Week Four: Day Four
You know those people who grew up to be mechanics or clocksmiths or anything build-repair related? They always seem to tell the same childhood story of being fascinated by how things worked, taking things apart to see the inner workings, and then putting it back together. You never hear them say, "Well, I knew there was a pile of money in being able to make a clock or van air conditioning unit run again, and the path there would be super easy". No, it's always some deep passion and curiosity to see how something worked and trying to manipulate it to build it up again and/or create something new.
I'm feeling something similar with this course, but not necessarily that I want to understand how every website and app works so I can deconstruct and rebuild it. Instead, it's something a little more abstract and specific than that. I want to know how this other world of computers and the net works. If you compare tech to an iceberg, what most people know would be the tip; I want to go beneath the surface of the water and explore the vast territory that's largely unknown and lawless (aka "The Dark Web"). It's partly a sense of adventure and exploration, partly an overarching sense of curiosity to see and know how everything works, and partly half a life of trying to gain entry through backdoors and loopholes. I'm still not exactly sure where I'll end up or what I'll do, but I know learning to code and program is the first step in getting there.
There's also something in the Dark Web that drives my sense of competition, of wanting to see just how good my technique can be to stealthily move around without detection. I chuckled when reading this article that said the FBI now has the capability to track down Tor users. I mean, it's not wholly inconceivable, but the amount of effort, intelligence, hardware and legwork that'd go into it means the FBI would have to put a very large team on a very small case. It's sort of like doping: the nefarious ones are still ahead. Plus, with terminal commands easy enough to learn that'd allow any user to permanently delete files (really delete, not just empty-the-trash-can delete), technology is an ever-changing field and it'd be super impressive if someone was able to patch holes before they could be penetrated.
But having said that, I'm not really interested in blackhatting, but rather mastering a craft. It's sort of like being told you can't or shouldn't learn anything — it just makes you want it more. I came across this neat picture and all that stuff under the water is what I want to get my hands on.
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