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Mike Peterson

Information Security Analyst - University of Toronto (Retired)

E-mail: mikep9x@gmail.com

On this page: [General Info] [Volleyball] [Softball] [Baseball] [Hockey] [Curling] [Hiking / Travel] [Downhill Skiing] [Badminton] [Photo Gallery]

General Info:

[beer] [Mike at Bert&Ernies, summer 2000] [Mike, New Year's 2001, click to enlarge] [Mike, August 2001, click to enlarge] [Mike, Pellar Estates Winery, August 2001, click to enlarge] [Mike, Ashbridge's Bay, beach volleyball, August 2001, click to enlarge] [Mike, Grenadier Pond, High Park, December 2001, click to enlarge] [Mike, January 2002, click to enlarge] [Mike, October 2002, click to enlarge] [Mike, Winter 2003, High Park, click to enlarge] [Mike skiing, 2003, click to enlarge] [Mike at home, 2004, click to enlarge] [Healthy U/T Award (outside GSU)] [happy Mike!] [hungry Mike! (Beaver Creek, CO)] [happy Mike! (Vail gondola, CO)] [happy Mike! (Vallée Blanche, Chamonix, France)] [Mike pitching (OSGA 2018)] [Mike gold medal (OSGA 2018)] [beer]

Until retirement in July 2017, Mike was an information security analyst (Audit) with the Security Operations group in the Information Security and Enterprise Architecture department, in Information + Technology Services, mainly involved with developing, implementing and maintaining network security technologies and procedures, and integrating these with the universities network management framework. This translates to tracking crackers and spammers, and limiting / stopping internal and external attacks of all sorts. He worked in the McLennan Physical Laboratories building on Huron St. (downtown, St. George campus), then moved across the street to 4 Bancroft Avenue.

Previously, Mike was a senior network support analyst with the Network and Computer Operations group in the Department of Computing and Networking Services, mainly involved with providing and supporting network management and monitoring for the U/Toronto internal network and connections to the Internet and CA*Net 4. He also did a fair amount of Unix system administration, mainly with Solaris, for the NOC internal support systems.

From 1996 to 2002, he was a senior network specialist with ONet Networking, working for the External Network Facilities Management (ENFM) group in the Department of Computing and Networking Services, mainly involved with providing and supporting high speed (T1 and ATM) network connections to universities, colleges, Internet service providers, and other public and private organizations across the province of Ontario. He also did a fair amount of Unix system administration, mainly with Solaris, for the ONet internal support systems, the ONet news and web cache servers, domain name system (DNS) and e-mail.
Click here for a picture of the ONet staff members (Maher, Marcos, Mike, Steve, Lloyd, Chiu) as ONet was winding up operations.

From 1983 to 1996, Mike was the Computer Installation Manager for the Department of Chemistry, involved first with Gould/SEL minicomputers, then Apollo, HP, SGI and Sun Unix boxes, NCD X terminals, and some PC and MacIntosh networking. This work was originally in support of research computing, but evolved into general computing support for most departmental users as Internet usage spread.

Prior to that, Mike was employed from 1981-1983 by Barringer Research (profile of the founder, A.R. Barringer), now apparently part of Smiths Detection (see also), assisting with geophysical surveys for oil/gas/minerals, and doing system support on their Gould/SEL minicomputers.

His background includes a Ph.D. in Theoretical Organic Chemistry from the University of Toronto, involving molecular structure calculations, mainly using ab initio methods (Gaussian 7X/8X/9X and "Monstergauss"). He has also been involved in non-linear optimization, and surface equation fitting and analysis. His list of publications is available here.
He completed a B.Sc (Hons) in Chemistry at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario (1971-1975).
Before that, he attended Rideau High School (1965-1971) in Ottawa, Ontario, where he grew up.

Most of his programming has been done in FORTRAN (e.g. GCC 'g77' or FTN95: Fortran 95 for Windows) and more recently in C, Java (still learning!), Bourne/C/Korn shell, 'awk' and Perl; at one time he knew IBM JCL (Job Control Language) and assembler, and the equivalent for Gould/SEL MPX, and CDC (Control Data) systems.

In varying capacities covering computer setup, computer usage, program usage and computational laboratory project coordination for the attendees, Mike has attended several NATO Advanced Study Institutes:
Menton, France (1978 and 1980);
Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain (1988) ([Photo 1], [Photo 2]);
Altinoluk, Edremit, Turkey (1989);
Praia de Porto Novo, Vimeiro, Portugal (1990);
Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal (1992).

Here's a picture from a 1985 conference in Toronto (possibly International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists (IUPAC)). There are a few well-known theoretical / applied chemists (at least at that time) in this photo.

Here are some pictures from from the 2007 CANHEIT conference in Waterloo:
Shania Twain impersonator (from the Rendezvous Club),
sampling the keg (at the Concordia Club Moctoberfest),
the U/Toronto contingent (at the Concordia Club Moctoberfest - Glenn, Mike W, Mark, Doug, Ted, Mike P, Mirek).

Other interests include: