Me

I’m James Brown.

Cyber security professional. Security Researcher, Architect, Reverse Engineer, Threat Modeller. I make stuff, and break stuff.

I live in Hampshire in the UK with my family and two cats. I learnt to program on an Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro. Later I aquired an Amiga, but it was the PC that really got me interested in computing. Starting with an i386 and a copy of Borland C++, I’m mostly self taught and spent hours learning to program games in C++ and Assembly language because that was a necessity at the time. I transitioned from DOS to Windows with the rest of the world, and then started my career as a Security Researcher.

Then

Catch22 was originally a website dedicated to Windows programming, tutorials and software that I had developed in my spare time. I used to be a Microsoft MVP, but it’s been a long time since I did any Windows programming. This was mostly due to a lack of time, but now also lack of interest in this platform. I’m keeping the original content here as it might still be of interest to people.

Now

My interests today are around security, cryptography and home automation. Loxone is my system of choice. I reverse engineer things; whatever needs to be done to integrate islands of technology that were not designed to be open. I reverse-engineered my Sonos system in order to develop RoomTunes (once the top-rated music app for BlackBerry 10). I’m currently reverse-engineering my Andersen A2 car charger, primarily so that it will integrate with my Loxone home.

I still occasionally write software but these days I focus more on current trends and using the right tool for the job, whether that be Python, Javascript or C#. Maybe one day I’ll write some C++ again?!