Paul is an uber hacker. He is one of the foremost computer security experts in the world, and has advised banks, casinos, major industries, and governments on how to effectively manage and store their electronic commerce and sensitive information.

When not working on security projects for clients, Paul spends his time hacking on Open Source software. He has made major contributions to the Linux kernel including device drivers and security updates. Paul is a member of the GNOME project, and is the maintainer of numerous cryptography and firewall packages.

He is also a specialist in packaging software, having done so for the Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu Linux distributions and for Apple's Mac OS X. Aside from packaging code, he has also been called upon to fix security vulnerabilities, maintain backports, configure servers and perform disaster recoveries. He has converted entire 'legacy' networks to Open Sourced equivalents, and has done complete location audits for a number of key Australian ISV's.

From this varied background, Paul has developed an outstanding appreciation of the challenges which arise in trying to support software on different platforms. In particular it is his experience in overcoming the challenges of deploying software across large installations with varying hardware - the infrastructure problem - which make him such a valued resource.

Paul has written articles for Australian Personal Computer, LAN Magazine and a press piece for Internet.au, as well as having collaborated on portions of the European Union's e-Government and Open Transport Systems proposals.

Paul is based in Melbourne, Australia, and is an avid snow boarder.

Paul Drain contributes his broad perspective on Open Source to clients needing a serious dose of how things should be done. He is our technical lead on troubleshooting Linux systems, and leads our security engagements.