cyphercrypt

In January this year me and a coworker were both fired on the same day. There are serious holes in the management structure of the company that fired us. The off-boarding process, especially. I still have access to username and password combinations that I should not have.

I'm working with the Chinese guys who said I had been involved in crypto and crypto-mining for ten years, but it hasn't quite been that long. More like 8. to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy, me and that coworker who were fired on the same day have decided to start our own company in the bitcoin mining industry.

The third and final company I start will be a crypto-marketing agency. It will create marketing funnels for both of the companies mentioned above.

This is far from where I wanted to be, but the financial boons can be something else. I was hoping I would be working in cybersecurity by now or in the near future.

I don't like going out. My Chinese hosts are very friendly. I've been told to pretend I don't speak mandarin at every turn I take unless I'm alone with one of the bosses. In this regard, I feel like I am a complete fraud.

( I feel scared )

On a more enlightening note, I feel like a lot changed since the last time I came to China. I'm in Chengdu right now. Today I will fly to a different city. The last time I lived in China for a significant amount of time (henan, 2012, one month), people drove everywhere like madmen. Now the biggest problem is simply changing lanes. Air pollution is still a problem. People aren't staring at me like an alien, and, at best, it seems that caucasians in big cities simply have heightened novelty status. When people saw me here, they compared me to justin bieber.

The new company I am working with has me running around and doing all kinds of crazy work.

Thursday night, we went to the capital to get a visa to China and arrived friday morning after driving all night. We found out we didn't have the right documents. Visa center was closed. They're sending me to the capital again to apply for the visa tomorrow with all of the correct documents.

Such is life.

I think I should start each entry on Dreamwidth with a condensed version of what happened, and then add a cut that explains the whole situation. I think this could make my writing more "digestible" to those who are unfamiliar with a blogger who never reveals himself.

The people who invited me are extremely rich. The boss who invited me has more than 20 houses in his own country and was involved with cloud computing just as data centers were becoming more and more popular. Me and Mrs. Cyphercrypt are on an island where people park their money for tourism and investment purposes in a location that is less-than-ideal, but more-than-liveable. My wife was also offered a job by the people who brought us here.

A coworker who was fired from the last company that I worked at on the same day as me recently reached out to me and told me about things that coworkers said about me behind my back. We endeavor to start our own company in the same industry that fired us. To this day, I still do not know if I was fired for my mistakes or because people were paranoid that I was an industrial spy.

( expanded story: my failure in America, my wife's hometown, the new life we can have here. )

Me and the wife had our hotel paid for on arrival. Our flights will be paid for as well, or rather, re-imbursed. I have never stayed on a higher floor at any hotel.

Before coming here, I had to make a purchase of some brand name shirts to give a good impression, but I feel as though this part was for nothing. The gentleman who picked us up at the airport was wearing a plain T-shirt and based on his previous work experience, as well as the way he talked about running data centers and the amount of money he made from them, I am almost 100% certain he is in multi-millionaire territory. Potentially even deca-millionaire territory.

The job they want me to do may have me travelling to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Dubai, Switzerland, and a lot of other places. I'm a bit worried about travel to Mainland China for more than one reason. Family used to do "sensitive" work. The last time I went to mainland China was 2014. If I decide to go for a cybersecurity job in America later down the road, this could be a problem in getting a security clearance.

I've been posting stories and reels to telegram documenting this journey. My last company's CEO has been watching. Problem is this last company I worked for knows it isn't safe for me to travel to China, and I wonder if they plan to leverage this at all against me or if they have already leveraged it against me.

Yesterday I had some "back and forth" with the people who are trying to bring me into the business.

To my surprise, they will not only cover my plane ticket to their island paradise, but also my wife's ticket. We won't need to pay for hotel accommodations either.

My wife has shown a bit of reluctance to travel to this island.

I mentioned this to some of my other constituents in cryptocurrency, they have somewhat sarcastically mentioned that I should be careful not to get kidnapped and forced to work at a scam factory.

