Dan Geer

Dan Geer is the chief information security officer for In-Q-Tel, a not-for-profit investment firm that works to invest in technology that supports the missions of the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US intelligence community. His history within the security industry is extensive. Geer was a key contributor to the development of the X Window System as well as the Kerberos authentication protocol while a member of the Athena Project at MIT in the 1980s. He created the first information security consulting firm on Wall Street in 1992, followed by organizing one of the first academic conferences on electronic commerce in 1995. Geer is also the past president of the USENIX Association where he earned a Lifetime Achievement Award. Geer has gained additional recognition for his controversial yet influential 2003 paper titled, "CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly," that argued Microsoft's dominance of desktop operating systems was a threat to national security.