[HN Gopher] Why I'm teaching kids to hack computers
___________________________________________________________________
Why I'm teaching kids to hack computers
Author : twostraws
Score : 226 points
Date : 2025-10-22 14:07 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hacktivate.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hacktivate.app)
| rogermungo wrote:
| Nice.. But Damn.. Apple only : (
| twostraws wrote:
| Yeah, sorry; I know my limitations, and would rather do one
| thing very well than two things kinda average.
| amelius wrote:
| You picked the least hacker-friendly platform ...
| sikimiki wrote:
| In the early 2000s, growing up in a third-world country with
| limited resources meant computers and operating systems were
| constantly breaking. That scarcity pushed me to tinker and
| experiment, I learned to troubleshoot hardware, reinstall OSes,
| and reverse-engineer odd behaviors. I even experimented with
| keyloggers out of curiosity. That practical, trial-and-error
| schooling is where a lot of the so called "common sense" about
| security comes from. It is less theory, more failing, fixing, and
| learning what actually keeps one safe online.
|
| I think it all stemmed from curiosity to learn and tinker. I
| wonder if gamifying it is enough but it's a step.
| twostraws wrote:
| I suspect gamifying it _isn 't_ enough, but as you say it's a
| step, and if it helps more people get involved then hopefully
| others can provide more steps to follow.
| zkmon wrote:
| Early 90's were more fun. I modified DOS command.com file to
| change the outputs it prints, drilled holes into laptop to
| attach broken hinges, break electronic garbage to salvage wires
| and interesting things, disassemble disk drives, ...
| marak830 wrote:
| Haha that reminds me, Qbasic using the help file to figure
| out how to program. Taking apart a HD and getting my fingers
| pinched between the two bloody strong magnets.
|
| Amazing what you learn when you have no other distraction xD
| twostraws wrote:
| I agree that the early 90's were a lot of fun - I remember
| drilling holes in 3.5-inch floppy disks to increase their
| capacity, blissfully unaware that _actual_ HD floppies had a
| different coating entirely...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Two (of the many) mind-blowing discoveries of the 80's:
|
| 1. there was a disk notcher (the Nibbler?) that would
| DOUBLE the capacity of a 5 1/4 floppy!
|
| 2. you could just use a regular paper hole punch and a few
| select clips to do the same thing!
|
| All my C64 floppies had faint parallel pencil lines across
| the top to line up the slots and what looked like mouse-
| nawed holes on one side.
| cat-whisperer wrote:
| Started modding Android ROMs at 13. That age is perfect; old
| enough to understand consequences, young enough to not care
| about breaking things.
|
| Hardware hacking tools have gotten more accessible since then.
| The Flipper Zero makes this easier now; 256KB RAM, open
| firmware, $200. Compare that to needing a full PC setup in the
| 2000s. Lower barrier, same curiosity-driven learning.
|
| Guided challenges vs pure exploration; both work. The structure
| gets more people started. The ones who stick around will break
| out of the sandbox anyway.
| kace91 wrote:
| "El hambre agudiza el ingenio", we say in Spanish. Hunger
| sharpens the mind.
|
| Growing up with fewer resources than others paradoxically leads
| to better outcomes sometimes, since you're conscious of the
| barriers around you and that motivates you to overcome them.
|
| If I had grown up with the latest iPhone I would never have
| cared about rooting and custom ROMs, for example.
| TimByte wrote:
| That era of breaking-and-fixing out of necessity was like the
| ultimate bootcamp
| Liftyee wrote:
| Neat... Brings memories of the national cybersecurity courses you
| were talking about.
|
| I never figured out how to do that "cat flag" terminal privilege
| escalation.
| twostraws wrote:
| Those cybersecurity challenges are incredible - I see kids
| light up when they take part, finding a passion for something
| they didn't even known existed previously. I don't think the
| teams who organize them get enough recognition for their
| incredible work!
| harperlee wrote:
| Game for kids, where you dedicate a third of the screen to a
| locked hint list and a very prominent "Buy Hint Tokens" button?
| Hard pass.
