Well... First of all, please don't make fun of me. I'm new to these forums as you see, but I hope I can fit here, and, who knows, make some friendships, that would be the best.

Well, I'm in a period of my life in which no one can help me except one of you guys, because I don't know what to do. I'm 16, and this is my story.

It has all started when I was 13. For the first time I got internet on my own computer, and there was everything very strange to me. I've learned to surf, I "got a life" in the virtual world, I got a moderator position on a warez forum. I think the hacking started in there. As any newbie started, I've met prorat and got to know with it. Not really breaking into other peoples computers. Actually, I only did it once, had my fun and disconnected. Then  I've continued to learn, simple things as HTML and PHP... And then, the phishing came... Some accounts phished and sold.. Made it almost for a year I think... In the meanwhile, I got bored of everything, I got "divorced" from hacking a few months, when I discover something at my school. A program called DeepFreeze that just wouldn't let you do anything. I searched and read a lot about it on the internet. The producers of it thought it was so good that they offered a prize to whoever was able to crack it. And it was. But it was just something out of my control. I couldn't learn if I wasn't able to know where the information was. So, downloaded a CD and cracked it by there, removing the password... It wasn't so much fun that way. The, did other script kiddie stuff, some admin passwords on Windows XP cracked on the school library, all that. But one day I used a simple method I've learned to search Admin Panels on websites, by just adding "admin.php" and others to the main website adress. The funny thing was, and this was when the real thing started, my high schools site had that. Something like "site.com/admin.php" no passwords, no security at all, right into the admin panel. I wasn't able to believe. My school also had some e-mail adresses provided by a main company that serves the schools, I did that on their website and I was able to acess most of the usernames and passwords used by schools to acess. I contacted the website explaining what I found there and they thank me. I felt good. A really good feeling. And so, I needed more. I had to have more acess to more stuff at my school. Because if such a failure was hapening in their website, then what else could I have acess? So, I got the e-mail and I phished the vice-director of my school. Clean shot, said and done. And currently have, and more plenty of other services that the school use, conversations she was with other directors and presidents. I got acess to plenty of stuff, plenty of password to sites that I shouldn't even know that they existed. But I want more. I want to prove them that their security is as bad as it can get. In the meanwhile, I notest something in the bar. So, the things worked like this: You go to the bar, you buy the ticket for the product you want, you go to the place you are served and you trade the ticket for the product, so, one day I notested the cash registers name and model, I gathered some money with other 3 friends, I bought a machine equal to the school, bough a ticket to each thing they had at school and I've programmed the cash register machine. We could eat for free at school, and nobody was knowing about nothing. Another thing triggered my attention, the coke machines. Ohh, old coke machines. I've tried the sooo old codes like 4-2-3-1, acessed the machines menu... Boring. I've searched on the internet how their lock worked, what was it, and how could be broken. They mostly use tubular locks, made in the 30s. It was a major breatrough because they were very good at the time, and very resistent to lockpicking. But... Found some ways to get over it. There was a tool capable of opening any tubular lock, which was this:

http://www.tubularpick.com/

But obviously it was too damn expensive to me. Bought some tubular locks and keys on eBay and made something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnbv8wfFICA

So, there was a coke machine at the gym, but there was always some employee in there. So we wait for some tournaments day at the gym, football, basquetball, whatever, as long as there was many people in there. I got closed to the machine while some friends covered me and opened the machine with sucess. Took a (not really good) photo, closed the machine and got off.

Next, the wireless networks in the school. Both students and teachers networks were encrypted with WEP. So, what was that, and how could it be cracked? We discover that the students could have acess to their network, but not so easily. They had to go with their laptop to the network manager, providing their MAC Adress and give them their laptop so he could enter the password. So, it had MAC Adress filtering. How to solve thing, how to hack it? My laptop doesn't have PCMCIA, only Express slots. So, made some money and bought something on eBay that did the same but being USB. With the monitor mode and packet injection. After some days (and nights) trying to find a correct way to crack my own network, I finally made it and never got so happy. So, went to school ready to crack theirs. Got a MAC Adress from a friend of mine which I used to sucessfully crack the students network and having acess. Now, the teachers network got cracked too. The security breach was that the "multimedia cars" as they call it on school, portable PCs with projectors with Internet connection, thad acess to the Teachers network. So, in one class, some friends distracted my teacher while another wrote on the CMD some comands I told and I wrote down the MAC Adress used by the machine. On the next break, the network had been cracked. Photos were taken to prove it, passwords were kept. I have also developped interest with cracking reall apps, software, as I am an administrator of a Warez forum in my country, and that's why I have studied assembly, read some courses about how to work with Olly Debugger, and was able to sucessfully crack 3 apps. I know it is not enough, but I had so much fun doing it, and I gave jumps of hapinness when I finally cracked each one lol. We've done almost everything. But I think it is still not enough...
I got one more year left at school. And I don't know what to do. I want to know, though, what do you guys think of me and of who I am and what I've done. Am I a script Kiddie? What can I improve? Well... Sorry guys for the big big text, but well it actually made me feel better to let this out and tell someone.

I would really, really apreciate some coments of experienced people. Thank you.

Thank you for your reply and your words. I will do it and thank you for the tip, would appreciate more.

And about the breaking and lockpicking, well, we don't stole anything, we (maybe me the most) just wanted to prove and test the security of the machine. Hey... This means something, right?





Thanks.

Dave,

welcome to the site. Don't take previous comments to heart and put you off learning more. You ask for advice and the best advice anyone could provide would be that which can keep you out of prison.

Lockpicking is an interesting skill, one which can be legitmately employed by a security professional (and one I'd admit I struggling to get the hang of). But there are plenty of ways to practice lockpicking without picking locks belonging to others. And you can still prove insecurities with some portable practice gear, plus if you can scare people by picking a practice lock you can then get permission to attempt the real thing.

Likewise wireless security can be fun to play with, but again I've found it relatively simple and inexpensive to setup a test lab for legal testing. And again after discussing the attack vectors and my capabilitie have been asked by a few to 'have a go' at their wireless networks. As well as being legal, you can't beat the look an a network admins face as he watches his WEP/WPA key appear before his eyes

If you really want to learn, stick around. Plenty of knowledgable folks around here willing to provide assistance if you can do some leg work and go about things the right way. Don (and others) often point out 'if you give a little, you can gain alot'.

I really don't know how you guys formulated your replies to this. Not one time did I see Dave post that he was interested in going into security. It more appears he wants to know what else he can do to prove he has "skillz." Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Dave: My advice? Don't do illegal things.

Yes, I understand that you're interested in security. I got that part from your story.

If you're interested in going into security, as a career field and as a professional, then I would suggest you heed the advice of the group here and discontinue any illegal activities - to start.

Sounds like you've got a plan to follow past that. Good luck.

Love the glider sticker, heh, you have a friend in me..