Nostalgia:

It’s really hard to make both the oldies and today’s computerphiles understand that the nostalgia, excitement and enchantment the word Hack means to a 90s kid.



We’ve grown up hearing about McGyver, wanted to join binary wizard team The Lone Gunmen and had a crush on Invisigoth (the female hacker still fantasizes me). A personal computer was a dream box for us- I’m talking about the time when we had to enter computer labs bare footed and touch everything with clean hands lest the expensive boxes are infected by virus.



We had two sources to learn about this magical thing- Mustafa Jabbar’s (Now the ICT Minister of Bangladesh) Computer aired on BTV every Friday and monthly Computer Jagat (our first ICT textbook. The old issues are still surprisingly informative) my father bought me if I could finish his homeworks timely.



However, I’ve met number of guys influenced by celebrities came forward to master an art (eg: guitar or violin) left it just before starting their journey to a world of unpretentious beauty– Special thanks to Bollywood.



So is Hollywood taught us about hacker- a fatty, fastest typing geek in a dark basement firing up random terminals on CRT monitors accessing everything from satellite to a home computer detached from internet!





Daily Needs:

Be it nostalgia or a misconception, hacking is a part of our daily life apart from computer or digital media as we need to simplify our solutions to make life easy.



A poet is himself a hacker, I’m not joking, who can manipulate human emotion with simple words using in a different way.



There are a number of virtual sources over the internet, books and other physical sources to know how hackers work in reality and the major differences between a cyber criminal and a hacker.







The book Hacking the Hacker is such a good-to-read that suits for everyone from a self learner to a wannabe cybersec expert. Author Roger A Grimes who has successfully trodden his field for about three decades avoided any overwhelming technical details rather documented the details and procedures done by both the cyber defenders and offenders.



Apart from what media and film industries taught, Grimes enlighten his readers: “Unfortunately, nearly everyone who writes about criminal computer hackers without actual experience romanticizes them all as these uber-smart, god-like, mythical figures….. A few are smart, most are average, and some aren’t very bright at all, just like the rest of the world. Hackers simply know some facts and processes that other people don’t, just like a carpenter, plumber, or electrician.”



The core hacking methodologies and defense mechanisms are documented in the book in such a way that a noob can get a clear picture of ‘what’s going on under the hood’ while intermediate and veterans can re-solder their knowledge.



Each chapter is divided into the core concepts like how hackers work, social engineering, malware, network attacks, cryptography etc and ends with profiling both the savior angels and demons of the respective areas of knowledge.



This book is not ‘how to hack facebook’ or ‘eavesdrop your girlfriend’s android’ kind rather a nice manual for geeks, daily use, self defense, self learners and informative for wannabe cybersec experts.



Although the technological advancement evolving around us in a lightening fast speed but the ‘latest sophisticated things’ work on the same basics or some tweaks on the ‘good old day things’.



So is the 284 page book, a good-to-read, even the readers without much technological knowledge will get a solid base of cyber security for everyday use (or for a deep dive) and self defense in the everyday virtual world.