Hey y'all. So I have started my journey of learning cybersecurity today, which also happens to be the first day of my second year of college. Mostly because I wasted my first year doing nothing, I decided to turn things around and hence cybersecurity.
I'm using Claude to generate topics, study materials, labs and practice exercises.
Topics I covered today:
- Number system & conversion
- Octal & permission system basics
- File signature basics
- Boolean logic
- XOR in context of security: encrypting, decrypting, swapping
- Bitwise operations in context of security: masking, flag & permission
- Extracting specific bits from a value
- Two's complement
Biggest challenge so far:
Things started to get a bit fuzzy around XOR as it was completely new to me. The security context coupled with Python programming, are all so new that I'm struggling a bit to get a handle on it. But I'm gonna keep pushing forward.
I'd love your advice!
Did I cram too much for my day 1? What resources helped you understand bitwise logic and XOR when you were starting out? Any general tips for a 2nd-year college student getting into security? I'd be so grateful if y'all could share your insights, experience or suggestions. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to connect with y'all!
Thanks.
