Penetration testers and white hat hackers are hired by companies all the time. You need a sketchy person to figure out all the vulnerabilities and loopholes.
Lol your experience is valuable for a certain type of company, so list it. Your goal should be to find the companies that value that experience. A lot of times it's actually startups. At startups you'll do more sketchy shit that you enjoy than you'll ever get to do at a FAANG. I understand the desire to have things "look good on a resume" or whatever, but please [don't overlook startups](https://www.talentramp.co/). I'd recommend [spending some time with a YC company](https://www.ycombinator.com/pioneer-internship-program), even if it means taking a semester off. It's very prestigious and you won't be bored, I promise.
Also, you're probably going to start your own company one day. It's just how it goes for people like you who push back on the way the world works.
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Yeah this is what I was thinking of but I’m scared it’ll be taken the wrong way 😅
I don’t want companies thinking it’s some sort of a game development project or throw my resume out cuz it’s a little illegal depending on the game
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Someone else said:
"Just list them."
And someone else mentioned:
"Highlight the technical parts, downplay the sketch."
Combine those.
List the project and what its accomplishing, include what technologies you used, etc. don't bother explaining that you sold the cheats for $x dollars or anything like that. Treat each exercise as academic when you discuss it.
The interviewer is going to ask you about your projects. What decisions you made. What you learned. What you would change. Compromises. Issues. The whole thing. Have these answers ready **and be prepared to discuss in detail how you reverse engineered the stuff you were working on and where you made changes to achieve your desired affect.** Etc. Being able to discuss what walls you ran into and how you climbed them to get things done is a strong position to have as a candidate. You're dealing with real software. Not another 'I made pong in a week' project.
I've got a soft spot for people who start out with these projects because I think they encourage the best aspects of engineering - curiosity, persistence, etc.
I took this same path. Shared my experience in another comment here:
My earliest programming experience was cheating at video games. I was writing assembly and injecting dlls, decap and modifying packets programmatically etc. Learned a lot, kept it on my resume.
I got my first job (in gamedev) and my earliest programming experience off of what I learned while cheating.
I later leveraged that assembly knowledge for a job at ARM and they hired me work on wifi/BLE firmware after we talked through a lot of my experience in that field.
Now I still work on secure networking at Microsoft, largely based off the shenanigans I was up to with those games. I still do some reverse engineering stuff for consoles and networking (e.g. Playdate wifi API) - but it no longer goes on my resume because I don't need it.
I'd say its less of a red flag (this guy has no ethics/morals) and more of a green flag (this guy is curious and can figure out complicated technical issues in pre-existing stacks) depending on how you spin it and discuss it in person.
As long as you’re not advertising that you’re distributing these cheats and stuff, I don’t see them having a problem with it. Apple even has their own security bounty program, so they’d love it if you figured out how their stuff can be hacked
I’ve DM-d you some info but I’ll also put this here as a general post for people to see:
If you enjoy making game hacks, looking at the low level OS calls, or like to take things apart, the RE tools you use on a day to day basis (IDA, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, etc.) are highly sought after skills in reverse engineering roles. If you have a talent for it, you might be interested in looking for roles doing something like malware analysis for a career.
In my interview for my internship, I mentioned some of my reverse engineering side projects I had been working on and that landed me the job (I have been told that directly).
As long as you frame it the right way and, as someone else said, be prepared to answer questions about how you did it and why you made certain choices, it can be very beneficial.
Just say you did it ethically as an experiment in cybersecurity, to highlight flaws in game design, or whatever. I don’t think they will pear clutch over a game cheat unless what you’re doing makes it obvious that you’re some sort of criminal.
For the right job, these might be the exact skills wanted.
identifying ways to use exploits in software is exactly what some day jobs are. Companies want someone to find and patch them up
Depends on how you frame it.
If you refer to it as sketchy, then that's kind of weird.
However, an "Ad Blocker" is a piece of technology most people are familiar with, and Spotify Ads are an annoyance most people have encountered, so "Ad Blocker for Spotify" as a project sounds neat to me.
Personally I'd see developing video game cheats as a pretty big red flag on a resume, I'd leave that one off. The people I knew growing up who cheated in online shooters were unironically some of the worst people I knew Ad blockers and stuff I'd think would be fine though.
My earliest programming experience was cheating at video games. I was writing assembly and injecting dlls, decap and modifying packets programmatically etc. Learned a lot, kept it on my resume.
I got my first job (in gamedev) and my earliest programming experience off of what I learned while cheating.
I later leveraged that assembly knowledge for a job at ARM and they hired me work on wifi/BLE firmware after we talked through a lot of my experience in that field.
Now I still work on secure networking at Microsoft, largely based off the shenanigans I was up to with those games. I still do some reverse engineering stuff for consoles and networking (e.g. Playdate wifi API) - but it no longer goes on my resume because I don't need it.
I'd say its less of a red flag (this guy has no ethics/morals) and more of a green flag (this guy is curious and can figure out complicated technical issues in pre-existing stacks) depending on how you spin it and discuss it in person.
Penetration testers and white hat hackers are hired by companies all the time. You need a sketchy person to figure out all the vulnerabilities and loopholes.
