In case you've ever wondered the meaning of my blog title, this post would serve as some context! The name of this blog is inspired from the idiomatic expression; 'chip off the old of the block' which means 'likeness in character ...'.

There are many individual whose knowledge, influence and inspiration have contributed to and still contribute to who I have become in this field. Since we are in the digital/hacker world, I refer to these individuals as the old bytes and I believe they deserve an honorable mention.

1. Harold Kim
    I e-met Harold in 2014 on Facebook. His photo from a CTF event got me intrigued about this field. He gave me the initial pointers; books to read and websites to visit. Interestingly, I and Harold have been trying to meet for the last 5 years to no avail.

2. Harold Rodriguez
    I met Harold in 2017 from the DC416 community; a Defcon chapter in Toronto. Harold lent a helping hand when I was starting out in actual exploit development. He answered and explained everything I couldn't Google or found difficult to understand. I look up to him when it comes to Exploit Development and Penetration Testing.

3. Nick Aleks
   I met Nick in 2017 from the DC416 community. It was a very interesting encounter. He had pressured me (in a good way of course) to go up to the stage and participate in the on going CTF. I have never been so anxious! I was visibly shivering but it was one of my best experience in that community and I made some new friends after. Some of the best advice I have received with regards to career development came from Nick. He also has a wealth on knowledge in Security and Software Engineering and there is still a tonne I'm looking to learn. Nick was my manager for about 2years, If you get to have him too, consider your life blessed!

4. Thierry Sans
   Professor Thierry Sans; he is the best thing that happened to me during University. He's a renowned Professor in Software Engineering and Computer Security. I was privileged to be in the first set of students he thought when he moved to University of Toronto. I was even more privileged to teach for him. He was more than a Professor, he cared about my growth in the field and shared knowledge and experience with me. In the ranks of relationships I value, his is way up there.

5. Eugine Yevgeny
   I don't know of many advanced members of the community that would put up with naive individuals like myself; no, for real. I met Eugine from DC416 community as well, I believe in 2018. Eugine once gave a talk on Malware Analysis. I remember asking Dolev, about a 6-months later who that speaker was. Once Dolev responded, I was in his inbox. If you've been on twitter, it's very easy to be left on read simply because you're unknown so I'm pretty used to it. Eugine however, responded. During this time, I was going over Practical Malware Analysis and Eugine readily clarified confusions. Fast-Forward to now, we work on side projects together. I have learned a lot from him, technical, career advice, name it. Thank you for accepting to work with me despite my n00b status. I look forward to more projects with you

6. Dolev  Farhi
    I met Dolev in 2017 from the DC416 community. I remember always bugging him with computer networking and web application questions and he would readily respond and clear up confusions. I also remember the countless times we tried to meet but our schedules would not let us until the DC416 community meetings. At this time of writing, I haven't seen Dolev in a while, but I'm going to fix that. I don't intend to lose touch with such a great mind

7. John Simpson
    John is my team lead at TrendMicro's VRS. He's a great, patient and very knowledgeable guy. Recently, he introduced me to Java security research by walking me through an Oracle de-serialization vulnerability. That one session sparked a level of curiosity and since then I have studied a variety of materials from papers to YouTube videos on the subject of Java Security. If John, hadn't introduced me to Java security when he did, i probably would have never looked into CVE-2019-0230.
   
8. Pengsu Cheng
    Pengsu is a senior colleague at TrendMicro's VRS. Pengsu showed me a couple tips and tricks that I have consistenly found invaluable anytime I venture into Windows binary patch diffing. Like John, and the rest of the squad on this team, he's patient, knowledgeable and all round awesome guy. I'm happy to be working with these guys!

There's also the online humans who freely share awesome knowledge. There are very many of them, but below are the online accounts I frequent.

1. Live Overflow
   If I started writing about this guy, the chances of  'overflowing' this textbox and probably some server somewhere are probably high. I hope you know him already, but if you don't check out his website. He posts very well explained no bullshit instructional videos. He tries to be funny on twitter too. He's an awesome dude, but I've never met him before. He virtually held my hand in introduction to Browser Exploitation with his newest series (at time of writing) on the topic

2. Ippsec
   Although a spend a fair chunk of my research and practice time on the binary, vulnerability and exploitation side of life, I'm also into Penetration Testing. IPPSEC is like a gold mine without the mining part when it comes to Red teaming/penetration testing. I've also never met him in person but his instructional videos are one of a kind. He always looks for opportunities to share something new even with the simplest of challenges. Again, I hope you already know him, if not, please visit his link.

3. Matthais Kaiser
   Soon after the introduction to Java security by John, I began gathering and studying materials already available. That's when this name started popping up every corner. I watched all his videos and boy did I feel uber enlightened. As CVE-2019-0230 made the rounds on the internet mainly due to fake PoCs, I decided to look at the vulnerability. He was the original discover and just knowing this, I was certain he submitted an actual RCE PoC to Apache. I was challenged and determined to find it. Of course, my environment was right; John had gotten rid of the external pressure, offloaded some of his Java research techniques to me and let me take my time. I learned a tonne and in the end, after ZDI published the research, Matthais reached out, we connected and it was a really special day. I look forward to meeting him in person in the future!

This post will updated frequently.. stay tuned!