about

personally

SpencerI’m Spencer Shimko. I happen to be responsible for the content on this site. But most of the time I’m off doing other things. I enjoy music, games (board and video), cars, and new gadgets. I’m not real big on watching TV but I pay for cable anyways. I do not enjoy long walks on the beach. I enjoy debating about pretty much anything. I’m not always right. I keep forgetting about hobbies I really enjoy like making music and the visualization project I’ve been meaning to start for years. I know I have the time for these things but I just can’t remember where I put it. I’m color blind (Deuteranopia or strong Deuteranomalia). I love being challenged intellectually. I’m interested in anything to do with computer security and that spills over into my job. What really surprises me is how little I know about the things I know the most about.

I live in Catonsville and work in Columbia, MD. This is a great place to be - somewhere in between DC and Baltimore. Baltimore is a friendly, working-class town while DC is nice if you ignore the transient leeches. When you need to leave there are three international airports within a one hour drive. The Inner-Harbor and the Smithsonian are just two examples of the great places that you seem to forget about when you live here. The photo of me above is a quick iPhone shot taken while I was driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore.

My background in computers stems from interests formed when I was but a child. It’s not the same old “robot from Lost in Space killed my father when I was five and I’ve been seeking my revenge on computers ever since” story I’m sure you’ve all heard a thousand times by now. No, in reality I was lucky enough to have two parents with sound footing in the science communities (Silicon and Carbon). I was given access to technology and mass quantities of technical information my entire life.

My parents bought the family’s first PC when I was four or five and I distinctly remember my Dad teaching me the basics of DOS and only running “dir” to look for the “.com”, “.exe”, and “.bat” files where all the real toys were. Windows, various Unix shells, and dial-up BBSs were introduced in the early nineties. Linux was in the house in the mid and late nineties. After college (more Unix-like systems) I bounced back and forth some more between Linux, Windows, and finally OS X (BSD). Currently my server(s) run Linux while I use a Macbook Pro for development and day-to-day tasks and I have a Mac Mini w/ an external RAID hooked up to the HDTV.

If you want to start cyber-stalking me you can get a good start in the sidebar on the right where there are links to my recent music, bookmarks, pictures, and thoughts. You can even subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed if you want but my music and bookmarks will be updated more often.

professionally

Just over three years ago I started security and SELinux for Tresys Technology, LLC. For those of you not familiar with the comments usually go, “yeah SELinux is a great mechanism but it is too hard so that makes it bad.” The work some of us do at Tresys addresses exactly that point. You no longer have to become an SELinux expert to take advantage of the technology. Some things I’ve been involved in at Tresys:

If you’re a moron little slow and can’t tell these thoughts are my own - not my employers. If you’re going to respond to a post or rant that appears here take that into account.

about the site

As the duly elected president a participant in the blogosphere I have decided to dump anything I want to here. Some of it might be offensive, some might be intellectually stimulating, some might get under your skin - I make no guarantees here. Think “Random Thoughts by Spencer”.

I encourage you to comment in my blog, respond in your own blog with trackbacks and pingbacks, or send me an email using the link at the footer of the page. If you’re going the email route don’t forget to remove my comment about spam from the address and subject line.

 



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