whoisjoe

My name is Joe Basirico, by day I help people build secure software. I lead a team of the most talented security experts in the world to perform security assessments and help our customers reduce their risk against the ever-present threat of hackers and other ne'er-do-wells.

I started a non-profit, Technically Learning, a few years ago with the help of a few friends to help kids, particularly girls and minorities, get excited about the STEM fields.

On this site you'll find links to all of my projects, programming projects, research, a blog and more.

My Github Page | Stackoverflow CV | My Photos Home | Blog | Projects | Site Map | LinkedIn | Twitter | RSS

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Joe_CMS

This site runs the Joe_CMS (the name is still a work in progress), which I wrote after trying to get some of the "big" CMS's working for weeks. The intent of this CMS is simplicity. You can create new pages easily, link within the site easily and manage a blog easily. You can even make changes to the CSS and templates online (if you're so inclined), you guessed it, easily. For more examples of where this CMS is used check out Technically Learning, my non-profit to help kids learn science and mathematics and Katherine Sather's website. If you'd like to give Joe_CMS a spin just send me an e-mail and ask.

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Technically Learning

Technically Learning was founded over four years ago by a small group of friends tired of complaining about the lack of women and minorities in their fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The founders, most of whom are still board members, believed (and still do) that every child, regardless of their gender, race or socio-economic background, should have the opportunity in the STEM fields.

By improving the quality of STEM education through fun, exciting and engaging activities, projects and curriculum, we believe that more children will choose higher education and pursue careers in these fields.

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WikiRater

I created WikiRater as a project to help me create an algorithm to automatically rate the quality of a Wikipedia article. I'd love to be able to request a random, high quality article from Wikipedia, read the top 100 best articles or to help the Wikimedia foundation out by highlighting the bottom 100 articles that need help. If you register and rate articles you'll be helping me do that. Each time you rate an article I'll let you know what WikiRater would have rated, so sign up and join the fun!

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Blog

Boeing Paying Hackers to Break into Their Systems
5/14/2012 - Posted by joe

Boeing's systems need to be capable of staving off hackers, and for more than two years, the company has employed two "hackers" to test the security of its computer systems. I like it, but there's more that needs to be done.

Since most large organizations rely on a mix of COTS hardware, 3rd party software applications, communication technologies, and custom code to run their IT infrastructure, it's difficult to apply a single security assessment solution to ensure adequate coverage and protection. If organizations ...

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My Reading Cycle
5/7/2012 - Posted by joe

I don't read a lot, but over the last few years I've developed a book choice cycle that works really well for me. It helps me finish challenging books that I want to read for development, and entices me to be selective about the "fun" books I burn through. My reading cycle is: one "fun" book, one personal development book and one professional development book.

My first book can be something fun. I just finished The Hunger Games trilogy, which classified as fun books. They were so quick to read, I counted all three as one fun book (probably strictly cheating) These are great as a mental vacation, the ...

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Developing Tools for Professional Hackers
4/30/2012 - Posted by joe

Professional hackers or security testers tend to write a lot of code. We write exploit code, fuzzers, code to handle esoteric protocols and data structures, unpackers, disassemblers, reversers, parsers, and so much more.

We write this code because often what we're doing is so specific that is requires one off tools. Over time we develop an enormous arsenal of our own tools, scripts, functions and code snippets that make us significantly more efficient, but are hacks that are only beneficial to us. We then turn around and present them at conferences, we show off their magic in the hands of the original developer and the crowd goes wild, but the ecosystem stops there, because they ...

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