thoughts/docs/10-about.md

### About

<img src="/images/me-libreplanet-2016.png"
     alt="Photo of Mike"
     title="LibrePlanet 2016 Talk 'Restore Online Freedom!'"
     class="inline-img avatar" />

GPG Fingerprint: `D6E9 B930 028A 6C38 F43B  2388 FEF6 3574 5E6F 6D05` [\[?\]][gpg]

Mike Gerwitz is a [free (as in freedom) software][0] [hacker] and activist
with a focus on user privacy and security.
While much of his earlier experience focused on web development, most of his
free time is now spent researching cryptography; compilers; mathematics;
security and privacy; and various other fields.  He also closely follows the
work of the [Free Software Foundation][0],
[Electronic Frontier Foundation][3], and other entities devoted to free
information and free society.

Mike is the author of [GNU ease.js][easejs]; a member of the
[GNU evaluation][gnueval] team; holds an administrative role in GNU; and is
a volunteer for various other aspects of the [GNU Project] and the
[Free Software Foundation].

Mike is a [hacker], not a [cracker]---the latter breaks the security of
systems, while the former expresses playful creativity in their work.

Outside of his field, Mike enjoys time with his family---including his
wife and two sons---who keep him very busy and help to keep him sane.  Mike
also has a fascination with a wide range of sciences that he wishes he had
the time to devote to researching.

A great deal of information regarding Mike's opinions on various topics can be
found throughout this website. Much of this site is devoted to his thoughts and
ramblings on various matters and so will contain material that is subject to
strong bias; the reader is encouraged to construct his or her own opinions.
Formal papers contain no such influence without rationale and references.

Mike may be contacted at mtg at gnu dot org; he does not make use of "social
media" websites, though he may (or may not) respond to queries on websites
that he is a member of, and he does host his
[own GNU Social instance][social].

(Note: This website itself is free/libre---the source code is available via
the commit hash links in the footer of various pages and the content is
licensed for free distribution and, in most cases, modification.)

[View my résumé.][resume]

I recently changed GPG keys; see my [key transition statement][keytrans],
signed with both my [new][keytrans-new] and [old][keytrans-old] keys.

<span class="attribution">[LibrePlanet 2016 Photo][photo]
Copyright&nbsp;&copy;&nbsp;2016 Kori&nbsp;Feener, [CC BY 4.0][ccby]; used
with permission.</span>


[0]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
[hacker]: https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html
[cracker]: https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html
[GNU Project]: https://gnu.org/
[Free Software Foundation]: https://fsf.org/
[3]: http://eff.org/
[easejs]: https://gnu.org/software/easejs
[resume]: about/resume
[gnueval]: https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html
[photo]: https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/session-03-c-ms-png-libreplanet-2016-sessions-ec00/
[ccby]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
[social]: https://social.mikegerwitz.com/

[gpg]: https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
[keytrans]: /about/key-transition.txt
[keytrans-old]: /about/key-transition.txt.old.asc
[keytrans-new]: /about/key-transition.txt.new.asc