Grady Ward

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Grady Ward 2013

William Grady Ward (born April 4, 1951 ) is an American software developer, lexicographer, and Internet activist. He is known for his anti- Scientology practices .

Life

From 1979 to January 1989 he worked for the Apple company . In 1989 he was questioned by the FBI as one of the five main suspects after the secrecy of software for the design of Macintosh computers had been broken at Apple. Among other things, because of his skills and liberal past and because he should have had access to the software in question, he was suspected.

Prior to that, Ward was best known for compiling and distributing a public domain version of the collected works of William Shakespeare ("Moby Shakespeare", based on the Globe Edition of 1864), which achieved the largest circulation of all Shakespeare collections worldwide.

Grady Ward compiled the content of the Moby Project , an extensive collection of mainly English-language lexical content, which he released into the public domain in 1996 . The collection includes the Moby Thesaurus, which, with over 2.5 million synonyms and associated words, is the largest English-language thesaurus of all.

Ward was engaged in developing a collection of source code fragments called Moby Crypto to promote the widespread use of current, strong encryption technology. At the time, the US government treated strong cryptographic software legally like weapons and imposed appropriate restrictions on how it was used. In 1993, in connection with Moby Crypto, his publishing house Austin Code Works was investigated on charges of illegal export of strong encryption technology. He also spread the concept of creating memorable and secure passphrases through “shocking nonsense” . On March 30, 1995, he was helping distribute a handbook for NSA employees when it was leaked through Phrack magazine, arguing that a government incapable of keeping its own records confidential would not either should be entrusted with the maintenance of the system for depositing cryptographic keys proposed by the NSA.

In 1996 Scientology sued Ward on copyright infringement charges, alleging that he was responsible for the anonymous publication of proprietary material that is copyrighted by the "church". After several years of the poor dispute, in which Ward defended himself alone and attended more than 1,000 appointments with the Northern District of California, San Jose, the dispute was settled on May 12, 1998, when the case was finally dismissed. Ward prevailed over Scientology's attempt to treat the case as a trade secret, but accepted the establishment of Scientology's copyright claim. Without acknowledging the alleged responsibility for the copyright violations thus established, he nevertheless consented to the lifelong regular payment of $ 200 a month to Scientology. Unusually for a legal settlement with Scientology, the settlement agreement was not kept secret, nor did it contain any restrictions on any future statements by Ward about Scientology. The agreement itself became the occasion for a pending legal dispute at the Federal Court of Appeal of the ninth district of the Federal Court of Justice, but has so far been observed by both sides.

Web links

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  • Potty-Mouth FAQ
  • DJ Leonie Brinkema (ED Va.) Order, October 4, 1996 in RTC v. Lerma Civil Action No 95-1107-A.
  1. http://phrack.org/issues.html?issue=30&id=12
  2. ^ How Moby Shakespeare Took Over the Internet. In: Open Source Shakespeare. George Mason University, accessed November 21, 2010 .
  3. Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Encrypt Again . In: Condé Nast Publications Inc. (Ed.): Wired . No. 1.06 , December 1993 (English, wired.com [accessed November 21, 2010]).
  4. Passphrase FAQ. In: alt.security.pgp. October 2, 1993, accessed November 21, 2010 .
  5. ^ NSA employee's security manual. (ASCII text) In: EFF "Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) & Open Government" Archive. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007 ; accessed on November 21, 2010 (English).
  6. ^ Key Escrow, Key Recovery, Trusted Third Parties & Govt. Access to Keys. Electronic Frontier Foundation, archived from the original on October 12, 2007 ; accessed on November 21, 2010 (English).
  7. C 96-20207 RMW ND California, San Jose
  8. http://www.spaink.net/cos/rnewman/grady/home.html