Alan DeKok’s Path From Physics to Community Safety

When Alan DeKok started a facet undertaking in community safety, he didn’t count on to begin a 27-year profession. In reality, he didn’t initially got down to work in computing in any respect.

DeKok studied nuclear physics earlier than making the swap to part of community computing that’s foundational however—like nuclear physics—largely invisible to these indirectly concerned within the area. Ultimately, a undertaking he began as a interest grew to become a full-time job: sustaining one of many major techniques that helps preserve the web safe.

As we speak, he leads the FreeRADIUS Venture, which he cofounded within the late Nineteen Nineties to develop what’s now essentially the most broadly used Distant Authentication Dial-In Consumer Service (RADIUS) software program. FreeRADIUS is an open-source server that gives back-end authentication for many main web service suppliers. It’s utilized by world monetary establishments, Wi-Fi companies like Eduroam, and Fortune 50 corporations. DeKok can be CEO of InkBridge Networks, which maintains the server and offers help for the businesses that use it.

Reflecting on practically three a long time of expertise main FreeRADIUS, DeKok says he grew to become an knowledgeable in distant authentication “virtually accidentally,” and the important thing to his profession has largely been luck. “I actually consider that it’s making ready your self for luck, being open to it, and having the abilities to capitalize on it.”

From Farming to Physics

DeKok grew up on a farm outdoors of Ottawa rising strawberries and raspberries. “Sitting on a tractor within the warmth shouldn’t be notably attention-grabbing,” says DeKok, who was extra taken with working with 8-bit computer systems than crops. As a scholar at Carleton College, in Ottawa, he discovered his solution to physics as a result of he was taken with math however most popular the practicality of science.

Whereas pursuing a grasp’s diploma in physics, additionally at Carleton, he labored on a water-purification system for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, an underground observatory then being constructed on the backside of a nickel mine. He would get up at 4:30 within the morning to drive as much as the location, descend 2 kilometers, then enter one of many world’s deepest clean-room services to work on the undertaking. The system managed to attain one atom of impurity per cubic meter of water, “which is fairly insane,” DeKok says.

However after his grasp’s diploma, DeKok determined to take a distinct route. Though he discovered nuclear physics attention-grabbing, he says he didn’t see it as his life’s work. In the meantime, the Ph.D. college students he knew had been “fanatical about physics.” He had stored up his computing expertise by way of his training, which concerned loads of programming, and determined to search for jobs at computing corporations. “I used to be out of physics. That was it.”

Nonetheless, physics taught him beneficial classes. For one, “It’s important to perceive the massive image,” DeKok says. “The flexibility to inform the big-picture story in requirements, for instance, is extraordinarily vital.” This talent helps DeKok clarify to requirements our bodies how a protocol acts as one hyperlink in the complete chain of occasions that should happen when a person needs to entry the web.

He additionally discovered that “strategies are extra vital than data.” It’s simple to search for info, however physics taught DeKok the right way to break down an issue into manageable items to provide you with an answer. “Once I was ultimately working within the {industry}, the strategies that got here naturally to me, popping out of physics, didn’t appear to be taught as properly to the folks I knew in engineering,” he says. “I may catch up in a short time.”

Founding FreeRADIUS

In 1996, DeKok was employed as a software program developer at an organization referred to as Gandalf, which made gear for ISDN, a precursor to broadband that enabled digital transmission of information over phone traces. Gandalf went beneath a couple of 12 months later, and he joined CryptoCard, an organization offering {hardware} units for two-factor authentication.

Whereas at CryptoCard, DeKok started spending extra time working with a RADIUS server. When customers wish to connect with a community, RADIUS acts as a gatekeeper and verifies their id and password, determines what they will entry, and tracks classes. DeKok moved on to a brand new firm in 1999, however he didn’t wish to lose the networking expertise he had developed. No different open-source RADIUS servers had been being actively developed on the time, and he noticed a spot out there.

The identical 12 months, he began FreeRADIUS in his free time and it “step by step took over my life,” DeKok says. He continued to work on the open-source software program as a interest for a number of years whereas bouncing round corporations in California and France. “Nearly accidentally, I grew to become one of many extra senior folks within the house. Then I doubled down on that and began the enterprise.” He based NetworkRADIUS (now referred to as InkBridge Networks) in 2008.

By that time, FreeRADIUS was already being utilized by 100 million folks each day. The corporate now employs specialists in Canada, France, and the UK who work collectively to help FreeRADIUS. “I’d say not less than half of the folks on the planet get on the web by being authenticated by way of my software program,” DeKok estimates. He attributes that progress largely to the software program being open supply. Initially a solution to enter the market with little funding, going open supply has allowed FreeRADIUS to compete with greater corporations as an industry-leading product.

Though the software program is essential for sustaining safe networks, most individuals aren’t conscious of it as a result of it really works behind the scenes. DeKok is commonly met with shock that it’s nonetheless in use. He compares RADIUS to a constructing basis: “You want it, however you by no means give it some thought till there’s a crack in it.”

27 Years of Fixes

Through the years, DeKok has maintained FreeRADIUS by frequently making small fixes. Like utilizing a ratcheting device to make a change inch by inch, “you shouldn’t underestimate that ratchet impact of tiny little fixes that add up over time,” he says.

He’s seen the undertaking by way of minor patches and extra vital fixes, like when researchers uncovered a widespread vulnerability DeKok had been making an attempt to repair since 1998. He additionally watched a would-be successor to the community protocol, Diameter, rise and fall in reputation within the 2000s and 2010s. (Diameter gained traction in cellular purposes however has step by step been phased out within the shift to 5G.) Although Diameter presents enhancements, RADIUS is much easier and already broadly carried out, giving it an edge, DeKok explains.

And he stays assured about its future. “Folks ask me, ‘What’s subsequent for RADIUS?’ I don’t see it dying.” Estimating that billions of {dollars} of apparatus run RADIUS, he says, “It’s by no means going to go away.”

About his personal profession, DeKok says he plans to maintain engaged on FreeRADIUS, exploring new markets and merchandise. “I by no means anticipated to have an organization and lots of people working for me, my title on every kind of requirements, and clients all around the world. However it labored out that manner.”

This text seems within the March 2026 print subject as “Alan DeKok.”