Douglas J. Karl is founder of KarlNet, Inc. and also part time manager of the Networking Engineering Group at The Ohio State University, responsible for designing and building the campus data network. This network connects approximately 20,000 computers in 250 buildings. The network is based upon an ATM Switch, 8 Cisco Routers and 400 KarlBridge/Router firewall devices which Karl invented.

He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from OSU in 1978 and has worked there in many differing capacities since. He has a wide variety of experience with mini and microcomputer hardware and software development and system administration. He has lead several successful funded research projects at the University.

Karl has also founded 2 companies in the Columbus, Ohio area. His second company, KarlNet, Inc. manufacturers and sells the KarlBridge/Router firewall and Wireless KarlBridge. There are approximately 20,000 in use worldwide. A recent NASA survey found the KarlBridge/Router to be one of the top 2 most popular network security devices in use.

Karl developed all the security algorithms used in the KarlBridge Firewall product which is based on the commonly available 386/486/Pentium class computer. His pioneering work has resulted in a firewall device that is one of the fastest, most innovative and inexpensive firewalls available. The KarlBridge/Router has the combined characteristics of a multi-protocol Screening Router, Application Level Gateway, Network Statistics Monitor and Intelligent Data Encryptor. There is a working demo version of the software available on the Internet for anonymous ftp.

Karl has also made significant contributions to wireless networking with the introduction of the Wireless KarlBridge/Router. Approximately 90% of all AT&T WaveLAN based wireless bridges and routers sold world wide by different companies are based upon the KarlBridge software.