Raphael Mudge

This is a personal homepage with a little about me and some favorite resources.

About Me

I'm a sometimes computer programmer and a sometimes entrepreneur. I like to learn and am just curious in-general. I strum chords on my acoustic guitar. I make a mean cappucino. And, I like to run and exercise too.

Projects

I created the After the Deadline language checking technology. After the Deadline was acquired by Matt Mullenweg's Automattic in 2009. Automattic opted to make After the Deadline open source after this acquisition (something I wholeheartedly supported and was excited about). The project was the spelling and grammar checker for WordPress.com blogs and also the popular JetPack plugin. After the Deadline was retired in 2019.

I spent a decade focused on red team security tests. My work included technical research and advocacy around this once-nascent security practice. As part of these efforts, I created the Cobalt Strike security testing software (2012). Cobalt Strike was acquired by Fortra (then, HelpSystems) in 2020 and I transitioned about a year after the acquisition. For context, Fortra is the parent company of Core Security. It's a good home for Cobalt Strike. To see what they're up to, check out the latest on the Cobalt Strike blog.

Favorite Books

I'm thankful to the knowledge I've gleaned from various books. Some of my favorites:

• Major in Success by Patrick Combs This one is written for and benefits college students. I read it while I was a student, applied what it said, and have gifted it several times too
• Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston and Coders at Work by Peter Seibel. As a would-be entrepreneur and inventor, I found these "how I did it" biographies helpful.
• Write to the Point by Bill Stott Reads like a well-paced novel, but it's how to write better. Proof is in the reading.
• Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky My FAVORITE book on software product management and strategy.

The Hacker Ethic

My professional values draw from the hacker ethic. The hacker ethic is a playful, creative, and can-do approach to solving problems. Hacker culture is the shared beliefs that inform how people, who subscribe to the hacker ethic, interact with eachother. Hacker culture celebrates cleverness, values the pursuit of knowledge, respects intellectual freedom, and rewards sharing knowledge. Here are a few resources on this:

• Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a collection of essays about open source and hacker culture. I read this in book form years ago and there were many "a-ha" moments.
• Paul Graham has written many essays about the hacker ethic and why hackers should start businesses. I read Paul's essays as a call to action and blueprint to use entrepreneurship, as a means, to tackle the problems I find myself drawn to.
• John Carmack gave a five-hour long interview and towards the end, he talks about the hacker ethic and what it means to him in his work. This resonated with me and inspired this section of my homepage.

Contact ↑

My email address is rsmudge at gmail dot com.