I've been meaning to do this for a while.

This blog is just something for me to take action and keep progressing. It's not an end or a means to anything in particular other than that.

See, I'm a middle-aged (nearing 50) technology worker. Cybersecurity engineer, to be precise. I learned HTML when it first came out. I wrote web applications using CGI and Perl (or -gasp- C, even).

I hacked plenty in my youth, and found the real problem that interested me was defending an environment or a target when nearly everything was crackable. The fundamental flaws with nearly every environment means there's always another exploit to be had. (This is thanks to our computing architecture not changing for a while.)

I have spend over a decade just focused on cyber/infosec defense, and now I'm bored.

I want to build!

I want to make things again. Systems. Software. Applications. Protocols. Solutions. Programs.

But technology has changed in the past couple of decades since I built things from scratch. I've kept up some. I can get by with JS or Python. I even can do okay with Solidity smart contract CTF. I know enough of CI/CD applications to know what works well and doesn't, but it's been years since I built an Ansible playbook.

I don't know HTML 5 much. I haven't made any web sites with hands-on CSS work. And I still haven't got used to modern client-side frameworks like React, Vue, and Next.

Build to learn.

I have always learned technology best by doing. By building.

I'm tired of my job. I'm tired of how it keeps me from doing what I really want to do. I'm tired of defending and want to get back to building, full-time.

I've determined that means I need a degree of financial freedom. Or at least financial autonomy. I'm not certain how I'll obtain that financial freedom or autonomy. It's not a concern at all, actually. I can build in my free time, and maybe something will pay off as I go.

An information resource to learn and serve.

I love defi. I'm not trying to get rich with it. I just love it.

Last year, nearly 5% of all "crypto assets" that were invested/entrusted to various protocols and defi projects on the blockchain were stolen. Hacked. Investors lost billions of $ worth of assets.

I still believe in defi. Moreover, I can help. I've learned a great deal about defi security - both offensively and defensively. I have plenty of defi contracts on chain still. I've studied it with multiple smart contract security courses. So I have both learned and applied defi/smart contract skills. I can perform security reviews of any projects (and their audits) and give a clear assessment of the project and contract risks.

This is something I feel is missing: translate all the noise and security audit reports for projects from very technical, and difficult to understand information into clear assessments that help investors make informed decisions. Information to help investors as they research projects.

...

This blog is not that service. This blog is me along my journey, learning professional React development skills, modern content management (I'm going the responsive but not dynamic, static site generation approach, for security purposes), and relearn HTML/CSS.

Let's see what I learn!