Many times I have given myslef (Or been given) a monumental task. Sometimes it just seems that way, but really is easy. Other times it actually is a very large endevor. During these its easy to get overwhelmed, specifically before getting started. Thats what I want to talk about today, getting started.

Everyone says the best way to work on something, is to just do it. But what about when what to do is unclear. To help myself, I started first by assigning the task of finding out what is it exactly I need to do? What is the project? What is the goal? What are the deliverables? Then, you need to assemble the requirements. Instead of holding the weight of this big task that you cannot start yet (either because you are waiting on something or just have no idea what to do), break it into smaller bite sized chunks. Not only does it become less overwhelming but it also makes the tasks easier.

So, when I started working on my mutli-variate survey program, instead of my clients trying to hammer out a complex survey, I would advise them to start by asking a few questions first. By gathering preliminary data, you can improve your later data gathering processes/methods. It’s pretty simple, and most people do it. But many things may seem like common sense after you find out about them.

Why am I writing about this now? Well, if you read by previous posts, I started working on a keyboard “biometric” behavior identifier. Basically I want to see if you can determine who is using the computer “or keyboard” based on their typing patterns. This is going to be a huge project (in the sense that it will take a long time, many stages, many failures, and there is no clear way how I will do it now). Instead of being overwhelemed, I decided, why not start by asking a few questions? My initial approach would have been a bad leap (I was planning to start by calculating distances between keypresses), so I quickly pivoted to just gathing all the data I can, analyzing the data and building hyptesises and noting observations. THEN I will begin gathering and “testing” those hypothesis. As someone who is not a scientist, I don’t usually employ this technique, but I am glad I started before it got too deep in the project.

As of right now I have already written the keylogger for Linux and Windows, and am deciding what method of data storage I will use on my servers API. No need for a database because I will do lots of calucations on the data and it would be better to have raw access to it via any language I wish. (Instead of needing to retrieve it from the DB).

Regardless, my next steps are to finish the keyloggers and reciving API, then I will venture out and get 5 people I know to install this keylogger on their computer (it will take a lot of convincing as normally when I ask them to install or click on something its to show how easily I can remotely control it). I will gather data from their keyboard inputs for about a week, then just get to work testing!

I am super excited for this project and process, not only will it be fun to do, but could also result in some interesting knowledge/software and have great application.