Week 5: Update

Hello again, everyone!

This week I would like to give you all an update as to how my work is coming along. Unfortunately due to the nature of the work I can’t detail exactly the progress I have made, but I can say I was able to complete my first hack this past week. Now, if you’re anything like I was before starting this internship you’re probably wondering how it has been four weeks and I am just now completing my first hack. Something many people don’t know about hacking is it isn’t as fast as the movies portray it to be, unfortunately. For every one hack you complete it requires days of research to completely understand every entry point. The point of the research is to not only make sure the entry point you choose is the easiest to access, but to also make sure that what you have access to after the hack is worth your time. In the four weeks that I researched/tested hacks I can honestly say I learned just about as much as I did in an average CS (computer science) class. That is not to knock the CS department, they’re amazing, but this is the first time in my life I am living and breathing CS which really has enlightened me.

Per usual I would not like to share my favorite part of this past week! As I mentioned earlier I was able to complete my first hack this week which was quite the experience. My co-workers also got theirs this week so I was feeling the pressure coming down to Thursday when we had to demo our work to our boss. It was Tuesday night and I thought I was close so I called it quits because I was going to finish it Wednesday, but I forgot to save my Virtual Machine state. Therefore when I woke up Wednesday, to my demise, I knew I had a 15 hour work day ahead of me. None the less, I was able to get it working and since everyone completed their hacks our boss gave us Friday off so we could head home early for Father’s Day and beat the traffic. The perfect end to an adventurous week!

Until next time,

Kyle