about me

ugg - what a boring topic... well if you're like me and the question of who writes this stuff is uninteresting to you then you can stop reading this right now because that's basically what this entry is going to be about...

my name is at the end of each post, you're free to google it or click on it and send me email... i'm a computer scientist - i got my bsc in computer science from university of toronto in 2000... computer science was a natural path to take as i was already quite familiar with computers before i started - i'd been a coder since the age of 10 and had taught myself a variety of programming languages by the time i entered university (c was probably the most helpful)... i'd also developed an almost instant interest in computer security back when i was still puttering around on my vic20 when i was 10-11 (though obviously not out of any actual necessity as all my data was just games and coding experiments)...

in late 1989, the 2nd hand compaq luggable i had been using for about a year developed a very strange problem where characters would appear on the screen without ever having been typed... around the same time i had heard through the media about these things called computer viruses and i got to wondering if maybe my computer had one and set out to learn more about the subject because the problem was quite annoying and i wanted it solved...

of course in retrospect that all seems silly - it was clearly a problem with the keyboard, which i did deduce after a while and did manage to repair but not before having developed an interest in computer viruses...

so there ther i was, 14, with a couple of years of programming under my belt, and i'd just developed an interest in computer viruses - i think we all know where that leads....... hah! don't trust stereotypes, that's not where it lead - not because my moral compass was anymore more developed than other teenagers, it definitely wasn't... when i did finally find forums for talking about viruses (which i find are generally much more useful than books) in the early 90's ('91 or '92 i think - if anyone can remember when edwin cleton stepped down as moderator of the VIRUS echo in fidonet, let me know) i found the analytical approach used by the anti-virus community to be more appealing than the less rigorous approach used by the vx at the time...

so there you have it - i've been learning about computer viruses (and by extension, malware and related security problems) since 1989, trying to discern the underlying principles, trying to put it into a nice, neat, easily understood package, and for much of that time sharing what i've learned with others... i'm not an expert, at least i don't consider myself one - i've interacted with those i consider experts (like frisk or dr. solly) in various forums and they're far more knowledgable than i... i'm also not a member of the anti-virus industry, basically because there aren't any av shops in my area and i don't want to move, but i also gather prior knowledge of/interest in viruses can actually be a barrier to getting hired (av companies don't want to risk hiring someone who might have a virus writing past they aren't disclosing) so it's not something i've really investigated too much... i'm just a long time member of the anti-virus community...

if you really must know more, well, i can only suggest visiting my other blog to see a different side of me...