Computers

It should come as no suprise to anyone that knows me that I'm completely addicted to computers. I like working (playing?) with both software and hardware.

Programming

I have been programming since my 12th birthday ('82) and I have been writing client/server database applications since early '95. I have written code professionally in Delphi, Java, C/C++, VB (ew!) and SmallTalk. On my own time I've done lots of work in HTML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and a few others.

My wife probably thinks I'm crazy but she's very patient with my addiction. For example, I took a Monday off work to give myself a 3 day weekend. Between the previous Friday when I left the office and my return on the following Tuesday, I had put in about 20 hours programming on one of my favorite personal projects, a web page editor written in Delphi. I wrote WebPage WorkShop because I don't want to use a bloated piece of crap like M$ FrontPage to do my websites. (This site was written entirely in WPWS.)

My favorite language I've used at work is Java. This is the direction that I'd like to go with my career because I can finally get away from doing Micro$oft Winblows development.

Linux

For those of you that don't already know, Linux is the alternative UNIX-like operating system that is championed by that cute yet agressive penguin named Tux. It's far more reliable and secure than ANYTHING that could possibly come from M$. At home I have several systems running Linux. One of them is the web server that's hosting this domain (as well as a few others).

I first used UNIX in '89 when I started college. I had a total of 3 classes that involved use of UNIX: 2 PASCAL courses and one in COBOL. After that I didn't have much exposure to it until my first programming job in '95. At ViaWare we were hosting our own internet domain on a Slackware box and I was one of the primary people responsible for the site. I didn't get my first Linux box at home until early '96. I had an old 486 collecting dust so I figured I'd put it to use as a file server. Now I'm hosting multiple internet domains with email, ftp, web and dns servers.

If there's one thing I feel strongly about, it's security. Fortunately, with the vast stories in the news about crackers (not hackers!) breaking into systems via the internet, more and more people are starting to realize that network security is an issue. However, that number is still reletively small. I've read several books on the subject (including Maximum Security and Maximum Linux Security) and consider myself to be fairly knowledgable on the subject.

However, knowledge can easily be overcome by laziness. I was hacked on October 13, 2000 at 08:57. (Friday the 13th! What irony!) Fortunately, because of some wonderful monitoring tools I've got installed, I was informed of the attack within 5 minutes and was able to disconnect the system from the internet before the cracker had a chance to do any real damage. I got the little bastard's IP and turned him in too. The laziness in question was my procrastinating the upgrade as new versions of packages became available. I'm usually good about keeping the system up to date but in one area I had faltered. The version of the DNS server I was running had a known exploit where you could send a buffer overflow and get a root shell. I am now back to my regular regiment of checking the CERT advisories and keeping my services up to date. I've even got a stand-alone server that's sole purpose is to constantly check for updates, and if found, make them available to the rest of my machines. Since then, I've detected SEVERAL other attempts to exploit this hole (that is now plugged) and many others. I am now keeping a list of IP's of people that attempt to crack (or even scan) my firewall.