hacker.org

ok, i am a programmer. i use C++. i am decently fluent with it and would like to pursue hacking for educational reasons. are there any sources or books for absolute beginners? i somewhat understand networking, im trying to learn more about computers at the moment to help my pursuit. can anyone give me a nudge in the right direction?

I would like to suggest you start with the challenges in this site they are very interesting

another suggestion is to try the missions in www.hackthissite.org

I don't know what the other guys think:)

the challenges on this site are pretty basic at first, but shoot off into space for me after the first few. and hackthissite i cant do a single mission ive tried. i think i need to learn more about computers themselves. do you think? im willing to take any advice, i really want to learn.

You don't really need to know much about computers themselves for this sort of programming challenge - it's much more important to be good with Google and/or Wolfram|Alpha, and to be inventive in thinking about a problem. For example, in Didactic Byte, you just have to follow the instructions given, but in Didactic Red, you have to work out for yourself a) what the challenge wants and b) how to get it.

I'm sorry but the challenges are so easy

I believe you are right about learning about computers so I'll give you a great advice if you could follow:

go to MIT OCW (those are free great lectures online from one of the best places in the world)

go to the computer science lectures and start learning the great stuff and try to solve the challenges at the same time

and for hackthissite I think you need to learn about Unix systems so grab a Linux system (say Ubuntu) and a book to learn from and start learning (I love Linux and I think just using it is a joy)

OCW computer science: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-e ... r-science/

well i have ubuntu, and i love it. im just still getting used to it. i shall look into those sites, thanks for the help. right now i can barely use a port scanner but can find open ports and ip addresses, i just dont know how to access the computer afterwards.

check out Hacking: The Art of Exploitation 2nd edition

ive been trying to read quit a bit. ive read alot of "hacking for dummies", but it beats around the bush too much for my tastes. right now im reading "steal this computer book 4.0", and have some "hacking exposed" books i plan to explore there after. i guess i can add that to my list, lol. and i want to watch those lectures baha has shown me.

I can't say I've ever liked or found the For Dummies format particularly valuable, isn't Steal This Computer a fiction or use a story (I haven't read it), anywho the book I mentioned gets straight into it and doesn't beat around the bush, it's shellcode is *nix based but same ideas work on Windows (you can find system call info on metasploit). I don't think you'll be disappointed after reading H:TAoE as it does give you some useful stuff.

so far "steal this computer" seems pretty useful. it has alot of useful tools attached to the disk, not too many for linux tho. right now im reading about port scanners and how to figure out what a computers OP is by what a computers port sends back to certain information. but doesnt go very indepth. and from what ive seen i dont think it will show me how to actually access that computer. but gives alot of sites that look like they will. lol. ill have to look into that book, might just start now. not sure this book has what i want.

edit: how complicated is the book you mentioned? its looks VERY indepth. would someone with little networking or hardware knowledge be able to grasp it?

The closest to understanding hardware is being familiar with the idea of RAM which you should be to at least some extent as a C++ programmer, it goes into more detail mentioning how it's components such as the heap and stack work which you might not be aware of as a C++ programmer but I think it's easy enough to understand if you put some effort in. It teaches you basic assembly language too which might be a bit different if your used to using OOP in C++ but it's manageable. You don't need to know IP/TCP to get done with the book, an understanding of sockets would help but once again I think that the book covers it as it doesn't take anything for granted (including C).

ill definately check it out. and ive read about the stack and heap memory in C++ books. but never really heard about sockets. and ive heard assembly is pretty basic and simple to learn, so lets bring it on. im eager to learn

Sockets aren't too far off from file handles in concept which you might know from cstdio/stdio.h.

ok. i dont exactly know what i was doing, but i got through a telnet port last night 0_o

telnet is just a program to open TCP connections and then send/receive text data over the connection, a bit short of a hack by itself - a common thing to do with it is to test out HTTP and other text based protocols built on TCP connections.