[wplug] RE:one more question for today

Bill Moran wmoran at potentialtech.com
Tue Feb 22 10:25:00 EST 2005


Steve Bierly <s_bierly at yahoo.com> wrote:

>     I am a teen and was told by my cousin to start
> programming now and gave me a few sites he wants me to
> try and hack into they are all his so I can't get in
> any trouble. He said to use linux red hat and set up a
> tower to be web server. And one to be a firewall. Then
> get a laptop with redhat on it and try hacking into my
> web page. i am learning shell and pearl but not really
> positive what to do. He said that I need to learn
> networking and to write and break firewalls anything
> else you can think of or anything wrong with this plan
> can you give me help.

I guess it depends on what you want to accomplish.

If you want to go to prison, definately, start getting
experience breaking through firewalls.

If you want to get a job in the computer field when you
get out of school (and/or get a scholorships to a good
computer college) then breaking firewalls isn't a good
way to do that.  I've never seen a job requirement that
asks for people who are good a breaking security, and
claiming that you are will make employers nervious.

I would suggest that you join an open source project and
start helping out with software development.  Find something
you enjoy, for example, if you like music, consider helping
out with the Audacity project, or one of the many projects
that make mp3 players.  If you like art, consider working
on the gimp project.  If you work on something you like
anyway, it's never really "work".

If you're just starting, you'll want to invest in a few
books and take the time to read them.  I suggest _The_Art_
_of_Unix_Programming_ by Eric Raymond as a good starter
book.  Then, once you've picked a project that looks like
fun to you, find out what language it's written in and
get a book on that language.

Join mailing lists related to the project you want to work on
and lurk.  "Lurking" is the process of watching what questions
other folks ask and the answers they get, and learning from
that.  When you ask questions, start like you did with this
one, by describing who you are.  Then be respectful and polite
in your message.  Most open source projects like to maintain
a high level of professionalism on their mailing lists, so
do your best to use good grammer and be professional ... do
NOT use h4x0r speak, as most open-source projects will consider
it immature.

Let us know how it goes.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com


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