At the beginning there was nothing. This is the sentence I choose to justify my, at first glance pessimistic introduction to this blog post. I'd like to address multiple inter-connected aspects of modern life that we got pulled in to, such as: fast-paced lifestyle, social networks, lack of introspection, inflated egos. I will do my best to try and shed some light upon each heading, because that is where we all should head to - towards a better versions of ourselves, for ours and the sake of our loved ones!
People have stopped caring about a good read, attention span gets shorter with each reel getting faster, shortcuts are being taken, superficial goals are being set and we are not looking into ourselves as much as we should!
Talking about superficial goals and inflated egos I can not but to mention certificate stacking phenomena. To the best of my knowledge, I'd say this is more evident in cybersecurity areas such as ethical hacking, DFIR and malware development due to them being such a buzz words. Paying thousands of dollars for course materials and speed running through them will give you nothing more then a short term satisfactions. It may land you a job, get you a few pats on the back and if that is your goal - go for it!
By skimming past the friction necessary for learning, the pursuit of convenience can end up deskilling rather than enhancing skills. -Kevlin Henney
Remember, slow is fast, take your time, go back to the basics, adore them, be proud of your new little discoveries, do what you love and you will love what you do for the rest of your life - be honest and true to yourself.
My Dunning-Kruger experience
At my freshman university year I got re-introduced to programming algorithms, pseudo codes and general logical thinking class - what a boring class I though. Can we just please go straight to python/OOP and do "useful" things? You, my beloved reader - probably noticed that I wrote 're-introduced', yes. Back in high school we had similar class, although at a time I did not brag about it, because I didn't think about it at all, I completely ignored that and many other programming and non-programming related classes - I hated school and it backfired on me. For almost every university class I had to put in twice the effort, because I did not possess any applicable prior knowledge.
Not long after, we get introduced to "C" programming language. Professor suggested "K&R The C Programming Language" books as main literature source - what a caveman I thought. Passing a few exams, writing a few scripts or hello world equivalents in different languages and having a 4+ years of CTF experience at that point in time - I didn't know enough to realize how little I actually knew.
At some point, one of the professors gave us a talk about why are we actually here. That was the moment I experienced epiphany. He said that we are not here to only learn how to do certain things, but primarily to learn how to study, research and to acknowledge to ourselves that learning is a never-ending and lifelong process that we should learn how to, not only enjoy - but to love and cherish. That was the same professor that recommended "K&R". I felt ashamed and ended up reading/working through "K&R".
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. -Winston Churchill
— Note for non technical readers: "K&R" is among many considered to be a bible of "C" programming language as it comes directly from the creator of the language itself - even though both are written in late 70s and 80s and some things and standards have changed since that.
Less is more
I don't know. Such a great sentence. Too bad no one uses it these days.
In a field I consider myself to be an expert in, there is probably a lot of questions to which the answer would be I don't know. Does that make me a lousy expert - I don't think so.
Right now I am diving deeper in to the Red Team Operations field. I decided to re-do "K&R" alongside other relevant C resources as well as writing some C projects. I want to dream C, memory, debugging. Is that a mistake, I've doubted myself more then once, for many things regarding learning paths and choices. Should I just follow some course material? I still don't know, but I don't think it is, it makes perfect sense and sure as hell I love it and that is what matters the most.
I was always fascinated with individuals that write their code in Vi, vithout any syntax highlighting, lsp, linters, etc... because I knew what dedication, stubbornness and knowledge stood behind that. To make it perfectly clear for non technical folks reading this, these are the individuals that made digital world as we know it today, they are the building blocks of computers, mobile phones, internet. Imagine them as the programmers. They scratch their head more often then not, they catch themselves not knowing things all the time, even the things they knew a few days ago and that is completely normal - not knowing is normal.
The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.
This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning. -Winston Churchill
Reading through the lines
What is unsaid, may be implied and I can't finish my writing without stating the obvious. This post never mentions "Artificial Intelligence" once - until now, but it’s been screaming it all along.
I don't want to waste words on this "hot" topic (as if it's not already obvious that I'm into pre-90s subjects) - jokes aside, please don't abuse/misuse ai, as you will be late to realize what a grave mistake that was.
Closing thoughts
Love, share, give, receive, enjoy, rest, nature, offline.
Stay healthy, stay safe!
Cheers,
bigfella