Anit Hacking Company at the age 18

At 18 years of age he is one of the world's youngest Microsoft Certified Systems administrators. His claim to fame, however, stems from the fact that his organisation endeavours to reduce cyber crime.

He gives lectures to officers of the Indian Army and Indian corporates on how to safeguard their networks and the Internet infrastructure backbone from potential raids by malicious cyber hackers.

As a mark of appreciation, Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates invited him to the launch of Biztalk servers in India in 2006.

Meet Vineet Kumar, the founder and CEO of the Global Ethical Hackers Association (GEHA) and the National Anti-hacking Group (NAG); the latter is a non-government organisation which 10,000 hackers have joined as members since its inception back in 2003).

Vineet and these NAG members belong to a category of hackers that take pride in calling themselves 'whitehat hackers' These are ethical individuals who are opposed to the abuse of computer systems by malicious hackers known as 'blackhats'.

Interestingly, despite his expertise in a field as arcane as hacking, Vineet has had no formal training in his trade. He was attracted to computers as a child and managed to get the hang of surfing the Internet and chatting online. During one such session in an online chatroom, he met his mentor, who he refuses to name.

"He was a 'greyhat' hacker," reminisces Vineet. "He was based out of Chicago and gave me hacking lessons over IRC (Internet Relay Chat)."

How does Vineet know that his mentor was somebody based out of Chicago?

"I used some of the techniques he taught me on him," chuckles Vineet, explaining that one can obtain the IP address (Internet Protocol address) of a machine without its owner knowing. "I did it for fun and to know if it actually works."

It's hardly surprising, then, to learn that this mischievous streak caused Vineet's teachers to brand him 'naughtiest kid in school' back when he attended the Army High School in Ranchi, his hometown. By his own admission, he misses those school days. Today he is pursuing a four-year course in Information Technology and Infrastructure Management Services, ITIMs, from Sikkim Manipal University.

Courtesy : http://www.rediff.com/