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Gene Spafford



         


Doctor Eugene H. Spafford (also known as "Spaf", 1957 - ) is a leading Computer Security expert and a historically significant Internet participant ("The Morris Worm", Usenet, net.gods). Dr. Spafford is the executive director of CERIAS, an international computer security research and education organization. Dr. Spafford is a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and serves as an advisor to over a dozen Federal agencies and major corporations.

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Background

Dr. Spafford received his B.A. with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Sciences after attending the State University College at Brockport (1979, NY) for three years. Upon graduation, he was honored with a SUNY College President's Citation. He then attended the School of Information and Computer Sciences (now the College of Computing) at the Georgia Institute of Technology, holding both a Georgia Tech President's Fellowship and an NSF Graduate Fellowship. He received his M.S. in 1981, and the Ph.D. in 1986 for his design and implementation of the original Clouds reliable, distributed operating system kernel, and for his contributions as one of the original members of the Clouds design team.

During the early formative years of the Internet, Dr. Spafford was a leader and influencer of semi-formal process which organized and managed "Usenet" as well as being influential in defining the standards of behavior governing the use of Usenet. (During the early years of the Internet, Usenet was the main form of communication/information distribution for most users of the Internet. In a sense it was the spiritual predecessor of the World Wide Web in its current form.)

Currently Dr. Spafford is a professor of Computer Sciences at Purdue University, where he has served on the faculty since 1987. He is also a professor of Philosophy (courtesy), a professor of Communication (courtesy), and a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (courtesy). 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. 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.

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. Dr. Spafford has authored or co-authored four books on computer and computer security as well as over a hundred research papers, chapters and monographs. He is the co-founder of Tripwire, Inc. a computer security company based in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Spafford's research interests (according to his Curriculae Vitae):

Computer-related failures may be the results of accident, or they may be caused by software faults present in software that was poorly designed and inadequately tested. And certainly, failures can occur because of malicious activity by vandals and criminals, either as crackers trying to obtain information, or through the application of vandalware such as worms and viruses. My research has been 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.

Dr. Spafford is a self described curmudgeon and likely has been one since the at least the age of seventeen.

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Quotes

Below are a few nuggets which he authored: (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.)

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See also

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External Links

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Honors and Awards






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