Hello everyone,

I have a question/request for whoever wants to answer.  I've been interested in the whole hacking/security field for a while now.  However, what I would really like to do is lean more towards research and development than pen-testing.

Its been in the back of my mind for a while now but since I got a shiny new iPod Touch and was very disappointed when I found out that it doesn't support packet injection and that the wireless driver was built into the kernel which makes "hacking" it to do wireless packet injection more difficult.  I spent hours searching the web looking for someone that might be working on it with no results when I came to realize that I would love to be able to do that kind of stuff on my own.  I read H.D. Moore's blog posts about hacking the iPhone and thats exactly what I want to be able to do, however... I'm severely lacking in the needed skillset.

Trying to think about what I would need to learn is at least slightly intimidating and I have no clue how to ease into it or even find a good place to jump in head first.  I suppose some of the topics might be driver/kernel internals and development, assembly language and a few others.  I took a programming class at a local college and we didn't even use a compiler the whole class (it was a c programming class) and the instructor even seemed to be learning some of the things as he went, stuff I had known for years.

In other words, I want to take it up to the next level or two (or down to the lower levels) and have no idea where to start.  What would be nice is a project thats not quite as dfficult as hacking/modding a proprietary kernel (is that even legal?) to start on and to learn from so the stuff I read and find out gets put to use so I don't lose it by the next week.

Btw, sorry for making you read such a long post 

I appreciate the response but thats not quite what I was looking for.

I am fully aware that knowledge of linux is important, I have had several years experience with it, as a development, desktop and server environment.  I also realize the need for networking knowledge.  However, I thought my question was focused in a different realm than general Linux and networking and more towards low level programming and reverse engineering and how to get started in that area.  Maybe ideas for a project or something thats a little more within reach than reverse engineering/altering the kernels of embedded devices to be able to build up to that level.

If there is more of a correlation between the two areas than what I'm seeing, let me know.

Sorry about that , i must have misread your post and misunderstood what you were asking. My apologies and i hope you find what your looking for.