Simson Garfinkel
{{distinguish|Simon & Garfunkel}}
{{Short description|American academic and journalist (born 1965)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Simson L. Garfinkel
| image = 2017_Simson_Official_Photo.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1965}}
| birth_place =
| mother = Marian Garfinkel
| death_date =
| death_place =
| residence =
| citizenship =
| nationality = American
| thesis_title = Design Principles and Patterns for Computer Systems That Are Simultaneously Secure and Usable
| thesis_url = https://simson.net/thesis/
| thesis_year = 2005
| doctoral_advisor = David D. Clark
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Database Nation (2000)
| footnotes =
| ethnicity =
| field = Computer science
| work_institution = US Census Bureau
Naval Postgraduate School
| author_abbreviation_bot =
| author_abbreviation_zoo =
| prizes = Department of Defense Value Engineering Achievement Award
Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award
| religion =
| father = Marvin Garfinkel
| education = Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, BS, BS, PhD)
Columbia University (MS)
}}
Simson L. Garfinkel (born 1965) is an American computer scientist. He is the Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer of BasisTech in Somerville, Massachusetts.
He was previously a program scientist at AI2050, part of Schmidt Futures.{{Cite web |title=Our People |url=https://www.schmidtfutures.com/our-people/ |access-date=2023-01-23 |website=Schmidt Futures |language=en-US}} He has held several roles across government, including a Senior Data Scientist at the Department of Homeland Security,{{Cite web|url=https://www.dhs.gov/data|title=DHS Data}} the US Census Bureau's Senior Computer Scientist for Confidentiality and Data Access{{Cite web|url=https://www2.census.gov/about/bc245.pdf|title=US Census Bureau Staff Roster}} and a computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. From 2006 to 2015, he was an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In addition to his research, Garfinkel is a journalist, an entrepreneur and an inventor; his work is generally concerned with computer security, privacy and information technology.
Education
Garfinkel obtained three BS degrees from MIT in 1987. One in Chemistry, another one in Political Science and the third one in Humanities.Simson Garfinkel CV, https://simson.net/page/Curriculum_Vitae Furthermore does he have a MS in journalism from Columbia University in 1988 and a PhD in computer science from MIT in 2005. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research on Computation and Society at Harvard University from September 2005 through August 2008.[http://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/ Harvard CRCS ]
Research
Garfinkel's early research was in the field of optical storage. While he was an undergraduate at the MIT Media Laboratory, Garfinkel developed CDFS, the first file system for write-once optical disk systems.S. Garfinkel, "A file system for write once media, MIT Media Lab., Oct. 1986. During the summer of 1987, he worked at Brown University's IRIS Project, where he developed a server allowing CDROMs to be shared over a network simultaneously by multiple workstations.Designing a write-once file system (a general-purpose optical storage software technology), Dr. Dobb's Journal, 1991, Jan, pp. 78, 80, 82--26.
In 1991, while a senior editor at NeXTWORLD magazine, Garfinkel created an address book program for the NeXT Computer called SBook.{{Cite web|url=http://simson.net/ref/sbook5/|title=SBook is Simson Garfinkel's Address Book|last=Garfinkel|first=Simson|access-date=2018-12-21}} One of SBook's most popular features was a search field that performed a full-text search of all of the records in the address book with each keypress. This kind of search is now standard on many computer programs, including Apple's Mail application and Mozilla Thunderbird. SBook was one of the first programs to incorporate this kind of search technology.
