A lot of people have asked me about myself and how I got into reverse engineering.  Sometimes you spend so much time writing detailed tutorials that you forget people are interested in lives as well. So just to add a little ‘humanity’ into the blog, here is a little about me…

Yes, my real name is Random. My father liked to say it was because he lost a bet, but really it was to get back at his mother for trying to name me something else. I started getting into computers very young, though in the 1800′s computers were more like Babbage Machines. I had an Atari 800xl and modified the crap out of it. Back then you had two choices; Assembly Language and Basic. I did both.

I got hooked on computers big time when, at about age 15, my cousin and I programmed an application for the Apple II called “Paperclip” that allowed my father to balance his checkbook without 3 reams of paper and a mathematician from the local college. We took it to a trade show and someone from a major company bought it for $1000, all rights and in perpetuity. I was ecstatic as I’d never actually seen a check for that much- until many years later, when the company turned it into one of the most ubiquitous money managing software applications in history. But what I learned from that was invaluable (like never assume that just because your cousin has a mustache that he knows anything about business).

From then on, and over the years, I have been involved with computers. From reverse engineering to virus writing, from inventing my own programming language (it was awful) to professional applications for leading edge companies. I have been a software engineer for several years now, and have done some work in the virus business (strictly white hat). One of my favorite things to do is pull pranks on my family and co-workers, which is how the Modifying Binaries series of tutorials came about. I have always loved sharing information (I was planning on becoming a teacher at one point) and have had several websites in the past, offering tutorials on whatever interested me. I had a site on electronics and design (think Arduino) as well as others on malware and reverse engineering, though I have never been in a position to invest as much time as I have with this site.

Speaking of this site, to answer a couple of my critics out there, “The Legend Of Random” is intended as a joke. If you’ve read my tutorials or talked to me much you will know that I love irony and I’m actually pretty humble (this post has taken quite a while – and nerve – to write), so after my son suggested “The Legend of Random” we all thought it was so dumb that it was funny.

I have created this site, and created all of my tutorials for two reasons; 1) Because teaching requires you to know the material far better than just reading about it, and far more importantly 2) Because I wanted a community that everyone, regardless of their skill level, was treated like part of a group, with knowledge the main focus, and a place where ideas could be exchanged by people who love to tinker.