Dan Farmer
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Dan Farmer (born April 5, 1962) is a computer security researcher. In a summer course in 1989, in order to graduate from Purdue University he started the development of the COPS program for identifying security issues on Unix systems under Gene Spafford, first releasing it after leaving Purdue in late 1989. In 1995, he and Wietse Venema created Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN), one of the earliest network based vulnerability scanners.
SATAN was a controversial program when it was released, because some security administrators and law enforcement personnel believed that hackers would use it to identify and break into private networks. The release of SATAN led SGI to fire Dan Farmer.[1] Today, Dan Farmer is the CTO for Elemental Security, a company he co-founded with Dayne Myers.
With Venema, Farmer authored Forensic Discovery, a book about forensic techniques for gathering digital evidence.
[edit] Notable Projects
- The Coroner's Toolkit (co-authored with Venema)
- SATAN (co-authored with Venema)
- COPS
- Titan (co-authored with Brad Powell and Matt Archibald)
[edit] References
- Ortiz, Catalina. "Computer Program to Find Security Holes Bedevils Some Experts", The Associated Press, 1995-04-04.
[edit] External links
- Dan Farmer's Security Projects
- Hackers, episode of NetCafe containing an interview with Dan Farmer
