Ask HN: What are your best hacker tips/tricks/tools?

10 points by bradyriddle 5 years ago | 5 comments

Hey HN Community,

What are some of your favorite/most useful hacking tools you've picked up over the years? I mean "hacking" a little less in the computer security sense and a little more in the creative problem solving sense. But I'll be happy with either.

For example, about a year ago I learned how to use charles proxy with a self signed ssl cert to view all the network activity coming in and out my phone and computer. This was awesome because then I could make api calls directly to whatever I wanted.

Previous to that I'd learned how to decompile and recompile android APK's. One of the funner projects I've done in a while was decompiling an app, installing my own ssl cert (via the android manifest), recompiling and looking at the network traffic directly using the proxy.

I want to learn more things like this. What are some tools/tricks you've picked up over the years where you sat back and thought "Woah... that was cool"?

sdevonoes 5 years ago |

The best trick I've learnt: spend more time doing something else than computer stuff. It pays off.

kleer001 5 years ago |

Being more conscientious.

It's discipline by another word.

Valuing the long term over the short term. Surprisingly, not procrastinating and doing the hard thing sooner than later pays off huge dividends. I don't know why I spent decades chasing ephemeral pleasures that went nowhere and left me with not much at all over a daily "chop wood carry water" of concerted effort (even if it seemed like a mind numbing chore).

mettamage 5 years ago |

Scraping.

A friend with some serious restaurant money wanted to get into a restaurant that was sold out after 1 second. Every 3 months nee reservations came up and he clicked as fast as possible.

I got the job done with Selenium. He invited me to come along on the spot.

It was an amazing culinary experience!

Hnaomyiph 5 years ago | |

I’ve got to second this, as I built a scraper with basic python for the exact same thing.

Over time I’ve used it for other sites and it needed only basic changes to get it to work.

afarrell 5 years ago |

Learn more neuroscience. Start with the class “learning how to learn”. Then move on to the podcasts by Andrew Huberman.