About
Welcome to my personal blog! The main topics here are cybersecurity, Free Open Source Software, self-hosting and online privacy.
The site
This website is self-hosted on my personal homelab running Proxmox. The stack works like this: Proxmox > LXC Container > Nginx Proxy Manager > Cloudflare Tunnel > Ghost Blog.
About me
Hi, my name is Nicola, but I like to go by "Zerodya" online.
I am a hacker, not for skills (I still have a long way to go), but because I try to understand how things work, and I tinker with something until I find a way to improve it based on what I want it to do, whether it is an operating system, a program or an object that I use everyday (aka life-hacks).
Studies
I am currently a cybersecurity student at the Parthenope University of Naples.
My personal studies mainly focus on Operating Systems, Penetration Testing and Networking. I like to study an operating system, or a system in general, and solve its security issues.
I was admitted to CyberChallenge.IT 2022, an exclusive italian training program to teach young students about cybersecurity in a gamified way, with both Jeopardy and Attack/Defense CTFs.
It was a great opportunity to get hands-on experience and learn about a lot of different attack vectors and techniques that I didn't know about.
My CyberChallenge.IT certificate
Hobbies
In my free time I like to play CTFs and learn about new technologies in my personal homelab. I like self-hosting, building computers, and hardening my online privacy.
I mainly use Linux operating systems, and I daily drive both Arch (btw) and Artix on my laptop and desktop respectively.
Arch introduced me to the concept of the KISS principle, which, together with the Unix philosophy, opened my eyes about how important it is to have modular, simple code as opposed to monolithic systems.
KISS principle - from Wikipedia
KISS, an acronym for keep it simple, stupid, is a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
Unix philosophy - from Wikipedia
The Unix philosophy emphasizes building simple, short, clear, modular, and extensible code that can be easily maintained and repurposed by developers other than its creators.
I’m also a supporter of Free Open Source Software. While having the code open to anyone might look like a security risk at first, it is often more secure than closed source software actually is.
FOSS ensures that the community is able to find and report potential security issues so that the developers are able to patch them right away.
This is also why I think it's very important to always update your software and systems to the latest version available.