Richard Briggs
Self Employed
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRichard Briggs is a veteran C and Linux systems engineer with 35+ years of programming experience and three decades working in UN*X environments, currently focused on kernel security and the Linux Audit subsystem at Red Hat. He combines deep low-level expertise—IPsec, kernel crypto, network and telecom device drivers, embedded video hardware—with practical Linux server and sysadmin skills. A methodical team lead and mentor, he reliably drives complex projects to completion while retaining attention to hardware debugging and protocol correctness. Active in open source, he has contributed security fixes and auditing improvements to well-known projects such as libreswan and the linux-audit userspace. Beyond professional work he co-founded and still hosts infrastructure for community tech groups and nonprofits, reflecting a long-standing commitment to volunteer-led tech infrastructure. Fluent in English and comfortable in French, he pairs technical depth across x86/ARM/PowerPC/MIPS platforms with a pragmatic, security-first mindset.
13 years of coding experience
18 years of employment as a software developer
M.A.Sc., Electrical Engineering, M.A.Sc., Electrical Engineering at University of Ottawa / Université d'OttawaSSHGD (Grade 13), Advanced Academic, SSHGD (Grade 13), Advanced Academic at Fisher Park High School (Ottawa)Grade 8, French Late Immersion, Grade 8, French Late Immersion at Broadview Avenue Public School (Ottawa)B.A.Sc, Computer Engineering, B.A.Sc, Computer Engineering at University of Ottawa
English, French, c
Github Skills (24)
system-programming10
ipsec10
it-security10
linux10
c1110
linux-kernel10
security10
c1710
kernel10
kernel-mode10
cryptography10
error-handling10
c-programming9
network-security8
debugging7
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
linux-audit/audit-userspace
Apr 2017 - Oct 2021
Linux audit userspace repository
Role in this project:
Security Engineer
Security EngineerContributions:25 commits, 16 PRs, 83 comments in 4 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Richard primarily contributes to the Linux audit userspace repository, focused on enhancing and maintaining the audit system's functionality. Their work involves correcting error messages, adding descriptive macros, and improving the accuracy of error reporting. The user also implemented features such as the filesystem filter and support for new record types (EVENT_LISTENER, AUDIT_URINGOP, AUDIT_INTEGRITY_EVM_XATTR, AUDIT_SADDR_FAM), indicating a focus on improving the audit system's ability to track system events and security-related operations. Furthermore, the user addresses issues related to interpretation within `auparse` which demonstrates commitment to the correctness and usability of audit logs.
security-toolsuserspaceauditsecuritylinux
libreswan/libreswan
Sep 2016 - Jun 2017
libreswan
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & Security Engineer
Back-end Developer & Security EngineerContributions:15 commits in 9 months
Contributions summary:Richard's contributions primarily focused on enhancing the security and functionality of the libreswan project. They addressed critical issues related to the kernel's IPsec implementation, including fixing device unregistration problems within the KLIPS module and checking the validity of Security Association Database (SADB) messages. The user also introduced support for retrieving lifetime statistics and improved the overall code quality by refactoring and correcting parser implementations for better readability and maintainability, with an emphasis on using the `ahash` interface for crypto API calls.
reactmusllibreswanlinuxbsd
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