The Story: New Beginnings
For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.
They say it’s always gonna be “like father like son”, I always hated that rule. Someone doesn’t need to have his parents’ life define what his path going to look like and I always believed that every decision we make is always the best option for us. But our limited capacity to process information and foresee the future makes us sometimes fail in that path as time passes and we lose faith and self-confidence, things get worse and make it permanent.
I brought that subject as an introduction because it’s always been like that for me, make a decision, question it over and over again, and reconsider whenever you stall at the first obstacle. But with belief and consistency, you start achieving results.
It all started when I started to explore the depth of the web about computer security and digital signatures in January 2010. I started using the poor Pentium II computer with the new gifted WIFI adapter and a borrowed internet connection from neighbors for googling things that i never knew it existed. Then something got my attention, it was the Public Key Infrastructure also known as (PKI). I’ve always been a Microsoft fan boy, the giant that developed an OS that is almost shipped with every computer. As i got in the field i started distinguishing between terms like SSL, code signing, certification authority… Knowing that all CA provide certificates at a cost, i told myself why not make ones for free? So the first item in the checklist was a business name, it was easy, combine my name to software and you’ll get “Arsslen Software”.
April 2010 was the first start, I began to look at internet resources (articles, blogs, product pages…) on how to make a CA, I considered using a tool called OpenSSL, which helped me successfully create a CA, SSL and code signing certificates. Eventually, a website describing my activity was part of the plan so I managed to get a bunch of free hosting from providers like (000webhost, eb2a, byethost…) and downloaded a bunch of HTML templates that I never knew what it was until I had a deep dive in it.
So I started changing texts between tags (InnerText), removing sections (tags), changing source files (images) and tweaking style changes (CSS). With time, I started to understand the semantics of what I was dealing with. a basic HTML and CSS knowledge. Then I moved to PHP in order to send contact emails, save the certificate signing requests and authentication. This made me hit my first SQL query and learn about databases. At this moment, I was drowning in a pit of knowledge that kept pushing me down and you know what I enjoyed it. Every time it works, I feel the dopamine search and the reward pathways in the brain activating making feel that I need more of this, So it became my addiction.
In August, I started wondering, how companies make software? and could I change ownership if I just change the author information of an executable file (i.e. .exe)? Then for the first time, I asked for help from my dad before he leaves again to Lybia.
- Do you have any idea how to change it?
- He said use Visual Studio, he gave me a DVD containing the installation of Visual Studio 2008 and he left.
So I installed it in my new Pentium 4/512MB RAM computer, trying to achieve my goal, while I realized that this giant tool is not meant for that. Obviously, how could a 4GB installation change only author information? Then, I found a keyword C#.
And a long trip began with a ship full of hope raising a flag and calling the name of the new term.
To be continued…