|
| https://www.hacktivate.app/img/framed-ipad-3.png
|
| The game industry needs to move away from milking vulnerable
| people with pay-to-win schemes.
| zwnow wrote:
| I've watched my grandma play a mobile game a few days ago. It
| has been a simple word search game. A level takes her about 2-3
| minutes to beat. Every single time she beats a level, she is
| getting 1-2 30 second advertisements that she has to sit
| through. Its honestly so sad to see. Thankfully she knows that
| all mobile ads are bullshit and how to close them, but still...
| This market is shameless.
| fodmap wrote:
| Right, that's absolutely disgusting. The only reason that would
| be somewhat OK is if that's part of the game, and you can hack
| it to get tokens for free.
| notachatbot123 wrote:
| https://www.darkpattern.games/
|
| https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
| fainpul wrote:
| Also the game costs 20 bucks but it's offered as "Free" with
| "in app purchases". But you can only play one challenge until
| you need to buy the game. That's just false advertising. Just
| be upfront about it and sell the game for 20 bucks instead.
| twostraws wrote:
| I'm not sure where you got the one challenge thing from - you
| can play 10 challenges without needing to pay a cent. Plus,
| there _is_ a dedicated version you can buy up front front
| without any in-app purchases, right here:
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hacktivate-education-
| edition/i...
| fainpul wrote:
| I installed and played the game on my mac this morning. I
| tried several ways to get to another challenge I could
| play, but was unable.
|
| The link I used is the one from your site.
| twostraws wrote:
| All you have to do to unlock the next free challenge is
| solve the previous challenge. The first 10 tutorials are
| designed to teach the basics of the app - how to
| transform data with the toolbox, how to read web page
| source code and run JavaScript, basic Linux commands, etc
| - and so they are run in order. There are 10 in total,
| all free, plus another one in the first territory
| afterwards, which teaches the basics of ciphers.
| fainpul wrote:
| So there's our misunderstanding. I skipped the tutorial,
| because I already saw your demo video. Then I clicked on
| the US on the map and played the first challenge called
| "Tutorial: Cipher salad". After that I always got the
| "Buy now" popup when I tried to play another challenge.
|
| But you're right, the tutorial is playable too and it
| consists of the same kind of challenges, not just simple
| explanations how to play. So my initial statement was not
| correct.
| twostraws wrote:
| I see. Well, I hope you can appreciate there are limits
| to what I can do - if someone skips the free challenges
| then is unhappy there aren't enough free challenges, I
| don't really know how I can fix that. If you want to go
| back to play the tutorial challenges, they remain
| available.
| twostraws wrote:
| Nothing about Hacktivate is pay-to-win - you can solve every
| challenge without using a single hint, and even if someone does
| need hints there are a bunch given away for free. Even more,
| for people who want the game but don't want micro-transactions,
| there's a dedicated version of the game
| (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hacktivate-education-
| edition/i...) that is a one-time purchase with no in-app
| purchases at all.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >how to do SQL injection, how to use rainbow tables to figure out
| hashes, how to use steganography to hide data in images, and
| more.
|
| I feel like there are more practical and timeless topics that
| will still be relevant in 2040. Frameworks (abstraction) have
| largely solved SQL injection and bad cryptography.
|
| Personally I would avoid a cybersecurity focused corriculum and
| just focus on regular software engineering. Being able to think
| like who you are attacking and knowing the common pitfalls is
| most of the battle.
| twostraws wrote:
| Eh... I just went to Stack Overflow and searched for "php
| mysql", and the first result
| (https://stackoverflow.com/q/79790370) - asked 12 days ago -
| had SQL injection
| charcircuit wrote:
| This is part of the long tail. I think you are
| underestimating the role AI is going to be playing in 2040.
| ChatGPT can already solve that stack overflow question and
| make the code use the prepared statement correctly. AI will
| play a pivotal role in helping with the long tail of these
| issues.
| twostraws wrote:
| If it's all the same to you, I'm going to focus on
| inspiring people with today's technology, and hopefully
| help fuel their curiosity to learn about what comes in the
| future - whatever that may be.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| I don't think you can recreate this in any top-down manner no
| matter how well-intentioned.
