Hi folks,

I am Nelsprite, to whom the term hacker first applied around 1982 or so. My first original hacks were accomplished on an IBM MVS mainfame timesharing system in BAL (that's 370 Assembly Language). After that came UNIX (Pyramid OS-X, System V, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.) and then Windows.

I've been on my own as a consultant (mostly as a programmer) for 10+ years, and most people who know me today do not know of my security expertise/interest.

When I've tried to market my security expertise, the combination of woman and low-level-system-savvy just seemed to frighten the men doing the hiring, so I've taken the path of least resistance and positioned myself as something else, even though my true skills are in out-hacking the hackers (and, for that matter, in out-hacking the watchers... while in school, my personal security monitoring turned up evidence against the head of our computer center and a computer operator, in separate incidents, that got them canned -- while both were trying to gather evidence on me, regarding non-existent misdeeds!).

I've developed MVS and UNIX monitoring tools for personal use (and that of my friends) but have kept them to myself, as I don't like the thought of releasing a tool that would help a script kiddie, regardless of who else it might help. :-(