Blake Self is most widely known for co-authoring the first commercial encrypted instant messenger with Dr. Cyrus Peikari while at VirusMD. He has also worked as a SIPRNET Administrator, Department of Defense Red Team Analyst, and R&D at various corporations. He has been attending Defcon since high school and has given several talks. He currently works in the financial sector and was directly involved in defending against the DDoS attacks of Operation Ababil. Blake holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University.