Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday February 27, 2026 - "And Now For Something Completely Different" Ed.

Highlights for the week

These are some interesting times we're living in.

This week was no exception. It started with a classic snow storm that occupied most of my Monday. Then there was a media frenzy on files from a child predator about to be released. And it ended with the US & Israel launching a missle strike against Iran. WILD!!!

On a personal front, it was my son's birthday and we celebrated as best we could, with what money allows. We planned to take him out on vacation when $$ gets right. Universal Hollywood - Epic Universe is the way.

Also regarding my son, we nearly avoided a potential scam. He had applied to a job that looked promising, only for it to be a scam. They wanted him to purchase equipment prior to starting and that it would be re-imbursed later. He hadn't spoken to a single individual. Everything was done through chat; tons of red flags. When I looked them up, the person whom he was talking to didn't even exist on Linked In. Worse still, another job description let it be known that at no point were interviews to be conducted via chat, text messages, or whatever. And furthermore, any correspondence was only to come their explicit domain. Cut ties with them and switched banking information to a new account.

Blood moon is happening on March 3rd which symbolizes a bad omen.

What We’re Grateful For

1. Grateful for having the wisdom and guidance in helping my son avert a scam.
2. Grateful for being healthy and in good spirits for sledding, working out, and staying mentally sharp.
3. I firmly believe God speaks to me through YouTube. Been listening to a lot of motivational videos and working on getting mentally and spiritually right.>

What We Loved

1. I have a new niece. Addison - born 2/21/26 at 9:57pm. So happy for my lil step-bro!

What We Learned

1. Need to work on being more reliable. Got a simple chore and managed to muck that up. I wanted to save money but bought the wrong thing and caused some friction with the wife. Feeling somewhat stupid, but also frustrated. DO BETTER!!
2. Learned about "Active Directory Attack" (again!) .. new approach. There are HTB boxes worth checking out for practice.
3. AI stuff + Red Teaming AI - OWASP LLM Top 10 (meeting)
4. Continued learnings with LLM-SEC, which covers OWASP Top 10 for LLMs
5. Portswigger + AI ... will need to postpone to next week. It has been a bad week for personal projects.
6. "Husb" writing (did i?) .. still paused.
7. QA Day Appium + Python.. will I ever get around to this?
8. "TheFork" - PT ... moved to next week.
9. Spanish Lesson-3 for the child.

What We Longed For

1. As always, a good job doing cool things with AI + Automation; perhaps AI Red teaming or Pen Testing.
2. Being a Mandian Consultant is something I plan to work on. Their stuff is really good. Them, or google zero.

What We Loathed

1. Scammers! It's bad enough to be desperate for a job and a paycheck. It's another thing to fall victim to scammers preying on the weak. They need to die!!
2. The 47th President of the United States felt it was within his purview to circumvent the Legislative branch of government and,in concordance with another foreign government, launched a missle strike against an enemy of the state. The pre-cursor was the perception of "imminent threat to National Security." With the release of some damaging files pertaining to a pedophile and child sex trafficking info peddler, the majority of Americans see this act for what it is: a distraction.
3. The constant forward progress of AI is disrupting the job market. Another 4,000 employees were summarily dismissed due to AI restructuring. The result was a 24% bump in the stock price. The rich made more money as good hard-working people were shown the door. Absolutely disgusting!!
4. Still hating the 2026 Job Market. I WILL LAND A JOB!!