Cryptographer Len Sassaman, RIP

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/06/len_sassaman/

By Andrew Orlowski
The Register
6th July 2011

Obituary Len Sassaman, a cryptographer and security researcher of high 
repute, has died aged 31. Sassaman maintained the Mixmaster remailer and 
he contributed to various other privacy projects, including OpenPGP. He 
also co-founded the annual CodeCon conference with Bram Cohen. He was 
security researcher and doctoral student at the Katholieke Universiteit 
in Leuven.

Len was a friend and roommate in San Francisco, in the year following 
the dot.com crash. The Register's West Coast Bureau at the time was 
wherever I happened to be – Len provided a mascot.

It was a dire time for bright programmers. It got even worse after 9/11. 
Bram had been turned down for a job at Google because he didn't have a 
degree. Neither did Len. The pair persuaded Jamie Zawinski to open his 
DNA Lounge club during the day over one weekend, and invited practical 
demonstrations of working code from interesting people.

"Conferences cost a ridiculous amount of money, and hackers are treated 
like dirt," said Bram. That was the first CodeCon, and it was Len's 
energy and enthusiasm that pulled it together.

[...]

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