Stephen T. Cobb
Encyclopedia
Stephen Cobb
is an English American
author
, entrepreneur
, film producer
, and subject matter expert
in the field of computer security
and data privacy
. He is currently Security Evangelist for ESET
, an international company on the forefront of Internet security. Cobb's books are published under the name Stephen Cobb. This page was created as Stephen T. Cobb to avoid confusion with other authors called Stephen Cobb, such as Stephen Euin Cobb
.
, Cobb moved to America, where he first learned about computers while working for State Tax Commissioners Byron Dorgan
and Kent Conrad
as Chief Oil and Gas Tax Auditor for the state of North Dakota
. In that capacity he audited numerous oil companies and recovered millions of dollars in unpaid taxes for North Dakota.
Cobb went from learning about personal computers to teaching classes for IBM on how to use them. From there he moved on to writing handbooks for computer users, covering subjects such as databases, spreadsheets, word processing, and networking, mainly for McGraw-Hill
.
In the early 1990s Cobb was a prolific freelance contributor to a variety of British technology magazines, notably those published by VNU
. At this time he wrote The Stephen Cobb Guide to PC & LAN Security, one of the first books to look at information security from a personal computer
and local area network (LAN
) perspective, as opposed to the traditional mainframe
perspective. Cobb became a CISSP in 1996.
In 2002, Cobb published a guide to privacy for companies doing businesses on the Internet. This book was excerpted in ComputerWorld and later made available to the public free of charge on Wikimedia Commons
. In 2008, Cobb contributed several chapters to the Computer Security Handbook, 5th Edition.
. In 2008 he started blogging about hereditary hemochromatosis after his wife was diagnosed with this inherited metabolic disorder. This led him to create the Facebook page for hemochromatosis in 2009 and the Celtic Curse blog in 2010. After moving to a very rural part of New York state in 2008 Cobb became involved in efforts to bring broadband to un-served and under-served communities. In 2011 he authored an in-depth critique of satellite Internet access
which was published by the non-profit group RuMBA (Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance).
Cobb was both Executive Producer
and Producer
of Dare Not Walk Alone
, an award-winning documentary about Florida's role in the civil rights movement
. Written and directed by Jeremy Dean, the film documents the long suppressed history of events that took place in St. Augustine, Florida
in 1964 and which contributed to the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964
. However, the film looks beyond past events to also consider challenges faced by African Americans in St. Johns County 40 years after that legislation was passed, as well as efforts at racial reconciliation.
When Dare Not Walk Alone made its theatrical debut in Los Angeles, Sara Schieron of Boxoffice Magazine
declared it "has the potential to do real good in the world" and Eric Monder of Film Journal International
noted, "The racial politics of the current presidential election make this film all the more significant." The film was released on DVD in October 2008. In January 2009 the film was nominated for an NAACP Image Award
for Outstanding Documentary.
Cobb's main focus has been on maximizing the benefits of information technology to businesses, government entities, and communities through the reduction of IT-related fraud and risk. In 1995 Cobb became one of the first ten employees of the National Computer Security Association (later ICSA Labs and Tru-Secure). At NCSA he produced the widely distributed NCSA Firewall Policy Guide and helped form the Firewall Product Consortium.
In 1997, Cobb joined forces with Michael Miora, David Brussin, and Vincent Schiavone to turn Miora Systems Consulting into InfoSec Labs, a security consultancy which was acquired by Rainbow Technologies
in 1999. After two years as Director of Special Projects at Rainbow, Cobb again joined forces with Brussin, Miora, and Schiavone, this time to create ePrivacy Group
. The long term goal of ePrivacy Group was to eliminate spam. This involved research into trusted email technology, email stamps, reputational seals, consumer email matching systems, and TCP/IP traffic shaping
.
At ePrivacy Group Cobb helped create and evangelize the SpamSquelcher anti-spam technology which became TurnTide
and for which Symantec
paid $28 million in 2004. This technology is now widely deployed by large enterprises and Internet service provider
s to block spam from entering their networks.
Cobb also served as Chief Security Executive at iBAHN from 2004 to 2005 where he evangelized safer broadband access for business travelers. On several occasions Cobb has developed courses and teaching materials for the award-winning Master of Science in Information Assurance program at Norwich University
where he sometimes teaches as an Adjunct Professor. In 2006, Cobb was interviewed by the ACM
publication Ubiqity.