|
| It has to matter to them, and what's more, it gives you extra
| boost if you aren't supposed to do it and no parent or teacher
| pats you on the shoulder, but rather your friends or people in
| online forums like it, or simply you like it for yourself, seeing
| that the computer does what _you_ want.
|
| I learned computers by making a website for my school class,
| where we would put pictures from events and excursions, hosted a
| chat and a phpbb, designed the graphical elements in cracked
| warez Photoshop etc. This forced me to naturally pick up the
| skills. HTML, JS, burning ISO to CD, downloading things etc. Also
| warez games, learning about the Program Files difectory at like
| age 8 and how to copy the cracked exe there. Or setting up port
| forwarding for multi-player gaming.
|
| Or when I modded GTA (3/VC/SA) with new car models that I built
| in 3D modeling software based on hunting down the orthographic
| projection blueprints of our family car, or adding the police
| vehicles from my country in GTA, messing with textures etc.
|
| Or translating games from English, reverse engineering the binary
| file that contained the strings, I figures out that the length of
| each string was also there and I had to modify that too, learn
| about big endian and little endian, learn to work with a hex
| editor, understand what hex is. It was super exciting. If I had a
| lecture from some teacher about hex representation with some
| exercises at the end of the chapter for homework, I likely would
| have found it boring. But here I had context, I had a goal, and I
| had no idea what I was looking at when I opened the hex editor, I
| just saw that people used similar tools for translating other
| games and so I tried on less popular games where nobody had a
| specialized tool yet, it felt like making discoveries, going deep
| into the jungle and prevailing.
|
| Now to contradict myself, I did have a lot of fun also while
| solving PythonChallenge.com, even though it's artificial tasks.
| But at least I found it myself online and wasn't handed to me and
| nobody knew or cared that I was working on it.
|
| So I think this is just really hard to externally motivate if the
| kids don't have any desires or drive to see some effect caused by
| them. And maybe even I wouldn't do it in the current software and
| phone environment.
|
| But we also have to remember that a generation ago it was also
| not many people who were really into computers.
| 91bananas wrote:
| I have found this while trying to teach my kids how to write
| anything software related from scratch. They've done some
| code.org, but it becomes boring quickly. We tried to make tic-
| tac-toe in js/html/css since they can do they whole thing in
| the browser. It held their attention slightly longer, but still
| became boring. It's not something they want to do.
|
| I totally agree with you on learning for a purpose, picking up
| knowledge is super easy imo when you're in pursuit of a goal
| bigger than picking up knowledge. You don't even realize all of
| the things you learn in order to achieve your goal. But you
| have to want a goal.
|
| I also totally agree sometimes it's fun to just do dumb
| problems, I found these CAD modeling youtube videos where guys
| will race each other modeling some part off of a print, spent a
| week just screwing around with those because it's fun to flex
| sometimes.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| On the other hand if I'm honest, all this noodling around as
| a teen didn't give me a super robust foundation at all. I had
| a kind of folk understanding, or rough mental model of the
| things but it made me like it as a hobby and identify with
| it, which pushed me to take up CS in college.
|
| It gave me some head start that I knew Python and JS when
| learning C, but not super much. Other students, who were
| smart but didn't fiddle with computers as much, generally
| picked these things up along the way, 4-5 years college is
| plenty time to develop the skills if you got the talent.
|
| Also my understanding of networks was super shallow based on
| just multi player gaming and learning router settings, and I
| only really built a proper mental model in college with OSI
| model, TCP/IP details, reading the Tanenbaum book, doing
| socket programming etc.
|
| So these generic tech and computer skills are in my opinion
| more about giving people a sense of agency, which is still
| quite something. That you put together your own PC, that you
| download your own subtitle files for the movies and figure
| out how to adjust the sync to match your version of the movie
| etc. It just gives you a feeling that you can do things. If
| something is wrong, you can, and therefore want to fix it.
| It's a different attitude compared to just accepting
| everything as it is.
| agigao wrote:
| Such a great idea and product!
|
| Thanks for all the hard work.
