Len Sassaman

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Len Sassamann on the 27C3

Len Sassaman (* 1980 ; † July 3, 2011 in Leuven , Belgium ) was a programmer , hacker and IT security expert. Among other things, he maintained the Mixmaster project.

job

Sassaman was a PhD student at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium as a scientist in the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography Research Group , of which Bart Preneel is also a member. He was also in close contact with David Chaum . He was a well-known cypherpunk , cryptographer, and privacy advocate well beyond academia .

In 2002, he and his roommate at the time, Bram Cohen, founded CodeCon (Code Convention ) as an inexpensive alternative to large hacker conferences such as HOPE or DEFCON (event) , because at that time "he didn't even have the money to eat, let alone go to expensive conferences" .

He continued to work for Network Associates on the PGP encryption software and the open source alternative OpenPGP, GNU Privacy Guard , was a member of the Shmoo Group ( Rainbow Tables ) and gave regular lectures at the DEFCON hacker conference . One of his most famous discoveries, along with Dan Kaminsky and his wife Meredith, is the vulnerability in X.509 certificates. With the well-known cryptologist Phil Zimmermann he designed the Zimmermann – Sassaman key-signing protocol .

Private life

On February 11, 2006, he publicly proposed marriage to his girlfriend Meredith Patterson after her presentation at the fifth CodeCon . They also worked professionally e.g. B. on the OLPC ( Bitfrost ) project together. Sassaman died on July 3, 2011. His wife confirmed that he suffered from severe depression and killed himself .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mixmaster on SourceForge
  2. ↑ Recording on the 24c3
  3. ↑ 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, by Andrew Orlowski, The Register, July 6, 2011
  4. ↑ a b Interview with Meredith after the 5th CodeCon
  5. ↑ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724265
  6. ↑ Twitter message from Meredith
personal data
SURNAME Sassaman, Len
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sassaman, Leonard Harris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American programmer
DATE OF BIRTH 1980
DATE OF DEATH July 3, 2011
Place of death Leuven , Belgium