ajakan dialog terbuka ini. Ajakan dialog terbuka saya posting melalui blog dan insya Allah akan tersebar dengan baik melalui search engine maupun dengan bantuan dari teman-teman melalui blog, milis dan media lainnya. Dengan demikian, saya yang tidak tahu cara menghubungi Anda bisa berharap Anda bisa mendapatkan informasi ini dengan mudah dan cepat. Bukankah ini salah satu keahlian Anda? Mencari informasi mengenai diri Anda atau informasi lainnya di internet.
Salam,
Riyogarta
Website: www.riyogarta.com
Email: me at riyogarta.com
Telp: 0855-100-7204
Kepada teman-teman blogger, wartawan maupun masyarakat luas yang kebetulan mengunjungi blog ini, mohon kiranya bisa turut membantu saya menyebarluaskan surat ini dengan cara:
Copy-paste posting ini pada blog masing-masing dengan menyertakan sumbernya.
Menyalin link dari posting ini untuk disebarkan melalui blog masing-masing atau email.
Mendownload versi PDF dari posting ini untuk disebarluaskan.
Insya Allah apa yang saya lakukan ini bermanfaat bagi kemajuan blogger di tanah air.
diambil lagi dari : http://jatiagung.multiply.com/journal/item/93/Surat_terbuka_Kepada_Roy_Suryo
WHAT IS HACKER
pirang ndiNa kie aku sibuk dan mumet lah akeh kerjaan, dadi ya ora sempet nulis dan jalan jalan di blogspot maupu juga di MP
Kali ini ku kan menulis tentang hacker ach
sepurane sedulur nek nganggo basa inggris ya
What Is a Hacker??
The Hacker Attitude
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
Basic Hacking Skills
1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
Status in the Hacker Culture
1. Write open-source software
2. Help test and debug open-source software
3. Publish useful information
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
The Hacker/Nerd Connection
Points For Style
Other Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Apa itu hacker ??
The Jargon File contains a bunch of definitions of the term ‘hacker’, most having to do with technical adeptness and a delight in solving problems and overcoming limits. If you want to know how to become a hacker, though, only two are really relevant.
There is a community, a shared culture, of expert programmers and networking wizards that traces its history back through decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the earliest ARPAnet experiments. The members of this culture originated the term ‘hacker’. Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. If you are part of this culture, if you have contributed to it and other people in it know who you are and call you a hacker, you're a hacker.
The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.
There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.
"The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break"
Kali ini ku kan menulis tentang hacker ach
sepurane sedulur nek nganggo basa inggris ya
What Is a Hacker??
The Hacker Attitude
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
Basic Hacking Skills
1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.
Status in the Hacker Culture
1. Write open-source software
2. Help test and debug open-source software
3. Publish useful information
4. Help keep the infrastructure working
5. Serve the hacker culture itself
The Hacker/Nerd Connection
Points For Style
Other Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Apa itu hacker ??
The Jargon File contains a bunch of definitions of the term ‘hacker’, most having to do with technical adeptness and a delight in solving problems and overcoming limits. If you want to know how to become a hacker, though, only two are really relevant.
There is a community, a shared culture, of expert programmers and networking wizards that traces its history back through decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the earliest ARPAnet experiments. The members of this culture originated the term ‘hacker’. Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. If you are part of this culture, if you have contributed to it and other people in it know who you are and call you a hacker, you're a hacker.
The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.
There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.
"The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)