About

This blog is run by two Stephens.

This blog is nerdly… It is about reverse engineering, software security, software development,  vulnerability research, exploit development, and other “infosec” topics…we also take a bunch of photos.

“Reactance”, is how this blog got it’s name. In the “cargo cultish” world of information security (and technology as a whole) this is a common phenomenon.

Two Stephens:

Stephen A. Ridley and Stephen Lawler were research partners at a major U.S Defense contractor that supported the U.S. defense and intelligence communities in areas of information security research and development. Since then they have have worked for a handful of  different public sector companies but stay in contact to collaborate with each other “after hours” on interesting areas of research.  This blog is a result of most of that.

Stephen A. Ridley (s7ephen): [hislastname]@dontstuffbeansupyournose.com

Follow @s7ephen
Stephen’s Linkedin

Stephen A. Ridley is a security researcher at Xipiter. He has  more than 10 years of experience in software development, software security, and reverse engineering. Prior to Xipiter, Mr. Ridley served as the Chief Information Security Officer of a financial services firm and prior to that was a Senior Researcher at Matasano. He also was Senior Security Architect at McAfee, and a founding member of the Security and Mission Assurance (SMA) group at a major U.S defense contractor where he did vulnerability research and reverse engineering in support of the U.S. intelligence community. He has spoken about reverse engineering and software security at BlackHat, ReCon, CanSecWest, EuSecWest, Syscan and other prominent information security conferences. Mr. Ridley currently lives in Manhattan and frequently guest lectures at New York-area universities such as NYU and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Stephen Lawler (slawlerguy): [hislastname]@dontstuffbeansupyournose.com

Stephen Lawler is the Founder and President of a small computer software and security consulting firm. Mr. Lawler has been actively working in information security for over 7 years, primarily in reverse engineering, malware analysis, and exploit development. While working at Mandiant he was a principal malware analyst for high-profile computer intrusions affecting several Fortune 100 companies. Prior to this, as a founding member of the Security and Mission Assurance (SMA) division of a major U.S. Defense contractor where he discovered numerous 0-day vulnerabilities in “Commercial-Off-The-Shelf” (or COTS) software and pioneered several exploitation techniques that have only been recently discovered and published publicly. Prior to his work at a the major defense contractor, Stephen Lawler was the lead developer for the AWESIM sonar simulator as part of the US Navy SMMTT program.