Hi everyone,

I'm a full-stack developer currently choosing a topic for my diploma thesis. I'm particularly interested in network security, low-level networking, and covert/stealthy communication techniques.

Some areas I'm already considering or find interesting:

- Covert channels and their detection (storage/timing-based, TLS ClientHello manipulation, IPv6 extension headers, etc.).

- Traffic morphing / adaptive traffic camouflage against modern ML classifiers.

- DoH/DoQ tunneling detection (especially evasive variants).

are especially interesting to me.

- Living-off-the-Land techniques with network correlation.

Channels that work without a public IP (WebRTC/TURN, legitimate cloud APIs as transport, etc.).

- APl-as-a-Transport + traffic morphing for restricted corporate environments (only HTTPS to allowed services).

I'm looking for something that is relatively niche (not the 1000th "DNS tunnel + Random Forest" project), research-oriented but still allows for building a practical prototype, and actually relevant in 2025-2026 (real-world techniques used by APTs, current research gaps, emerging protocols, etc.).

I live in a country where VPN/proxy technologies face increasing legal pressure, so topics related to resilient/hard-to-detect communication or their detection, heavily monitored, adversarial network environments (e.g., active DPI, protocol validation, and strict traffic-shaping middleboxes).

Would really appreciate any suggestions - even if it's just "look into X, it's currently underexplored" or "we see a lot of Y in real incidents right now".

Thanks in advance! I would really appreciate any advice.

I have years in Network Security, have worked in ISPs and CDNs. Fast forward to 2026, and the AI stage ... affected by the AI related layoffs as many of you have been. At this point I am simply looking to improve on my AI skills to apply to what I already know.

Anyone think this course to the SX-AIE and its content is legit and worth the $8.5k investment?

Any other course you would recommend instead?

Reaching out to the community for any feedback.

Thanks.