xmasscan.github.io/index.html at main · xmasscan/xmasscan.github.io · GitHub

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <title>xmasscan</title>
    <link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <style>
      #whoami {
        list-style: square;
        list-style-position: inside;
        padding-left: 0.5em;
      }

      #whoami li {
        padding-bottom: 8px;
      }

      #navbar ul {
        border-bottom-color: #d5c4a1;
        border-bottom-style: solid;
        border-bottom-width: 1px;
      }

      #navbar li,
      #socials li {
        float: left;
      }

      #socials li {
        padding-right: 16px;
      }

      #navbar li a {
        color: #d5c4a1;
        display: block;
        text-align: center;
        padding-right: 16px;
      }

      #navbar li a:hover {
        color: #ebdbb2;
      }

    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div>
      <h1 style="margin-left: 2%; margin-bottom: 1%;"><a style="color: #ebdbb2;" href="/index.html">xmasscan</a></h1>
      <div id="navbar">
        <ul>
          <li style="margin-left: 2%;"><a href="/blog.html">blog</a></li>
          <li><a href="/resume/out/Michael-Khan.pdf">resume</a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div id="content">
      <div>
        <h2 style="margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 3%;">About Me</h2>
        <ul id="whoami">
          <li>Michael Hanif Khan</li>
          <li>Computer Science Undergraduate @ UIC</li>
          <li>President of the Linux User Group @ UIC</li>
          <li>CyberForce Participant: '24, '25</li>
          <li>MuRL@UIC Research Spring 2025</li>
          <li>SISL@UIC & DPI Fall 2025 - Current</li>
        </ul>
        <ul id="socials">
          <li><a href="https://github.com/xmasscan">github</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkhan398/">linkedin</a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>
      <div>
        <h3>Fields of Interest</h3>
        <p>I like building systems from the ground up, examining other systems from the top down, and bridging the gap between experimentation and digital forensics. Many people would categorize me as a "systems guy". I am interested in a lot within Computer Systems, but I am especially interested in Networking and CyberSecurity.</p>
        <p>Please contact me if you have research or work opportunities in the following fields:</p>
        <ul>
          <li>Cybersecurity</li>
          <li>Network Security</li>
          <li>Digital Forensics</li>
          <li>Cryptography</li>
        </ul>

        <h3>Why "xmasscan"?</h3>
        <p>In the most nascent days of my Cybersecurity career, during high school, I'd spend my free time reading through the <a href="https://nmap.org/book">official nmap book</a>, interesting in learning what I could about basic networking and network scanning.</p>
        <p>I very quickly noticed the "Xmas Scan", wherein the scanner abuses a trick implied by the <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc793.txt">TCP RFC</a>. Basically, if you send a packet to a port over TCP without SYN, RST, or ACK bits sent, you <em>should</em> recieve a RST packet in response so that you know something got messed up. Barring scanning, this behavior is most common when connections are choppy or drop in the middle of sending a packet.</p>
        <p>What matters, however, is that I found it to be a novel way to approach port scanning which taught me quite a bit about the way packets are constructed. It was what I would consider the true beginning of my formal interest in the field and it is what inspired my ongoing interest in pursuing a career within it.</p>
        <p>I chose to name my Github account after the scan because it remains a cool thing to tell people about, and it reminds me why I do what I do everytime I make a commit or merge a pull request!</p>
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