Terms One should know

                    Some Common must known Terms

What is Hacker:

A hacker is someone who likes to tinker with electronics or computer systems. Hackers like to explore and learn how computer systems work, finding ways to make them do what they do better, or do things they weren’t intended to do.

There are two types of hackers:

White Hat – These are considered the good guys. White hat hackers don’t use their skills for illegal purposes. They usually become Computer Security experts and help protect people from the Black Hats.

Black Hat – These are considered the bad guys. Black hat hackers usually use their skills maliciously for personal gain. They are the people that hack banks, steal credit cards, and deface websites.

These two terms came from the old western movies where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.

Now if you’re thinking, “Oh boy! Being a black hat sounds awesome!”, Then I have a question for you. Does it sound cool to live in a cell the size of your bathroom and be someone’s butt buddy for many years? That’s what I thought.

Hacker Hierarchy

Script kiddies – These are the wannabe hackers. They are looked down upon in the hacker community because they are the people that make hackers look bad. Script kiddies usually have no hacking skills and use the tools developed by other hackers without any knowledge of what’s happening behind the scenes.

Intermediate hackers – These people usually know about computers, networks, and have enough programming knowledge to understand relatively what a script might do, but like the script kiddies they use pre-developed well-known exploits (- a piece of code that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability in a piece of software that allows you to take control of a computer system) to carry out attacks

Elite Hackers – These are the skilled hackers. They are the ones that write the many hacker tools and exploits out there. They can break into systems and hide their tracks or make it look like someone else did it. You should strive to eventually reach this level.

IP Adresses:

 An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer). Every Computer connected to Internet has a unique number by which is its identity over the internet. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. By IP addresses we communicate on the internet.
A Typical IP Addresses looks like following 121:14:11:12.
You can find your computer's IP Addresses by clicking here HERE.

Domain Name System (DNS) Lookup:

The Process of converting a domain name into its respective IP Addresses. Whenever you type a web addresses, the browser automatically performs a DNS lookup for that website.

DNS Server:

DNS server is a server which will handle the DNS Lookup querry done by the browser. DNS server can be locally installed in any specific organisation.

Port:

In computer hardware, a port serves as an interface between the computer and other computers or peripheral devices. It is usually used in exchanging data. Ports can be external(Hardware) Eg. USB port or may in Virtual.

Virtual port are usually used by web applications to communicated with the servers.

HTTP:

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is the protocol used by browsers to communicated with the browsers.

HTTPS is the secure form of HTTP usually used for establishing a secure connection when highly sensitive data communication occurs.

Porxy Servers:

A proxy Server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. Whenever client send some request for any website it is forwarded to the proxy server and than proxy server foreword this request to the server.

A proxy server has a variety of potential purposes, including:

• To keep machines behind it anonymous, mainly for security.
• To speed up access to resources (using caching). Web proxies are commonly used to cache web pages from a web server.
• To prevent downloading the same content multiple times (and save bandwidth).
• To log / audit usage, e.g. to provide company employee Internet usage reporting.
• To scan transmitted content for malware before delivery.
• To scan outbound content, e.g., for data loss prevention.
• Access enhancement/restriction
• To apply access policy to network services or content, e.g. to block undesired sites.
• To access sites prohibited or filtered by your ISP or institution.
• To bypass security / parental controls.
• To circumvent Internet filtering to access content otherwise blocked by governments.

At last the most important one...

What does it take to become a hacker?

Becoming a great hacker isn’t easy and it doesn’t happen quickly. Being creative helps a lot. There is more than one way a problem can be solved, and as a hacker you encounter many problems. The more creative you are the bigger chance you have of hacking a system without being detected. Another huge
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quality you must have is the will to learn because without it, you will get nowhere. Remember, Knowledge is power. Patience is also a must because many topics can be difficult to grasp and only over time will you master them.