about

If you're here reading the things that I have written, then you're the type of person that probably remembers the first computer they ever owned. Mine was a Canon Innova 486e I got when I was eight years old. This bad boy came packed with Microsoft Windows 3.0, a 486, 4MB RAM, 120MB HDD, 2400baud modem, a 3.5" FDD, and a 5.25" FDD. When I tell you I loved this thing. I loved this thing. So much in fact, that I broke it several times; I deleted system files, opened it up and plugged things where they didn't go, put jumpers in locations that had no business being in, bent the pins on the PS/2 connectors, etc. My dad being the amazing man he is, recognized my love for this stuff and would take it to get it fixed at Radio Shack when I couldn't figure it out myself.

A thing back then was to have a lot of small random ads in the back of computer magazines and in one of these was an ad for something called a BBS. Through many days of trial and error, and digging through old demo disks for the software, I finally connected.

Unfortunately, this was roughly 1994~ and a lot of older BBS' had gone their way (as I would learn much later), however, none of this stopped me from finding those beautiful textfiles. Textfiles filled with the most complex and foreign words that I had ever seen.

At this point, I am nearly twelve and had read and seen things that I probably shouldn't have, though like anything, if you read enough of something, the whole thing starts to piece itself together. Phreaking, Hacking, Spoofing, all of these terms slowly became everything to me. No one at my small middle school understood them, and I barely did myself, but all those evenings reading, and all the times I got yelled at for dialing a long distance number, all of those experiences made me who I am today.

A few years later, a lost friend of mine and I got into the tail end of phreaking, was there at the advent of Wi-Fi and stumbling (never forget NetStumbler and Orinoco Gold cards) that soon came after. Growing up in the time period I did and watching technology evolve is not something I would trade for any other experience.

Being able to live the life I do and call myself a Penetration Tester is a dream come true. To be able to sit down and poke and prod at something, trying to find a way in, trying to find a problem, there is nothing else that can reproduce that emotion. I have been fortunate enough to speak at a few different security conferences, including DEFCON.

[typical] The ability to give back to this community for everything it has given me throughout my life gives me immense pride and purpose. [/typical]

Outside of the confines of code, pixels, and Mbps, I enjoy riding my motorcycle, being a wannabe food critic with my lovely wife, and watching almost anything Cyberpunk related.

At the end of each day, I try and be humble to myself, to be grateful for what I have and for the opportunities that have been presented to me.

I also like to think that if kid me could see what I get to do everyday that it would blow his freaking mind.