Ironically enough, I just google searched this location that they are requesting me to travel to. A few cases of human trafficking seem to have begun from this location. It might be a good idea to make a dead man's switch and send it to a journalist friend of mine based in Taipei.

Of course, for operational security purposes, I am always vague. I need to leave the country and re-enter for a visa. I could just apply for a family visa, but they are "daftly" expensive and it doesn't make sense to get one unless I have a job. Wife also needs to take an important test in the capital.

There are many more remote cybersecurity jobs online than what I give myself credit for. This past day I was wondering if I should back out from learning linux or earning a Linux+, but based on what I saw in two job postings today, I just thought, "okay, I should keep powering forward on this."

I can't figure out if I should just use Tryhackme, expand to "Hack the Box." or use both. I do think that if employers can see I am an American with B1 Russian and C1 Chinese, then HR would go crazy over the potential they could have with me.

I could see myself as an SOC analyst, GRC analyst, threat intel, or something similar to start. A few years down the road I might want to become a forensics or incident handler type of person.

But for now I need to get the schedule straightened out.

Stage 2 job interview turned me down.

Coincidentally, yesterday, a guy I worked for at several other Chinese-owned companies reached out to me to introduce me to some other Chinese guys that are in the same country as me.

Sometimes, I wonder "What makes some specific tick?" in a pragmatic way. I studied a foreign language in university. If I didn't study that foreign language, I would have studied psychology or sociology for my undergrad.

One thing that bothers me to no end is how my previous job fired me. I mentioned a few entries back that I was fired for taking a vacation to see my wife whom I hadn't seen in seven months. All of the upper management, except for the COO were married.

Company could have fired me while I was on vacation to see my wife, then we could have travelled back to her country together for a MUCH cheaper plane ticket.

Over a month ago I wrote a review for the only American employer I had on Indeed, detailing the following information:
1. Before I joined the company, I wanted to get a network+. The company said they would pay for it if I got it. I got it while I was injured. They didn't pay for it.
2. I was told, "I passed training with flying colors." Got fired for taking a vacation after I got a 12-week-long injury.
3. Supervisor said they want a dumb work force.
4. Supervisor said he didn't like me "chit-chatting" with company partners.
5. Supervisor got angry when I didn't do something the right way, but he never taught us the "right way." to begiin with.
6. Slight aside: supervisor smoked weed almost every day we were on deployment at work.

There are more problems I have, but for context we can stop here.

My supervisor sent me a screenshot of my review on indeed. I forget the exact flow of the conversation, but the last few sentences of it went like this:
him: "I always respected you at work."
"Me: You said to me, 'fuck your training.' is that respect?"

And then I was blocked. How do I know this? Our chat logs got deleted. This all took place on telegram.

The mic-drop moment: I made this screenshot post to the appropriate channels so people can at least understand my position on the entire situation.

( My working experience in America vs. the World, and why other countries are doing better. )

My stage 2 job interview the other day left me feeling nervous. However, I did "pitch" to them my self-improvement plan for the next few months: earning a CCNA, Improving my Chinese(with new certifications), earning Linux+, etc. etc.

Although the company was based in Prague, my interviewer was from Ukraine. My Ukrainian interviewer's accent was a little bit thick and I started the interview by speaking to her in my broken Russian. I believe she was impressed also seeing that my Chinese was "relatively" fluent according to my resume. I told her that I made some "homework" for the bash-scripting that I was learning over the past seven days. She requested me to email the bash-scripts that I wrote, and so that is what I did. I hope that she can see the potential I have vs. other candidates.

The company hopes to get an office set up in Texas one day. Me and my wife also hope that this is one of the states where we will relocate to one day. I may also get the opportunity to travel to HQ one day, but I don't think that is likely.

The starting salary? 2500. But I get a contract. And if I'm getting terminated, I will have a 30 day notice.

Stage 3 interview should be scheduled with the (software/firmware) product manager at the company ensuring that I know what I am talking about when it comes to our product.

As of yesterday, I picked up my Russian Language textbook. Started learning again. did 4 pomodoros with it. I wanted to do 8 with my Chinese yesterday, but something came up and got in the way.