Eugene H. Spafford is a
professor of
Computer Science at
Purdue University, specializing in
computer security issues. He founded and served as the director of Purdue's Computer Operations, Audit, and Security Technology (COAST) laboratory, where he oversaw the development of the popular
COPS &
Tripwire security tools for
Unix systems. COAST has since been subsumed by
CERIAS, another research center which approaches computer security with a multidisciplinary approach instead of just focusing on the computer aspect.
Spafford also co-wrote the
O'Reilly and Associates classic
Practical UNIX & Internet Security with
Simpson Garfinkel. He helped defuse the
Morris Internet Worm in 1988 and wrote the best-known analysis of the incident. He continues to mentor graduate students, work on books, and try to change the computer security world.
Spafford was also an influential voice in the early years of
Usenet, where he was better known as '
Spaf'.
Spaf is easily recognizable via his often worn
bowtie.