The file has been renamed and this version will not be maintained. For the new version, please see rms.htm.
Rob Slade is a data communications and security specialist from North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His first love is teaching, and he got into computers because of an interest in what they could do in improving the education process in the public school system. He still has links with the education system in BC with both grade school and the college system, and writes and speaks for the computer educators in the province. He has a B.Sc. from the University of BC, an M.S. (in Computer and Information Science Education, which no one can ever remember) from the University of Oregon, and a Diploma of Christian Studies from Regent College. He is the founder of the DECUS Canada Education and Training SIG.

He has both formal training in data communications and exploration with the BBS and network community, and has done communications training for a number of the international commercial seminar firms. His technical jobs have involved everything from support of terminal emulation programs to satellite communications. He considers communications technology to be the most interesting of the various computer fields, probably because it allows him to hog attention worldwide rather than being restricted to boring those in a single room. He is the founder of the DECUS Canada Communications SIG. (It is, of course, quite possible that Robert Slade doesn't actually exist, and that this is simply the name given to some AI experiment gone horribly wrong and hooked up to various email addresses.)

His research into computer viral programs started when they first appeared as a major problem "in the wild". Acting initially as the unofficial archivist for the budding research community, he has since become known for "Mr. Slade's lists" of antiviral software vendors, antiviral reviews, antiviral evaluation FAQ, and virus books. One of the working group for the VIRUS-L FAQ, he is best known for a series of review and tutorial articles which have recently been published as "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (and that was *not* his idea for a title--blame Springer-Verlag). (The observant among you will note that the antiviral reviews and contacts list, as well as VIRUS-L's FAQ, are sadly out of date. With Microsoft's recent efforts to ensure that even total morons can write viruses, some of the fun of the research has been lost.) He is the founder of the, you guessed it, DECUS Canada Security SIG, which was actually the first, and got him into all this SIG founding business. He still considers data security to be a minor sideline, and was astounded to hear himself referred to recently as a "leader" in the security community.

He is more widely known for his series of daily technical book reviews which appear on appropriate newsgroups and mailing lists, including alt.books.reviews, rec.arts.books.reviews, the *.books.technical groups and topics related to the individual titles. For those not wanting to scour Usenet for them, a mailing list is now available either by sending any message to techbooks-subscribe@egroups.com or by visiting the eGroups Web site, which also has an archive of recent postings. Full archives of the book reviews are kindly hosted by both Victoria Telecommunity Net and the Computer Underground Digest at Northern Illinois University, one of which will, of course, be the site you are reading this on. For those who would like to purchase the books online, a partial archive site with links to an online bookstore is maintained by Larry Detweiler. If any of you buy there, and any commissions result, he's promised to split the take with Rob. Rob is well regarded by the local library and his office at home is definitely over the floor load limit for a residence. (If reading and reviewing a technical book every day is not enough to keep up with the field, there are also magazines, journals, and periodicals. The ones listed here are available for free. Speaking of magazines, the review form the basis of columns in TeleManagement and Information Security Magazine. I hope to get caught up on the menus for those soon.)

He has been a coastal paper boy, ranch hand, circulation manager for a local weekly, rail gang worker, hospital nursing orderly, industrial first aid attendant, cook, resident camp worker, teacher (in elementary, high, college, and ESL schools), computer installer, telecommunications consultant, civil servant, technical support manager, technical recruiter, project manager, technical trainer, technical writer, quality assurance manager, and a few other odds and ends. His mother-in-law is convinced that he is not old enough to have done everything that he has done, but he was born old. (In regard to this plethora of jobs of every description, please note the open letter from Alan Hale.)

He fondly remembers a distant age when he had time for sailing, photography, folk music, camping and involvement with non-computer related volunteer groups. (Computer user groups are so ... limited, doncha think?) At present, he makes every available effort to spend time teaching operating systems to his grandsons, Ryan and Trevor. He is married to the world's best executive secretary, which is probably the only reason he actually got the book finished. It is next to impossible to get him to take "bio" writing seriously.

If you're obsessive about it, you could try reaching Rob at Vancouver CommunityNet, CuD, Victoria TeleCommunity Net, or even NetAddress, and now that they are all POP accounts, Rob even manages to check them once in a while. There are also accounts at DECUS (although I'm not entirely sure how much longer that one will last), Ehmail, (and I'm also indebted to the Ehmail people for the fact that I have finally been able to get a p1 address which I have wanted ever since reading Thomas J. Ryan's book. I would also like to mention my thanks to my little brother, inveterate second-hand bookstore aficionado that he is, for getting me a copy) which forward to my Sprint account. Given Sprint's current quality of service, that is no guarantee that I will get it.

You can find pieces of Rob all over the net. Virus materials can be found at the VIRUS-L archives. Even Viral Morality is online. The book reviews have found numerous homes, such as Jouni Miettunen's site, MechNet, Powell's Technical Bookstore, and the University of Texas. RobertS Rules of Internet Order is at a couple of sites including the Internet Resources at Brandon University. For more random pieces of the net, check out Rob's Bookmarks.

If your name is "Robert Slade", or if you are just interested in another of the bizarrities of the net, check out the "Robert Slade" Internet Club.