MILWAUKEE (AP) - Paul Watson thought he saw a security problemthat could seriously hurt the Internet, and he was willing to spendhis nights, weekends - even his vacation - figuring it out.
"Just putting in hours researching intricacies of protocol andstuff is a lot of fun," Watson said Tuesday, soon after landing inVancouver, British Columbia.
The 35-year-old Milwaukee man discovered a flaw in the underlyingtechnology for nearly all Internet traffic that, left unaddressed,could be used to seriously disrupt its flow of information. He isexpected to explain his findings Thursday at an Internet securityconvention in Vancouver.
At a conference last summer, Watson, an information securityspecialist at Rockwell Automation, heard experts say it wasn'tpractical to use the security problem to attack the Net.
"During their talk, I saw what I thought was a flaw in theirlogic, asked a brief question, didn't like the answer and immediatelywent out by the pool and started the first draft of my research," hesaid.
Watson said he was a little taken aback by all the attention hisfindings received Tuesday from the tech community and governmentsaround the world.
"This is a nerd thing," he said he told a friend. "Nobody's goingto be interested in this."
Unlike others who intentionally disrupt the Internet, Watson looksto fix the problems he finds in computer systems.
The moniker for his personal Web site, which he namedwww.terrorist.net well before the Sept. 11 attacks, says the exactopposite of his true goals.
"I'm anything but a terrorist," Watson said.
And he doesn't mind one stereotype about computer experts.
"I'm a hard-core geek through and through," he said. "To me, it'sthe biggest compliment anyone could give me to call me a nerd."
Copyright 2003 by Telegraph-Herald, All rights Reserved.
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