In 1995, Garfinkel moved to Martha's Vineyard and started Vineyard.NET, the island's first Internet Service Provider. Vineyard.NET was bought by Broadband2Wireless,{{cite web |url=http://simson.net/ref/2000/bb2w/ |title=BB2W}} archived at simson.net a wireless ISP, in 2000. The company went bankrupt in September 2001,{{cite news|url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-10420118_IT |title=Broadband2Wireless files for bankruptcy |date=2001-09-01 }}{{dead link|date=May 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} and Garfinkel bought Vineyard.NET back from the debtor's estate.{{cn|date=March 2025}}
In 1998, Garfinkel founded Sandstorm Enterprises, a computer security firm that developed advanced computer forensic tools used by businesses and governments to audit their systems. Sandstorm was acquired by Niksun{{cite web |url=https://www.niksun.com |title=Niksun |website=niksun.com}} in 2010. Garfinkel is the inventor of six patents,{{US Patent|7779032}}{{US Patent|7023854}}{{US Patent|6993661}}{{US Patent|6744864}}{{US Patent|6678270}}{{US Patent|6490349}} mostly in the field of computer security.
In 2003, Garfinkel and Abhi Shelat published an article{{cite web |url=http://www.simson.net/clips/academic/2003.IEEE.DiskDriveForensics.pdf |title=Remembrance of Data Passed: A Study of Disk Sanitization Practices |work=IEEE Security & Privacy |date=January 2003 |issn=1540-7993 |pages=17–27}} in IEEE Security & Privacy magazine reporting on an experiment in which they purchased 158 used hard drives from a variety of sources and checked to see whether they still contained readable data. Roughly one third of the drives appeared to have information that was highly confidential and should have been erased prior to the drive's resale.
In 2006, Garfinkel introduced cross-drive analysis, an unsupervised machine learning algorithm for automatically reconstructing social networks from hard drives and other kinds of data-carrying devices that are likely to contain pseudo-unique information.{{cite journal |last=Garfinkel |first=S.|title=Forensic Feature Extraction and Cross-Drive Analysis |journal=Digital Investigation |volume=3, Supplement 1 |date=September 2006 |pages=71–81 |doi=10.1016/j.diin.2006.06.007 |url=http://www.simson.net/clips/academic/2006.DFRWS.pdf}}
In September 2006, Garfinkel joined the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, as an associate professor of Computer Science.{{cite web |url=http://www.nps.navy.mil/cs/ |title=NPS at U. S. Navy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071111034914/http://www.nps.navy.mil/cs/ |archive-date=2007-11-11}} He moved to Arlington, Virginia, in June 2010 to help NPS with its research aims in the National Capital Region. He transitioned to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in January 2015, and to the US Census Bureau in 2017.
A common theme throughout Garfinkel's research is introduction of the scientific method to digital forensics.Garfinkel, Simson, Paul Farrell, Vassil Roussev, and George Dinolt. "Bringing science to digital forensics with standardized forensic corpora." Digital Investigation 6 (2009): S2-S11.Garfinkel, Simson L. "Digital forensics research: The next 10 years." Digital Investigation 7 (2010): S64-S73.
Honors
Garfinkel was named a Fellow of the ACM in 2012,{{cite web
|url = http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2012/fellows-2012
|title = 2012 Fellows Hail from World's Leading Universities and Corporations
|publisher = The Association for Computing Machinery
|author = Gold, Virginia
|quote = Simson Garfinkel, For contributions to digital forensics and to computer security education
|access-date = Dec 11, 2012
|url-status = dead
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121212111017/http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2012/fellows-2012
|archive-date = 2012-12-12
}} a fellow of the IEEE in 2019{{cite web
|url = https://www.computer.org/web/pressroom/ieee-cs-2019-fellows
|title = IEEE Computer Society Announces 2019 Fellows
|publisher = The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
|quote = Simson Garfinkel, For contributions to digital forensics and computer security
|access-date = Dec 21, 2018
}} and a fellow of the AAAS in 2021{{Cite web |title=Elected Fellows AAAS |url=https://www.aaas.org/fellows/listing }}
Publications
Garfinkel is the author or co-author of 16 books, and the author of more than a thousand articles.Simson Garfinkel Bio, http://simson.net/page/Bio He is a contributing writer for Technology Review"Staff List," Technology Review.com, July 7, 2008 http://www.technologyreview.com/corp/staff.aspx and has written as a freelancer for many publications including Wired magazine, The Boston Globe, Privacy Journal, and CSO Magazine. His work for CSO Magazine earned him five regional and national journalism awards, including the Jesse H. Neal Business Journalism Awards in 2003 and 2004.[http://www.csoonline.com/marketing/awards] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080917003658/http://www.csoonline.com/marketing/awards|date=September 17, 2008}}
Garfinkel is also the editor of [https://forensics.wiki/ The Forensics Wiki].
