My name is Chris, but on the web I go by my nick, An0. In 2019, I thought it would be a good idea to share “what I’ve been doing for the past 10 years.” This website will be me sharing my (what feels like) endless amounts of research with other security researchers, professionals and curious-minded. I’ve worked my fair share of years in warehouse jobs and food industry gigs but I know what some of you might be thinking: “this is just another hacker website” or “Chris grew up as some smart guy, privileged, wealthy, surrounded by intellects,” etc. Nope. Far from it.   
  

The Backstory

I grew up in the poor dirty South where I was not uniquely gifted with reduced lunches, hand-me-downs, single parent families and general apathy. In the late 90’s I gravitated toward skateboarding and got my first guitar. For me, education, schooling, studying, let alone academia, played no part in my daily routine. It was about “just getting by.” This was my life, my later teen years, and into adulthood I maintained the same spirit. Today, things like skateboarding and making music still play a massive role in my life, but going back several years to my early 20s, I discovered hacking. My knowledge and expertise in hacking (and Computer Security thus far) has been self taught. I never stepped foot in a college and held a whopping 1.6 GPA in high school, but have worked at several high-tech startups and big companies in Silicon Valley.

Hacking. Computer hacking. People hacking. Hardware hacking. Hacking everything I could get my hands on. This would change the course of my life over the next ten years (and for the foreseeable future). Red-lining for ten years straight comes with the good and the bad. This means countless mornings, afternoons and nights spent in solitude hacking away. I got good at it. Really good. About four years into the journey I received a job offer, with my employer at the time, from a San Francisco Bay Area location. This means I would pack up my life and move solo across the United States from North Carolina to California. After relocating, my discipline to continue hacking every day and be an influence to its underground community only grew stronger. I still don’t know the real reason why I dedicated all of my time hacking. I’m not sure what I wanted out of this journey, (why I started hacking is a whole other story I may post here one day) but I do know I’m better off with the path it sent me down.

At the time of writing, I reside on the West Coast as an Exploit Developer and Vulnerability Researcher. All of my time put into hacking has resulted in making a living breaking into and hacking whatever is in front of me. Since starting this ten-year journey I have spent the majority of my weekends hacking away, giving security talks, winning CTFs, filing patents, running hacker cons and many other adventures.

With all of that said from a self-made autodidact, I’m here to share various hijinks, hacks and learnings from over the years. Enjoy!