Is "hacking" a hobby for you?

[Seung]

I would imagine that individuals who are majoring in computer science or who love computers would be more inclined to learn how to "hack" but:

1)Just of curiosity, how many of you have started "hacking" as a hobby?
2)Is your current job not technology related?

The reason I ask is because I am currently an econ major and that won't change soon but I recently have a resurgence of curiosity in computers. So I am wondering if there are individuals out there who do something else as their main thing like music but hack in their spare time.

[fashizzlepop]

"Hacking" or pen testing is definitely not my full time job (yet). I'm a CS major and have been working on it as a hobby since 7th grade. I may go into pen testing professionally but may just stick to programming. Only time will tell.

[WallShadow]

I started out with just programming at first and had no real conscious decision that I wanted to study computer security, but for some reason, various viruses, worms, and trojans were always a goal for me like; "eventually, you need to learn to make epic viruses with this!" I quickly got addicted to programming, but nowadays, it doesn't give me as much excitement as it used to. It's only recently that I got so addicted to comp. sec. that I devote everything to it now. I'd say that programming was only a hobby for me only for the first two years, past that, I started focusing heavily on it, and now security and programming are the only things I ever do in my work/spare/sleep time.

As for the second question, unfortunately, they don't hand out security jobs to people of my age so I only have an internship in software engineering right now.

- WallShadow <3

[Seung]

That's awesome, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't stick to learning besides the basic in hardware and html when I was in 8th grade. I feel like I do absorb things faster now to some degree and I am considering minoring in computer science if I can learn some languages before the end of the summer. I think its doable since its fun to code, it's like building something and seeing your creation take fruit is awesome.

[not_essence2]

Hobby, definitely. Otherwise I'd flunk school.

[limdis]

Absolutely a hobby. My 'real life' experience and job have nothing to do with this field. If you met me in person you would have no idea I knew anything about computers/hacking at all. I like it that way
I love every second of it.

[not_essence2]

Otherwise, we would eventually stop hacking. It is sort of a high-maintenance activity.

[Seung]

Absolutely a hobby. My 'real life' experience and job have nothing to do with this field. If you met me in person you would have no idea I knew anything about computers/hacking at all. I like it that way
I love every second of it.

That's awesome, if you don't mind me asking, what industry are you in?

-- Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:31 pm --

Otherwise, we would eventually stop hacking. It is sort of a high-maintenance activity.

I'm guessing that due to evolving technologies in the security field?

[Cerebral Bore]

of cores, hell you more or less have to just to post here from what i can tell.

my god the place is broken or what,still working on trying to setup a avatar & have to reg in twice just to log in hu O_o

ps 18 Character only for password max ? i would have used 64 or more.

[Fehk]

I would imagine that individuals who are majoring in computer science or who love computers would be more inclined to learn how to "hack" but:

1)Just of curiosity, how many of you have started "hacking" as a hobby?
2)Is your current job not technology related?

The reason I ask is because I am currently an econ major and that won't change soon but I recently have a resurgence of curiosity in computers. So I am wondering if there are individuals out there who do something else as their main thing like music but hack in their spare time.

1) It's not a hobby of mine, but I joined this community to start learning it efficiently
2) my studies contained webdev, crypto and advanced math, programming and network management, but I haven't worked in the IT sector yet.

Also, considering you're majoring in economy and have an interest in computers, you might want to try mixing those two interests. There's plenty of opportunities to be had with great reward. (f.e. If you really want to work hard at your math and programming skills, you could eventually write your own software or algorithms for algorithmic trading, become CFO of a small company, become an accountant with a heavy focus on software or even work as some sort of IT manager in the financial world).

If you don't want to mix the two, that's fine. All I'm trying to say is the following: Work and play often seem two different things, but the most successful and happy people are the ones that can combine the two. Let work and play interconnect and boost your overall efficiency as a human, as a family man (if that's your thing) and as a cog in the giant diversified machine that is society. Since specialization is they key to success, especially in this age of information, where everyone knows something about everything.

of cores, hell you more or less have to just to post here from what i can tell.

my god the place is broken or what,still working on trying to setup a avatar & have to reg in twice just to log in hu O_o

ps 18 Character only for password max ? i would have used 64 or more.

About the forum being broken, are you using the latest version firefox as advised? Also, 64 character passwords for a forum are just silly, especially if you don't use cookies. And with the way pw are set up right now, I assume the average PC can't hack your pw by brute force anyway before it needs to be reset. Even if someone would, it wouldn't be very smart considering this is a community of IT security experts :p