"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"
Most famously attributed to Sir Isaac Newton, this quote reflects the sentiment of a new project. In InfoSec we all stand on the shoulders of giants.
It was just supposed to be a talk at DerbyCon, but as I dug into the topic I realized it needed to be more than just one talk.
Another relevant quote is George Santayana’s oft-misquoted:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In information security we have a very bad habit of ignoring the past; many times it isn’t even a failure to remember, it is a failure to ever have known who and what came before.
Thus, the Shoulders of InfoSec Project. It is an attempt to compile a lot of information about early figures in InfoSec (and hopefully it will move beyond just the early figures). There are some great resources out there already, notably the University of Minnesota's Charles Babbage Institute which includes a great set of oral histories of security luminaries. The goal is not to compete with, but to complement and highlight other relevant projects.
A note about the name: the project’s name is “Shoulders…”, not “Giants…”, because you do not need to be a giant to offer a shoulder to help others see further. Many people
There are two components to the project at this time, a low-volume blog and the wiki. The project wiki is a work in progress, it includes an ever-expanding list of names, each with a dedicated page including links to relevant information, and will hopefully gain some more color and context as the project develops. The wiki also includes a references and resources page which has links to several related sites and projects.
The presentation I delivered at DerbyCon is up on Adrian Crenshaw’s Irongeek site if you would like to see some of the ideas and people featured in this project.
Suggestions and contributions are welcome, see the wiki for information about contribution to the project.
Jack
