Steve Gibson (computer programmer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Steve Gibson | |
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 Steve in between shots on Leo Laporte's Call For Help in Toronto April, 2007. |
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| Born | March 26, 1955 Dayton, Ohio, United States |
| Residence | Laguna Hills, California USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | EECS at UC Berkeley |
| Occupation | Software Engineer and Security Analyst |
| Known for | Security Now! audio podcast on TWiT.tv (network) |
| Title | Computer Programmer |
| Website GRC.com |
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Steve Gibson (born March 26, 1955, Dayton Ohio) is a computer enthusiast, software engineer and security researcher who studied EECS at the UC Berkeley. Gibson currently lives in Laguna Hills, California. In 1985, Gibson founded Gibson Research Corporation, which is most well known for its SpinRite software.
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[edit] Works
Gibson has had a very long career in the technology field - his resume lists jobs he had held back to the age of 13 [1]. He began in hardware projects but moved more towards software development in the 1980s. One of his early successes during this period was a light pen graphics system for the Apple II.
Gibson is an advocate of assembly language programming, and prides himself on writing smaller applications mostly in Intel x86 assembly language, including much of the code of the SpinRite hard disk utility used at the beginning of the PC era. He is one of several advocates of optimizing computer programs and reducing the size of their executables.
In the 1990s, Gibson began to move into the computer security field, developing and distributing a number of security tools, including the ShieldsUp! port-scanner, and the LeakTest firewall tester. In 2000, Gibson created one of the first adware removal programs, OptOut.
Gibson's latest publicly released work is SecurAble, which is a program that will tell the user if their CPU supports 64 bit computing, DEP (Data Execution Prevention) and hardware level virtualisation.
Gibson is currently working on DNS Benchmark, which is a utility used for DNS nameserver performance characterisation and profiling, and the DNS Nameserver Spoofability Test which is an online utility used to test whether the systems configured nameservers are vulnerable to DNS spoofing.
Once DNS Benchmark is complete, Gibson will begin work on his forthcoming VPN product CryptoLink.
[edit] Controversy
Steve Gibson was involved with a notable controversy over the Microsoft WMF vulnerability[2], an issue raised in 2006 where a Windows Metafile image could trigger execution of arbitrary code. Gibson analyzed an unofficial patch issued by Ilfak Guilfanov, and publicly speculated both on a podcast called "Security Now!"[3] as well as on his web site[4] that Microsoft may have intentionally included this vulnerability because of the use of an API called SetAbortProc which was originally intended as a mechanism for cancelling print jobs, which in his view made no sense. When Slashdot, the technology news web site, picked up the assertion, an Internet rumor that Microsoft intentionally built a back-door to its operating systems was promulgated[5].
Gibson has been implicated in a number of more minor controversies [6][7] in the computer security field, including his prediction of the "XP Christmas of Death" in 2001 describing the outcomes of Microsoft's implemention of the SOCK_RAW protocol[8].
Gibson is also known for attempting to replicate functionality of a tool called SYNcookies written by Dan Bernstein and Eric Schenk rebranded by Gibson as GENESIS as a preventative mechanism for SYN-flood attacks [9].
[edit] Gibson Research Corporation
Gibson Research Corporation or GRC is a computer software development firm founded in 1985 by Gibson. The company is registered in Laguna Hills, California[10]. GRC has created a number of niche utilities over the years, the foremost of which is SpinRite, a hard disk scanning and data recovery utility.
As of mid 2009 GRC has four employees; Steve Gibson, Greg (Technical Support), Sue (Book-keeper) and Elaine (Audio Transcriber). Gibson also founded Gibson Laboratories, Inc. in 1981, a predecessor to GRC[1].
[edit] Media
Gibson co-hosts a weekly computer security-focused podcast with Leo Laporte called Security Now!. Gibson often appears on Leo Laporte's technology podcast, This Week in Tech. Gibson also used to occasionally appear on The Lab with Leo Laporte on G4techTV Canada.
Steve Gibson was a contributing editor to InfoWorld magazine. His writings tried to provide visibility into the world of hackers and crackers, of which he counts himself one of the former.
In April 2006, Gibson made an acting appearance alongside technology columnist John C. Dvorak in the video podcast Up in Smoke.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b http://www.grc.com/resume.htm
- ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/21/wmf_fud_from_grc/
- ^ http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-022.htm
- ^ http://www.grc.com/wmf/wmf.htm
- ^ http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/01/13/1519204.shtml?tid=201
- ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20070220000208/http://www.grcsucks.com/
- ^ http://radsoft.net/news/roundups/grc/
- ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/12/security_geek_developing_winxp_raw/
- ^ Gibson Research Corporation, Techadvice.com. Retrieved on 2 February 2007.
[edit] External links
- GRC.com - main page
- Security Now! - Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte's podcast on computer security
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