About
Scott Jarkoff just so happens to be the name that I have been adorned with, as fortunate or unfortunate as that may be. Since 1990 I have been living in central Japan, the best part of this island nation.
My name, as peculiar as it sounds, originates from the Russian name zarkov. How it evolved in to what you see before your very eyes remains a mystery as exciting as that of the ancient Maya. I am originally from Los Angeles, California and was born a couple of days after Christmas in 1970. It really is terrible having a birthday so close to that particular holiday.
In 1990 I joined the United States Navy and got shipped over to Bahrain in order to meet my new home: the USS Blue Ridge. The vessel is home ported in Yokosuka, Japan, which is where I lived up until January 2006. I separated from the Navy in 1999 in order to pursue more exciting opportunities rather than be whisked away from my life at the whim of the government.
Professional
I am a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, otherwise known as a CISSP, performing work for the US government while working as an expat in Tokyo, Japan. By trade, I am a network security professional, having been employed in this field for the past 20 years. I am currently serving as the Information Assurance Manager for a small headquarters in Japan, supervising and managing all aspects of the information security program and the personnel tasked with conducting such work. Other than managenent of IA, I also work very closely with our Japanese counterparts, exchanging information, tactics, techniques and procedures for effectively protecting networks from attack. Overall it is a pretty exciting job, and one I generally enjoy immensely.
deviantART
In my so-called “spare time” I enjoy developing richly interactive community oriented web sites and other internet related projects. In the summer of 2000 a friend of mine and I founded a little ole web site you might have heard of before: deviantART. I was the sole developer, having programmed the backend powering the site for its first few years of life in addition to the very basic interface. Back then we still used tables for site designs so it was not too difficult. Nowadays I would never be able to put together such a design as my CSS skills are much to be desired. In 2006 deviantART was in the top 300 most trafficked web sites on the internet, receiving 20 million page-views per day, and has risen well above that lately. Oddly the site rarely gets a mention in the Web 2.0 clique, probably because of the audience deviantART panders to. Unfortunately, I no longer work on the site; that is an epic story set for another era.
Since around 1994 I have dabbled in web design and ran a variety of websites. The first successful website that I ran was named CyberTropix and was an MP3 “news” website. Since that day I have been involved in a number of different projects throughout the life of the internets.
Interests
Other than that I really enjoy listening to music and watching movies. In the spare moments of life I spend time with my family on small hot springs trips, eating at delicious restaurants, watching movies and just running around various parts of Tokyo.
Favorite TV Shows: The Wire, Lost, Weeds, Californication, Fringe, Survivor, 24, The Simpsons, The Amazing Race, Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, Homeland, Nip/Tuck, Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
Favorite Movies: Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams, Memento, Donnie Darko, Braveheart, Gladiator, Spider-Man, Sixth Sense, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Unfaithful, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Adjustment Bureau.
Favorite Music: Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Armin van Burren, Markus Schulz, Orjan Nilsen, Trance, Vocal Trance, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, Disturbed, Metallica, System of a Down, Stabbing Westward, Smile Empty Soul.