In addition to creating and delivering security awareness training to thousands of employees of companies such as AT&T and Microsoft Cobb, has spoken at scores of information security conferences in more than 10 countries. He maintains and contributes to a number of web sites and blogs. In 2008, Cobb joined Monetate, a Philadelphia-based startup, to evangelize the company's post-click marketing
platform. He joined ESET
and moved to San Diego in September 2011 as their Security Evangelist.
is an English American
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
, and subject matter expert
Subject Matter Expert
A subject matter expert or domain expert is a person who is an expert in a particular area or topic. When spoken, sometimes the acronym "SME" is spelled out and other times voiced as a word ....
in the field of computer security
Computer security
Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to...
and data privacy
Data privacy
Information privacy, or data privacy is the relationship between collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, and the legal and political issues surrounding them....
. He is currently Security Evangelist for ESET
Eset
ESET is an IT security company head-quartered in Bratislava, Slovakia that was founded in 1992 by the merger of two private companies. The company was awarded as the most successful Slovak company in 2008, 2009 and 2010...
, an international company on the forefront of Internet security. Cobb's books are published under the name Stephen Cobb. This page was created as Stephen T. Cobb to avoid confusion with other authors called Stephen Cobb, such as Stephen Euin Cobb
Stephen Euin Cobb
Stephen Euin Cobb is a U.S. author, magazine writer, interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You...
.
Background
After attending King Henry VIII School and getting his degree at the University of LeedsUniversity of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
, Cobb moved to America, where he first learned about computers while working for State Tax Commissioners Byron Dorgan
Byron Dorgan
Byron Leslie Dorgan is a former United States Senator from North Dakota and is now a senior policy advisor for a Washington, DC law firm. He is a member of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, the North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party. In the Senate, he was Chairman of the Democratic...
and Kent Conrad
Kent Conrad
Kent Conrad is the senior United States Senator from North Dakota. He is a member of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, the North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party...
as Chief Oil and Gas Tax Auditor for the state of North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
. In that capacity he audited numerous oil companies and recovered millions of dollars in unpaid taxes for North Dakota.
Cobb went from learning about personal computers to teaching classes for IBM on how to use them. From there he moved on to writing handbooks for computer users, covering subjects such as databases, spreadsheets, word processing, and networking, mainly for McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
.
In the early 1990s Cobb was a prolific freelance contributor to a variety of British technology magazines, notably those published by VNU
VNU
Nielsen is a global marketing and advertising research company headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Nielsen is active in over 100 countries, and employs some 32,000 people worldwide...
. At this time he wrote The Stephen Cobb Guide to PC & LAN Security, one of the first books to look at information security from a personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and local area network (LAN
Län
Län and lääni refer to the administrative divisions used in Sweden and previously in Finland. The provinces of Finland were abolished on January 1, 2010....
) perspective, as opposed to the traditional mainframe
Mainframe
Mainframe may refer to either of the following:* Mainframe computer, large and powerful data processing systems* Mainframe Entertainment, a Canadian computer animation and design company* Mainframe , a 1980s Electropop band...
perspective. Cobb became a CISSP in 1996.
In 2002, Cobb published a guide to privacy for companies doing businesses on the Internet. This book was excerpted in ComputerWorld and later made available to the public free of charge on Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation....
. In 2008, Cobb contributed several chapters to the Computer Security Handbook, 5th Edition.
Causes
In 2005, Cobb turned his attention to a number of social issues and causes. In 2006, he initiated an affordable housing project in St. Johns County, FloridaSt. Johns County, Florida
St. Johns County is a county located in northeastern Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 190,039. The county seat is St. Augustine. Due to the inclusion of Ponte Vedra Beach, it is one of the highest-income counties in the United States....
. In 2008 he started blogging about hereditary hemochromatosis after his wife was diagnosed with this inherited metabolic disorder. This led him to create the Facebook page for hemochromatosis in 2009 and the Celtic Curse blog in 2010. After moving to a very rural part of New York state in 2008 Cobb became involved in efforts to bring broadband to un-served and under-served communities. In 2011 he authored an in-depth critique of satellite Internet access
Satellite Internet access
Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through satellites. The service can be provided to users world-wide through low Earth orbit satellites. Geostationary satellites can offer higher data speeds, but their signals can not reach some polar regions of the world...
which was published by the non-profit group RuMBA (Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance).
Film Production
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
and Producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
of Dare Not Walk Alone
Dare Not Walk Alone
Dare Not Walk Alone is a 2006 documentary directed by Jeremy Dean. The film played the festival circuit in 2006 and in 2007 received the audience award at the Deep Focus Film Festival in Columbus, Ohio. It was signed by Indican Pictures for theatrical, DVD, and TV release...
