Do Hackers Need To Know Algorithms and Data Structures?

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Hack the Planet!

[fosefx]

I'm not a (professional) hacker, but whenever I see a question like "do I *need* xyz" the actual question behind it is "Should I spend time learning this right now, or should I focus on something else first?". As you pointed out, any knowledge of any kind can be useful, the question is everything equally important and can only really be answered with more context and background about the person who asked it.

[KuromiAK]

Knowing an algorithm's worst case scenario might come in handy when looking for a DDoS attack. Exponential backtracking in regular expressions come to mind.

For reverse engineering RTTI / vtable comes up a lot in my experience. These structures are how class inheritance in object oriented programming is implemented. I think one can expect to see them in many large projects.

[ruinedbectorem]

IMO


That felt deep and existential. Great video as usual.

I remember when I was in my early 20s I met a really nice person I wanted to date and there was a language barrier. I took 2 years of French and Spanish and yet was not able to maintain a child's level of conversation.

Lesson: You never know what you will want to know in the future and at what level and depth. "The more you know. The more you know."

Also; what is 'knowing' anyway? Long subject but Epistemology is a good start.

It has been said that the smartest people are the ones who have information and knowledge from a wide range of topics. They are able to connect seemingly unrelated things to each other. Like knowing how the subject verb agreement works in Russian or Tagalog and therefore can identify an author.

What does being 'good' at X even mean? One does not have to be a psychologist to be a good social engineer... but there is a certain level of knowledge that could make a good SE. I think one must TRY. one must continue to TRY. It's the constant showing up and trying. The people who are not good at what they do or that quickly lose skill are the ones who stop. Be better than yesterday even if it is not measurable.

Every action completed are pearls on a string. No matter how big or how small. Just keep putting them on the string. Compounding takes effect and before you know it you are Good.

[sangamo]

I think tooling is big part of pentesting and data structure and algorithms will eventually help you build better tools.

[jrmiasmg]

Missed opportunity for a one second video: Yes (Now The World Don't Move)... Nice video!

[Tnshaikh]

You can’t reverse engineer without knowing how to engineer somewhat

Wrong channel? You are on the UNDERflow channel.

[FeuervogelIra]

As someone teaching the lecture data structures and algorithms, I feel attacked.