Location San Francisco, California, United States Regions San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Male
Investor Type Number of Exits
Website insecure.org/ Facebook View on Facebook X (Twitter) View on X
Hi! My given name is Gordon Lyon, though I often go by Fyodor on the Internet. I run the Internet security resource sites Insecure.Org, Nmap.Org, SecLists.Org, and SecTools.Org. I also wrote and maintain the Nmap Security Scanner. These projects don't leave me much time to update vanity pages like this one, so you may find a more formal and
up-to-date bio on my Wikipedia entry. For people who just came here looking for my email address, it is fyodor@nmap.org.
In case it isn't obvious from my web sites, I am a hacker. The good kind. I enjoy tinkering with computers, exploring networks, pushing hardware and software to its limits, and especially open source programming. I have been developing and distributing the free Nmap Security Scanner since 1997. It scans your networks to determine what hosts are online, what services (web servers, mail servers, etc.) they are offering, what OS they are running, and more.
While my web sites and Nmap were created for fun and in the hope that people would find them useful, they have become my full-time occupation. I consider myself quite privileged to be able to spend all my time on what I love. Revenue comes from a licensing program that allows proprietary software and appliance vendors to integrate and distribute Nmap technology within their products. This is similar to the model taken by MySQL, Trolltech Qt, and Berkeley DB. Nmap's license allows free use by end users or within larger open source packages. My company, Insecure.Com LLC, also offers limited web advertising.
I have gained much from the information and open source programs available on the Internet, as well as the culture of sharing that pervades the hacker community. I try give a little back through my programs, books, articles, web sites, and other projects I maintain.
