Learning Paths
Curated reading sequences through the research archive. Each path is ordered - start at step one and work through. No tracking, no completion badges. Just a suggested order.
Malware 4 articles
Understand Ransomware
From the first nation-state wiper disguised as ransomware to a $22M healthcare extortion. Covers how ransomware works, how it spreads, and why defenders keep losing.
- 01WannaCry and EternalBlueHow a leaked NSA exploit became a global worm in 72 hours
- 02NotPetyaThe $10B cyberweapon disguised as ransomware that had no off switch
- 03Colonial PipelineHow one leaked password shut down East Coast fuel supply
- 04Change HealthcareThe ransomware attack that broke US healthcare payment infrastructure
OPSEC 4 articles
Understand OPSEC Failures
Four cases where operational security failures brought down criminal operations - from the forum that invented modern cybercrime to a $1B dark web market collapsed by a personal email address.
- 01ShadowCrewThe forum that invented modern carding - and how the Secret Service took it down
- 02Silk RoadRoss Ulbricht's Stack Overflow post, his real name, and the FBI
- 03LulzSec50 days of chaos - ended by an informant inside the group
- 04AlphaBay and HansaAlexandre Cazes lost a $1B market to a personal Hotmail address
Hardware 5 articles
Hardware Security
The physical layer of offensive security - RF, RFID cloning, software-defined radio, HID attacks, and rogue access points. Covers the tools and the techniques.
- 01Flipper ZeroSub-GHz, BadUSB, NFC and IR in one pocket device
- 02Proxmark3Cloning hotel keys, office badges, and transit cards
- 03HackRF OneSoftware-defined radio - listening to everything the spectrum carries
- 04O.MG CableA charging cable that owns your machine
- 05WiFi PineappleEvil twin attacks, captive portals, and public WiFi exploitation
Privacy 8 articles
Privacy and Self-Sovereignty
What your tools actually protect, and from whom. From the VPN myth to browser fingerprinting, encrypted DNS, Tor's real limits, and the security of the infrastructure you run yourself. Every step states the honest limit.
- 01Secure Against Whom?The threat-model question every other step depends on
- 02What a VPN Actually HidesIt relocates trust to the provider - it does not make you anonymous
- 03Browser FingerprintingTracking that ignores your VPN, your cookies and incognito entirely
- 04What Your ISP Still SeesEncrypted DNS moves who aggregates you; SNI and IP still leak
- 05Tor and Traffic CorrelationStrong against a partial observer, open about the both-ends attack
- 06Who Reads Your TrafficWhoever terminates TLS - for a Cloudflare Tunnel, that is Cloudflare
- 07The Container BoundaryA shared kernel, and the two config lines that hand over the host
- 08Exposure RealityObscurity buys no time; authentication is the only variable that matters
note: paths are editorial curation only. each article stands alone - you can read in any order. these sequences just reflect a logical progression through the material.