darrenpopham.com is my personal corner of the internet — opinions, ideas, and the occasional rant. Some of it will amuse you. Some of it will offend you. Most of it will probably be ignored. Such is life.
Who Am I?
Software engineer, Engineering VP, CTO, Engineering Director, QA Director, Web Developer, Automation Engineer, Serial Startup Entrepreneur, Published Research Scientist, Video Streaming Engineer, Systems Engineer, Crisis Hotline Volunteer, Trainer, and Teacher. Pick one — I’ve probably done it.
The career highlight I’m most proud of: I co-created the desktop PC firewall market. Yes, the firewall sitting quietly in every Windows machine, every Mac, every Android device, every IoT gadget you own — that traces back to three people in a room. Hats off to James Grant (brilliant lead developer) and Phil Attfield (co-founder with the vision). McAfee bought us. Our ConSeal PC Firewall became the blueprint for everything that followed. We changed the internet without quite realising we were doing it.
That security background runs deep here. I’ve been logging intrusion attempts against my servers since 2009 — every probe, every scan, every script kiddie and state actor alike. All of it is collected, analysed, and mapped so you can browse through years of accumulated attacker data. Which countries attack most? How often do hackers try? Why do ISPs, who have the same data, do absolutely nothing about it? I know the answers to the first two. The third one keeps me up at night.
Ideas and Beliefs
Fair warning: if strongly-worded opinions make you uncomfortable, skip this section. You’ve been warned.
I don’t do faith-based thinking. I do evidence-based thinking. The difference matters enormously.
Humanity has a long and storied tradition of inventing comforting explanations for things we don’t understand — thunder gods, creation myths, invisible authority figures handing down moral instructions from the sky. These ideas served a purpose once, maybe. They don’t anymore, and dressing them up in modern clothes doesn’t change what they are: stories without evidence, resistant to questioning by design.
I’m not interested in those stories. I’m interested in the ones that can be tested, repeated, and falsified. Gravity works whether you believe in it or not. Evolution is documented in the fossil record whether it offends you or not. The germ theory of disease saves lives whether you prefer prayer or not. That’s not arrogance — that’s just paying attention.
If you want to change my mind, bring evidence. Actual, verifiable, reproducible evidence. Not a book, not a feeling, not a story your pastor told you. Evidence. Do that and I will genuinely update my position — unlike certain ancient institutions I could mention.
Site Etiquette
This is my site. Not yours. A few ground rules:
Comments that are rude enough to earn you a smack in the mouth in real life get deleted here. Spam is auto-deleted and your server is auto-blacklisted by software I wrote myself. I reserve the right to edit or remove anything I’ve previously written — because unlike dogma, I change my mind when better information arrives.
Beyond that: be patient, be clear, don’t shout in all caps, and try to be a decent human being. It’s not complicated.
Most importantly — enjoy life. It’s the only one you’ve got.