Barrett Lyon

Barrett Lyon

Born 18 March 1978 (1978-03-18) (age 33)
Residence U.S.
Citizenship American
Fields Computer science
Institutions Prolexic Technologies
BitGravity
Opte Project
3crowd
Known for Security, Mapping, Content Delivery Network, Modern Art

Barrett Gibson Lyon (born March 18, 1978) is an Internet entrepreneur.[1]

Contents

Early life and education

The son of a lawyer, Lyon was raised in Auburn, California.[2] Although he initially struggled in school due to dyslexia, in middle school he became fascinated with computers. He soon found that the methods he used to overcome dyslexia allowed him to quickly gain an expert knowledge of computers.[3] While in high school, he set up Linux servers to host webpages for friends and also managed his school's computer network.[4] In 1995, while investigating a possible vulnerability in Network Solutions he accidentally caused AOL's website to go down for three days.[5] After high school, Lyon enrolled at California State University, Sacramento and studied philosophy.[6]

Opte Project

Lyon is the creator of the Opte Project, which is an Internet mapping project that seeks to make an accurate representation of the extent of the Internet using visual graphics. The project was started in October 2003 in an effort to provide a useful Internet map with open source code. The project has gathered support worldwide and is part of the catalogs of the Boston Museum of Science[7] and The Museum of Modern Art.[8]

Prolexic

While working part time in college for a for a small network security company, Lyon worked on defending websites against Denial of Service attacks.[9] He soon decided to start Prolexic Technologies to specifically focus on defending websites against such attacks.[10] His initial customers were online casinos which were facing extortionist threats from operators of Denial of Service attacks. After helping bring a Russian hacker to justice, Lyon's publicity allowed him to gain many new clients from outside of the gambling industry.[11] He soon began giving talks about botnets and DoS attacks at industry meetings.[12] Lyon eventually left Prolexic to start BitGravity.[13] Prolexic was later sold to IPVG, an internet company based in the Philippines.[14]

DoS Investigation

Lyon has been called a hero[15] for his work tracking Russian Denial of service attack extortion groups. His work has been featured around the globe[16] and is featured in the cyber thriller Fatal System Error.[17] He provided details and helped coordinate with multinational law enforcement groups which resulted in the capture of Ivan Maksakov, Alexander Petrov, and Denis Stepanov.[18] The three men were at the heart of an extortion ring which was extorting money from banks, Internet casinos, and other web based businesses. Reported damages caused by Maksakov, Petrov, and Stenanov range in the tens of millions of dollars. On October 8, 2007, Maksakov, Petrov, Stenanov were found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison in the Russian Federation with a 100,000 ruble penalty.[19]

Business interests

After leaving Prolexic, Lyon co-founded of BitGravity, a content delivery network and served as its chief technology officer. BitGravity focuses on providing content delivery for rich media sources.[20] While at BitGravity, to lessen billing confusion regarding the definition of a GigaByte, Lyon defined an accepted billing amount, coined as the BarretByte.[21] Lyon left BitGravity in June 2009 and with initial funding from Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, he founded 3Crowd. 3Crowd's first products provide businesses with greater control over existing Content Delivery Networks by allowing them to use CDN's based on factors like price and service.[22]

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ Stiennon, Richard (2006-06-26). "Barrett Lyon: Internet Influencer". Zdnet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=350. 
  2. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 14. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  3. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 15. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  4. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 16. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  5. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 17. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  6. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 19. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  7. ^ "Mapping the World Around Us". Museum of Science. http://www.mos.org/exhibits_shows/current_exhibits&d=213. 
  8. ^ "The Collection". Museum of Modern Art. http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A33129&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1. 
  9. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 20. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  10. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 23. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  11. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 67. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  12. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 70. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  13. ^ Marshall, Matt. "BitGravity to shake up video delivery". VentureBeat. http://venturebeat.com/2006/12/10/bitgravity-wants-to-shake-up-video-delivery-industry/. 
  14. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010). Fatal System Error. New York: Public Affairs Books. pp. 81. ISBN 978-1-58648-748-5. 
  15. ^ "Fighting Cybercrime, One Digital Thug At A Time". NPR's Fresh Air. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122958695. 
  16. ^ Ratliff, Evan (2005-10-10). "The Zombie Hunters". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010fa_fact. 
  17. ^ Menn, Joseph (2010-01-26). "Fatal System Error". PublicAffairs Books. http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586487485. 
  18. ^ Berinato, Scott (2005-05-01). "A Whiz Kid Took On an Extortionist -- and Won". CSO Magazine. http://www.csoonline.com/read/050105/extortion.html. 
  19. ^ "Eight Years for Extorting Millions". Kommersant. 2006-10-04. http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=709912. 
  20. ^ BitGravity challenges Akamai and Limelight ZDNet, Dan Farber. September 30, 2007
  21. ^ "The Baretbyte". http://www.blyon.com/blog/index.php/2010/07/20/the-barretbyte/. 
  22. ^ Cloud computing startup 3Crowd raises $6.6 million Reuters, Alastair Goldfisher. April 23, 2010