Learn Programming by Making Internet Explorer Jiggle

You may not be an leet (1337) master hacker but you can pretend to be one at home. Actually, hackers start out just like all computer geeks--with a love of computers and a desire to learn how they work and master the controls.

At the heart of all computers is software. This software perhaps even more than the hardware it runs on gives our computers lives and--dare we say it?--Personality. This software runs the gamut from the Assembly language that generally populates the BIOS to the other languages like Python, Java, C++ and others that run the programs in operating systems like Microsoft Windows.

When personal computers became popular in the 1980's there were very few actual applications available for them--to make them do things you had to write a program to tell the computer what to do. Magazines and books were published with program codes for users to examine and utilize on their own computer systems. Today most people simply look for a program online to download and use.

One of the dangers of downloading a ready-made program is that those programs may be infected with spyware, adware or malware and by using those programs you may be exposing your computer to dangers because you do not know what code is contained within. This is also true when running scripts on the Internet.

One thing that you can do to protect yourself is to learn some basic coding. Javascript is a language commonly used on the Internet and can be a good place to start. You don't have to become an expert in the language but just having an idea of how the code works and is assembled can help alert you to possible dangers.

Some of the best coders learned by looking at different programs and examining how they worked, trying them out on their systems and making them do fun stuff. Here is a program that can cause Internet Explorer to jiggle all over the place, written in Javascript.

Open a file in Notepad or another basic text editor. Go to File, Save As and in the drop-down menu at the bottom titled "Save as Type" select "All Files *.*."

Name this file Window Jiggle.html, choose where to save the file (the Desktop is a good place) and click the Save button.

In the Notepad window type this code exactly as it appears on the linked page. You may want to turn off Word Wrap if you are using a small Notepad window.

Click here to be taken to the page containing the Window Jiggle Program Script.

Save this file and then open it in Internet Explorer. You can open it by double-clicking if Internet Explorer is your default Internet Browser or by opening an Internet Explorer window and dragging the program icon over to it. Alternately you can also right-click the file, choose "Open With" and select Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer may display a bar at the top that it has blocked the content when the program loads; just right-click and select "Allow blocked content." Internet Explorer does this to protect you from unexpected and possibly malicious scripts but in this case you know exactly what is on the page because you typed it in yourself!

Click on the button and watch what happens!

This little script or program will also work in Mozilla Firefox and some other browsers depending upon their security settings.

After playing with the script open the file in Notepad and examine it. Can you change what is written on the button and the window title? Try making changes to a copy of the file to see if you can make it work differently.

Little tricks like this are the start of learning how to program. As you master simple programs like this you can then learn to examine the source of web pages to see what code (and possible dangers) are embedded within. You may even have a little fun and amaze your friends with your leet (1337) hacking skills!

References:
"The Unofficial Guide To Ethical Hacking, 2nd Edition;" Ankit Fadia; 2006.
"Head First Java, 2nd Edition;" Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates; 2005.