From your post, I gather that you're not very familiar with computers and programming? If that's the case, then you should probably build up that foundation first before you get into hacking computers. You need to be comfortable with networking, a couple of operating systems, and a handful of programming languages among other things. Depending on your learning pace and past experience, this could take a couple of years.

If you search this forum, you'll find that your question has been asked before, and there are some very detailed and helpful responses.

I think the bar to get started is a little lower than superkojiman puts it.  You need to understand basic networking and system administration.  You don't have to be an expert in either of those to start learning security, but you should understand how computers talk to each other and be able to setup a small network.  You should also understand the difference between regular users and administrators and be able to do basic configuration and setup for a workstation or server.  You will eventually want to learn Windows and Linux, but you could focus on one to start and then branch out when you're comfortable.

In general, programming is not a prerequisite to start learning about hacking or security, but it's helpful.  For getting into certain areas (e.g. web application security, exploit writing), it's very necessary.  Good languages to know include Unix shell scripts (e.g. bash), C and Perl or Python.  If you're focused on Windows, you may want to learn Powershell or a .NET language.  For web app security, you'll want to learn some HTML and Javascript and may also want to learn to develop web apps (in any language).

Please note that I'm addressing what you need to get started.  If you want to be really good, you will eventually have to develop quite a bit of expertise in system administration, networking and/or programming.  You can learn some of this side by side while you learn about security.

If you're just starting out and don't know a lot about computers yet, you probably should put security aside for a while until you're more competent with the rest. 

I don't know where to tell you to start for just learning more about computers.  Maybe an A+ study guide?  Does anyone else on the list have suggestions for that?

Are you in college?  Does your school have an IT, CS or MIS program?  Are you in it?

Hi

I generally don't reply to these posts. I have seen posts like these. Many of them. The previous forum I am a member of.

People generally would create an account and then forget to check responses. In-fact I never had anyone check back post I wrote a page long suggestion or career advice.

I will make this an exception.

Start with Python - It is easy to learn high level language. Books are for free and so is the compiler. The basic to begin with.

Cheers!