My name is Arjen and I am the Manager of Product Development and Chief Lecturer at Hogeschool NOVI. I work on creating the most modern and relevant educational products that we can offer. Through stategic partnerships and attracting the most talented content developers we offer world class education to our students.
In my work as Chief Lecturer for Cybersecurity I focus on teaching students all there is to know about the technical side of Cyber Security. My main areas of expertise are Reverse Engineering, Infrastructure Security and Web Application Security.
Next to my work I am active as an Independent Hacker. I assist my customers in their journey to increase their security posture. I do this through advice, seminars and security assessments. I toot on the fediverse as @credmp@fosstodon.org.
I used to organize the Dutch meetup for Hack The Box, for which I was the ambassador in The Netherlands from 2020 up to June of 2024. Each month, on the 3rd Wednesday, members of the Dutch cyber security community got together and gave presentations, demos and discussion on wide ranging topics.
Find my longer form writings in the Writing Category.
The views on this site are my own.
Finding time to study
This is an English article, there is also a Dutch version. So, you’ve decided to start studying? Maybe you want to earn your Bachelor or Master’s degree, or perhaps you’re aiming for that highly technical certificate. It’s great that you’re taking this step, but once you begin, you’ll quickly need to answer the question of where you’ll find the time. Time is our most valuable, non-renewable resource. Studying requires time – and not just a little – so you naturally want to use it well....
Tijd vinden om te studeren [Dutch article]
This is a Dutch artcile, there is also an English version. Dus, jij hebt besloten om te gaan studeren? Misschien wil je jouw HBO- of Masterdiploma halen, of juist dat ene supertechnische certificaat bemachtigen. Het is geweldig dat je deze stap gaat zetten, maar zodra je begint, zul je vrij snel de vraag moeten beantwoorden waar je de tijd vandaan haalt. Tijd is onze meest waardevolle, niet-hernieuwbare bron. Studeren vergt tijd – en niet zo’n klein beetje ook – dus wil je het natuurlijk goed doen....
Master of Puppets^HScience!
So, on Thursday I defended my thesis in front of the graduation committee, and passed! This means that the work I have been doing for the last year comes to an end. From now on there are not long nights and weekends working on my thesis anymore. Back in 2021 I started my journey of achieving a Master’s degree, first with a connecting program and then with the 2 year Master program....
Resigning as Hack The Box Ambassador
So, today I have some news. I will be resigning as Ambassador for Hack The Box after our in-person meetup in June (2024). This means that I will be stepping down from organizing the monthly virtual and quarterly in-person Hack The Box meetups. Let me explain how I got to this decision. The beginning So, in 2019, I started out building a cyber security curriculum for NOVI Hogeschool. I had the ability to greenfield the courses and create something that is of value to students....
The cyber cafe podcast
Last week I was a guest on the Cyber Cafe podcast by rootsec. It was a fun discussion on education and the current xz backdoor story. It is in the Dutch language. It is available on youtube and included below:
Microsoft Teams (v2) on Linux
This post is just a small note for those of you who also run Microsoft Teams on Linux through their browser and now receive a note “your browser does not meet the requirements for the new Teams”. It turns out that the client is looking at the user-agent string to determine which browsers it accepts, and which not. So, if you have the message, install an user-agent switcher and select a common browser on a common OS (from the MS perspective) and you will suddenly meet the requirements....
My computing environment
This is a longer form article. I is relevant as of February 18th 2023. If the circumstances of my environment changes I will try to update this article to reflect the situation. You can find the full source code of my dotfiles on Github. I like consistency and simplicity. I do not like to use many different tools to do different things, I rather spend my time learning to use a few tools very well then to follow the hype on the latest trend of tools for something we have been doing forever....
Heading to the finish line
It has been a little while. I have been swamped with work and the work on my thesis, leaving no room to finish the Advent of Code or much of anything else. Yesterday I gave my practice presentation for my thesis. This means I am one more step closer to the finish line. During the day there were many interactions with fellow students. One of the topics has been the templates to use at Open Universiteit....
Advent of Code 2023 day 9
The weekend generally is a place to find hard puzzles again, this time not so much. A simple quest to find the next number in a sequence with a fully written out algorithm to follow. They key here is to use recursion. package main import ( "fmt" "time" "arjenwiersma.nl/aoc/internal/aoc" ) func NextStep(in []int) int { allZero := true for _, v := range in { if v != 0 { allZero = false } } if allZero { return 0 } var diffs []int for i := 1; i < len(in); i++ { diffs = append(diffs, in[i]-in[i-1]) } p := NextStep(diffs) return in[len(in)-1] + p } func main() { content := aoc....
Advent of Code 2023 day 8
Somewhat suspicious of 2 easy days we end up at Day 8. A simple map to follow again, from one key follow the instructions until we hit ZZZ. Part 2 had us do it for several keys at once, with the goal to find the spot where they all converge. This can take forever, erhm, a long time. So there has to be a math type solution to this problem. It turns out to be a Least Common Multiple problem....