Intro

There’s this moment every learner knows but can’t always explain.
Not when you start. Not even when you keep going.
But when everything suddenly clicks.
This is that log.

The past few weeks have been chaotic—in my head, in my habits, and in my goals. Combine that with me getting sick, I was stuck in a loop: half-learning, half-drifting, with motivation flickering like a bad connection. I kept jumping between concepts, picking up tools like Nmap and Wireshark, but truthfully? I didn’t get them. Not really. I understood how to use them, sure. But the why behind the output—the pulse of the network beneath those logs—remained elusive.

Then something happened.

💥 The Spark

I’ve never been the most disciplined learner. I don’t have a timetable. I don’t wake up at 5 AM and meditate.
What I do have, though, are sparks.

Catalysts.

Moments that flip a switch inside me and suddenly I’m sprinting.

Discovering cybersecurity was one such spark.

And recently, I created another one—I deleted my entire Steam library. 400+ GB of games. Years of memories, late-night escapes, the digital equivalent of a comfort zone. Gone. Not because gaming is bad, but because it was holding a part of me back. That act wasn’t just symbolic—it was a commitment. A signal to myself that I was ready to let go of passive comfort for active purpose.

And then I dove headfirst into networking.

🧩 Understanding the Network

This time, I didn’t skim. I dug deep—starting from the OSI model, diving into TCP/IP layers, DNS lookups, routing, ARP requests, NAT tables. I didn’t just learn the protocols—I learned their personalities.

How a TCP three-way handshake isn’t just a process, it’s a conversation.
How DNS is like the invisible oracle of the web, quietly resolving every click.
How packet sniffing is less about spying and more about listening to the hum of a system doing its job.

It was like finding the code behind the Matrix.
For the first time, Nmap scans, Wireshark captures, and tcpdump logs felt alive. I wasn’t just running commands—I was reading a language.

And that... changed everything.

🛠️ The Tools, Reforged

I went back to the tools. The same ones I was confused by before.
But this time, it clicked.

With Wireshark, every packet told a story—SYN, ACK, FIN.
With tcpdump, I saw raw truth—no filters, no colors.
With Nmap, I wasn’t just probing systems—I was asking questions.

I could now trace the path of a packet like a detective follows a trail of clues. I could understand why a port was open and how it responded.

This wasn’t guesswork anymore. This was awareness.

🧠 A Hacker’s Path, Rebooted

If you’ve followed this log, you know I’m not here to half-ass things. I’m chasing red teaming. I want to break things to understand them. And that starts with mastery of fundamentals—the deep stuff most skip.

This is just the beginning. But now, it feels real.

The controller is down. The console’s powered off.
The road ahead isn’t paved with easy wins—it’s carved through deliberate action.

And this time, I’m ready.

— Bornov | WizB 🧙‍♂️
Check on GitHub for my notes and technical writeups

🧠 Cipher’s Log #1: Cracking the Network Code