I often got asked how does the day of the working student looks like. Inspired by one of my favorite content creators Paolo From Tokyo and his video series Day in the life of, I would like to show you what the casual day in my life looks like.
Morning mantra
My day usually starts pretty early as I wake up around 6 AM in the morning. Most of the time I am not having breakfast at home, meaning I am on the road in half an hour after getting up. While commuting, I often like to read saved articles in my Pocket app. It is quite a handy app as it allows the user to save articles from the internet and read them later. In the past, I used to listen to podcasts in the morning but found that I wasn’t able to focus enough and had to listen to some segments again later in the day, which is why I am usually listening to music and reading articles in the morning.
I usually have my breakfast in the university’s or the company’s cafeteria (depending on whether I start my day at work or at school). Due to it being quite chilly here in Brno, I have decided to grab myself a cup of hot lemonade to warm my cockles. It really is my ultimate soul drink.
Studying hard or hardly studying
I am currently a student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communications at BUT (Brno University of Technology), where I study telecommunications and information systems. In the last year, I’ve chosen to opt for the information security specialization, and I have to admit that I like it.
Today I have four classes I have to attend. As my major is somewhat between computer science and engineering, the classes I am taking are quite diverse, which will become apparent later. My first class today is related to the communications used in the television industry, as I am measuring the impact of the increasing attenuation on the quality of the television signal. I usually don’t enjoy these labs that much, but it is interesting to step out of one’s line of expertise sometimes.
My second class today is related to media systems. Here we are working with adaptive streaming of multimedia files. In this class, we are using Java (Spring) to create a RESTful web application to work with FFmpeg for online streaming using MPEG-DASH. This class is pretty interesting to me, as there are not many courses related to building web applications present.
In the third class I’ll be attending today, I’ll be delving deeper into the world of cryptography. Here we talk about symmetric and asymmetric cryptosystems such as DES, AES, RSA, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange. In this class, we also get the assignments, which I am implementing in Python using mostly basic packages. Here’s the method I’ve used in one of the assignments to decrypt an RSA cryptogram.
def decrypt_rsa(cryptogram: str, n: int, private_key: int) -> str:
"""
Decrypts a given RSA cryptogram with the knowledge of a given private key.
:param cryptogram: message to be decrypted
:param n: modulus used for squaring in the Square and Multiply algorithm
:param private_key: private key for the message used in the Square and Multiply algorithm
"""
message = square_and_multiply_always(cryptogram, private_key, n)
str_message = str(message)
letters: List[chr] = []
for i in range(len(str_message) // 2):
letter = str_message[2*i:(2*i)+2]
letters.append(letter)
decyphered_message = ""
for i in range(len(letters)):
decyphered_message += chr((int(letters[i]) + 65 - 1))
# We have to subtract one because the alphabet mentioned
# in the assignment starts with 1 and not 0.
print(f"Numerical values of the letters: {letters}")
return decyphered_messageThe last class of my day is the information security class. Here, we are learning about operating systems and the security related to them. Most of the time, my goal here is to gain some kind of privilege or access using the system’s misconfiguration. I enjoy this quite a lot, as it really shows me how a simple mistake can lead to some unexpected situations. In today’s class, we are tackling a mismanaged Debian.
Another commute?
Before the noon, I am commuting to work but compared to the morning travel I am fully awake which is why I am usually listening to the podcasts and checking socials. If you are interested in which shows do I listen to, you should definitely check my 9 podcast I like to listen to post.
Recently, I have started reading books on the bus. The one I have picked up recently is Designing Secure Software by Loren Kohnfelder. I read this book for the DevSecCon book club hosted by my good buddy Randall Degges. Almost every Thursday, we meet on Discord and talk about new chapters we have read. In case you are interested, feel free to join the DevSecCon community on Discord!
Working for the man
I work part time at Thermo Fisher Scientific as a software developer. We are the world leader in serving science by enabling our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. Thermo Fisher Scientific has a range of products related to mass spectrometry, genetic sequencing, electron microscopy, and much more. I work on the automation team in the TEM (transmission electron microscopy) research and development department.
The technical stack I am working with is pretty diverse, but most of the time, I am working on new features in Python, PHP, and JavaScript, with the occasional C++ or C# sprinkled in. I honestly think that programming is more about the ability of a person to think programatically than knowing a particular language. 🙂 Unfortunately, the things I am working on are confidential, meaning I cannot show them, but I am at least attaching a picture of my working setup. I am considered a senior muchacho based on the number of monitors I have. The yellow plushie in front of me is used for debugging purposes only!
Just recently, I was rewarded by a company version of the popular game Dobble. I am just putting it here. Most of the objects displayed there relate to the company or the city where I live, but I am curious if anyone would be able to identify the rest of the objects. Let me know!
When student becomes a teacher
So, it’s Tuesday at 6 p.m., and I’m swapping out my Thermo Fisher Scientific shirt for a Czechitas shirt. Czechitas is an organization that encourages and assists women in the field of information technology. I have always believed that women belong in IT, which is why I have joined a couple of my colleagues from Thermo Fisher Scientific, and in collaboration with Czechitas, we are teaching programming in C# to women.
A fun fact is that, when I was 16, I was on the receiving end of one of these courses. I never imagined that a few years later, I’d be able to give back.
Volunteering++
Adversaries have gained a foothold in your local hospital and are increasing control over clinical systems and medical devices. They soon make it clear they’re not after patient records or financial information, but instead hope to disrupt care delivery, putting patients lives at risk. Your team received an urgent request to use your blue, red, and purple team skills to defend against the escalating attacks, attempt to unmask the adversary and, above all else, protect patient lives.
I joined the Biohacking Village CTF group some time ago. We are creating this amazing and fully immersive competition—a simulated working hospital on real and simulated medical devices—for DEFCON. Everyone is welcome, as the challenges are for players of all backgrounds and skill levels. I am currently working on testing and documenting all the challenges and having a blast!
Free time?
I often spent the rest of the evening coding or doing some challenges on TryHackMe. If not, I am spending this time playing videogames or just chilling. There is nothing better than taking care of our virtual pixelated garden located somewhere in the Stardew Valley.
Board games
But today, I am going to spend some time with my cousins as we are having board game night! Just fyi, that person in the picture ain’t me.
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