Taming the Hacking Storm

PrefaceTaming the Internet

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

– Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), “Man in the Arena” speech, given April 23, 1910

I’m out to fix all of Internet security, or at least as much as I can, before I depart Earth. I know from experience that mostly what I’m doing is inviting critics to pan my ideas and tell me how I’m not that smart. It’s okay. I’m a man in the arena.

At nearly the same time that I started to develop an intense interest in personal computers, I also developed a strong interest in fighting malicious hackers and their malware programs. My interest was immediately intensely passionate, religious-like, and felt life-changing. And it turned out to be exactly that, as it changed the rest of my life and became my career. I don’t ...