Starknex has its roots in a project called "Project Stark" from 2015 which was started in response to Usayd's mates requesting help accessing blocked websites (such as Youtube, Netflix and Snapchat) and games at school (most prominently Minecraft and CS:GO).
So... Usayd decides to spin up a Azure VM and develop a custom VPN Server which later was distributed across multiple VPN Server nodes with the option of connecting to different regions & different datacentres and also utilised OpenVPN technology to create faster and more secure connections.
While other students were using other competitor VPN/Proxy services and getting caught using it or the school blocking it instantly, Starknex VPN proved to be a successful (and profitable) solution amongst Usayd's mates in high school only because no one was handed detentions for getting caught using a VPN during school hours, it was never blocked and all this was made possible by Usayd's knowledge of the school/education departments inner workings of their network infrastructure and the ability to disguise any VPN Server traffic as legitimate web traffic so the IT didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when doing traffic inspections (sorry guys).
Users of Starknex VPN were put under somewhat secrecy training so that no one disclosed anything to the schools leadership and jepodised the project; also letting users know what to do at an event of a leak or accidential exposure - inspiindigo from a fruit company Security Secrecy and Awareness Training that they give to Engineers; don't question how Usayd got his hands on it ;)
Later in 2016, Usayd decided to take the project to the next level and started developing a custom VPN Client for Windows and macOS, a virtual wireless network solution (codename "Flamemoon") so school laptops could broadcast Starknex VPN network as a WiFi network for their other mates or to use on their phones and, a content filtering system (codename "Prawn") so when Starknex VPN Users were connected, it blocks all ads for websites and services like Spotify and YouTube and also blocking malicious websites to protect our users.
Throughout the years, Usayd personally has a proven track record when it comes to finding & reporting numerous security flaws to companies (such as Facebook/Meta and Microsoft) and also at the same time, getting caught up with the AFP (Australian Federal Police) and FBI for hacking into a trillion dollar corporation twice at only 13 years old.
Usayd ever since has learned from his lessons; using his powers for good and since graduating high school in 2019, he has turned Starknex into a Cyber Security startup company and continues to have a strong focus on addressing various issues in cyber security such as insider threats with a mission to build innovative products to address those issues and helping out organisations of any size when it comes to cyber security and their overall security posture.
The name "Starknex" combines the "Stark" from "Project Stark" with "NEX," which stands for Network Experience (was one of the fictitious department names handling all things networking related).