My name is Celeste, nickname Cell. I am a computer science student from Germany and I am mostly interested in hardware & embedded programming, cybersecurity and digital forensics. Most of the time I'm writing little convenience scripts for Linux systems (which can sometimes get very specific and niche) and software for some of my hobby projects, including model rocketry, 3D printing and home automation.
Currently I am applying for an admission to the police academy, so I can study to become a detective specialised on Cybercrime. In the far future I'm hoping to be able to do a masters degree in digital forensics to work more in-depth on the criminal cases that need solving.
Most of my repositories are private because they are dedicated to personal projects and honestly, they look kinda messy and chaotic. Feel free to check out the public ones on my profile, which are mostly there for learning and which I show to my friends and study mates for review and suggestions.
So far I've been studying the basic concepts of computer science, starting at mathematical priciples such as boolean algebra, geometry, runtime optimisation and more, which were complemented by practical programming methods and paradigms in both linear and object oriented languages (mostly C, C++, Java and Python). On top of that, I learned about the inner workings of processors, including circuit logic, pipelining and several automata, and how different processor architectures and their instructions sets/assembly languages work. I so far tried MIPS in university and played around with different "flavors" of x86 and x86_64, so much that I can now understand what comes out the other end of a compiler.
In my free time I tought myself the fundamentals of GNU/Linux based operating systems. While learning about their inner workings and function principles I got in contact with the BASH language and started writing scripts for convenience or to implement certain functions I needed on my machines. Having tackled BASH I also started working with Microsofts PowerShell, to also get a feel for the Windows side of things.
As of 2021 in the pandemic I started getting into cybersecurity, especially on the offensive security side. I've used specialised hacking tools such as nmap, the Metasploit Framework, Nessus by Tenable, Wireshark and different CVE-libraries, to pentest training targets set-up by some of my friends and solve many capture-the-flag challenges such as the ones from HackTheBox. Out of curiosity I disassembled malware that was found and published by companies or cybersecurity researchers on social media and looked at how the different programs were working and how cyber-criminals tried to circumvent security measures in order to do damage on their target systems.
In the past year I attended several cybersecurity conferences by my University, regional colleges and companies, to learn more about how the threat landscape is developing, how cybersecurity experts keep their systems safe and how to become better at pentesting and securing network infrastructures.
Currently I am working through a textbook about OSINT, Open Source INTelligence, to better understand how to collect and process information from public, non-confidential sources. Since OSINT is one of the most heavily used sources of corporate, law-enforcement and military intelligence, I decided to add the required methods and skills for conducting OSINT reconnaicance operations to my repertoire.
Furthermore, I am training to write better and cleaner code in the programming languages I already know, to get proficient in the ways and methods professionals use in their day to day work.
In the long run I am looking forward to combining the tactical and forensic skills I want to learn at the police academy with my IT and computer science knowledge, to be able to effectively fight cybercrime and immediate threats to our democratic order in Germany.