About Justin

This subdomain is my blogging site. My main site www.madirish.net is the older and more focused site that I run. This blog is mainly my rambling thoughts while the main site contains more structured articles about computers, technology and security.

I'm currently working as a programmer at the University of Pennsylvania where I'm working on my second master's degree (this time in computers). When I finished work on my MA in History I decided that IT was the field for me. After spending several years at a small start up in Washington, DC I had learned enough to parlay my experience into a career. I started my own company with the help of my brother Chris and a friend Matt Ludwig. We did some amazing work but unfortunately weren't bringing home enough cheddar to keep things going. It was a wonderful first experience at starting a company though. From there I decided to go back to school and first took a job at Drexel University, then at Penn. While I started at Penn as an application developer the emerging need for a security officer finally provided me with the opportunity to work in the field I really love and so now I'm working as an information security officer at Penn.

I continue to work on various open source and computer security projects and my interest lie mainly in information architecture and security.