Alan DeKok’s Path From Physics to Network Security

When Alan DeKok started a facet undertaking in network security, he didn’t anticipate to begin a 27-year profession. In actual fact, he didn’t initially got down to work in computing in any respect.

DeKok studied nuclear physics earlier than making the swap to part of community computing that’s foundational however—like nuclear physics—largely invisible to these circuitously concerned within the subject. Ultimately, a undertaking he began as a interest grew to become a full-time job: sustaining one of many main programs that helps preserve the internet safe.

At this time, he leads the FreeRADIUS Project, which he cofounded within the late Nineteen Nineties to develop what’s now essentially the most extensively used Distant Authentication Dial-In Person Service (RADIUS) software program. FreeRADIUS is an open-source server that gives back-end authentication for many main internet service providers. It’s utilized by international monetary establishments, Wi-Fi providers like Eduroam, and Fortune 50 firms. DeKok can also be CEO of InkBridge Networks, which maintains the server and offers help for the businesses that use it.

Reflecting on practically three a long time of expertise main FreeRADIUS, DeKok says he grew to become an skilled in distant authentication “nearly by chance,” and the important thing to his profession has largely been luck. “I actually imagine that it’s making ready your self for luck, being open to it, and having the abilities to capitalize on it.”

From Farming to Physics

DeKok grew up on a farm exterior of Ottawa rising strawberries and raspberries. “Sitting on a tractor within the warmth shouldn’t be significantly fascinating,” says DeKok, who was extra taken with working with 8-bit computer systems than crops. As a pupil at Carleton University, in Ottawa, he discovered his method to physics as a result of he was taken with math however most well-liked the practicality of science.

Whereas pursuing a grasp’s diploma in physics, additionally at Carleton, he labored on a water-purification system for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, an underground observatory then being constructed on the backside of a nickel mine. He would get up at 4:30 within the morning to drive as much as the location, descend 2 kilometers, then enter one of many world’s deepest clean-room facilities to work on the undertaking. The system managed to attain one atom of impurity per cubic meter of water, “which is fairly insane,” DeKok says.

However after his grasp’s diploma, DeKok determined to take a distinct route. Though he discovered nuclear physics fascinating, he says he didn’t see it as his life’s work. In the meantime, the Ph.D. college students he knew had been “fanatical about physics.” He had saved up his computing abilities by his training, which concerned loads of programming, and determined to search for jobs at computing firms. “I used to be out of physics. That was it.”

Nonetheless, physics taught him invaluable classes. For one, “It’s important to perceive the massive image,” DeKok says. “The flexibility to inform the big-picture story in requirements, for instance, is extraordinarily vital.” This ability helps DeKok clarify to requirements our bodies how a protocol acts as one hyperlink in your entire chain of occasions that should happen when a consumer needs to entry the web.

He additionally realized that “strategies are extra vital than information.” It’s simple to search for info, however physics taught DeKok methods to break down an issue into manageable items to give you an answer. “After I was finally working within the {industry}, the strategies that got here naturally to me, popping out of physics, didn’t appear to be taught as effectively to the folks I knew in engineering,” he says. “I may catch up in a short time.”

Founding FreeRADIUS

In 1996, DeKok was employed as a software program developer at an organization referred to as Gandalf, which made tools for ISDN, a precursor to broadband that enabled digital transmission of information over phone traces. Gandalf went underneath a couple of yr later, and he joined CryptoCard, an organization offering {hardware} gadgets for two-factor authentication.

Whereas at CryptoCard, DeKok started spending extra time working with a RADIUS server. When customers wish to hook up with a community, RADIUS acts as a gatekeeper and verifies their identification and password, determines what they’ll entry, and tracks periods. DeKok moved on to a brand new firm in 1999, however he didn’t wish to lose the networking abilities he had developed. No different open-source RADIUS servers had been being actively developed on the time, and he noticed a spot out there.

The identical yr, he began FreeRADIUS in his free time and it “step by step took over my life,” DeKok says. He continued to work on the open-source software program as a interest for a number of years whereas bouncing round firms in California and France. “Virtually by chance, I grew to become one of many extra senior folks within the area. Then I doubled down on that and began the enterprise.” He based NetworkRADIUS (now referred to as InkBridge Networks) in 2008.

By that time, FreeRADIUS was already being utilized by 100 million people daily. The corporate now employs consultants in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom who work collectively to help FreeRADIUS. “I’d say at the very least half of the folks on this planet get on the web by being authenticated by my software program,” DeKok estimates. He attributes that progress largely to the software program being open source. Initially a method to enter the market with little funding, going open supply has allowed FreeRADIUS to compete with larger firms as an industry-leading product.

Though the software program is crucial for sustaining safe networks, most individuals aren’t conscious of it as a result of it really works behind the scenes. DeKok is commonly met with shock that it’s nonetheless in use. He compares RADIUS to a constructing basis: “You want it, however you by no means give it some thought till there’s a crack in it.”

27 Years of Fixes

Through the years, DeKok has maintained FreeRADIUS by frequently making small fixes. Like utilizing a ratcheting software to make a change inch by inch, “you shouldn’t underestimate that ratchet impact of tiny little fixes that add up over time,” he says.

He’s seen the undertaking by minor patches and extra important fixes, like when researchers exposed a widespread vulnerability DeKok had been attempting to repair since 1998. He additionally watched a would-be successor to the community protocol, Diameter, rise and fall in recognition within the 2000s and 2010s. (Diameter gained traction in cell functions however has step by step been phased out within the shift to 5G.) Although Diameter presents enhancements, RADIUS is way easier and already extensively applied, giving it an edge, DeKok explains.

And he stays assured about its future. “Folks ask me, ‘What’s subsequent for RADIUS?’ I don’t see it dying.” Estimating that billions of {dollars} of kit run RADIUS, he says, “It’s by no means going to go away.”

About his personal profession, DeKok says he plans to maintain engaged on FreeRADIUS, exploring new markets and merchandise. “I by no means anticipated to have an organization and lots of people working for me, my identify on all types of requirements, and clients all around the world. But it surely labored out that method.”

This text seems within the March 2026 print subject as “Alan DeKok.”