, an award-winning documentary about Florida's role in the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
. Written and directed by Jeremy Dean, the film documents the long suppressed history of events that took place in St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...
in 1964 and which contributed to the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
. However, the film looks beyond past events to also consider challenges faced by African Americans in St. Johns County 40 years after that legislation was passed, as well as efforts at racial reconciliation.
When Dare Not Walk Alone made its theatrical debut in Los Angeles, Sara Schieron of Boxoffice Magazine
Boxoffice (magazine)
Boxoffice is a film industry magazine dedicated to the movie theatre business published by Boxoffice Media LP. It started in 1920 as The Reel Journal, taking its current name in 1931 and still publishes today, with an intended audience of theatre owners and film professionals.Boxoffice is the...
declared it "has the potential to do real good in the world" and Eric Monder of Film Journal International
Film Journal International
Film Journal International is a motion-picture industry trade magazine published by the American company Prometheus Global Media. It is a sister publication of Adweek, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and other periodicals....
noted, "The racial politics of the current presidential election make this film all the more significant." The film was released on DVD in October 2008. In January 2009 the film was nominated for an NAACP Image Award
NAACP Image Award
An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
for Outstanding Documentary.
Companies
In the field of information assuranceInformation Assurance
Information assurance is the practice of managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information or data and the systems and processes used for those purposes...
Cobb's main focus has been on maximizing the benefits of information technology to businesses, government entities, and communities through the reduction of IT-related fraud and risk. In 1995 Cobb became one of the first ten employees of the National Computer Security Association (later ICSA Labs and Tru-Secure). At NCSA he produced the widely distributed NCSA Firewall Policy Guide and helped form the Firewall Product Consortium.
In 1997, Cobb joined forces with Michael Miora, David Brussin, and Vincent Schiavone to turn Miora Systems Consulting into InfoSec Labs, a security consultancy which was acquired by Rainbow Technologies
Rainbow Technologies
Rainbow Technologies was an encryption and information security company based in Orange County, California, that was acquired by SafeNet, Inc. in 2003. Through its acquisition of Mykotronx, Rainbow Technologies was responsible for developing and supporting top secret encryption devices used by the...
in 1999. After two years as Director of Special Projects at Rainbow, Cobb again joined forces with Brussin, Miora, and Schiavone, this time to create ePrivacy Group
EPrivacy Group
ePrivacy Group was a privacy consulting and anti-spam technology firm, founded in 2000 by David Brussin, Stephen Cobb, James Koenig, Michael Miora, and Vincent Schiavone. The team was later joined by privacy pioneers Ray Everett-Church, and Terry Pittman....
. The long term goal of ePrivacy Group was to eliminate spam. This involved research into trusted email technology, email stamps, reputational seals, consumer email matching systems, and TCP/IP traffic shaping
Traffic shaping
Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria...
.
At ePrivacy Group Cobb helped create and evangelize the SpamSquelcher anti-spam technology which became TurnTide
TurnTide
TurnTide Inc. was an anti-spam technology company founded in 2004 and based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The firm was created as a spin-off corporation from privacy and anti-spam technology firm ePrivacy Group to bring to market the world's first anti-spam router...
and for which Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
paid $28 million in 2004. This technology is now widely deployed by large enterprises and Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s to block spam from entering their networks.
Cobb also served as Chief Security Executive at iBAHN from 2004 to 2005 where he evangelized safer broadband access for business travelers. On several occasions Cobb has developed courses and teaching materials for the award-winning Master of Science in Information Assurance program at Norwich University
Norwich University
Norwich University is a private university located in Northfield, Vermont . The university was founded in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont, as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. It is the oldest of six Senior Military Colleges, and is recognized by the United States Department of...
where he sometimes teaches as an Adjunct Professor. In 2006, Cobb was interviewed by the ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
publication Ubiqity.
In addition to creating and delivering security awareness training to thousands of employees of companies such as AT&T and Microsoft Cobb, has spoken at scores of information security conferences in more than 10 countries. He maintains and contributes to a number of web sites and blogs. In 2008, Cobb joined Monetate, a Philadelphia-based startup, to evangelize the company's post-click marketing
Post-click marketing
Post-click marketing is emerging as a recognized practice that aims at improving sales and marketing results by focusing on website visitors when they respond to online marketing activities such as pay per click advertising, HTML e-mails, and paid searches with the objective on increasing...
platform. He joined ESET
Eset
ESET is an IT security company head-quartered in Bratislava, Slovakia that was founded in 1992 by the merger of two private companies. The company was awarded as the most successful Slovak company in 2008, 2009 and 2010...
and moved to San Diego in September 2011 as their Security Evangelist.