Technological Thoughts by Jerome Kehrli

Ethical hacking is a very interesting field, and a pretty funny hobby. Well, ya all penetration tester out there, don't get me wrong: I am well aware that Penetration testing and Ethical Hacking is a full and challenging Software Engineering Field and an actual profession, don't get upset.

I am rather saying that studying vulnerabilities exploitation techniques in one's free time is pretty fun and intellectually rewarding. With the all time and everywhere connection of everything for all kind of usages (understand Internet of Things), current focus in the field of vulnerabilities exploitation is really on Web application, networks, distributed systems, etc.
In addition, most recent progresses in CPU-level protections and compiler-level protections have made local programs exploitation techniques somewhat outdated and such techniques are not very much presented or discussed anymore.

During my master studies, I followed an extended set of lectures on Ethical Hacking and Software Security in general and got quite interested in the field. I wrote a paper for a study in the context of the university at that time which I am reporting today in this blog.
The following article presents various classical vulnerabilities exploitation techniques on local programs.

I interested myself deeply in the blockchain topic recently and this is the first article of a coming whole serie around the blockchain.

This article presents an introduction on the blockchain, presents what it is in the light of its initial deployment in the Bitcoin project as well as all technical details and architecture concerns behind it.
We won't focus here on business applications aside from what is required to present the blockchain purpose, more concrete business applications and evolutions will be the topic of another post in the coming days / weeks.

This article presents and explains all the key techniques and mechanisms behind the blockchain technology.

The blockchain principles and fundamentals are really coming initially from the design work on the Bitcoin. Most of this article focuses on the design and the principle of the blockchain put in place in the Bitcoin system.
Some more recent (Blockchain 2.0) implementations differ slightly while still sharing most genes with the original blockchain, making all that is presented below valid from a conceptual perspective in these other implementations as well.

The blockchain and blockchain related topics are becoming increasingly discussed and studied. There is not one single day where I don't hear about it, that being on linkedin or elsewhere.

I kept myself busy on other topics these last years, mostly large scale information systems and analytic systems architecture in the finance business so I really missed the Bitcoin and blockchain hype.
I've been to an OCTO Technology event recently on the Blockchain. To be honest I went there more for the pleasure of seeing my former colleagues than for any specific interest on the topic. Yet I listen carefully to OCTO's presentation ... and I didn't imagine I would be so much intrigued and soon passionated by the subject.

I strongly believe the blockchain technology has the potential to be one of the most disruptive progress in computer sciences of these 10 last years. I studied and keep studying all the technical details, evolutions and business implications of this technology and will post various blog articles in the coming days / weeks about this topic:

• First article is : Blockchain explained. I am giving a clear explanation of all the technical nuts and bolts behind the blockchain technologies.
• Second is : Blockchain 2.0 - from bitcoin transactions to blockchain applications
• Third one will be : Blockchain - various business opportunities where I will discuss how the blockchain can (and will) disrupt several fields.