Explosives to Exploits

It all started with my tiny fingers assaulting an old keyboard—taka-taka-taka-taka… taka… A low whir spun to life, then bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt as the print head oscillated across the green-and-white striped page, spitting out the nonsense symbols I’d conjured onto the black terminal in glowing green text. One of my earliest memories. I must have been three or four years old. I had no idea what I was doing, but I felt wizard-like. Press a few buttons and the magic box obeyed—how could that not feel like sorcery?

The tools may have changed - no more tractor feed paper or green phosphor glow - but that feeling, the elation, the magic, never really went away. Discovering new ways to use these machines is endless fun and keeps my restless mind busy. Over the years that curiosity has pulled me through tinkering, breaking things, fixing them, and eventually into the world of cybersecurity.

That curiosity also carried me into the military, where I became an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician. I was drawn to the danger, the high stakes, and the sheer diversity of the mission set. EOD is its own kind of wizardry: approaching a silent, hostile device, probing its secrets, and rendering it safe with a blend of training, logic, and calm under pressure. It demanded discipline, patience, and a respect for complexity—skills I didn’t realize at the time would map almost perfectly onto the world of cybersecurity.

My time in uniform may be over, but the fascination with complex systems and hidden dangers remains. Now, when I sit down at a keyboard, it feels like a continuation of that same path. Different tools, different risks, but the same focus: learn how to build things, learn how to break them, figure out how to make them safe again.

This blog is how I carry that journey forward in public. I want to capture not just the technical details—the how-tos, the experiments, the projects—but also the feeling of discovery, the thrill of uncovering something hidden or a concept suddenly click into place. Expect stories about code, hardware, networks, and security, but also reflections on learning, building, and my epic fails.

If you’ve ever felt the itch to know how things work—or how they break—then we’ll get along fine. Pull up a chair. Listen to the taka-taka in the background. Let’s see what magic these boxes can really do.

If you enjoyed this post, I’d greatly appreciate a little taka-taka of your own and sharing it with a friend who might like it too.

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