There are a few reasons that I’m interested in cybersecurity technology. I’ve always been someone that has had this interest in computers, what they could do, the power they yielded and the complexity of the the whole thing. That interest at a very young age spawned into an association with the hacker community. Sure a unix system was something of another world at the time, but capturing the password file, running it through a piece of cracking software, creating my own dictionary for use, and finding all the easily identifiable passwords absolutely fascinated me. Sure the way a telephone and the way it transferred electromagnetic signals across copper wires to create the conversations is something we are accustomed to and was interesting. However learning the frequency of tones that payphones and consumer land lines operated on and how they could be manipulated to achieve certain results absolutely fascinated me. So it was not only the intended use of technology that I was interested in, but I didn’t just want to be a consumer of technology, I wanted to be someone that learned the inner workings of the technology inside and out and be able to manipulate it. I derived great joy from learning how to do something new and making the technology do something that wasn’t intended for mass consumer consumption.

Then there was my obsession with the world around me, not just local to my small little part of the world, but other countries, the way they did things, how they viewed things different then what we did. There was what we were indoctrinated to learn about other countries and cultures there in the 80’s and 90’s, but my love of technology and the realm of cybersecurity and cyberspace allowed me to learn about the world on my own. Cybersecurity was this conduit to meeting people that I otherwise would have never crossed paths with in life and learning a bit about the world around me and out there for myself.

Another reason I was interested in cybersecurity technology is from a very young age I had a keen interest in the inner workings of the underworld. Cybersecurity technology allowed me a glimpse into that world that no book, manual or teacher would even have the slightest clue about back when I started with cyber, let alone was there any curriculum to teach you about it. The culture that exists, the way the human minds work that are behind the terminals fascinates me, and the technology that they use as their outlet of expression has me riveted still to this day. Understanding why it is that we do what we do, what we are capable of, and using cybersecurity technology as the paint for the canvas of understanding has me still in this field of work to this day. Not only from the perspective of the individual, but from the global perspective as well. The way nations both overtly and covertly use cybersecurity is something that I’m fascinated with and attracted my attention. Cybersecurity is unlike any other field in my opinion. So many different professions, lines of work and ways of life all have that one thing in common, and for me cybersecurity is this constant never ending, always developing channel of learning that feeds into all those things.