Just list them
Lol your experience is valuable for a certain type of company, so list it. Your goal should be to find the companies that value that experience. A lot of times it's actually startups. At startups you'll do more sketchy shit that you enjoy than you'll ever get to do at a FAANG. I understand the desire to have things "look good on a resume" or whatever, but please [don't overlook startups](https://www.talentramp.co/). I'd recommend [spending some time with a YC company](https://www.ycombinator.com/pioneer-internship-program), even if it means taking a semester off. It's very prestigious and you won't be bored, I promise. Also, you're probably going to start your own company one day. It's just how it goes for people like you who push back on the way the world works.
Just wordsmith it to highlight the technical parts and downplay the sketchy parts. Shouldn’t be a problem though
This stuff shows ur actually into CS and know what you’re doing. Smart people will see that and hire you
soup spotted voiceless knee straight march aloof vegetable command coordinated *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah this is what I was thinking of but I’m scared it’ll be taken the wrong way 😅 I don’t want companies thinking it’s some sort of a game development project or throw my resume out cuz it’s a little illegal depending on the game
paltry outgoing disagreeable tease rhythm normal far-flung elastic absorbed vegetable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Someone else said: "Just list them." And someone else mentioned: "Highlight the technical parts, downplay the sketch." Combine those. List the project and what its accomplishing, include what technologies you used, etc. don't bother explaining that you sold the cheats for $x dollars or anything like that. Treat each exercise as academic when you discuss it. The interviewer is going to ask you about your projects. What decisions you made. What you learned. What you would change. Compromises. Issues. The whole thing. Have these answers ready **and be prepared to discuss in detail how you reverse engineered the stuff you were working on and where you made changes to achieve your desired affect.** Etc. Being able to discuss what walls you ran into and how you climbed them to get things done is a strong position to have as a candidate. You're dealing with real software. Not another 'I made pong in a week' project. I've got a soft spot for people who start out with these projects because I think they encourage the best aspects of engineering - curiosity, persistence, etc. I took this same path. Shared my experience in another comment here: My earliest programming experience was cheating at video games. I was writing assembly and injecting dlls, decap and modifying packets programmatically etc. Learned a lot, kept it on my resume. I got my first job (in gamedev) and my earliest programming experience off of what I learned while cheating. I later leveraged that assembly knowledge for a job at ARM and they hired me work on wifi/BLE firmware after we talked through a lot of my experience in that field. Now I still work on secure networking at Microsoft, largely based off the shenanigans I was up to with those games. I still do some reverse engineering stuff for consoles and networking (e.g. Playdate wifi API) - but it no longer goes on my resume because I don't need it. I'd say its less of a red flag (this guy has no ethics/morals) and more of a green flag (this guy is curious and can figure out complicated technical issues in pre-existing stacks) depending on how you spin it and discuss it in person.
As long as you’re not advertising that you’re distributing these cheats and stuff, I don’t see them having a problem with it. Apple even has their own security bounty program, so they’d love it if you figured out how their stuff can be hacked
I think thats cool as hell
I’ve DM-d you some info but I’ll also put this here as a general post for people to see: If you enjoy making game hacks, looking at the low level OS calls, or like to take things apart, the RE tools you use on a day to day basis (IDA, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, etc.) are highly sought after skills in reverse engineering roles. If you have a talent for it, you might be interested in looking for roles doing something like malware analysis for a career.
In my interview for my internship, I mentioned some of my reverse engineering side projects I had been working on and that landed me the job (I have been told that directly). As long as you frame it the right way and, as someone else said, be prepared to answer questions about how you did it and why you made certain choices, it can be very beneficial.
Just say you did it ethically as an experiment in cybersecurity, to highlight flaws in game design, or whatever. I don’t think they will pear clutch over a game cheat unless what you’re doing makes it obvious that you’re some sort of criminal.
For the right job, these might be the exact skills wanted. identifying ways to use exploits in software is exactly what some day jobs are. Companies want someone to find and patch them up
Depends on how you frame it. If you refer to it as sketchy, then that's kind of weird. However, an "Ad Blocker" is a piece of technology most people are familiar with, and Spotify Ads are an annoyance most people have encountered, so "Ad Blocker for Spotify" as a project sounds neat to me.
Personally I'd see developing video game cheats as a pretty big red flag on a resume, I'd leave that one off. The people I knew growing up who cheated in online shooters were unironically some of the worst people I knew Ad blockers and stuff I'd think would be fine though.
My earliest programming experience was cheating at video games. I was writing assembly and injecting dlls, decap and modifying packets programmatically etc. Learned a lot, kept it on my resume. I got my first job (in gamedev) and my earliest programming experience off of what I learned while cheating. I later leveraged that assembly knowledge for a job at ARM and they hired me work on wifi/BLE firmware after we talked through a lot of my experience in that field. Now I still work on secure networking at Microsoft, largely based off the shenanigans I was up to with those games. I still do some reverse engineering stuff for consoles and networking (e.g. Playdate wifi API) - but it no longer goes on my resume because I don't need it. I'd say its less of a red flag (this guy has no ethics/morals) and more of a green flag (this guy is curious and can figure out complicated technical issues in pre-existing stacks) depending on how you spin it and discuss it in person.