The Continuation of Injections: Editor-in-Chief's Column on Hacker

Recently, Hacker published an article on the core of web security – SQL injections. Perhaps someone noticed my presence in the comments under it, and this is not without reason. For me, its publication is one of the most important events in Hacker in recent times.

In our editorial office, there has long been a leisurely debate about whether it is worth doing entry-level articles. In a very, very basic sense. The notorious “quote” in these conversations is usually used as a collective image of something that a self-respecting hacker knows from the cradle.

Nevertheless, the demand from readers for such articles is enormous, and as soon as light material is published, the view counter on it begins to spin with unusual vigor. And in the comments, gratitude gradually appears from people for whom our usual articles are a little complicated, but this one is just right.

There are many examples. Just remember Ivan Saraev’s series “Python from Absolute Scratch,” or Valentin and I’s work “Linux in 30 Minutes,” which we wrote as an introduction to the collection “Linux for the Hacker,” or, for example, the article “Digital Electronics from the Beginning “

However, trying to order such material from one of our regular authors is still torture, and often in vain. I am convinced over and over again that no one wants to chew on basic topics, and some authors do not agree to write at all until they have prepared a truly unique research. Commendable, but who would do simpler work?!

I, however, did not give up and tried to encourage new authors to do this. At the end of last year, a guy with the nickname Sphinx wrote to me and suggested a series of articles about hacker frameworks. The first result of our cooperation was the article “A Brief Excursion into Metasploit.” Inspired by the success, we then prepared that same article about the “quote”.

The article is illustrated with the most kawaii quote in the world to discourage haters

When it is impossible to take advantage of the novelty or uniqueness of the material, other trump cards remain: detail, accessibility of presentation and relevance of information. Kilometers of texts have been written on some popular topics on the Internet, but sometimes you have to look for clear and relevant information in them bit by bit. Our task is to present everything in such a way that it doesn’t have to be done.

There is also an important difference between buying a paper magazine and subscribing to Xakep.ru. By paying for access to paid articles on the site, the reader receives them all, which is more than one and a half thousand materials.

By publishing articles marked “for beginners,” we pursue two important goals: immediate—to make popular material—and global—to create a library that would cover each of our main topics from beginning to end.

Hacker magazine simply has to write a lot and often about things like Burp Suite or Kali Linux. At the same time, for some reason we have never had a topic for an issue about Kali. And I can guess why. At first there was no one to entrust it to (everyone wants to publish their research, not reviews), and then there seemed to be nothing to write about, because it seems that everyone already knows everything about Kali. However, even if they had written it then, the review from ten years ago is unlikely to look fresh and attractive now.

We will gradually fill these gaps, and then we will try to structure the materials on the site so that you do not have to leaf through one and a half thousand articles in search of text of the required level and on the desired topic. Collections of articles, by the way, are one approach to the problem.

In general, if you come across a light article in Hacker, do not rush to grab the crowbar. For every one of you, there are at least three readers for whom this text will help to slowly reach your heights of mastery, depths of wisdom and breadth of horizons.

And hardcore articles aren’t going anywhere. We have an iron rule: never refuse a publication if the topic is cool, but too highly specialized. Let this be a powerful article for a couple of dozen people. It’s okay, others will at least be impressed and bookmark it.

By the way, if you want to help us close holes in the description of basic hacking techniques and tools, please contact us. There is as much work as you like. And even more so with cool research! My mail And Telegram always open to new authors.