Just The Beginning

This story begins with Cliff Stoll, an astronomer, who loses his funding and ends up working as a Systems Manager at Lawrence Berkley Lab. After noticing a very small accounting error, his investigations into why this had occurred led him to discover an unauthorised user on their network. His hunt to find out exactly who this user was, became more and more mysterious, and the enormity of what he was witnessing made for an engrossing and at times frustrating read. Before reading this book I had briefly read some reviews and the blurb on the back, so I kind of expected it to be sensational, but even as I read it, I was gripped and finding out the true culprits behind the hacking was still a little shocking. I had wanted to believe, just as Stoll had, that it was just a student fooling around. But as the story progressed you could certainly feel the seriousness and intent of the hacking develop. I am still feeling rather naive to the world of computer tech, so I did feel at moments that some of the details were lost on me, mostly when talking about different networks, but the amount of detail Stoll managed to make accessible and understandable to the Lamen, was so brilliant. I haven't yet managed to start my hacking journey so it was interesting to see different techniques and possibilities discussed. Even though this book was last published in 1990, and many referenced computers are now totally outdated, it captivated me, and made for and insight into early computer security mindsets...That it was unlikely to happen.....In reality we now know that the importance of what Stoll and others in this story found out, is fast becoming one of the most important areas of government spending today. All-in-all this was a great read, and a delight for my very first book review! I will definitely recommend it to my friends and family whether they are interested in cyber security or not! 10/10

So, after receiving a 'computer says no' pop up, I had to empty my laptop of all of the old CVs, OLD photos and a million screenshots, (slight exaggeration but you get my point), before I could download Python 3.9.0. It took me pretty much all of last weekend, and actually cleared my mind of the looming 9,347 emails that I had let accumulate for no reason whatsoever....other than laziness. That realisation alone left me ashamed enough to get my act into gear. On the plus side, my iCloud is pretty much empty and now I can save 79p a month on extra storage. Memory freed up, OS updated, blog started.....Python successfully downloaded.....My projects can finally begin!! After watching endless YouTube videos on Python projects for beginners, I found a brilliant vlogger called Tech With Tim, with loads of fun ideas in a Vlog titled '15 Python Projects in Under 15 Minutes'. (Link below) This gave me some inspiration into what kind of projects to try. But in reality....I still have no idea what i'm doing and need to read through my nephews Usborne book; Coding For Beginners Using Python. Specially chosen by me for its 'step-by-step instructions' :) Im feeling pretty accomplished...writing my first ever Python program. (After 3 SyntaxErrors :) ) Learnt Today: Shell Window (IDLE), operators, variables, input functions, strings, conditions, conditionals, integers