mac's /var/log

Logs of a curious dev exploring self-hosting and cybersecurity

How PRISM Died and JASON Was Born(e)

When a project meets the unforgiving reality of actually trying to build it

“Talk about a hiatus” It’s been three months since my last blog post. Three months since I wrote about discovering that security nightmare during my intern, three months since I had that late-...

Posted by Mac on August 31, 2025

The Prism Project

Cause I don't trust my smart plugs anymore

“Walking Into a Security Nightmare” The first week of my summer intern was painfully dull. “General IT assessment tasks” basically meant busywork nobody else wanted—cataloging equipment, che...

Posted by Mac on June 5, 2025

Building Honeygotchi

When Honeypots Meet AI

“A personal journey through reinforcement learning, sleepless nights, and teaching machines to trash-talk hackers” The “Aha!” Moment That Started It All It’s 2 AM, I’m drowning in research pa...

Posted by Mac on May 28, 2025

The Heart of My Home

"A Deep Dive into My Homelab Infrastructure"

“It’s also a financial blackhole.” My homelab represents far more than a collection of servers and networking equipment; it embodies a deliberate journey of technical exploration and professio...

Posted by Mac on April 9, 2025

We have a Wi-Fi Pineapple at home

"This is for educational purposes"

“The everpopular auditing tool “ So, What Is a Pineapple? A WiFi Pineapple is a pocket-sized box of chaos. Built for network audits and penetration testing, it impersonates trusted WiFi netwo...

Posted by Mac on April 7, 2025

It's April 2025

"Hello World, Hello Blog"

“The Archive Begins ” Hello World This blog means a lot to me. Since my freshman years, I’ve been immersed in cybersecurity and self-hosting not just as a hobby, but as something I genuinely...

Posted by Mac on April 4, 2025