I remember back in the day when hacking wasn’t about stealing credit cards or fooling people into downloading trojan horse apps. Hacking was a game. A mind game. A puzzle.  Maybe it never was like this, but this is how I felt.

Now when I see hacking in the news its always some sensationalist bullshit, or some big theft. I can’t sit through any television show that has computers in it without having the urge to bang my head against the wall – I’m looking at YOU NCIS!

One thing I’ve learned is that you can never be grey hat. My handle says “evil1” which implies blackhat, but I never steal or ‘card’ or do any of the things that classify someone as blackhat, but I also don’t really care for the white hat scene. Put another way, I am a gamma male. Not alpha, not beta, but rather a lone wolf. I wish I could go back to the way things used to be. Back when I could ask others for help with a site or server without getting a glare of discouragement or get the “talk” about how The Man is watching. Back when people released hacking articles, not for fame, but just for something to do.

It seems logical that someone of my “skillset” should get into the security field, go whitehat and work for the “good guys”, but I think I’ve run into a barrier. A) they think I’m an evil blackhat and have thus blacklisted me. B) I’m too young to them and thus wouldn’t fit in with their corporate ways. I feel these 2 variables are holding me back from being a full time professional ethical hacker. My apparent past, and my apparent attitude.

It should be noted that I am not a grey-hat any more either. For the most part lately, I’ve been white. I even changed my handle to AverageJoe in an attempt to save what little credibility I have left. We’ll see how things go.

In the meantime however, I intend to use this blog to post about the security findings I encounter on a weekly basis. From malware and copy-protection systems to web security and static code analysis since I happened to have a hand on each. I look forward to whatever comments the internet brings me to let me know someone either cares or is even reading.

Bring it on.