Here’s a definition of ‘ethical hacking’ from a British site that has a DVD course on the topic.

“Ethical Hackers are computer and network experts who attack a security system on behalf of its owners, seeking vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker could exploit. To test a security system, ethical hackers use the same methods as their less principled counterparts, but report problems instead of taking advantage of them.”

I can’t speak to the standards where you are and I’m not into promoting corporations but here’s the site mentioned-

http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/9… This one DOES cost so—-

However, I think that you should register on www.ethicalhacker.net and join in one of the forums where you’re most likely to get the info needed. Somebody there will be able to point in the right direction.

For general programming you either need to be a real expert self-learner who can impress people with genius or – like most of us – you’ll need to take a degree either at a community college or university. In this case you’ll just need to check out the ones near where you live or look at on-line ones-

http://www.worldwidelearn.com/technology-degree/computer-programming-degree.htm

Sometimes there are local schools that do small six month diplomas in this but the employment record of grads is often quite spotty.

If you want to design operating systems then I would get into linux. Its an open source operating system. That means that the entire source code is available for you to look at. While you are messing with it, anytime it does something you are curious about you can legally look at what its doing. And even try making changes in the code legally. Another good thing about it is that its beginning to be used in everything from MP3 players to watches to cars to security cams.