Meet the Arachne Digital Team: Kade Morton
We’re sharing the second part of our series leading up to our participation in Hacktoberfest, where we’ll focus on our implementation of the DISARM Framework. Here, we share a little bit more about the diverse talent contributing to the Arachne Digital team. Learn more about our cyber threat intel open-source work and the folks who make it run.
This week, we will learn more about our Co-Founder, Kade Morton.
Hello! What are your name and pronouns?
My name is Kade. My pronouns are he/him and they/them. I am fine with either.
What’s your role at Arachne Digital?
I am the Dark Overl- umm, I mean CEO. I’m the CEO. Jokes aside, I am a little uncomfortable with titles. I generally go by Co-Founder, as it was Jenine and I who started the business, and I’m not a huge fan of hierarchy. I’m involved in everything aside from the pure day-to-day programming. The largest of those roles is the data analysis for Arachne Digital, but I look at everything, from the design of the software to invoicing customers and everything in between — the typical multi-hat startup.
What inspired you to work with open-source?
I was initially fascinated by how decentralized communities build this resource that runs a great amount of the world’s critical infrastructure. In the West, at least, we are brought up in a world where we are told that our parents are above us. Then we go through school and we are told that some children are above us and some are below us. Then we get jobs and we have an entire employee/employer structure. We are taught for our entire lives that power hierarchies are required to provide order and stability so things can get done. Learning that decentralized communities do exist and that they create incredibly critical things was both an eye-opener and something I wanted to be a part of.
What about in threat intelligence and cyber security?
I studied criminology and criminal justice with a major in international relations because I found them both interesting but didn’t know what to do with them. At this point cybersecurity had not gone mainstream. But slowly, from being interested in both crime and international relations I started to see where an overlap was, with cybersecurity, specifically in threat intelligence. And hacking has deep roots in the open source world, so when I found all my interests intersecting I was completely hooked.
In addition to your work with Arachne, what else are you passionate about?
I’m very passionate about different creative mediums. I love to read and write fiction, particularly fantasy and science fiction as I find these genres incredibly freeing to explore big and important ideas. I also have a regular Dungeons and Dragons group that I run campaigns for. When I’m very, very lucky I even get to play in one!
What’s the best way for people to connect with you?
I’m not a huge social media person, but you can connect with me on LinkedIn and if you email me on kade [@] arachne.digital you can get an invite to our Slack channel and hang with everyone there.
Meet and work on open-source projects with the Arachne Digital Team
You can catch Kade IRL on Thursday, September 5th for OWASP Day New Zealand. Their presentation Dynamic Defense: Crafting threat models with real-world Intelligence will help attendees learn how leveraging current data can enhance your security posture by anticipating and mitigating emerging threats, ensuring robust and resilient software development.
Can’t make the talk? Are you ready to collaborate with our passionate open-source team and explore the world of cybersecurity?
A good start is browsing the Arachne Digital GitHub repository.
There you can:
- Read our documentation to get oriented to our projects
- Respond to our open issues, ready for your thoughts and contribution
- Find out how to join our Slack community
Together, we can contribute to a more secure and collaborative future.
