Marcus Ranum

FOR: Commercial firewalls

Though credited with implementing the first commercial firewall, Marcus Ranum doesn’t really consider what he did a technological innovation in the classic sense.

“What I did is commercialize a lot of good ideas,” Ranum quipped. “None of the stuff was rocket science.”

Still, Ranum’s impact on the evolution of perimeter security is undeniable. He essentially created the proxy firewall in the early 1990s, and since the late 1980s, he has designed a number of groundbreaking security products, including the DEC SEAL, the TIS firewall toolkit, Network Associates’ Gauntlet firewall and NFR’s Network Flight Recorder intrusion-detection system.

If that isn’t enough to prove his innovator credentials, the programmer also did some of the earliest work on encrypted VPNs and first conceptualized the popular integrated security appliance back in the mid-1980s.

Today, Ranum offers security consulting services from his home office in Morrisdale, Pa. While he still dabbles in perimeter security appliances, his latest obsession is developing a tool that can help solution providers handle system log analysis.

When pressed about his need to work and inability to retire early and live off his elusive fortune, Ranum said that for him, luxury is no reality. “One of the things I didn’t manage to do during the ’90s was get rich,” he said. “Unfortunately for me, I have to keep working just like everyone else.”

Education: B.A. in psychology, John Hopkins University
Yahoo or Google: Google
Favorite handheld: Desert Eagle .44 magnum
Most-used app: Adobe Photoshop
First paying job: Building burglar alarms for private security firm in 1979
Bush or Kerry: Undecided
Carbs or no carbs: “Nobody gets out of this alive.”

 Published for the Week Of October 18, 2004