|
| However, please get rid of micro-transactions...
|
| I'm fine paying full price of the product for my kid, but not
| micro-transactions.
| bob_theslob646 wrote:
| >And if you're dead set against Apple devices, you should check
| out the web version of Hacktivate - it's not as powerful or as
| fun, but it's entirely web-based and free!)
| twostraws wrote:
| 350+ schools are already using this, completely free, and I'm
| adding new schools every week!
| Msurrow wrote:
| Just FYI: The App Store has an Education Edition which is the
| "same app but paid up front".
| twostraws wrote:
| There's a separate version of the app that is a one-time
| purchase, with zero in-app purchases. It's available here:
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hacktivate-education-edition/i...
| mbsa7 wrote:
| I have not used the app but the developer Paul Hudson was the guy
| who taught me Swift and UIKit when I was in college and wanted to
| dig into iOS development for fun. He's truly gifted when it comes
| to teaching.
| twostraws wrote:
| Thank you for your kind words! I've spent over a decade
| teaching folks to build apps, and it's something I hope I can
| continue doing for a long time to come.
| xandrius wrote:
| Cool idea and execution but having in-app purchases to buy hints
| for a game targeted to kids is a big no.
|
| I get the market forces and such but I don't want to have an app
| subtly teach my non-existent kids to reach out to in-app
| purchases like that.
| twostraws wrote:
| If you try the game and like it - if you've run through the 10
| tutorial challenges and thought, "I like this and want more" -
| there's a separate version of the app that is an up-front, one-
| time purchase with no in-app purchases at all. You pay once and
| get everything. Get it here:
| https://apps.apple.com/app/id6754342195
| randunel wrote:
| Oh, so having a separate (paid for) app makes targeting kids
| with in app purchases OK in the (free) app you advertise?
| twostraws wrote:
| If I only released an up-front payment version, people
| would complain that they weren't able to try the app first.
| If I only released a free version with in-app purchases,
| people would complain that they don't like in-app
| purchases. I did both, and I'm still getting complaints. I
| get that my solution is imperfect, but I'm trying my best.
| wffurr wrote:
| I really appreciate you having a full unlocked copy of
| the game with up front pricing and trying to solve this
| issue in a thoughtful way.
|
| In the old days, the free version would be a limited
| preview of the game, and would direct users to purchase
| the full game. We called it a demo or shareware, as in
| you were intended to share and copy it widely.
|
| You could also have the "in app purchase" be the full
| game unlock.
| aeon_ai wrote:
| The issue here is that you are trying to bridge two
| disparate goals - making money and helping kids.
|
| The fact that this isn't open source, as it stands, means
| the latter is not a primary goal - which is not an
| indictment, just an observation.
|
| The complaints will come, regardless, for that reason
| alone, given the marketing/narrative.
|
| You're selling a product to parents/educators who want to
| gamify the technical education of their children. That
| market, small as it is, despises micro transactions.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| What does open sourcing an application have to do with
| helping kids?
|
| There are plenty of arguments for open sourcing things.
| "Closed source apps necessarily deprioritize helping
| children" is not an obvious argument to me. Can you draw
| the connection more explicitly?
| aeon_ai wrote:
| Scale and accessibility - Eliminating any barriers for
| children to get access to education, etc.
|
| Not to mention, it's an app trying to help kids get
| exposed to underpinning technologies - seeing how the
| game itself is made would be optimizing for that end.
|
| It's not that closed source deprioritizes, but the
| "helping kids" were the sole and primary goal sought,
| there's a clear answer to what would align with that.
|
| All said, it's not a critique of the OP - reconciling
| ideals and practical reality often require trade offs
| that would allow for a project like this to happen in the
| first place.
| twostraws wrote:
| I think it's hugely important to eliminate barriers to
| get access to education, which is why there's a free,
| web-based version of Hacktivate that is already being
| used 350+ schools around the world.
|
| I also think there's a lot of people out there who would
| pay to have Hacktivate running offline, using the full
| power of their device, and with no external resources
| being required, so I made that too.
