Damian P. Menscher

Mountain View, California; +1-650-796-4363; menscher@gmail.com

Job Objective:

To identify and eliminate network-based vulnerabilities through the use of penetration testing, firewalls, and intrusion detection. Focus will be placed on disaster cleanup (on a badly hacked network), forensics (both during and after an attack), and honeypot design.

Computer Skills:

Operating Systems:

UNIX: 7+ years IRIX (5.3, 6.2, 6.5); 2+ years HP-UX (10.20); some AIX (4.3.3) and SunOS/Solaris
PC: 7+ years DOS (3.3 - 6.22); 7+ years Linux (Debian, Fedora, Red Hat); 10+ years Windows (3.1, 9x, NT, XP)

Languages:

C/C++, HTML, Perl, Python, Shell scripting (sh, csh)
Parallel programming using shared memory (OpenMP) or distributed memory (MPI)
Some Assembly, Basic, Fortran 77/90, JavaScript, Pascal, Postscript

Administration and Security Skills:

Apache, ClamAV, Cups, DHCPd, FTP, NIS, NFS, POP/IMAP, Sendmail, Spamassassin, SSH, TFTP
Crack/John the Ripper, Firewalls, Sniffers, TCP Wrappers, The Coroner's Toolkit, Tripwire, some SELinux
Current events: read BugTraq and newsgroups regularly; don't limit self to 9-5 hours
Understanding of cryptographic protocols and attacks

Certification Exams:

IRIX Advanced System Administration (required to become an SGI Certified IRIX System Analyst)
IRIX Network Administration I (required to become an SGI Certified IRIX Network Administrator)
Certified Expert Penetration Tester (IACRB certification)

Related Work Experience:

(all listed experience gained during graduate school at the University of Illinois)

Security Consultant, Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services, January 2004 - May 2004

Improved security infrastructure by developing policies and tools for performing security scans of multiple class B netblocks and reporting scan results to network administrators.

Systems Administrator, Imaging Technology Group, August 2002 - Present

Managing services and security for a heterogeneous cluster of machines.
Set up, tested, and moved all primary services to a new server.
Responsible for system design, email infrastructure (including spam and virus filtering), security, and advanced troubleshooting.

Security Consulant, Various, January 2000 - Present

Investigated possibly-compromised systems and identified the cause of the suspicious behavior.
Used TCT to recover deleted files and tcpdump to monitor/track the intruders' actions and trace back to their home connection.
Cooperated with network administrators, security officers, and the FBI.
Notified other sites that had been compromised and provided advice for their recovery.

Computer Consultant, Physics Department, December 1999 - Present

Planned and supervised the installation of a new SGI server. Reinstalled all client machines to be Y2k compliant and to interact with the server through secure protocols. Minimized downtime and prevented data loss during the upgrade.
Later transitioned the group to Linux, while again minimizing downtime and maintaining interoperability with the legacy SGI machines.
Transitioned another research group from HP-UX and IRIX servers to Linux.

Assistant Network Administrator, Physics Department, June 1998 - September 1999

Assisted the network administrator and 700+ users during and after a system upgrade.
Managed Physics network and all Unix machines.
Provided network support, performed hardware and software upgrades (including the central Unix server), assisted users, and supervised other assistants.
Carried pager/cell phone to be on call 24/7.

Education:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

Ph.D. Physics, October 2005. Thesis: Charmonium and Charmed Mesons with Improved Lattice QCD
Certificate of Graduate Specialization in Computational Science and Engineering.
M.S. Physics, August 1998.
Attended first year as a University Fellow.

Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

B.S. Honors Physics, August 1997. Honors Thesis: Modeling the Quantum Computer on the Classical Computer.
Minor in Mathematics with emphasis on Computer Science.
Graduated Magna Cum Laude with University Honors
Attended on Presidential Scholarship.
Appointed to Student Council of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
GRE: General 2180/2400; Computer Science 780/990 (89%ile); Physics 750/990 (72%ile).

The Pingry School, Martinsville, NJ

Attended with one of two academic/need scholarships.
Graduated Cum Laude.
SAT 1440/1600; ACT 34/36.

Selected Publications:

Leptonic Decay Constants f_Ds and f_D in Three Flavor Lattice QCD -- Published in Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 140, 443 (2005); hep-lat/0410030
High-Precision Lattice QCD Confronts Experiment -- Published in Phys. Rev. Lett., 022001 (2004); hep-lat/0304004
D_s Spectrum and Leptonic Decays with Fermilab Heavy Quarks and Improved Staggered Light Quarks -- Published in Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 129, 328 (2004); hep-lat/0310045
Properties of Charmonium in Lattice QCD with 2+1 Flavors of Improved Staggered Sea Quarks -- Published in Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 129, 340 (2004); hep-lat/0310042

Talks and Posters:

Blowfish, MD5, and SHA -- Presented at SigMil, February 18, 2005
Reclaiming Email: Spam and Virus Filtering -- Presented at ITG Forum, September 7, 2004
Forensics on Unix Systems -- Presented at SigMil, April 16, 2004
Charmonium with Three Flavors of Dynamical Quarks -- Poster presented at Lattice 2002 -- Published in Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 119, 586 (2003); hep-lat/0210051
Improving Lattice QCD to O(a^2) -- Talk presented to UIUC Physics Department, December 20, 2000
Practical Password Storage and Retrieval -- Presented at Information Protection Seminar, October 10, 2001

Selected Conferences:

Reflections | Projections, October 22 - 24, 2004
DefCon 12, July 30 - August 1, 2004
Lattice 2004, June 21 - 26, 2004
Lattice Gauge Theory SciDAC Collaboration Meeting, February 21 - 22, 2003
Lattice 2002, June 24 - 29, 2002
Theoretical Advanced Study Institute in Elementary Particle Physics, June 4 -- 30, 2000

Selected Honors and Professional Affiliations:

milter_watch, program that tests the availability of spam- and virus-filtering milters.
Eagle Scout
Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society.
American Institute of Physics.
Phi Kappa Phi.
State Champion Pole Vaulter in New Jersey Parochial B Division, 1994. Broke high school pole vault record of 17 years with 11'6" jump.
E.J. Bloustein Distinguished Scholar
National Merit Commended Student

Other:

Work well under pressure, so seeking a high-impact job. Hobbies include volleyball, skiing, and reading.
U.S. Citizen

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