From: InfoSec News (isnc4i.org)
Date: Fri Jul 27 2001 - 04:25:03 CDT

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http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6685972.html?tag=ch_mh

By Reuters
July 26, 2001, 11:00 a.m. PT

BANGALORE, India--Ankit Fadia is like any other teenager: He loves
music, watches "The X-Files" and is a fan of Hollywood superstar
Jennifer Lopez.

But the similarity ends there.

This 16-year-old student used 15 days of his summer vacation to write
a book on computer hacking that is due to be published next month.

The 600-page book, titled "The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking,"
is being published by the Indian unit of U.K.-based Macmillan
Publishers and will be priced at $7.32.

It describes various Internet tools employed by computer hackers and
also has a section teaching readers how to write and deal with
viruses.

Fadia, the son of a government employee, said he honed his skills over
a two-year period by hacking into Web sites of Indian computer
magazines.

He said he called this ethical hacking because both he and the victims
learned lessons.

"I would tell the magazine editors about it, and they would thank me,"
he said.

One even offered him a job, but backed out when he discovered how
young Fadia was.

"To protect against hackers, one needs to know how they work," Fadia
told Reuters. I think everybody who uses computers in today's age
should learn about hacking in this bad world."

Fadia, who lives in New Delhi, decided to become an author after his
own quest for information on hacking yielded very little.

"Hacking is an unexplored market. I tried to find one book which had
all the tricks about hacking. But there was none," said the author,
who now plans sequels to his book.

Fadia writes tutorials on hacking and has a wealth of information on
the subject displayed on his two-year-old Web site, Hacking Truths.

An executive at the publishing company said Fadia would be Macmillan
India's youngest author.

"We have got preorders for over 3,000 copies, and once the book is
available on stands, we expect it to do very well," said Macmillan's
Managing Director Rajiv Beri.

Fadia and his family would not say how much he was paid for the book.

The teenager plans to graduate in computer science and head for the
United States to do a master's degree.

Then he wants to set up a computer-security company and call it
Hacking Truths.

Story Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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