Give a man a fish…
May 31, 2010
One of the most interesting paradoxes of the hacker community is the trade-off between self-reliance and community.
On one hand, hackers are fiercely independent people. We explore systems, networks, business processes, and hardware because we’re satisfying our own curiosity. We’re the kids who took apart the toasters and never could get them back together, but learned a painful lesson or two about voltage in the process. We do these things because we want control of our environments – no, we want to master our environments. I’ve often said that the key to hacking is knowing more about the technology you’re hacking than the guy who built it, and that’s mostly true. Really, though, the key is in the approach – we want to find ways to do things on our own.
We’ve had some interesting experiences already at The Hacker Academy. One member figured out how to get into the site before we went live. Another member explored our website, figured out the directory structure, and sent us corrected links for our labs (frankly there were a few bugs in first week after launch). We’ve promised more than a few “I Hacked The Hacker Academy” t-shirts out to people who found ways around our systems, and we’re happy to encourage that kind of behavior. Frankly, if we didn’t expect that mindset, it’d be a pretty boring project.
The flipside to the self-reliance is the strong hacker community. It’s not just a touchy-feely, “people helping people” community – it’s a symbiotic relationship. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been working on a project – whether it’s an exploit, a countermeasure, or just an aimless exploration-of-possibilities – and I’ve bounced ideas off a few people in a chatroom, on a message board, or in-person. Just about everybody in this community is here to help, and I’ve always been able to find the answers I’m looking for. I’ve been incredibly lucky, but I feel like I should pay it forward. That’s why I got involved in The Hacker Academy. I’m all for working with motivated people of any skill level to build a community, an awareness of security issues, and to have fun. And this stuff is hella fun.
There’s an old saying: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Some people take this approach. When asked for advice, they’ll either give direct answers, or a vague “read these books, then come back.” Either response may be correct, but it’s always frustrating for the guy on the receiving end.
There’s also the business student’s parody: “Give a man a fish, he knows where to come for fish. Teach a man to fish, you’ve lost your marketshare.” We’ve got those people too. Some people develop new attacks with the sole intention of withholding them from others. That’s their prerogative, but it’s not very helpful to anybody – themselves included. Problems don’t get fixed, people aren’t aware. They may make a bit of money off it, but it’s hardly a sustainable model. As far as I’m concerned, The Hacker Academy doesn’t have to be any of those. We’ve got a unique approach, simultaneously teaching and building community. My variation: “Give a man a fish, he’s got a fish. Teach a man to fish, you’ve got somebody to go fishing with.”
So that’s my goal: to get you involved in my community. If you don’t have the technical skills, we’ll help you get up to speed. Figure out what you want to do, and we’ll help you do it.
Great, now I’m in the mood to go fishing.
Better Training For Less Money
May 19, 2010
You can literally spend a fortune trying to keep up with the latest trends and techniques all year long. Considering you can pay upwards of $3000 after travel and expenses to go to a single conference like Blackhat/Defcon, CanSecWest and Toorcon to name a few. But to truly keep on top of your game, you can’t JUST go to one of these conferences …you have to go to all of them. As we all know, in today’s market, that’s virtually impossible to do; budgets are just too small and on top of cost, getting a week away from the office is nearly impossible.
So, then, how is it we can offer superior training that keeps you up to date on everything you need to know to be a pro, for such a small cost? That’s easy – we eliminate the most expensive components of those conferences: travel and lodging costs. The Hacker Academy is completely online, which means you don’t have to travel anywhere and you can work it into your schedule whenever is most convenient for YOU. Becoming a member of The Hacker Academy allows you to learn what is being talked about at the conferences you were unable to attend, allowing you to keep up with the new trends and research on a monthly basis which will help keep you ahead.
The Hacker Academy in an entire year costs less than $1000, almost a third the cost of just one conference within a year. That’s mind-blowing.
We have been getting a lot of questions about this, as if it’s almost too good to be true. And to that, we say: “It IS”…almost too good to be true. But it is true – it just makes sense. Remember, our launch is this Saturday, May 22nd, 2010; we’re excited to see you.