|
| Suggesting that I need to make them open source to prove
| I want to help kids learn is really strange, particularly
| when literally thousands of students around the world are
| benefitting from my work without paying a cent.
| aeon_ai wrote:
| As mentioned, no indictment, and you don't need to prove
| anything - helping kids learns is clearly a goal.
|
| But so too is making money off the iOS app, correct?
| yojo wrote:
| A sustainable business has the capacity to help a lot
| more kids than an unfinished open source project that
| never gets released on iOS because no one wants to pay
| the developer fee.
|
| This isn't "HackVille by Zynga," it's an indie dev trying
| to make a product they believe in. I hope it succeeds and
| inspires more high quality edutainment.
| aeon_ai wrote:
| My point is that packaging the app in such a way as to
| put off your target audience is inherently unsustainable
| business.
| yojo wrote:
| I agree with that criticism, and I'd encourage the dev to
| iterate on non-micro-transaction monetization schemes.
| The part I disagree with is that a profit motive is
| antithetical to helping kids.
|
| It'd be nice if we had robust, no-strings attached
| funding streams to make this kind of content, but we
| don't, so if we want it to exist, consumers need to pay
| for it.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You're not arguing against the GP but for the same thing
| from different angles. They're saying the approach is
| fighting the goal, while you're just saying "I hope
| they're successful".
| yojo wrote:
| I was responding to the claim that making money is in
| tension with helping kids learn.
|
| I think it's fair to claim that a large enterprise will
| eventually crank the money dial to maximum extraction.
| But a solo dev is free to follow their conscience and
| make money in a responsible way.
|
| I don't like the "pay per hint" model as currently
| implemented, but I'm willing to give the developer the
| benefit of the doubt that they didn't think it all the
| way through.
| cheschire wrote:
| Good early lesson of small business and app development
| is you can't make everyone happy. Trying to though will
| be guaranteed to make at least one person _un_ happy, and
| that's you.
|
| So take advice where it's offered but don't mistake
| complaints for advice.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| This is a solved problem. It's called a "demo". What it
| entails is giving a small sample of your product
| completely for free, with no monetization at all, in
| order to entice a prospective buyer for more. It may be
| less lucrative than selling microtransactions to literal
| children, but it is something that people won't complain
| about, if you are genuinely in the market for a solution
| and not just trying to farm money off of scamming kids
| into swiping their parents' credit card because they have
| no idea what it's worth.
| twostraws wrote:
| You say "solved problem", then suggest something
| explicitly banned by Apple's app review guidelines.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| 1. HN folk are being surprisingly hostile here and it's
| not cool.
|
| 2. Is it really true that "the game is X levels and in-
| app purchases is a-lot-more-levels" is banned but "the
| game is Y levels and limited features and in-app
| purchases gets you features and hints" is not?
| fainpul wrote:
| I'm confused, because the version you can install for
| free is literally that: you get the 10 tutorial
| challenges and 1 subsequent challenge for free, then you
| have to pay to buy / unlock the full game. How is that
| different from the classic shareware / demo concept?
| Obviously it's not banned.
| yojo wrote:
| The HN crowd is touchy on some topics. Don't take it too
| personally - good on you for building something cool and
| shipping it.
|
| FWIW my favorite non-predatory pattern is a level-limited
| free version with a single "unlock full game" IAP. That
| way users don't have to lose their progress switching to
| paid.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is just an optimized version of shareware, now that
| we don't need to mail in a cheque to get the full set of
| floppies. seems self-defeating to reference anything like
| "in app purchase" for what's jsut a path for an immediate
| update after the user completes a known subset of levels.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| yes, absolutely. options are always the right thing.
| nothing wrong with "targeting kids with in app purchases"
| if you're up front about it
| xandrius wrote:
| Show them X free levels and with free hints.
|
| When they get into the groove, at X+1 level show them "Did
| you like this? You can get 200+ levels if you convince your
| parents that this is a worthwhile investment for your
| learning." (copy TBD) and bam, you have a traditional game
| with a demo and a way to buy it that doesn't train kids to
| expect in-app purchases for every breath they take.
|
| And btw, $25 is high even for an indie steam game, a mobile
| game will be even harder to market at that price. Just FYI.
