FF-Sec says hello

Hello world!

With the output of this line, many people start programming nowadays. Looks like a good start for a blog to me, too. ;)

When I dove into the world of computers over 20 years ago, I could not have guessed the journey I would begin. It was not my first contact with a computer (a KC-85 from the GDR in our school was the first computer I used), but the real journey began when I first installed a Linux on my 386 PC, because Windows (3.11) and gaming bored me. On it I learned my first programming language... C. Ok, not really my first one, because I already wrote an application in a BASIC dialect on the KC-85, but it was mostly copying it from a piece of paper and my understanding for it was like the language was named… very basic. ;)

Of course my first application in C was also a kind of "hello world“, but I added already a condition dependent on a variable I added. But for me it was breathtaking, because I experienced for the first time, how it feels if my machine does what I wanted. Programming became the drug of my choice. Shortly after that I learned assembler, because I wanted to understand all parts of the Linux kernel. Along the way I learned Perl to automate things on my computer. And already 2 years later - 2 years in which I spent about 12-18 hours a day in front of my computer - I started to work as a freelance system administrator and set up Linux servers for different companies. Then at some point a company came along that really wanted to take me on as a permanent employee and made me a good offer. And from that point on, my career went from system administrator to system engineer to DevOps engineer to security engineer and to IT security manager, because data protection and IT security always were important topics for me. And now I'm the CISO of a company in Germany and take care of all the information security topics in our company.

In fact, I never did any training in computer science (instead I trained as a laboratory chemist). I taught myself everything, partly from books, but mostly by trying out and reading the manpages built into Linux and from informations I found in the WWW.

And here I am, in my mid-40s, still addicted to computers. Although I still deal with Linux servers, I now prefer to use macOS as my desktop system. After all, it's also only a Unix. And I often had to deal with Unix during my career. FreeBSD and Solaris were my daily companions at times. About a year ago, my father gave me a Windows PC, because he couldn't do anything with Windows 10 and wanted his XP back. He is nearly 80 years old now and never had internet access. Therefore it’s ok. And I can only say... WTF?! How did such a static, inflexible and untidy system ever make it in the market? As was the case with Windows 3.1(1), it is somehow only useful for gaming. And that's exactly why the PC is now sitting around in my apartment. You can certainly imagine how often it is turned on. It should be about 4-5 months since I used it the last time. :D

What you can expect in my blog? I have absolutely no idea. :D About 10 years ago, when I worked for the blog.de platform (at that time still quite a big blogging platform in Germany, later sold to an Italian company that fucked it up), I blogged regularly. After that I wrote irregularly on different platforms. And even today I still have 2 blogs where I post my pictures that I draw on the iPad and articles around topics that interest me. But I like the idea to write a blog with a note taking app. Somehow it feels like this is how blogging should work. No distraction by creating designs and similar stuff. Simply writing what comes to my mind. And that’s what you can expect here… whatever comes to my mind. It may be about topics related to data protection and information security (yes, for me there is a difference, perhaps I’ll explain it somedays), thoughts about drawing with ProCreate on iPad, my adventures while geocaching (yes, sometimes even I leave my home to face the real world), about what I learn as a dad from my (autistic) children, and it’s a lot what we can learn from children, or any other topics. We’ll see.

Let’s see where this journey leads me to. If my English isn’t perfect, please be indulgent. Even after 20 years I’m not really good at it. But I try my best and I hope my posts are understandable. So… let’s have some fun! See you soon!