Welcome!

Nuria and Rufo De Francisco
Thank you for visiting the website of Nuria and Rufo De Francisco. Originally from Laredo, Spain, we've called California home for over 30 years now. We live in San José, the self-declared capital of Silicon Valley.

Here you can find information about ourselves and our interests, which include software, cybersecurity, film photography, and history. We also showcase our collections of cameras, clocks, slide rules and calculators, and materials — maps, documents, images — related to the colonial history of San Francisco and northern California.

We encourage you to come back often to check out our updates. Thanks for visiting!

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity — the body of knowledge and practices to defend internet-connected individuals, products, and devices from malicious manipulations by hackers, spammers, and cybercriminals — is very important to us. We conduct research into patterns of behavior used in attacks. Specifically, we run honeypots to understand how hackers evolve their attacks. A honeypot is a controlled network-connected system  — typically, but not always, a computer — that is set up as a decoy to lure cyber-attackers. Attack activity and other types of unwanted traffic against the honeypot is recorded and later analyzed using homegrown tools. Findings are published and shared with other members of the cyber research community. On this website, you can find detailed summaries of our honeypot findings, and configuration notes with information on the set up of our data collection environment. Read More →
Photography

We love photography, especially that captured on film with old cameras. While we appreciate the convenience, ease-of-use, and accessibility of modern digital and phone cameras, we enjoy the traditional photographic method more. We collect vintage cameras, some true mechanical wonders. We acquire and, when needed, slit photographic film to fit the desired format for shooting. We mix our development chemistry and develop our negatives at home. We enjoy experimenting with different developers and types of film stock, including medical and security film. We tend to favor black-and-white photography, but we also shoot and develop color film. You can find information on our extensive and ever-growing camera collection and a sampling of analog images we shot and developed on our photography page. Read More →