FireWall-1 FAQ has moved to CPUG
If you’ve reached this page, you’re probably wondering where all the lovely Check Point FireWall-1 FAQs are. I stopped maintaining a public FireWall-1 FAQ in August of 2005 and wrote a blog post explaining the logic below.
Meanwhile, I’ve worked for Check Point Software Technologies since April 2009 and recently (May 2017) began running Check Point’s official community site called CheckMates, which I am working to make the go-to resource for all things Check Point!
Why did the FireWall-1 FAQs on phoneboy.com move to cpug.org in August 2005?
Because, quite honestly, it was long overdue.
The main reason I started the FireWall-1 FAQs on phoneboy.com was because at the time, there was an obvious need for a public information source about FireWall-1. Check Point certainly wasn’t providing it. I knew something about FireWall-1, being a technical support engineer. I could write in a way people could understand, but what’s more important, I was passionate about educating people about FireWall-1. PhoneBoy’s FireWall-1 FAQs were born.
Mid-way through writing my second FireWall-1 book, which was early 2003, I lost my passion for it. My passion may have started waning before then, but I think that was when I was finally able to admit to myself that it was happening. I made my career out of supporting FireWall-1 and I don’t care about it anymore. It also didn’t help that my main tasks at my employer at that time were taking me farther away from being in the trenches with FireWall-1.
Without my passion and without any real financial reason to stay on top of FireWall-1 issues, I stopped making any real content on FireWall-1. In fact, the whole act of even maintaining the content that was there on phoneboy.com became emotionally difficult for me. I went from being passionate to dispassionate about FireWall-1.
I could have just folded up shop and done something else at any point. On the other hand, I still truly care about the community that I, in some small way, helped to build. That’s one reason the content on phoneboy.com has remained online with the FireWall-1 content. That’s also the reason I tried switching content management systems so that others could help me maintain the site. But it’s clear the number of people that have the passion that I once had for the product coupled with the ability to write about it is very small.
In the summer of 2004, I first became aware of Barry Stiefel and The Check Point Users Group. Being around Santa Clara during the time of the first meeting, I decided to see what it was about. After seeing what Barry is trying to do, seeing that is passion for FireWall-1 is probably more ambitious than mine once was, and a little conjoling from Warren, I approached Barry about essentially taking over what I had done on phoneboy.com.
After much soul searching and discussion, I decided that I wanted phoneboy.com to be what it was originally about: me and what I’m doing. It’s most certainly not Check Point anymore and hasn’t been for quite some time. It’s time for me to move on with my post-FireWall-1 career. This meant that the FireWall-1 content had to have a new home, and Barry has graciously accepted the responsibility of preserving, maintaining and improving this content.
I have no doubt that Barry and cpug.org will be as good of a resource as I was. Please support him in his new role as steward of the premier independent resource on all things FireWall-1, VPN-1, or whatever Check Point decides to call the product now or in the future.
