What Is Hacking?
As a Hacker , I always asked one question to myself ,
What is hacking?
and every time I found an answer or an explanation, it feels incomplete. Something always missing.
Then I started to ask same question to the people who call them hackers.
Some said hacking is related to computers , some said it’s about improving the system which can be vary from a computer to a country and some even declared it as crime.
But one thing is common in every answer , Hacking is about finding loopholes in a system and its up to the Hacker who wants to fix that loophole or exploit it.
What I think about hacking is that it is a perception. An algorithm of every individual brain for analyzing a system , a situation. As its a perception , everyone has it different and not everyone has good perception. That is why some brains are able to find loopholes in a system by analyzing it to certain depth which other can’t.
I want to tell you a real and short story.
I remember I was in 4th standard, a candy-man used to come daily outside of the school in recess to sell candies. He had a lottery system in which you could won a magic pencil similar to one in an Indian television show “Shakalaka boom boom” .
It was a popular t.v show and almost every kid want to get that pencil including me. I daily stood near the candy-man in recess and watch students buying candies and trying their luck to get that pencil. After observing 2–3 days I figured out How the lottery system works.
There was a bag full of tokens made by writing a number with black pen on one side of the cap of Pepsi bottles. You gave 5 bucks to candy-man and he allowed you to draw a token from bag . If you get 13 number on the token you won the pencil else you get candy of not more than 3 bucks. And believe me he was doing great business.
After analyzing the lottery system i came up with a plan to win the magic pencil in one try.
I found that candy-man never checked the hand of students before putting it in the bag and i saw it as a vulnerability. Only thing you need was a fake token which look similar and put your hand in the bag with fake token already in hand and that’s it you get the magic pencil.
So I start picking Pepsi bottle’s caps and made a perfect fake token. In recess I went to candy-man gave him 5 bucks and put my hand in bag with the fake token already in my hand and after few seconds I take my hand out and show him the number and without any questioning he handed me the pencil and candy.
I was like Hero for my classmates but no one knows the real truth. Everyone is thinking that I was highly lucky. However , next day one of my classmate went to candy-man and buy that pencil for 15 bucks(yeah a rich guy). Suddenly everyone loss the passion for pencil.
In above story there were two Hackers , 4-years old me and the kid who buy the pencil. Both get the goal (i.e pencil) but differently because both have different perception, different algorithm to analyze the situation and reached the goal. But both are hackers as they analyze the system to certain depth which other can’t and get the goal.
So ,What is Hacking?
I think it is different for different people with different perception. But it is definitely an analyzing algorithm of individual minds.
What do you think hacking is?
comment below.