how i got into tech?
so i grew up playing super mario ( remember those “4 in 1” cassettes? ), flash/miniclip games, cricket'07, gta series, counter strike. soon i was playing online games(city ville, dragon city, etc.) over wired/dongle connections & now you could essentially play alongside your friends. it was fun to compete and brag. one could easily tell what i used to do during summer vacation afternoon’s. once my mom got a handheld android phone, i could install those enjoy the cool touchscreen games/apps(fruit ninja, magic marker, subway surfers, temple run). good old days indeed!
it became serious business when i started playing clash of clans (i.e coc). funny looking back at a bunch of school kids being serious about recruiting clan members, discussing attack strategies, and planning wars. it got competitive between the boys. conversations went on around town hall maxed out?, what’s your league/trophie count?, fav attack strategies, etc. obviously young me was sold on the idea of flexing about games over my peers.
found out about patching and modding games(good ol’ luckypatcher & xmodgames). yipee, now i could have see enemy traps in coc, have unlimited keys in subway surfers! read tutorials/blogs & emulated the steps on the phone. simple and sweet.
to stop me from playing games, my internet connection was taken away. i was sad and worried. remember secretly buying small data packs from the cellular balance. i knew my piggy bank wouldn’t sustain long enough this way, something had to be done. this is when i found how i could crack my neighbour’s wifi (benefits of living in a compact bombay apartment). verified that my laptop’s wireless card supported monitor mode & found the dictionary attacks to be promising for my case, loaded up some internet pack took the leap of faith to install kali linux. voila i was in!
i wiped off the original windows 7 installation & somehow we had lost the recovery cd drives. surely, my dad wasn’t happy that day. nonetheless i managed to learn and install a pirated version of windows for him (dual boot this time).
(also i later went on to rooting my android device to retrieve the password for wifi network of my tuition classes to which i had gained access using wps technique. can i call myself wifi robin hood?)
to be honest, this made me feel very cool. i felt powerful. it was wonderful to witness how pressing the right sequence of keys could do wonders.
luckily, sometime later i visited iit bombay during their techfest in my 10th grade saw amazing stuff being built there(rc planes fascinated me the most) & fell in love with the place. i attribute these experiences for shaping my career profoundly. later, went ahead to join iit kanpur for my undergraduate program in 2020. yes, the online batch, thanks to covid. i’ve been fortunate enough to have had great support from my parents, friends & mentors!
stackoverflow podcast hosts usually ask their guests “how they got into tech/programming” and the answers are interesting everytime you listen to those! i’ll end this blog here, and i would love to hear your story over a coffee / chat!
