Through a bit of luck, I was off on a day when my friend was speaking at a local hacker meeting. I was going to be anti-social, but I dragged myself there, and was rewarded with some interesting conversation.
One guy told us about a talk he saw called "You're all assholes." So named because they took suggestions on what to do the talk on, and got suggestions like "Email," "Websites," and "SSH." At which point they realized their attendees were all assholes. The talk continued, mostly about how you were supposed to be attending the meeting because you wanted to engage in a high-level discussion about application and network functions, but instead, were attending because you don't understand basic computing.
The final point of the talk was; if you're not personally interested enough to look up some basic information yourself by spending the day at Barnes and Noble or the library with a pen and notepad (recently found one of my old notepads) or (at the risk of sounding "kids these days have it so easy") do a simple fucking google search and just start reading, then you are never going to have the complete knowledge necessary to effectively consider all possible attack vectors, and effectively exploit them.
Almost any human can learn or do just about anything if they have the drive to do it. But there is a difference between someone who can do something, and someone who wants to do something.
This is why enthusiasts will always beat the people who are only doing something because it's their job.
The enthusiast will do the extra research, work the extra hours, and return the next day excited to continue.
We were expanding on this point to a newbie, and I started listing the things you need to know and be able to do to be an effective hacker, and surprised myself with all the things I've taught myself the years in order to accomplish my goal. Esoterica abound.
But I still do it, because I still love it.
The old saying about finding out what you're good at, and finding out what you love doing is still very much in effect. I just wonder if my generation had time to find out what those things are.
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2 comments:
I had a LOT of fun geeking out with another coder about phone development, and new tech. I guess I forgot what it was like.
I wish I could attend more meetings, but my schedule does not allow.
Maybe I should try to do something about that.
people are lazy and getting lazier. it's too hard and too much work to "read" what are you thinking? they need a talking head to "tell" them what to do. this is what is taught in school. no one should dare think for themselves. Just do as their told. like a robot.
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