James Schaefer
Technical Architect, DePaul University
Information Services Division
jschaefe(at)depaul.edu
o: +01.312.362.8558
pgp key
key ID: FC40AF54



Current Interests:
  • Network management and monitoring - architecture, theory, and cartography (operations are fun but...)
  • Network and end point/host security - hardening, intrusion/anomaly detection, and forensics.
  • Cryptography (for non-math majors).
  • Distributed computing - distributed processing (Seti@Home, BOINC, etc.), and P2P/BitCoin type stuff are interesting.
  • Space and space flight sciences - black holes, ion engines, quantum communication devices, and exploration.
  • Software Defined Radios and antenna systems.
  • Quake 3 - (I'm not kidding). I like some more modern games too.


    • Primary occupational responsibilities:
  • Serve as one of several engineering leads for IT infrastructure implementation (software, servers, networking, security).
  • Perform technical and business analyst/architect/project engineer duties for division and University-wide IT engineering projects.
  • Perform digital cartography (mapping network traffic/connectivity, work flow, logic) for all data center systems.
  • Assess and approve University-wide technology purchases > $10,000.
  • Copy and paste code from the Internet as needed, make complicated-looking graphs and diagrams to prove my points and support my arguments in meetings.
  • Maintain and defend all-time high score on office Galaga machine.
  • Act as technical and social "lubricant" for working teams within Information Services (security, engineering, administration, customers, vendors).


    • Orgs, Affiliations, and Secret-Handshake Clubs
    -Panelist, National Science Foundation, 2015
    -Member, North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG)
    -Member, Association of College and University Telecommunications Administrators (ACUTA)
    -Member, Educause
    -IORC affiliate -(coffee getter, still earning a title)
    -Former volunteer lecturer, Jobs for Youth, Chicago, Illinois
    -Co-founder, 8-bit Historical Tactical Simulation Club, Chicago, Illinois
    -BOINC/RC5/World Community Grid/Seti@Home username: jschaefe
    -Phi Kappa Phi Member
    -Delta UPE member


    Research and Publications
    -Currently researching the operations of various P2P and distributed work-node networks and their operations (BitCoin, etc.).
    -Tinkering with distributed storage platforms.
    -Researching end-to-end latency monitoring using game-specific packet simulation.
    -Selected Publications and Presentations section coming soon...
    -Windows 7 Deployment Project Reflections (May 2012): A brief, personal reflection on the successes and failures of our Win7 self-deployment project.
    -DePaul University Network Overview (November 2015): A high level overview of Network Operations for several 300 and 400-level Networks and Telecom classes at DePaul CDM.
    -DPU Underground (November 2015): A pictorial of the underground coal/freight tunnel system we use for fiber transport.


    Recent projects I've had fun with:
    -Primary DePaul Data Center migration (2012-present: migrating our production data center to a hosting facility off university campus).
    -Windows 7 user self-service migration (2010-2014: managed the construction of user driven, self-service toolset to migrate ~2500 university users to Windows 7).
    -DePaul Virtual Labs environment pilot (75 student/user seat environment for remote access to lab courseware using Citrix XenApp).
    -Participant in the 2014 National Cyber League Fall season (72nd place / ~1300 participants) Official Leaderboard.


    Software/scripting tools/projects (Remember, I am NOT a developer).
    -BitLock-picker: .NET, Powershell (DEPRECIATED but still works) a home-grown script to extract Bitlocker keys from AD before Microsoft released MBAM) - contact me for source.
    -The KillDiskinator: Powershell, WinPE a (relatively secure but not terribly fast) disk formatting utility in use by our services department to secure-wipe data from hard disks on egress from the Uni.)
    -SYNphony: sh, c++ (the audio OF Ethernet - still in (perpetual) dev: what does an SSH flow sound like? How about a IPv6 dig request?)
    -FlowRipper: c++ (DEPRECIATED) - CLI app to analyze and graph/geoplot traffic patterns from Argus output files.


    Non work-related fun side projects
    -Astro-cam: a low-altitude, low power 802.11B enabled live kite-camera.
    -IR camera: a do-it-yourself web camera to infra-red camera conversion.
    -Q3ded-explained, in case you need to set up a quick q3ded server. I told you I wasn't kidding.


    Personal Statements:
    -I'm still learning how I learn best.
    -I'm trying to learn from my mistakes; some that I have made with technology, but particularly those that I have made with people.
    -I believe there's nothing that can't be done.
    ...and I have a .plan.