VARUN
RATHOD
CS student at PES University, Bangalore. I build AI agents, security tools, and full-stack systems — from Linux kernel modules to Deep RL game agents.
CTF competitor · Hackathon finalist · Club Head
About Me
I'm a Computer Science student at PES University, Bangalore, with a habit of building things that sit at the intersection of systems, intelligence, and security.
My projects range from Linux kernel-level systems programming to training Deep RL agents on raw pixel frames. I compete in CTFs, have helped organize a 100+ participant hackathon, and build production-grade full-stack apps as a way to close the loop between theory and real use.
I care about understanding how things work at a low level — whether that's a process tree in the kernel or the emission matrix of an HMM.
Cybersecurity
AI / ML
Systems
Full-Stack
Skills
Languages
01Frameworks
02Databases
03AI/ML
04Security
05Tools
06Projects
A curated collection of my best work in AI, security, and full-stack development.
Second Brain — AI Knowledge System
An AI-powered knowledge management system where you can dump notes, documents, and ideas, then query them conversationally. Built with Next.js, Prisma, PostgreSQL, and Gemini API. Deployed on Vercel.
Hangman AI Agent
A hybrid AI that plays Hangman by combining Hidden Markov Models with Q-Learning. Trained on a 50,000-word corpus and evaluated on 2,000 completely unseen words. Achieves 100% win rate on 20+ letter words.
Slither.io Deep RL Agent
Trained a CNN-based DQN to play Slither.io from raw pixel frames alone — no game API, no coordinates, no snake positions. Just pixels in, actions out. Built a custom Gymnasium environment, implemented replay memory and epsilon-greedy exploration.
Traffic Violation Detection System
Full-stack web application for managing traffic violations, with MySQL triggers and stored procedures that auto-suspend licenses when point thresholds are hit. REST API with connection pooling + React frontend.
VoIP with Progressive Security
Full-duplex voice communication system built over raw sockets with layered security: starts unencrypted, progresses to TLS with mutual certificate authentication. Built entirely from scratch — no VoIP libraries.
Web Scraper Price Comparison
Async price scraper across 5 e-commerce platforms with proxy rotation and an analytics dashboard. Handles anti-bot measures, rate limiting, and parallel scraping without getting blocked.
Process Tree Kernel Module
A Linux kernel module written in C that traverses the process hierarchy using the task_struct linked list and outputs the full tree to the kernel log. Loaded and unloaded dynamically via insmod/rmmod.
Achievements
PBCTF 4.0
Top 15— web + crypto challenges
Codefusion Hackathon
4th Place— 24h build
Kalpana Hackathon
Top 10
niteCTF
~350 / 800 teams
OverTheWire: Bandit
Completed all levels
Clubs
Equinox ECC
Club Head
Organized a 16-hour Hackathon + CTF with 100+ participants. Handled end-to-end logistics: problem setting, judging, and running the event live.
Layer8
Tech Member
Author of CTF challenges used in the Layer8 × IEEE competition. Conducts workshops on cybersecurity topics including web security, binary exploitation, and more.
Contact
Open to collaborations, opportunities, and interesting conversations.