| Best of luck!
| figassis wrote:
| Thank you. I am always willing to pay a premium for kids apps
| that don't have any dark patterns, subscription crap or in
| app purchases. It's sad that the market has been so corrupted
| that now customers are asked to pay a premium to keep kids
| safe and sane.
| twostraws wrote:
| You'll be pleased to know that the app is not only a one-
| time payment, but also has zero tracking - no analytics, no
| logging, no adverts, and no data collection of any kind.
| xandrius wrote:
| Can I see the source code? Else it's just words :/
| twostraws wrote:
| Source code wouldn't help, because there's no way to
| verify any code I showed would be the same as the version
| on the App Store. Fortunately, you can just watch the
| network packets leaving from your device when you run the
| app, and you'll see literally nothing coming to me.
| TimByte wrote:
| Yep, in-app purchases aimed at kids is always a sensitive area
| Tade0 wrote:
| "sensitive" undersells it. Apple in its refund form has an
| option to select "unauthorised in-app purchase by a minor" as
| the reason.
|
| I was not aware how predatory this market has become until an
| annual subscription after a "one week trial" renewed itself
| automatically despite having been already cancelled on the
| last day.
|
| I'm assuming the money is lost because third party
| subscriptions might require earlier cancellation, but that
| was the last time I allowed for anything with such a short
| trial period.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I dig it; and if the kids figure out how to get what they want
| WITHOUT paying for a damn thing, EVEN BETTER.
| Fokamul wrote:
| Hmm, meanwhile you have whole gaming platforms like Steam,
| where they basically make huge profit from gambling in games
| like Counter-strike and others. And hmm whose playing those
| games?
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| In defense of the parent comment, I don't know that he
| suggested that it wasn't effective, but it is a dark pattern
| that probably should be avoided if the gist of the effort is
| to truly be an educational game that you'd want to
| enthusiastically support.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| Aren't most micro-transactions like those purely cosmetic?
| gmueckl wrote:
| They are in Valve's own games. But items drop at different
| rates, which creates artificial scarciry and items can also
| be traded for money.
| giobox wrote:
| Yes for Valve, but that hasn't stopped a secondary market
| transacting tens of thousands of dollars or more for them
| in some cases.
|
| > https://dmarket.com/blog/most-expensive-csgo-skins
|
| > https://tradeit.gg/csgo/store
| krackers wrote:
| That's just part of the meta-game, to get kids to jailbreak the
| iphone and then patch the IPA
| hacb wrote:
| This is why I like the Try Hack Me platform so much. You have a
| lot of walkthroughs and guided challenges to get started and
| learn the basics; challenges get harder and harder with less and
| less help. You also have access to challenge write-ups even if
| you did not complete them, meaning that if you're stuck, instead
| of losing motivation, you can make progress.
|
| They embrace learning for all levels and helped me so much
| getting into infosec professionally.
| vhantz wrote:
| The supposed target of this game do not at all match who can
| actually play it. Kids don't have Macs. Those who want to hack
| don't have iPhones. I would even say that a kid with an iPhone
| will never get the necessary curiosity about computers to want to
| hack anything.
| Gerard0 wrote:
| I am no hacker, but for me it was exactly this which made me go
| What?!
| le-mark wrote:
| My son has been highly motivated to learn about hacking in his
| iPad to hack some of the games they play for school (blooket
| and prodigy). Those are web based games, true, but fiddling
| with the dev console, editing the dom, and finding and pasting
| scripts, is not nothing.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> the dev console, editing the dom, and finding and pasting
| scripts, is not nothing.
|
| this is awesome, but way easier on a cheaper, more accessible
| device.
| twostraws wrote:
| I think it's fair to say that the most accessible device is
| the one they are already using.
| liziwizi wrote:
| i think this is a terrible assumption to make. the computer or
| phone a kid gets from their parents has nothing to do with
| their curiosity, intelligence, interests or ambitions.
| dooglius wrote:
| I was with you up until the last statement which does not seem
| plausible at all. Curiosity about computers is not something
| you are born with.
