Originally posted by Epic
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Having said that, you ought to learn about computer science, computer programming, computer engineering, and software engineering. Those are pretty broad fields. But here are my recommendations.
For a nice combination of computer science and computer programming I'd suggest Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming as well as Abelson's and Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Those will give you a good start into the field. You may also want to pick up a few algorithm-related books, Cormen's Introduction to Algorithms is a classic.
Following that, for studying computer engineering, I'd select a good operating system book (I'm partial to the dinosaur book) as well as a good computer organization/design/architecture book. You should also investigate programming language design, including the creation of compilers and interpreters (here I'd suggest the dragon book).
As far as software engineering, things related to programming paradigms, design patterns, and best practices should be studied. While you're learning about programming, don't forget to write a lot of code, contributing to open source projects is always a plus.
Your goal should be to learn a broad spectrum of computer science. If you're still interested in computer security, you should read up on networking, more books related to computer engineering, and focus on the programming languages of C, Python/Ruby/Perl, Java, and possibly a dialect of Lisp (or some other functional language, I'm a fan of Haskell, and more recently Erlang).
From there, you should be ready to launch a full study of computer security. Be sure to focus on a broad variety of topics, but gradually narrow down your choices and become an expert in that specific field (for example, there are some people who spend their whole life dissecting various rootkits, and that's all they do).
Using this process, it should take about 10 to 20 years to become proficient, possibly 30 to become a master. However, you'll typically be well on your path within the first year or two.
Of course, if you just want to be a script kiddie, go to HF, and then allow me to reiterate:
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. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . ,.-‘”. . . . . . . . . .``~.,
. . . . . . . .. . . . . .,.-”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“-.,
. . . . .. . . . . . ..,/. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ”:,
. . . . . . . .. .,?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\,
. . . . . . . . . /. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,}
. . . . . . . . ./. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,:`^`.}
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. . . . . . . . . .`=~-,,.\,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . `:,, . . . . . . . . . . . . . `\. . . . . . ..__
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .`=-,. . . . . . . . . .,%`>--==``
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _\. . . . . ._,-%. . . ..`\