Ask HN: Imposter Syndrome/How to start projects I am proud of

[_fggd]

Never thought I would really come to this but I really need to talk to a group of people who understand programming and could maybe give me some direction. I understand that this probably will get deleted because its an incredibly stupid situation, but maybe this will reach some people that can give some advice. To preface this, I am a 17 year old programmer. I have been doing various programming tasks etc. since around age 11 with basic minecraft things (plugins for servers, mods). I would link some of the old projects if I could find them. But as the years have gone on I have found myself doing progressively more and more illegal things with my programming "skills". Including most recently a gift card phone bot that calls gift card phone lines, bypasses captcha, and transcribes balance. I know I know, you can probably already tell that I think this stuff is incredibly cool. But recently, I have been thinking a lot about what I want my life to be exactly. I am sure that I want to program in college, but I just cant see myself putting any relevant info on a college app/job app because everything I have done is illegal. I know the obvious answer here is stop doing illegal stuff, but whenever I try and stray from this I end up getting incredibly bored. I have an addiction. I have tried so many times to start legitimate projects, I just can't stop myself from getting immersed back into the next illegal thing. It's starting to effect my mental health as every time someone asks what projects I have done I have no skills or projects to even show for it. There's also the other issue of grinding through the first 2/3 of a project and then getting bored and starting something new. I have 20+ 2/3 done projects that have no user interface/ small bugs etc. I just want to start a project that I can take ownership of as mine, not pseudonymously. I know this has been a bit of rambling I just am not sure what to do at this point. I need life direction. Thanks for listening lol

[throwawaywrench]

Have you participated in any bug bounty, responsible disclosure type stuff?

>a gift card phone bot that calls gift card phone lines, bypasses captcha, and transcribes balance.

It probably doesn't but does that company have a mechanism for people to report security problems?

This is partly about what you do with what you find out or build. If you discover some loop hole or vulnerability report it to the company then publicly publish your code etc once the security problem is fixed that is very different to finding a problem and directly using it to acquire money.

[_fggd]

It's among the top 2 coffee companies in the US. I am sure they have something setup but maybe not

[exolymph]

What do you find appealing / addictive about the illegal ventures?

[_fggd]

hmmm... if I had to guess its probably because I like taking apart things and figuring out how things work and exploiting them. And I know what you're gonna say, why not try ethical hacking. Trust me I have tried time and time again to do ctfs etc on hackthebox. The difficulty isnt as much of a problem as getting myself to do that as i cant find the motivation, probably because there's no clear end goal? I also tend to get more validation from people when I publish a complex program etc. in the blackhat types of communities. Whenever I have made legal projects in the past its been kind of a "oh thats cool" and then back to regular conversation. But when I create these other projects im praised for my work. I can't tell if im just being a teenager, or if this is a more lifelong red flag.

[exolymph]

I think you need to accept that your own momentary satisfaction / alleviation of boredom doesn't outweigh the harm done to victims of crime. You'll be tempted to rationalize it, but you shouldn't. Instead, learn to live with discomfort. This should help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wdsJayLhnM