Return before its too late

(2025.01.24)I'm a dad now

Fionn was born December 21st. I'm tired and we are both very happy. I am finally getting around to updating the blog today. Anyways, take care everyone!


(2024.11.22) Overlay update

I have expanded the binary section to cover: x86, arm, and arm64. In the future, I will try to provide a way to select mono -- But for the time being, I'd have to create a redot-bin-mono.ebuild which isn't something I want to do at the moment. I feel like it would be much better if I could make the binary option for one file. If I do not figure out how to do this, I will simply create a `redot-mono-bin` ebuild as well.


(2024.11.20) {Redot,Overlay,Life} update

First, on Redot. We're releasing stable really soon. No one reads my blog, anyways, so I can probably mention that. We're very excited to get a `redot-4.3-stable` out into the world. With that said, there's just a few things left to do before that's able to be released.

On the overlay side of things, I'm working on a patch that can deal with the stable being referred to as a "beta" (The patch is currently done, I'm just testing it while I write this. Ah, it just finished. Let's see. It worked. Nice!) so I'm confident in my ability to use patching under portage now, at least with my first attempt being an instant success. One thing I'm considering is actually removing the binary side of things for portage.. Or I should compile it on my machine and host the binary in another location. At the moment, if you cast `emerge dev-games/redot-bin` you will have it listed as a "custom_build" instead of "gentoo" and this may bother some people, somewhere. I'll think about it, nothing will change at the moment.

Now on the personal side of things, I'm very tired. Thanks for reading!



(2024.11.03) Redot update

We released Redot 4.3 Beta 3 -- Patch notes + downloads here: github:Redot 4.3-beta.3
I updated the gentoo overlay as well.


(2024.10.31) Redot Update

Happy Halloween / Samhain everyone. We released Redot 4.3 Beta 2! The patch notes (and downloads) are here: github:Redot 4.3-beta.2
plus we released the road map viewable here: redotengine.org/news/redot-roadmap
I also updated the Gentoo overlay. That's about all I have to share atm. Cheers!


(2024.10.25) Update

A few weeks ago, I joined the Redot Engine project. This is a fork of the Godot Engine, due to various reasons that I don't care to go into. But the most important part about it is that it's a game development engine and I get to be part of building something helpful. I have done a handful of things, but most importantly I've learned a lot. Especially my own limitations, some of which have been overcome already, and I'm looking forward to the rest of how that pans out. I'm pretty excited about the Gentoo overlay I setup and I'm hoping to get it added to the official Gentoo overlay sometime in the future.


(2024.02.14) Security #0

If you have never made edits to your sudo config, other than to give a user sudo, do yourself a favor:

0. Compile / Install doas.

1. Configure /etc/doas.conf

2. Remove sudo.

3. Make a symlink `sudo->doas` in /usr/bin/.

You're welcome.


(2024.02.08) First post

The date is YYYY.MM.DD - It's just the best way to sort things. It's how I sort most of my stuff.

Anyways, I'm not entirely sure how I'll be working this entire thing. I figured I'd talk about whatever. Probably security and UNIX. I might make a guide or two. I might share a philosophical point of view or something. I just don't know. I just know that I should probably do this. It's supposedly "good for you."

If you are interested in cyber security, skip college (or at least do a different major, like mathematics or computer science.) Just do CTFs constantly while you play with some *NIX install. This is the best way to learn. That's not an opinion, that is a fact. CTFs are like microdosing education.

For the first year, just jump right into CTFs. Do whatever you can do and use a search engine, like Google, for anything you're confused about. Don't worry, it isn't cheating. You're actually learning OSINT doing this. Don't know what that is? It doesn't matter. You can just google it.

While you mess with CTFs, run a few services in your house under some linux or BSD system, specifically ones that you will actually use. Now every day, check those services for vulnerabilities and check whatever else you are running for vulnerabilities. After you get tired of that, you might end up writing a script or something to make your life easier while picking up various security concepts during both this and the CTF endeavor.

After like 6 months of this, you might find you went from knowing nothing to knowing OSINT, Log Analysis, Network Traffic Analysis, and Password Cracking during all those CTFs. You might have even gotten pretty darn good now. You also wrote your own scripts/programs. Grats. You're now a skilled worker.

Just do that for like 3.5 - 4 years. Everytime you get interested in a topic, just chase it. Is it getting in the way of your CTFs? Take a break, chase that topic instead. Resurfance in a few months back into the CTFs if you end up going off the deep-end with radare2 or SNORT or something. Some of these topics are very large and you can spend your whole life learning them. Just note it and come back to it later.

All I'm saying is that I don't think it makes sense to get a degree in cybersecurity when you can do one in mathematics and/or computer science while studying cybersec topics on your own while you do CTFs. Maybe if the courses were just individual categories in CTFs mixed in with sec concepts, threat analysis, and a little bit of sysadmin. Maybe if the capstone were just you breaking something, you pick whatever it is, write up how you did it, what you were thinking, and what you'd recommend to secure whatever the thing is. I think that's a much better program than spending more than a year or two learning "core" nonsense you don't genuinely need. It's not that they aren't important, it's that at this point college is just extended job training. So, why not train people properly instead of pretending like it's something that it isn't.

If you're reading this and you are wondering about the math/compsci degree: Compsci teaches fundamentals that you won't learn on your own and mathematics makes you look smarter than you really are.

OS:

OpenBSD: http://www.openbsd.org/
Gentoo Linux: https://www.gentoo.org/


CTFs:

Solid beginner CTF: https://picoctf.org/
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://ringzer0ctf.com/
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://www.root-me.org/?lang=en
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://w3challs.com/
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://www.hackthissite.org/
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://hbh.sh/home
Jeopardy-style CTF: http://www.mod-x.co.uk/main.php
Jeopardy-style CTF: https://pwn.tn/
Wargames (Linux): https://overthewire.org/wargames/
Wargames (Windows): https://underthewire.tech/
Learning CybSec: https://tryhackme.com/
Pentest: https://www.vulnhub.com/
Pentest: https://www.hackthebox.com/

Well, I might rework this into something a little more structured later. At least separate blog posts by page or something.