The Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota is devoted to research and preservation of the history of computing. They have amassed an interesting collection of literature and memorabilia that shows the history of the field.

One of the projects associated with the CBI is to gather oral histories of notable figures in the field of computing security. They have some fascinating oral histories of people including Willis Ware, Peter Neumann, Becky Bace, Roger Schell, Donn Parker and others, as well as lots of oral histories in other subfields of computing. You can find the full set online.

In July, there will be a workshop on the history of computing security. CBI has issued a call for papers. This effort is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Late last year, Jeff Yost of the CBI visited Purdue to conduct an interview with me. He got a lot of material out of me, including some anecdotes that I don’t think I have ever related to anyone else before. We spent a good portion of a day going through this. It’s long.

I question how many people might really want to read through the whole thing, but if you’re interested in some of the history of the security program at Purdue, how I ended up at Purdue, my start in software engineering, my initial work in digital forensics, how I got involved in security, or any of a bunch of other topics likely to be of little or no interest to most people, then you can check out my oral history at CBI.

I’ve mentioned a lot of students, colleagues, and influences by name. If you’re one of them, I hope what I said doesn’t bother you! (Unless I intended it to bother you, in which case….

I don’t think I said anything unduly embarrassing, and I’m actually happy to have documented some of the history of how CERIAS got started. So, if that kind of thing floats your boat (or balances your parity), then check it out.