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.
Je suis un Développeur junior et je souhaite m’appréhender de tout ce qui conserne les faille des site web afin de mieu sécuriser les sites que je livre à mes clients.
Merci!
Suis vous etes un membre du Hacker Academie, vous voulez savoir que vous voulez.