Personal Post 5... Christopher Soghoian is one of my new Heros

In an article of Wired volume 19.12 I found an article about a man not unlike Robin Hood, fabled feared by the rich with secrets to their wealth about how they misuse and mistreat the poor and unknowing in the technological world. To take advantage for business gains is seen as a capitol offense to Mister Christopher Soghoian the defender of the know nothings. The hero to those who don't even know they are being attacked or being made vulnerable who should be praising this man as a hero and don't even know his name. I was in this category until recently, until this article. He has enacted so much change in so little time. He has a litany of academic credits to his name as well as prestigious fellowships so I am pretty sure he is a prodigy of some sort.

That is the face of an American Hero a man who should go down in lore. He uses social media to bend policy and practices to his and our whim. He find flaws in systems and spreads the word virally  through his blog and other means. He find the holes gives them to the companies poses solutions and then tell them he will go public if they don't fix them. At the same time he leaks the stories to the media to expedite the process and his findings usually enact change.

He has helped/ enacted change on a number of companies and organizations including: The TSA, Firefox and the government in general.  He was trying to board a flight in 2006 when he was stopped by the TSA for having hummus which apparently was not allowed. He retorted with a snarky remark and was held for question and further investigation. Instead of getting mad he got even. In 10 relatively easy steps he showed how to bypass TSA security. This was shown on the news and eventually the FBI came to arrest him. He told them to come back with a warrant which they did. But between that time he wrote on his blog; "FBI are at the door. Off to chat;" what a bad ass line. I mean he is like a super hero, he wasn't sweating bullets he was clam as could be and he showed flaws in a system. Not only did he get arrested and released but eventually offered a job from the Department of Homeland Security. His contract was not renewed because he made them very mad. He also helped the public on Firefox by creating a program called TACO which allowed users to opt-out of targeted ads. There he is looking to protect peoples right to privacy. He also eventually found out and co-wrote a paper that showed governments are able to spy on "secure websites." They use a Packet Forensics tool to go around encrypted software. That should be very scary to you and you might not have know it had it not been for Christopher.

This man really looks out for the general public and what he believes is the greater good. Also he is trying to improve security and privacy on the internet. He is like a sheriff in the old wild west, standing up for what is morally right as well as trying to uphold the law but the morality comes first. For this I thank him for all he does and because of him hopefully there will be good changes made in policy.

I would like to leave you with a link to his blog