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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.god). 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.
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 at least the age of seventeen.
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.)
- Axiom #1: "The Usenet is not the real world. The Usenet usually does not 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."
- Corollary #2: "Arguing about the significance of newsgroup names and their relation to the way people really think is equivalent to arguing whether it is better to read tea leaves or chicken entrails to divine the future."
- Axiom #2: "Ability to type on a computer terminal is no guarantee of sanity, intelligence, or common sense."
- Corollary #3: "An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards could produce something like Usenet."
- Corollary #4: "They could do a better job of it."
- Axiom #3: "Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies to Usenet."
- Corollary #5: "In an unmoderated newsgroup, no one can agree on what constitutes the 10%."
- Corollary #6: "Nothing guarantees that the 10% isn't crap, too."
- "Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --spaf (1992)
See also
External Links
Honors and Awards
- 1990 Top 10 Teacher in Purdue School of Science.
- 1991 Elevated to Senior Member grade in IEEE.
- 1992 Inducted in Sigma Xi.
- 1992 Inducted in Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the Computer Sciences honor society.
- 1992 Top 10 Teacher in Purdue School of Science.
- 1992 IEEE Computer Society's Meritorious Service Certificate, "...for participating in the
- 1991 Curriculum Task Force."
- 1995 Named to State University of New York (SUNY) Alumni Statewide Honor Roll.
- 1995 Named as a Cecil H. and Ida Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX.
- 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 ACM.
- 1999 Inducted as a Fellow of the AAAS.
- 2000 Finalist for Indiana Information Technology Association (INITA) Cyberstar Award for Outstanding Contribution to Technology Education.
- 2000 NIST/NCSC National Computer Systems Security Award.
- 2000 Proclaimed a CISSP, honoris causa by (ISC)2
- 2000 Inducted as a Fellow of the IEEE.
- 2000 Named Applied Computer Security Associates Distinguished Lecturer for 2000.
- 2001 Purdue University Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in Memory of Charles B. Murphy (top university award for teaching).
- 2001 Awarded William Hugh Murray Medal of the National Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education.
- 2001 Named to the ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) Hall of Fame.
- 2001 Named a Fellow of Purdue University's Teaching Academy.
- 2003 Recipient of SUNY Brockport Alumni Association Hall of Heritage Award.
- 2003 Named to Purdue University's Book of Great Teachers.
- 2003 Awarded U.S. Air Force medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.
- 2004 Awarded the IEEE Computer Society's Taylor L. Booth Medal.
- 2004 ACM SIGCAS Making a Difference Award.
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