Common Sense, Curiosity, and Reasoning - A newbies' guide Dust i80radius@aol.com newbie guide, bewbies, common sense, curiosity, reasoning, dust0r, dust, hacking, help To me hacking is cut down to three basic things: Common Sense Curiosity Reasoning (through the use of common sense) Common Sense, what does this mean? If you cant figure it out I feel for you. Curiosity, the intense urge to figure out, find out, and then learn how to perform something. And reasoning, drawing conclusions from your thoughts. Also it takes some imagination. All the time I get messaged by people asking that famous question, "How do you hack?". My response is usually the same, "Well why do you want to hack?". It always pisses people off when you answer a question with a question, but then they'll usually say, "Well I want to learn, can you teach me?". I'm sure you've been in the same spot, either the questioner or the person who is replying. So, now is where I get mad. First off, there's a thing called the Internet, and there is plenty of search engines and useful texts on any subject. Of course this is basic common sense, why go bother someone with the useless question of, "Do you know how to hack?", And waste their time. If your curiosity is running wild, and you really want an answer to this question, go look it up for yourself. If you expect to be taught like a student in the 5th grade its not going to happen. If the person had asked, "Are there any good books on hacking?" or something along those lines, I'd have respect for them. Common Sense tells you look at those help files, and common sense tells you to read them. It tells you to go to www.webcrawler.com and search for certain key words (KW) on different topics. How hard is this, people? How hard is it to do that, it takes less key strokes and it cuts down the hassle of someone telling you to piss off when you type, "How do you hack?" Common sense also helps when your learning how to hack. I'm not saying don’t ask questions, because that comes in with your curiosity. Curiosity is where your inspiration, or is where you should set your goals at. Make some questions, and the search for answers. Set your curiosity to a high level, and your goals will be right up there. I also garantee high results. I'm talking so much about curiosity because a lot of times, people will set their goal according to the ability to other people. By doing that, you'll get frustrated, and you'll also get pissed at the person you're trying to become like. Trust me on this one, set your personal goals on your own level through your curiosity and the way you think. Curiosity is a good thing, just don’t over-do it when it comes to asking someone a question, especially if you can tell they don’t feel like responding. Finally, reasoning. Your thoughts and your most important step in learning. The more you think for yourself, the better you'll be. If I have to tell you that 2 * 6 = 12 I'm not helping you unless I show you that 2 * 6 is really 6 + 6 and so on. Hopefully you understand what I'm saying. So next time you think of asking very ignorant questions, or even if your replying to an ignorant question like this, just think of these three things. I'm sure something will happen. Miscellaneous Text (MUST READ) Are you reading this line of text? Yes, you are? Well, is it because its the topic sentence that just happens to stick out? I bet it is. How about the next few sentences down? Will you be reading them? I doubt it. In case you're wondering, I'm not a mental case, though maybe I should be. My point is that people don’t want to read. They want to take the easy way out and be hand-fed. I'll put money down that over 60% of people who read .txt's on any subject don’t read the whole file. Same with books, or any other reading material. If people would just freaking READ, the world would be a better place. Reading does many things for you, and also other people. It allows you to hold intelligent conversations with your friends. And you won't have to "lie" to sound cool. If you'd read, you'd know what’s going on. Also, it would save the time of having to bug someone else when asking questions. Again, I'm not saying don’t ask questions, just make sure that people don’t mind you asking. See, I bet some people didn’t even read that sentence. Anyway, I bet you've heard your folks tell you that reading enhances your vocabulary. Well I guess it does, but this .txt won't do that for you. My main concern for writing this is to give people a basic start into learning, also to stop the repetitious question that everyone hates, "How do you hack?".