SPLOIT: What to Expect in the Journey as Hackers

Greetings my fellow aspiring hackers,

It's still Christmas and we have a lot of things and hugs and kisses and ... to share ( you know the things that you do ). I have never done this before but I just felt to encourage you on the quest for knowledge, security and defence, skills and a whole lot more that comes out as a result of pursuing hacking. What we mean by hacking on this forum is White hat Hacking and OTW has great articles on it and I don't need to explain myself on that one.

Hackers as Programmers and Developers

As a hacker, you are required to learn languages that will aid you in your journey and that entails writing, testing and compiling stuff all day. It is like crazy when you get an error and its awesome when you complete a code. Last 2 days, which was 24th of December, I was testing out an update on the Null-Byte suite because I didn't know of the initiative of building a suite until Defalt announced it a couple of days ago. So I was kind off like trying to improve upon the functionality of the code. I started out fine and spent 13 hours on my first day developing a new suite. I left off to sleep and woke up the next day which was yesterday only to hit my first compile command of the day and damn, It was right in my face.

I couldn't Ctrl + Z the code because I had shutdown the computer and all previous changes were lost, and then the madness began. I spent 4 hours 23 minutes exactly trying to find the error. The only help the python compiler or interpreter could give me was: IO Error: invalid file mode .." .I mean I had protected all file operations carefully so what could possibly be the problem. You should have seen me.

Three hours later, I found the error and who could guess the error for a slap.

The error basically was, I was trying to pass a value to another function in another class and instead of calling the function with it's parenthesis at the end, I instead called it and appended the function name at the end without parenthesis to the class name. I did hello_class.scanner('Christmas') instead of hello_scanner().scanner('Christmas'). I just left out two characters. A lot of errors followed like leaving a semi-colon because I was trying to define a language within the suite. It was annoying and I really wanted to do this:

But I didn't do it. Do you know why?, Falling or failing is not option but is only a stepping stone to success and I will have to deal with such situations as an aspiring hacker. Do you know what keeps me going?, The thought of I am going to find that error, fix and hit the compile command again and again until I get the code working. I love Christmas but there is no other feeling that is stronger than seeing your code working after fixing an error on line 4276 ( Just joking ).

It is difficult but what I want you to know is that, It's going to be alright. As a hacker and a programmer because this two are the same, you always stand out, trust me, your problem solving ability is just amazing. When faced with a situation, your ability to solve it is greater than the average human being because you are used to solving complex ones on the computer and its very easy to apply to the daily life situations.

The Hackers Way of Life

As a hacker and as you journey along, you start to pick up some behaviours and way of life which aids you. An example is the persistence. Trust me when I tell you that if you haven't failed then you aren't a hacker or haven't tried anything new. It is a must to fail because when we fail or fall, we rise up as new, stronger and wiser individuals. I cannot explain the hacker's culture in this article as I'm not here to explain that but you have to develop some qualities like determination, resourcefulness, time efficiency and others I can't even remember. You need to focus on one stuff and deal with it and when you become perfect, you move to the next phase. Even computers with all their sophisticated functionalities cannot handle many requests and tasks at a single moment but schedules them, In an attempt to carry or handle all request will cause crashes or Denial of Service attacks as you know it. You don't just accept situations as final but rather accept situations as a stepping stone to new discoveries or success. Never be stuck at a place and feel that's where you belong. Everything moves, even the earth moves so what keeps you idle. Be courageous and move on.

A Story About Myself

Yeah, I started journeying into this world of curiousity. Actually I started when I was in Mummy's womb, I think I was trying to figure out her human system and messing around with her organs and stuff until that bald-headed doctor brought me to earth. Back to focus, yeah, so I was around 12 when I moved to my next language, Actually I would list the languages I wanted to learn and tackle each at a time which I suggest is what you do. I remember I was done with VBScripting, Notepad Programming which was the name I gave to Batch Programming. HTML, Javascript. So the next language was VB.NET. And for VB.Net, It was a language designed to assist the Windows programmer to effectively carry out tasks easily. I enjoyed the language and as time move on, you know the everyday hacker behaviour where you don't want to be limited by the normal hello world programs and printing to screen. I now after learning the basics wanted to create RATS , trojan horses, destructive programs for either personal gains or for fame and I know I am not the only one who has had this idea before. I set out to create my first RAT. Yeah, for a beginner, I would crush, search online and fix the problem. But there was this problem I faced that taught me a lesson in life. I was faced with problem of accepting a client connection, checking for some specific strings, executing the command on the server and sending back the output to the client without detection. So I, the attacker was the client and my other testing machine was the victim. I was frustrated at this particular problem and swore to solve this one. Well days passed, weeks passed, months passed and yeah I couldn't fix it and what made it more painful was the fact that it was a custom code which meant my idea and therefore I had to fix it myself and no other solution was there for me online unless I changed my entire code and used some other person's code which was sometime I was not fond of. I learnt from other's code but never used their code directly in my programs. I posted my problem along with my code online and figured some expert would help me but none came through, not even a reply came through. I never knew of Null-Byte at that time. There is this feeling that you get when you are the first person to have a certain problem online.

I was hurt when I couldn't complete this project, so I moved on and forgot about it. A year later, It's me again in my pijamas with popcorn and with more advanced newly learnt stuff and with more advanced scripting tips and tricks and with more ... you name it. It was an evening, but I did this often, before an hour to bedtime, I would move to the computer and try to help others with their problems if I could help. I was moving through tonnes of results and I noticed a thread. I opened the thread and started reading the questions, The code looked familiar but I by that time hadn't looked at the user who had posted it. Happy as I was to help, I started explaining the code and pushing new lines into unhealthy parts of the code. I also helped the user with other problems in the code. After I was done, I wanted to add the user's name to the end of the reply like: That's it Sploit. Good luck. I scrolled to the username only to find out it was no other person than myself a year ago. it was a moment of mixed feelings of happiness and tears. The boy that couldn't complete his code all because he didn't have any help now can help himself and in addition has learnt some new stuff. I moved back into bed.

Why am I Telling You this ?

Its life. You are a beginner now but let me tell you something: You won't be that person again tomorrow. That person tomorrow will be stronger and better than yesterday. Today's problem may persist but joy always comes in the morning. As hackers you will be faced with challenges but always know you will be alright and better tomorrow. One thing I will personally ask you not to do is to stay stuck at one place. Learn as much as you can because some God forsaken dudes are trying to takeout the Internet which I know can be a possibility one day, but until then Learn.

Trust me when you move on in life and in your journey as hackers and you look back at yourself now, you will be happy because you have learnt very well during the time you spent on Null-Byte and other forums. One more thing I would entreat you is to do your own homework before asking for help, It really helps. I have seen floods of requesting and a simple google search brings up the answer. It pays to be responsible. So until we meet again.

Peace

#Sergeant