Current Work

Steganography is the art of hiding secret information in seemingly innocent mediums. These have commonly included the use of invisible inks, wax-covered tablets, and even tattoos. Unlike the methods of antiquity, however, the complete saturation of digital content in our modern world has provided unprecedented means by which secret data may not only be hidden in mass, but transported instantly. It may also be coupled with cryptography to provide additional security in the event of "the invisible ink not being as invisible as we thought."

I have not performed formal research on the subject, but rather experimented with it on my free time. Thus far I've created two steganographic implementations, one for hiding data in images, and the other for hiding data in audio. They are intended as proof-of-concept only, but the audio implementation is very flexible and can be especially secure. Find them on the Steganography page . I also created a multilayer image implementation for a gen-ed final during my first semester here. I'm currently working on compiling them for Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux.

Whack-on-LAN is a power cycling solution for remotely-deployed PCs that requires no additional infrastructure and is extremely inexpensive. It enables a guaranteed remote hardware reset over Ethernet and is very robust. I developed this as a member of the Flux Research Group to address the issue of "wedged" nodes on the remote testbed. The complete security implementation is still a work in progress. An abstract can be viewed on the 2005 CS Research Day page. Please e-mail me for the most current version of the Whack-on-LAN technical paper.

About Me

I'm a second-year undergraduate at the University of Utah, studying Computer Science and Engineering, with current plans to minor in linguistics, history, or music. I frequently find myself attempting to do more things than are possible in a day, and so far have no plans to stop it. If I weren't so interested in what I'm doing I would study medicine.

As far as Computer Science, I built my first computer when I was eleven, but I also destroyed one in third grade by putting a huge magnet up to it. I program in various languages but I'm not really a programmer. I'm more interested in systems and entire projects, especially those with huge potential for scientific advancement or social benefit. Through my current job I've gained great interest in kernels, network protocols, distributed algorithms, and embedded systems.

Aside from this field, I enjoy music, filmmaking, water polo, hiking, and many other things. I've been a student body officer, film director, actor, techie, swimmer, and bass player. Here are some of my recent activities, though mostly from high school. I used to maintain a site at Tejat.net as a member of a small coding group, but now focus most of my attention to my major. More than anything else I love people.

In December 2007 I returned from serving a two-year mission in Buenos Aires, Argentina. That experience changed me and the lives of several others for the better. It was perhaps the best education I have ever received. If you would like to speak Castillian, or just plain Spanish, find me. And that's me in a world-readable page.