Sincerely,
Aaron Cohen
Founder
The Hacker Academy
aaron@thehackeracademy.com
The Hacker Academy and Certifications
May 11, 2010
We’re getting a lot of questions about certifications. Of course, when you launch a security training community, you hear a lot about certs. And everyone expects that The Hacker Academy will be preparing them for one cert or another.
And it will. But not because that’s our goal.
When we started designing the curriculum, Aaron and I had a long discussion about which certifications were the best and who we should partner with to bring curriculum to the table.
It was the most frustrating conversation of my life. All the certs had some good things you could say about their curriculum, but none of them were complete enough. They were all missing some pieces. Or they were using old material in some (and in some cases, many) areas.
So we decided that THA would be based on a superset of ALL the certifications. We took the curriculum lists of each of the five main certifications in penetration testing / ethical hacking, and created a course based on that. And then we added in content in areas that we felt were lacking.
We decided that we wanted to prepare students to be great penetration testers first, and certified second. Knowing, of course, that if you get the skills down, you’ll be able to pass whatever certification test you want. If you have any questions about specific certifications that currently exist, we would be more than happy to give you our opinion…just ask.
We take the mindset that “becoming great” and “becoming certified” are only mutually exclusive in one direction – if you focus on the first, you’ll achieve the second easily. While if we focus on the second, you probably won’t achieve the first. We believe that the certification at the end should reflect the fact that you are a true master of your craft, not just that you know how to tackle certain specific problems.
And we refuse to allow our members to approach it any other way. We want you to achieve excellence.
The BIG one: The Hacker Academy Official Launch Announced!
May 10, 2010
Hey all,
Aaron here.
While I know that we’ve been communicating more than usual lately, this one is a huge one. I promise. For all our great emails and blog posts, we’ve left out a pertinent detail that everyone’s been waiting to hear about: our launch date – the day you actually get to become a premium member of The Hacker Academy.
Well, my friends, that day is Saturday, May 22nd, 2010; the OFFICIAL launch of the highly anticipated grand opening of The Hacker Academy.
We’ve been working ridiculously hard over the last long while – it’s almost been hard to keep up with the response we’ve gotten from the industry. So much, in fact – I have to be honest – we had to push back the launch of The Hacker Academy. We were, in reality, going to launch May 1st, but due to the insane amount of excitement over the great idea – we held off to make some infrastructure changes to accommodate the influx of people wanting to become members. We certainly couldn’t change the industry with a sub-par system, now could we?
That aside, all the extra work – yes, has kept us here at The Hacker Academy awake and productive 24/7 (did I say ‘productive’? I meant like zombies) – but more importantly, it’s been the most exciting time that we could have hoped for. When we first had the idea that we wanted to change the industry, which is a lofty goal in itself, we weren’t sure if everyone would think the same as us. The lead-up to our launch has completely opened our eyes – to the sheer number of people who DO believe there needs to be a change – and we’re excited to be the ones to bring it to you.
So, get ready. Get excited – hopefully as much as we are. Mark your calendars and clear some space – The Hacker Academy launches officially on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010.
Also, in the meantime – if you haven’t already – jump over to YouTube and take a quick look at our Tour of The Hacker Academy video: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=5eHzJm6wHFA. It’s a great way to see what to expect from us and how you’ll become one of the best Ethical Hackers and Penetration Testers on the face of the planet.
Sincerely,
Aaron Cohen
Founder
The Hacker Academy
aaron@thehackeracademy.com
Tour of The Hacker Academy
May 7, 2010
We’ve obviously been pretty excited about the upcoming launch of The Hacker Academy. We’re currently in final testing and working out the kinks and the bugs, and applying some final polish to each of the sections. And, while I know that we haven’t told you when you’ll be able to enroll, it’ll be quite soon (as Aaron mentioned earlier this week).
Just to whet your appetite a little more, I was playing around with the site yesterday and I recorded a walk-through of what it looks like and what you’ll get when you sign up. To learn more, jump on the mailing list where you’ll get even more details.
Watch out!
May 3, 2010
BIG NEWS coming down the pipeline over the next couple weeks. If you’re on our mailing list, we’ll be sending you detailed info. If you’re not on our list…what are you doing NOT on our list? The sign up form is…like, literally…right over there —->
Cheers,
The Hacker Academy