= Books =
{{lacking ISBNs|date=March 2025}}
- The Computer Book: From the Abacus to Artificial Intelligence, 250 Milestones in the History of Computer Science (Sterling Milestones), by Simson L. Garfinkel and Rachel H. Grunspan. 2018 (Sterling)
- Usable Security: History, Themes, and Challenges], by Simson Garfinkel and Heather Lipford, 2014. (Morgan & Claypool, part of the Synthesis Lectures on Information Security, Privacy and Trust series.)
- {{cite book|author=Lorrie Cranor and Garfinkel, Simson|title=Security and Usability|year=2005|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Beth Rosenberg|title=RFID: Applications, Security and Privacy|publisher=Addison-Wesley|year=2005}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Gene Spafford and Alan Schwartz|title=Practical UNIX and Internet Security, 3rd Edition|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=2003|isbn=978-0596003234}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Michael K. Mahoney|title=Building Cocoa Applications : A Step by Step Guide|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=2002|isbn=0-596-00235-1}}
- Web Security, Privacy and Commerce, with Gene Spafford. 2001. (O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.)
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson|title=Database Nation; The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century|url=https://archive.org/details/databasenationde00garf|url-access=registration|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=2000|isbn=0-596-00105-3}} ([http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.77.html#subj12 review] by Peter G. Neumann and [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.79.html#subj7.1 review] by Eugene Spafford, in the RISKS Digest)
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson|title=Architects of the Information Society|url=https://archive.org/details/architectsofinfo00garf|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262071963 }}
- {{cite book|author1=Garfinkel, Simson|author2=Alan Schwartz|name-list-style=amp|title=Stopping Spam|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=1998|isbn=1-56592-388-X|url=https://archive.org/details/stoppingspam00schw}} ([http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.17.html#subj7.1 review] by Rob Slade in the RISKS Digest)
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson with Eugene Spafford|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=1997|title=Web Security and Commerce|isbn=9781565922693 |url=https://archive.org/details/websecuritycomme00garfrich|url-access=registration}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Eugene Spafford|title=Practical UNIX and Internet Security|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=1996|isbn=1-56592-148-8|url=https://archive.org/details/practicalunixint00garf}} ([http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/18.13.html#subj1.2 review] by Peter G. Neumann in the RISKS Digest)
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson|title=PGP: Pretty Good Privacy|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=1995|isbn=1-56592-098-8}}
- {{cite book |author= |title=UNIX-HATERS Handbook |publisher=IDG |year=1994 |isbn=1-56884-203-1 |editor-last=Garfinkel |editor-first=Simson |editor-last2=Weise |editor-first2=Daniel |editor-last3=Strassman |editor-first3=Steven}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Michael K. Mahoney|title=NeXTStep Programming|publisher=The Electronic Library of Science|year=1993|isbn=0-387-97884-4|url=https://archive.org/details/nextstepprogramm00gar_h81}}
- {{cite book|author=Garfinkel, Simson and Eugene Spafford|title=Practical UNIX and Security|publisher=O'Reilly and Associates|year=1991|bibcode=1991pus..book.....G}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://www.simson.net/ Simson Garfinkel's home page]
- [http://faculty.nps.edu/slgarfin Simson Garfinkel's official website] at the Naval Postgraduate School
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Category:American computer scientists
Category:American male journalists
Category:American technology writers
Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
Category:2012 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Category:Naval Postgraduate School faculty
Category:People from Arlington County, Virginia
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)
Category:Wired (magazine) people