Hello! I hope you all are doing well. Now that my first term at HKUST has just started, I thought it was about time for an update.
Moving to Hong Kong
I flew in to HK International Airport on the 10th of August, and things have progressed quite quickly since then. I have found and begun to rent a
flat on the island -- it has a view of the lovely M+ and other areas of West Kowloon! Most moving "stuff" has been sorted and I've been spending time
with my girlfriend and other friends, exploring Hong Kong and Shenzhen before I drown in uni work.
Studying at UST
Speaking of uni, today is my first day of term at UST! Bad news: we have no reading week and I couldn't take both 'Networking: An Internet Perspective'
and 'Intro to Software Security' because their lectures are at the same time :( Good news: my schedule is super, super great. The five classes
that I'm taking are as follows:
Engineering Reliable Software Systems -- aka a refresher on enterprise software architecture and OOP (Java), plus some stuff on automated
testing and code generation via LLMs.
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery -- this I know less about (because I know, like, nothing about the technical processes behind mining data), but
I'm super intrigued. Apparently it's some kind of intersection between machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
I just bought a book about knowledge discovery in databases (The Art of Analysing Hacked and Leaked Databases by Micah Lee) but
haven't read anything from it yet -- should be exciting!
Introduction to Software Security -- the Canvas page for this one hasn't opened up yet but I'm expecting the typical buffer overflow,
shellcode, memory vulns stuff that was in Security Engineering at King's. I really liked that class, though, so this should be good. Plus
more opportunities to ethically practice exploiting vulnerabilities.
Principles of Cybersecurity -- an intro-level class on different aspects of cybersecurity (cryptography, software security, system security,
network security and authentication, MLsec, cryptocurrency). I'm already looking forward to it because 'Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit' is on the reading
list.
An independent project! The professor who is teaching Principles of Cyber is going to be my supervisor for a term-long project on maintaining
the privacy of data during financial data analysis, by implementing algorithmic analysis programs in zero-knowledge. I can already tell that it'll
be a significant challenge, but it also sounds super, super cool. I also get to learn Rust which has been on my list for ages. Another bonus is
that the project has HSBC as an industry partner. I'm really excited!!
I already attended a seminar earlier, but tonight will be my first class of the year. I'm nervous about the workload and the intensity of things,
but this is such a great opportunity and I have everything in place for things to go as well as they can.
Other Stuff
Current art projects: a woodblock stamp that I'm carving with a personalised handle, the still life that I'm still working on.
Currently reading:The Lost Pianos of Siberia, The Art of Analysing Hacked and Leaked Databases, a lot of lecture notes
Currently watching: Tokyo Swindlers, a Netflix drama about real estate fraud in Japan. Super suspenseful and cool!
I hope you're all doing well. Feel free to contact me by email (ccarrieasmith [at] gmail [dot] com), and thank you for reading my newest update.