# John Matherly > John Matherly is founder. Shodan on Anchor Terminal, with grades, an about and public profiles. - Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/john-matherly/ - Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/john-matherly/index.md (~850 tokens) - Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/john-matherly/index.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts) - JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/people/john-matherly/index.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json) - Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt) - API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json - MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key) - DNS: dig +short TXT .grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.. and .vs.. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev) - Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data) - Updated: 2026-11-03 Founder. 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. - X: https://x.com/achillean - GitHub: https://github.com/achillean ## What John builds - [Shodan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/shodan.md), graded E, 39.5/100, in 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 2026-11-03. ## 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 - https://leanpub.com/u/shodan - https://api.github.com/users/achillean - https://github.com/achillean/shodan-python - https://blog.shodan.io/ - https://www.shodan.io/ - https://developer.shodan.io/ - https://enterprise.shodan.io/ - https://help.shodan.io/ - https://rdap.identitydigital.services/rdap/domain/shodan.io 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, /about/#author). 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. --- Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp