Founder of a listed tool
John Matherly
Founder, named behind the Shodan listing on Anchor Terminal.
What John builds
Shodan E · Security intelligence
Shodan is a search engine for internet-connected devices. Its REST API returns the open ports, banners, certificates and known vulnerabilities of an IP address, searches the index by filter, scans ranges on demand and monitors networks for change.
Founder, researched 3 November 2026 · the people behind it
Questions
Who is John Matherly?
John Matherly founded Shodan, the search engine for internet-connected devices, and unveiled it in 2009. His author page says he was born in Switzerland, moved to San Diego at 17, worked at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and studied bioinformatics at UC San Diego before building Shodan. He writes the Shodan blog and maintains the official Python library, whose licence carries his name.
What does Shodan make?
Anchor Terminal lists Shodan from Shodan. Shodan is a search engine for internet-connected devices. Its REST API returns the open ports, banners, certificates and known vulnerabilities of an IP address, searches the index by filter, scans ranges on demand and monitors networks for change.
How are John's tools graded?
Shodan is graded E, 39.5 out of 100, on Anchor Terminal's benchmark, which scores every listing against the same checklist.
Sources (9)
These are the people building the tools we list, named for their public role in the company or project behind a listing, from public pages, with the date it was researched. They don't work for Anchor Terminal (our own team is on the about page). We show public roles, public profiles and what the listing pages show, nothing private. If a page is about you, link your account from it to write the about and set the links yourself. For a photo, a correction or to have a page removed, write to privacy@anchorterminal.com.