William R. "Bill" Cheswick (also known as "Ches") is a computer security and networking researcher.
Education
Cheswick graduated from
Lawrenceville School
The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational preparatory school for boarding and day students located in the Lawrenceville section of Lawrence Township, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Lawrenceville is a member of the Eight Scho ...
in 1970 and received a B.S. in Fundamental Science in 1975 from
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...
. While at Lehigh, working with Doug Price and Steve Lidie, Cheswick co-authored the Senator line-oriented text editor.
Career
Cheswick's early career included contracting in Bethlehem, PA between 1975 and 1977. He was a Programmer for American Newspaper Publishers Association / Research Institute in Easton, PA between 1976 and 1977 and a Systems Programmer for Computer Sciences Corporation in Warminster, PA between 1977 and 1978. Following this, Cheswick joined Systems and Computer Technology Corporation where he served as a Systems Programmer and Consultant between 1978 and 1987. Much of Cheswick's early career was related to his expertise with Control Data Corporation (CDC) mainframes, their operating systems such as SCOPE and NOS, and the related
COMPASS
A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself wit ...
assembly language. Cheswick initially worked with CDC systems as a student at Lehigh University.
Cheswick joined
Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
in 1987. Shortly thereafter, he and Steven M. Bellovin created one of the world's first network firewalls. The resulting research and papers lead to their publication of the seminal book '' Firewalls and Internet Security'', one of the first to describe the architecture of a firewall in detail. Cheswick and Bellovin also created one of the world's first honeypots in the course of detecting and trapping an attempted intruder into their network.
In 1998, Cheswick, still at Bell Labs (by then controlled by
Lucent
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
) started the Internet Mapping Project, assisted by Hal Burch. The research allowed large scale mapping of the internet for the first time, using tracerouting techniques to learn the connectivity graph of global networks. The work ultimately led to the founding in 2000 of a spinoff company, Lumeta, where Cheswick was a co-founder and held the title of Chief Scientist.
He joined AT&T Shannon Lab in 2007, where he remained until 2012.
Hobbies, interests, and personal projects
Cheswick currently lives in New Jersey with his wife. He has two children. His home is a farmhouse in
Flemington, New Jersey
Flemington is a borough in and the county seat of Hunterdon County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.