David Ulevitch: Prioritizing Security on the Internet
by Tim Woodcock

David Ulevitch, founder of OpenDNS

Since graduating with a major in anthropology from Washington University in 2004, David Ulevitch has gone on to found OpenDNS, a company that makes the Internet a safer place for people to spend time and do business.

He credits his time at Washington University with giving him a "breadth of knowledge" that underpins the business he runs today. "I can credit anthropology with helping me think critically about the world," Ulevitch says. Although computers and anthropology are not an obvious combination, he continues, it is more common than one would think to find a tech entrepreneur with a background in anthropology.

Ulevitch most enjoyed those aspects of anthropology that offer a broad understanding of how human culture has evolved, how revolutions happen, and what spurs vast migrations from one part of the world to another.

As the discovery of fire or, many millennia later, the invention of the steam train put human civilization onto a new course, the Internet is a similarly disruptive force. The fact that the Internet is so diffuse that it is essentially ungovernable is part of its attraction, Ulevitch says, but this has also led to some of its less savory aspects.

Ulevitch's company deals with a part of the online world that people deal with continually, although they are often unaware of doing so. The Domain Name System, or DNS, undergirds the Internet by translating a familiar address such as www.wustl.edu into a string of numbers that computers use to communicate.

When the Internet was established, its founders did not make security much of a priority, but as the Internet has become more a part of everyday life—a key component of home life and commerce—security has become more of a concern, Ulevitch says.

A full 1 percent of the world's computer users rely on OpenDNS services. Among its services is a product called FamilyShield, which blocks sites that are malicious or deemed inappropriate for children. OpenDNS also uses the wisdom of crowds to crack down on phishing. On a website called PhishTank.com, users vote on reports of websites that appear untrustworthy in how they attempt to extract sensitive information (such as passwords, bank details, or Social Security numbers). After a scam has been exposed, OpenDNS and other companies act on the information in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the "bad guys."

"I can credit anthropology with helping me think
critically about the world." David Ulevitch

Ulevitch has been working professionally in the tech sector since high school. While at Washington University, he ran a company called EveryDNS that managed domains for individuals and companies. He became frustrated with the limited scope of what the company was offering, however, and sold it at the end of 2009. Originally from Del Mar, California, Ulevitch moved to the San Francisco area after college—an obvious choice given his roots and the concentration of tech companies in the area—and, with the help of local venture capitalists, he set up OpenDNS, which has a more ambitious mission than his previous company.

The Internet is "not a secure place yet," he says. And until it reaches a level of trustworthiness that makes someone like his mother 100 percent comfortable online, Ulevitch says his job is not complete.