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description: Who are we? Why should you listen to us?
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# Team Biography

### Luca Koval

I'm honestly not sure how I first got into hacking and computer security. I just remember that at some point in grade school (I think), I started looking up tutorials online for how to hack. The topics of the tutorials were all over the place, but all of it was thrilling for me to learn about. Unfortunately, many of the tutorials weren't communicated in the best manner. Looking back, it would have been really nice to have a well-organized, thoughtful, and correct tutorial for hacking. I hope we've accomplished that with this guide!

Email: [lucakoval@me.com](mailto:lucakoval@me.com)\
LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucakoval/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucakoval/)

### Henry Samuelson

For as long as I have been interested in computers I have been interested in breaking them. I am a Computer Science major with a focus on Computer Security; a topic intimately intertwined with hacking.

This summer I will be starting at Microsoft as a Software Engineer, where I will be focusing on building security tools to detect vulnerabilities in internal code bases. These past two summers I had the privilege of interning at Microsoft where I learned how to write code to detect vulnerabilities.&#x20;

In addition to Computer Security, I am an avid music player and love composing music.

### John Stawinski

Three years ago, one semester after I had taken my first ever CS course, I applied to an internship in offensive cybersecurity. Having zero knowledge of what that actually was, I quickly bombed the practical interview (and did not receive the internship). However, I thought that the stuff I was supposed to know how to do was pretty cool. So I spent the last few years learning offensive cybersecurity practices, spending two summers working as a penetration tester. Next year I will work full-time for the company that I initially got rejected by. It has been a fun journey and I am excited to continue my learning! In addition to hacking, I grew up in Vermont and enjoy any outdoor/adventure activity (skiing, surfing, mountain biking, hiking, etc.).

Email: jstan327@gmail.com

LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-stawinski-72ba87191](https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-stawinski-72ba87191)

### Shihao Cao

Ever since school computers started to roll out with restricted privileges, I was always wondering how to get around them.

Obviously for practical purposes, things like task manager would not be accessible to the student user account, which meant when things inevitably froze with no ability for me to do anything.

This drove me down the rabbit hole of hacking, and as a result I learned so much more about how to keep my own account secure.

Now, I use lengthy unique passwords everywhere, and even carry a 2FA key on my keychain.

LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shihaocao/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shihaocao/)\
Website: [https://www.shihaocao.com/](https://www.shihaocao.com/)
