Dr. Wietse Zweitze Venema (born 1951) is a Dutch

Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a sovereign state and constitutional monarchy with territory in Western Europe and in the Caribbean. The four parts of the Kingdom—Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, and Sint Maarten—are referred to as "countries", and participate on a basis of equality...

 programmer

Programmer

A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...

 and physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 best known for writing the Postfix

Postfix (software)

In computing, Postfix is a free and open-source mail transfer agent that routes and delivers electronic mail. It is intended as a fast, easier-to-administer, and secure alternative to the widely-used Sendmail MTA....

 email system. He also wrote TCP Wrapper

TCP Wrapper

TCP Wrapper is a host-based networking ACL system, used to filter network access to Internet Protocol servers on operating systems such as Linux or BSD...

 and collaborated with Dan Farmer

Dan Farmer

Dan Farmer is an American computer security researcher. In a summer course in 1989, in order to graduate from Purdue University he started the development of the COPS program for identifying security issues on Unix systems under Gene Spafford, first releasing it after leaving Purdue in late 1989...

 and Samuel Johnson to produce the computer security tools SATAN

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

 and The Coroner's Toolkit

The Coroner's Toolkit

The Coroner's Toolkit is a suite of computer security programs by Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema. It is used to assist in digital forensic analysis.The suite runs on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, SunOS/Solaris and Linux...

.

Biography

He studied physics at the University of Groningen

University of Groningen

The University of Groningen , located in the city of Groningen, was founded in 1614. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands as well as one of its largest. Since its inception more than 100,000 students have graduated...

, graduating with a PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

. He spent 12 years at Eindhoven University

Eindhoven University of Technology

The ' is a university of technology located in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The motto of the university is: Mens agitat molem . The university was the second of its kind in the Netherlands, only Delft University of Technology existed previously. Until mid-1980 it was known as the...

 as a systems architect

Systems architect

The systems architect establishes the basic structure of the system, defining the essential core design features and elements that provide the framework for all that follows, and are the hardest to change later....

 in the Mathematics and Computer Science department, and spent part of this time writing tools for Electronic Data Interchange

Electronic Data Interchange

Electronic data interchange is the structured transmission of data between organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents or business data from one computer system to another computer system, i.e...

. Since emigrating to the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1996 he has been working for the IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Thomas J. Watson Research Center

The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for the IBM Research Division.The center is on three sites, with the main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, 38 miles north of New York City, a building in Hawthorne, New York, and offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.- Overview :The...

 in New York State

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

In his spare time he enjoys hiking

Hiking

Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...

 and cycling

Cycling

Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...

 with his wife, Annita.

Awards

Awards Venema has received for his work:

• Security Summit Hall of Fame Award (July 1998)
• SAGE
  SAGE (organization)
  SAGE is the USENIX Special Interest Group for Sysadmins, an international nonprofit professional association of system administrators.SAGE describes itself thus:Its goal is to serve the system administration community by:...
  
   Outstanding Achievement Award (November 1999)
• NLUUG
  NLUUG
  NLUUG is an association of professional UNIX / Linux users in the Netherlands. The group aims to increase and extend the awareness and use of Open Standards and similar open systems and Open Source.The NLUUG also maintains one of the larger FTP mirrors in the world, and is the prime FTP site for...
  
   Award (November 2000)
• Sendmail
  Sendmail
  Sendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and -delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol used for email transport over the Internet....
  
   Milter
  Milter
  Milter is an extension to the widely used open source mail transfer agents Sendmail and Postfix. It allows administrators to add mail filters for filtering spam or viruses very efficiently in the mail-processing chain...
  
   Innovation Award (November 2006)
• The 2008 Free Software Foundation
  Free Software Foundation
  The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
  
   Award for the Advancement of Free Software (March 2009)

External links

• Personal Website
• NNDB information
• Interview with Wietse Venema (2004) - interview with Linuxsecurity.com
• Interview with Wietse Venema (1999) - interview about TCP Wrapper development