Everything about Gene Spafford totally explained
Eugene H. Spafford (born
1956) (known colloquially as "Spaf") is a professor of
computer science at
Purdue University and a leading
computer security expert.
A historically significant
Internet figure, he's renowned for first analyzing the
Morris Worm, one of the earliest
computer worms, and his participation in the
Usenet backbone cabal. Spafford was a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee 2003-2005, has been an advisor to the
National Science Foundation (NSF), and serves as an advisor to over a dozen other government agencies and major corporations.
Biography
Education and early career
Spafford received his
B.A. with a double major in mathematics and computer science from the
State University of New York at Brockport. He then attended the School of Information and Computer Sciences (now the College of Computing) at the
Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his
M.S. in 1981, and
Ph.D. in 1986 for his design and implementation of the original Clouds distributed
operating system kernel.
During the early formative years of the Internet, Spafford made significant contributions to establishing semi-formal processes to organize and manage Usenet, then the primary channel of communication between users, as well as being influential in defining the standards of behavior governing its use.
Recent work
At Purdue, Spafford has a joint appointment as a professor of computer science and as professor of electrical and computer engineering, where he's served on the faculty since 1987. He is also a professor of philosophy (courtesy), and a professor of communication (courtesy). He is also Executive Director of the Purdue CERIAS (Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security) and was the founder and director of COAST Laboratory, which preceded CERIAS.
He is involved in a number of professional societies and activities outside Purdue including serving on the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association and as co-chair of the
ACM's US Public Policy Committee. He serves on a number of advisory and editorial boards and is internationally known for his writing, research, and speaking on issues of security and ethics. Spafford has authored or co-authored four books on computer and computer security, including
Practical Unix and Internet Security for
O'Reilly, as well as over a hundred research papers, chapters and monographs.
Spafford has stated that his research interests have focused on "the prevention, detection, and remediation of information system failures and misuse, with an emphasis on applied information security. This has included research in fault tolerance, software testing and debugging, intrusion detection, software forensics, and security policies."
Among notable software designed and/or supervised by Spafford include the freeware
Tripwire tool coded by his student Gene Kim (Spafford was later the chief external technical advisor to the Tripwire company during their first few years), and the freeware
COPS tool coded by his student
Dan Farmer. He initiated the Phage List as a response to the
Morris Worm. Some of his research also helped inspire the creation of the
MITRE CVE service and the
NIST ICAT database. Research by other graduate students of his has resulted in tools for software testing and debugging, distributed processing, cyber forensics, firewalls, intrusion detection, auditing, and network traceback.
Quotations
Spafford is well-known for his aphorisms regarding the Internet:
(Generally, the word "Usenet" may be replaced by the word "Internet" or the phrase
"World Wide Web" and these axioms will remain as true as the original statements.)
- Axiom #1: "The Usenet isn't the real world. The Usenet usually doesn't even resemble the real world."
- Corollary #1: "Attempts to change the real world by altering the structure of the Usenet is an attempt to work sympathetic magic -- electronic voodoo."
"Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory where smoking on the job is permitted."
Selected honors and awards
1992 Inducted in Sigma Xi, research scientists' honor society.
1992 Inducted in Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the Computer Sciences honor society.
1996 Awarded charter membership in the IEEE Computer Society's Golden Core for distinguished service to the Computer Society during its first 50 years.
1996 Award of Distinguished Technical Communication (highest award) and Award of Merit by the Society for Technical Communication for Practical Unix and Internet Security.
1997 Inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
1999 Inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
2000 NIST/NCSC National Computer Systems Security Award.
2000 Proclaimed a CISSP, honoris causa by (ISC)²
2000 Inducted as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
2001 Named to the ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) Hall of Fame.
2003 Awarded U.S. Air Force medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.
2005 Honorary D.Sc. from the State University of New York (SUNY)
2006 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award
2007 ACM President's AwardFurther Information
Get more info on 'Gene Spafford'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://gene_spafford.totallyexplained.com">Gene Spafford Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
