I'm back. My college applications are done, I've applied to most of the scholarships I'm planning on applying to, and things are (beginning to) calm down around the house. It's time to start having a bit more fun with all of this. I met with my mentor at the beginning of break to discuss my original work and ideas for my final product. Concerning the former, Travis told me that it read just like a professional pentest report. He suggested some changes to make it more professional, but overall gave it a positive evaluation. Concerning my final product, our discussion floated primarily around the Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerability research, a second bug bounty attempt, and cryptography research. The last idea sounds the most interesting to me. Whatever I end up deciding to do, though, I want it to matter. I want to be able to look at it at the end of the year and say, "This benefits society, and for that reason, I am proud of it." I haven't been able to convincingly tell myself that about any of my ISM projects thus far.
In other news, my ISM display board is due in two days. I haven't started. The next two days are going to be busy.