Learning Cybersecurity — I watched my own internet traffic, and it changed how I think about security

I am documenting every day of my cybersecurity learning journey publicly. What I did today Watched Professor Messer's TCP/IP video, installed Wireshark, completed my first TryHackMe room, and spent about two hours actually watching packets move through my own network. The moment everything clicked I have read about TCP handshakes probably five times in the last week. SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK. I understood the words. I could repeat them back. But I did not really understand them. Today I opened Wireshark, started a capture, loaded a website, and watched it happen in real time on my own machine. My computer sent a SYN. The server replied SYN-ACK. My machine confirmed with ACK. Then the data started flowing. That is the moment the moment theory became real for me. It is three packets. It happens in milliseconds. And it happens every single time any device anywhere connects to any other device on the internet. The HTTP experiment that honestly surprised me I set up a Wireshark filter for HTTP tra