Ethical hacking?

A call to 16-year-old Ankit Fadia rests all your claims about not taking teenagers too seriously. And not that this young author didn't face any hurdles in his path. "Usually when a youngster does something, people generally don't encourage and have faith in you," he recounts. "But one must not give up."

Adapting to the principal of persistence, today, Fadia has written a technical book on hacking truths. He is the youngest author in the 110-year-old history of the publishing house Macmillan, and has got a call from the FBI to give a lecture on hacking to their agents.

The seed was sown on his 12th birthday, when his parents gifted him a computer. "The first year I simply wasted my time playing games," he admits, "but at 14, I suddenly developed an interest in hacking." This gave way to research via books and related websites, wherein Fadia realised that the information was not enough. The books encouraged him to start his own website for a few close friends interested in the subject. Little did he know that the site would soon become popular and be his platform to hacking tutorials, which got him an excellent feedback.

Inspired to write a book, Fadia decided to spend his 9th standard summer vacations in a fruitful way. He completed the book in 15 days and approached Macmillan India Ltd., who got the book reviewed by computer and legal experts and finally decided to publish it. The conviction gave birth to 'The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking', a 624-page book that provides comprehensive and easy-to-understand material on hacking, its techniques and computer security. The book has already achieved an advance pre-publication order of around 5,000 copies, apart from a translated edition being chalked out by a leading Portuguese publication company.

Asked if the book might, in fact, promote hacking, Fadia has a rehearsed answer ready: "No. In the medical field, when doctors find a new virus, they inject weaker forms of the same virus into the body, so that the body can fight that virus. In the same way, everybody who is connected to the Internet should know about hacking and how it is done. Even someone who simply checks his or her email can be attacked by hackers. If a particular person wants to conduct a cyber crime, information is already available, so this book will not be dangerous."

The book is mostly based on his experiments. Cracking into some PC magazine sites even brought him job offers which had to be withdrawn due to his age. He would hack into sites and send them emails, explaining how he did it and what security measures could be taken.

He also knew his limits while considering that hacking into government and police sites would be illegal and dangerous.

Even the Delhi Crime branch has approached the author. Fadia is currently working on the first of his two sequels on hacking and would also like to write a Sidney Sheldon-type of thriller some day. He wants to pursue his education in the U.S. and his real ambition lies in making hacking a global security consultancy firm.

So while boys his age are busy with many other fun things, how does Fadia manage an equilibrium? "The best thing about hacking is that it doesn't take anything away from my routine. I still freak out and watch TV."

And when he begins describing his passion for music, cricket, travelling and chatting on the phone, you come to realise that the genius is still the teenage guy next door.