I’m Preston Zen. My work spans cybersecurity, server infrastructure, hardware engineering, and international sourcing. I’m bringing those together around private AI and resilient systems, and documenting the work along the way.
Drag the bearing
An ESP32-based radio-frequency power detector, built as a conference badge and taught as a four-hour hands-on direction-finding workshop at DEF CON 34.
Hardware design, firmware, and workshop instruction
Read the buildOwned server infrastructure in San Diego used as the proving ground for remote-operability work: if a change cannot be made safely from another continent, it does not leave this rack.
A project plan, not a case study: what it would genuinely take to run useful local computing on a boat, given the power budget, the heat, and a connection that disappears.
Hardware selection, virtualisation, networking, and local model deployment where it genuinely beats an API call. Designed from the start to be administered from somewhere else.
Security architecture, management boundaries, backup and recovery planning, and systems built for the operating constraints that actually exist on site rather than the ones in the diagram.
Sourcing, integration, prototyping, and working alongside the local electricians, installers, and technicians who are going to be there long after I leave.
Marine and off-grid work sits inside these rather than beside them. A vessel is a constrained site with a power budget and no local support, which is a category of problem, not a separate business.
My background combines cybersecurity, software, servers, and hands-on hardware work. I work across different places because the people, equipment, and practical problems are there, not because every project can be solved from a laptop.
That means a rack in San Diego, hardware in Japan, component sourcing in places where lead times are a work of fiction, and a boat I skipper on the Ligurian coast that is both a genuine interest and the hardest infrastructure site I have access to.
OSCE³
Offensive Security Certified Expert 3
Offsec credential walletOSCP
Offensive Security Certified Professional
Offsec credential walletDEF CON
Multi-year speaker and event organiser; attending since DC25
Hac-Man CTF
Organiser. The contest was recognised with a black badge award at DEF CON in 2025.
DEF CON 34
Workshop: “Battle-Tested Broadcasts: RF Insights From Ukraine”
DEF CON 34
Co-presented a four-hour hands-on RF detection and direction-finding workshop
Cuyamaca College
Cyber Security Specialist Program co-founder
UCSD Extension
Cyber Security Boot Camp instructor
Ukraine
Volunteering in Ukraine since 2022 with Dronarnia, Drone Space Labs and BeeTA, on drone systems, RF detection, EW countermeasures and humanitarian logistics
IYT Bareboat Skipper
International Yacht Training, sail
Captain
The Nomad Yacht — Ligurian coast and Riviera
Separate companies I run or lead. They are where particular kinds of work get contracted and delivered, not four different things to hire.
A clothing line, run separately from the technical work. Listed here because this site is the person rather than one company.
In production and available through Kaizen Styles.
In production and available through Kaizen Styles.
In development. Nothing is in production and nothing is for sale yet.
Tell me what needs to run, where it needs to run, and what cannot fail.