| vhantz wrote:
| Curiosity is not something you are born with, yes. It's
| influenced by the experiences you have. I don't think iPhones
| allow for the experiences that push kids to want to hack
| things. It is pretty much a sealed environment where all
| details about how the computer works is hidden behind some
| app. Even access to the filesystem (iirc from my 2014
| experience) is hidden away (like being unable to access your
| picture files except through the gallery app). That kind of
| environment stiffles curiosity imo.
| wingerlang wrote:
| Why would people who want to hack not have iPhones?
| VladVladikoff wrote:
| Cool idea I was going to check it out but I don't want to update
| my iPad to the latest OS for jailbreaky reasons. Any chance you
| could release support for something slightly before 18.5?
| twostraws wrote:
| The app only uses one API from iOS 18 and later, so from a
| coding perspective I could make it support older versions
| easily. However, the bigger problem is testing: right now I
| test each release thoroughly on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, across
| iOS 18 and iOS 26, so adding another iOS version would require
| another set of devices and more time.
| TimByte wrote:
| Huge respect for not just building a tool, but building an
| experience that demystifies hacking in a structured, ethical, and
| genuinely fun way
| twostraws wrote:
| Thank you! I poured a lot of time and energy into making sure
| challenges are unique and interesting, but also graded so folks
| follow a cohesive pathway, and also feel fun - it's as close to
| a "Hollywood-hacker" aesthetic as I could get.
| Zhyl wrote:
| Where would this sit between Over the Wire [0] and Hacknet [1]? I
| would try it but I don't own anything apple.
|
| [0] https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/
|
| [1] https://hacknet-os.com/
| Flere-Imsaho wrote:
| There's a web version at: https://www.hacktivate.io/
|
| I don't believe you need Apple hardware for this.
|
| However the blog post states "it's not as powerful or as fun,
| but it's entirely web-based and free". Not sure what is meant
| by "not as powerful"?
| twostraws wrote:
| The native version does quite a few extra things, including
| bringing all the solving tools inside the app (as opposed to
| using external tools like CyberChef, Boxentriq, Dcode, etc),
| but also has more compute-intensive operations like creating
| spectrograms of audio and image manipulation, a much bigger
| implementation of the Linux terminal, and (safely!)
| destructive things too - you get local copies of files or
| databases to work with, so you can delete them, modify them,
| etc, freely, rather than being restricted to working with
| shared resources.
| rkozik1989 wrote:
| Do you also teach kids about jail time and/or being blackballed
| by the industry? Because no matter how well-intentioned you are I
| can see a 13 year old me doing the naughty thing.
| twostraws wrote:
| No, but I like the idea - I think it might make for a good
| screen to add once they complete the game, saying "use your
| skills responsibly" and similar. Thank you!
| anti-soyboy wrote:
| guy thinks he is Mr. Robot? Hack computers jajajajaja people
| watched too many films
| tristor wrote:
| Nice, I am a fan of this idea and have been trying to figure out
| the right way to engage my niece in computers in a real way. One
| of my biggest concerns from seeing how it impacted my
| stepdaughter (now in college) is how kids are not learning how
| general purpose computers work and are becoming too comfortable
| existing entirely in restricted environments like iPads and
| Chromebooks. With my niece, I'm taking more active measures to
| ensure she learns how things actually work.
|
| I bought the full version because I'm not a fan of in-app
| purchases in things marketed at children, and I'll give it a
| playthrough myself first to make sure it fits the bill. One of
| the upcoming projects we're going to do together is to build a
| mechanical keyboard. I'm also going to build a PC with her and
| try to teach her the basics so she can explore mostly uninhibited
| on Linux.
| twostraws wrote:
| Thank you! I hope you enjoy using the app together.
| werdl wrote:
| "teach kids to hack" "available for iPhone, iPad and Mac"
|
| You need to understand your market better!
| brabel wrote:
| As an outsider, are you suggesting OP can make more sales on
| Android because that's more hacker friendly? Or what exactly?
| From what I hear no one makes any money on apps outside the
| Apple ecosystem and big game platforms.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-10-27 23:01 UTC)