There’s no wrong way to do it. Some hack alone, some hack with peers, some learn from mentors. Some do web, some do RE, some do social. If it’s pwned, it’s pwned. Ok, yes, if there’s just a 200 page report of TLS nitpicks, it’s not pwned. Just isn’t. Write well. Take the time.

If somebody wants to nerd out with you in the hallway at con, unless you *absolutely* have to be somewhere — they are the most awesome person in the world at that very moment. Doesn’t matter if they’re competent or not. Does matter if they’re curious! Explore. Yes, you get to.

As Dino A. Dai Zovi recently said, hack things, not people. We are very ... playful when it comes to repurposing things. Don’t extend that to people. The social engineers are working a job. That’s different. Constrained. Don’t become, as Dino says, a psychopath.

You can spend too much time on Twitter. Don’t let the best record of your work be your slides. At bare minimum, make sure to package your code. Write the docs. If only for yourself! Yes, you’ll forget things.

Mentorship is worth much more than salary. Freedom to explore is as well. My first job paid about 40% of my highest offer, but it offered much more freedom to learn. Yes, you do get to invest in yourself like that. The job that pays the most might have to, to get anyone to stay.

Not everybody’s curious. It’s ok. Takes all kinds.

You are never, ever too “junior” to talk to anyone in Infosec. There’s no bar you must pass, talk you must give, code you must write before you’re qualified to nerd out with someone. Anyone. Really. Trust me, the “famous” nerds miss the heck out of you.

I’ve said this before, but: Hackers are not rockstars. You know who are rockstars? ROCKSTARS. we ain’t rockstars we just code a lot

Build things, regularly. Especially things that have nothing to do with security. Nothing will make your skills go stale faster than *only* breaking stuff. You will stop knowing what things to break, or how they imagine the world works. This is a problem. We make poor tools.

Heh. Nobody’s as happy as they look. Best I can tell, everyone’s on fire. Lots of ways to burn. Protect your curiosity. Seek it in others. You’re not “supposed to already know”...anything. That’s the fun of hacking. Pawing around in the darkness, discovering accidental beauty.

Ok, so. Microphones are speakers, if you run power in the other direction. Doesn’t sound great, but it does a thing. LEDs are solar panels, in exactly the same way. In fact — solar panels are LEDs too. Run em backwards, they glow. Hacking is mostly ignoring the directions.

What.

Sidu Ponnappa Hana Mohan real confidence either requires ignorance or a deep knowledge of the problem space. But, you can not fake confidence while *knowing* you're faking confidence, as it might just be ignorance.

Super good description of fraud.

This is a great thread. Just add the recent hoopla around engineering hiring in India.

Vaccination is free. Hospitalization is not. I feel like outreach should probably emphasize this more

Nigeria didn't just "upset" the USA in basketball. Nigeria was literally ahead of them nearly the entire game. When they won, they just calmly walked off the court like "no big deal". They beat a bunch of multi-millionaire pro basketball players like no big deal🤣🇳🇬 Go Nigeria!

Ben Lesh Team Nigeria has about 8 NBA players on it, including some freak athletes. They're basically the Miami Heat. 🤷🏿‍♂️ And Mike Brown is no slouch of a coach. Almost every NBA championship team of the past 10 years has had Nigerian players on the roster. espn.com/olympics/baske…

Doesn’t get better than this, even without the math PhD. wsj.com/articles/tokyo…