I’m Phil Schuyler, a 58-year-old construction electrician. I got interested in cybersecurity after looking into StingBox, a subscription-based security service, and thinking, “I bet I could build something better myself.”

That question led to an ESP32 honeypot, and things grew from there. I started tracking attacks, reporting malicious IP addresses, building defensive infrastructure, experimenting in my own Active Directory lab, and learning both the offensive and defensive sides of security.

NorCal Systems is where I document that work—the things I build, the tests I run, what works, what doesn’t, and what I learn along the way.

I’m still getting started, but it has already turned into one hell of a journey.