Bill Cheswick on Firewalls: An Interview

Like many USENIX members, I first met Bill Cheswick at a conference. Ches tended to stand out from the crowd, whether he was encouraging people to learn juggling using beanbags or making a presentation.

Ches later became famous after he co-authored the first book about firewalls with Steve Bellovin in 1994. This was not Ches’s first adventure in the world of security by far, as he had been working with a firewall as early as 1987 while at Bell Labs.