Whitedust: Interview: Paul Watson

I came to work at Google late last summer. It gets a lot of media buzz about being geek-sheik and super cool. I have worked at some really cool places before Google, but Google is so much more incredible than any media article or Slashdot post could ever describe. The best phrase I can think of would be nerd-nirvana (or should it be nerdvana?)

Wonder if the nearby lab is open yet.

I was really shocked about Cisco’s patent for their ‘fix’ of the issue. It was a clever idea for a fix but it really broke my trust in them. The vendors (like Cisco) want Security Researchers to notify them about vulnerabilities before going public. But Cisco took advantage of this ‘blackout’ period when they should have been fixing the issue, they decide to issue a patent. It is almost like insider trading on Wall Street and it has bugged me more and more as time goes on.

I can see why he is upset. Makes me not want to submit any fixes to them.

In regards to all the media attention, I think that by far the coolest thing to come from all that attention was when I was Slashdot’d. That was like getting the key to the city from the Mayor of Geekville. Also the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people named Paul Watson, and my Google ranking rose (and still is) to the top spot, even ahead of the Paul Watson who helped found Greenpeace. That is seriously cool. I was top ranked in Google for ‘Tony Watson’ for a long time, but I am now second behind some musician in Los Angeles. The media attention was cool, but being Slashdot’d and top ranked in Google was much more flattering to me.

That's awesome ;)

When the site used to be (prior to 9/11) a parody site for recruiting and hiring terrorists, I had several people who didn’t really get the joke and some actually sent me real resumes. On guy was a former Marine who claimed to have just retired and was an expert in explosives, and a sharpshooter/sniper. That was a little weird.

The domain really freaks some people out, and I have had people who refuse to send email to me at my @terrorist.net address or afraid to type www.terrorist.net into a browser for fear the Government will come kick in their door and haul them off to Guantanamo. So I have other aliases for the site such as my name and my initials; www.paulwatson.org and www.paw.org. It is the same site, but with a different URL and Banner graphic to appease the tin-foil hat crowd.

Hehe... It is funny, yet... strangely not surprising... not like the Patriot Act would ever get abused or anything.