Graham Gregory is the Co-Captain of AMHS’s Cybersecurity Club, which meets on Thursdays at lunch. There, they teach principles and concepts of cybersecurity, and prepare for competitions. Everyone has a specialization, and Graham’s is the Linux operating system. There are 2 main competitions AMHS participates in each year, CyberPatriot and the Palmetto Cyber Defense Competition (PCDC). CyberPatriot, a tournament which ended earlier this year, is a multi-stage tournament where teams have to audit a simulated hacked server and fix vulnerabilities. At PCDC, which is next month, multiple schools’ teams have to defend a network against a team of hackers.

Outside of the Cybersecurity Club, Graham still focuses on protecting their devices. On PC, they only use Linux, and their phone runs on GrapheneOS, an open-source Android operating system that offers extreme privacy and security. Despite being quite invested (from an outside perspective) in cybersecurity, Graham doesn’t plan on making a career out of it, as there are no good employers in the sector that they want to work for. They think that cybersecurity is something that everyone could focus on a little more. They dismiss the argument that some people have “nothing to hide;” even if you don’t, you can still be a potential victim of identity theft. Being on the internet without any protections is “like going to a restroom without barriers.”

Graham is also working on other cybersecurity projects. They are building a VPN for their dad’s company, something I didn’t know could be done by anyone. They also plan to set up a workshop this summer to teach young activists about cybersecurity principles, which Graham believes everyone should learn the basics of, as they can be applied easily to other fields. Graham says the most applicable principle is a simple defense system is better than a more complicated system, as there are less attack points. While this is most obviously related to types of defense, this statement could also be applied to everything from political movements to game design.