Real Name: Gérard Mélone
Status: Expert
Profession: Retiree after some 36 years in the professional computing arena
Location: Paris, France
Nationality: French
Age: 60 but still young!
Other Forums: Zebulon.fr (Security Admin), Malware Complaints (French Moderator) SpywareInfo (Ambassador), Newbie.org (Ambassador), Gladiator (Security-Expert), Malwarebytes (Expert), Security Cadets, Spyware Warrior, Smokey's, Hijackthis.de, etc.
Other French Forums: Zebulon.fr, Assiste.com, PC-Astuces, CommentCaMarche, telecharger.com (01.Net), etc.
Other Distinctions: ASAP-VIP, UNITE
Microsoft-MVP Consumer Security
Interests: Genealogy, Linguistics, Computing, Sciences, Archeology
BackGround: I am an engineer in chemistry and I've degrees in Math, Physics, Finance, Business Management...
I worked for some years as a researcher in organic chemistry.
As chemistry was in a crisis period, I joined the computing world in 1971 and attended the evolutions/revolutions since then... hence my nickname stating that I was already here in the beginning (I was born with the ENIAC): ipl stands for Initial Program Loading which was the acronym written on a blue button of the IBM Series 1 computers to start or reboot them.
My first steps in the antimalware arena... I was a member of the board Computing.Net in the last century and helped users with their computing issues: system (Windows 9x) and viruses; regarding viruses, there were more and more problems I was unable to cope with as this bloody spyware thingy was still there and I used to send "my users" to SWI... after some months on French boards, I went to the Boot Camp of SpywareInfo to learn their secrets.
Then I went back to French forums as it was more important to clean French computers and not have them in the US!
I organized things teaching and bringing together French Malware Fighters in a kind of private super-forum where we learn, teach and work in a close relationship with the global antimalware community... sure, I was led to Geeks to Go!