Editing Len Sassaman

{{short description|American technologist and cryptographer (1980–2011)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name         = Len Sassaman
| image        = Len Sassaman 27C3.jpg <!-- Only freely-licensed images may be used to depict living people.  See [[WP:NONFREE]].  Subject is now deceased, so non-free is ok if rationale is correct. -->
| image_size   = 
| alt          = 
| caption      = Sassaman at the 27th [[Chaos Communication Congress]], 2010
| birth_date   = {{birth-date|April 9, 1980}}
| birth_place  = [[Pottstown, Pennsylvania]], US
| death_date   = {{Death-date|July 3, 2011}} (aged 31)
| death_place  = [[Leuven]], Flemish Brabant, Belgium
| known_for    = [[Mixmaster anonymous remailer|Mixmaster]], X.509 attacks
| spouse       = {{marriage|[[Meredith L. Patterson]]|2006}}
| occupation   = Researcher at [[COSIC]]
}}
'''Leonard Harris Sassaman''' (April 9, 1980 – July 3, 2011) was an American technologist, [[information privacy]] advocate, and the maintainer of the [[Mixmaster anonymous remailer]] code and operator of the ''randseed'' [[remailer]]. Much of his career gravitated towards [[cryptography]] and protocol development.

==Early life and education==
Sassaman graduated from [[The Hill School]] in 1998. By 18, he was on the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] responsible for the TCP/IP protocol underlying the internet. It is speculated that he may have been the anonymous creator of the [[Bitcoin]] network. He was diagnosed with [[Major depressive disorder|depression]] as a teenager.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Evan Hatch|date=2021-03-04|title=Len Sassaman and Satoshi|url=https://evanhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c85c2b10|website=Medium|language=en}}</ref> In 1999, Len moved to the [[San Francisco Bay Area|Bay Area]], quickly became a regular in the cypherpunk community and moved in with [[Bram Cohen]].

==Career==
Sassaman was employed as the security architect and senior systems engineer for [[Anonymizer (company)|Anonymizer]]. He was a [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] candidate at the [[Katholieke Universiteit Leuven]] in Belgium, as a researcher with the [[COSIC|Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography]] (COSIC) research group, led by [[Bart Preneel]]. [[David Chaum]] and Bart Preneel were his advisors.

Sassaman was a well-known [[cypherpunk]], cryptographer and privacy advocate. He worked for [[Network Associates]] on the [[Pretty Good Privacy|PGP]] encryption software, was a member of the Shmoo Group, a contributor to the [[OpenPGP]] [[IETF]] [[working group]], the [[GNU Privacy Guard]] project, and frequently appeared at technology conferences like [[DEF CON]]. Sassaman was the co-founder of [[CodeCon]] along with [[Bram Cohen]], co-founder of the HotPETS workshop (with [[Roger Dingledine]] of [[Tor (network)|Tor]] and Thomas Heydt-Benjamin), co-author of the [[Zimmermann–Sassaman key-signing protocol]], and at the age of 21, was an organizer of the protests following the arrest of Russian programmer [[Dmitry Sklyarov]].<ref>{{Cite magazine | title=Sklyarov Release in Feds' Hands | first1=Declan | last1=McCullagh | first2=Jeffrey | last2=Benner | date=2001-07-24 | magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] | url=https://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/07/45484?currentPage=all | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107144538/https://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/07/45484?currentPage=all | archive-date=2012-11-07 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Len Sassaman 4.jpg|left|thumb|180px|Len slips a blue cable-tie ring on [[Meredith L. Patterson|Meredith]]'s finger]]
On February 11, 2006, at the fifth CodeCon, Sassaman proposed to returning speaker and noted computer scientist [[Meredith L. Patterson]] during the Q&A after her presentation, and they were married.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/ZBx9jQd63ic Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110330122002/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBx9jQd63ic Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web| title=Len Sassaman & Meredith Patterson are CodeCon Valentines |publisher=GeekEntertainment.TV |via=[[YouTube]] |date= 11 December 2008 |first=Irina |last=Slutsky |author-link=Irina Slutsky|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBx9jQd63ic}}{{cbignore}}<!-- official, licensed video --></ref> The couple worked together on several research collaborations, including a critique of privacy flaws in the [[OLPC]] [[Bitfrost]] security platform,<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19826596.100-laptops-could-betray-users-in-the-developing-world.html |title=Laptops could Betray Users in the Developing World|journal=New Scientist|date=5 June 2008|first=Colin |last=Barras|issue=2659 }}{{registration required}}</ref> and a proposal of formal methods of analysis of computer insecurity in February 2011.<ref>{{cite web|title=Towards a formal theory of computer insecurity: a language-theoretic approach|first1=Len |last1=Sassaman|first2=Meredith L. |last2=Patterson|date=February 17, 2011 |publisher=Institute for Security, Technology and Society, [[Dartmouth College]] |url=http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/events/abstract-sassaman-patterson.html|format=Flash video}}</ref>

Meredith Patterson's current{{When|date=October 2024}} startup, Osogato, aims to commercialize Patterson's [[Support Vector Machine]]-based "query by example" research. Sassaman and Patterson announced Osogato's first product, a downloadable music recommendation tool, at [[SuperHappyDevHouse]] 21 in San Francisco.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

In 2009, [[Dan Kaminsky]] presented joint work with Sassaman and Patterson at [[Black Hat Briefings|Black Hat]] in [[Las Vegas Valley|Las Vegas]], showing multiple methods for attacking the [[X.509]] [[certificate authority]] infrastructure. Using these techniques, the team demonstrated how an attacker could obtain a certificate that clients would treat as valid for domains the attacker did not control.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/30/universal_ssl_certificate/ |title=Wildcard certificate spoofs web authentication - SSL felled by null string|first=Dan |last=Goodin  |date=30 July 2009 |newspaper=[[The Register]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/08/02/dan-kaminsky-feels-disturbance-internet |title=Dan Kaminsky Feels a disturbance in The Internet |publisher=Semiaccurate.com |author=Rodney|date=2 August 2009 }}</ref>

==Death==
[[File:LenSassaman-Bitcoin-Tribute.png|right|thumb|180px|Len memorial on the Bitcoin blockchain]]
Sassaman was reported dead on July 3, 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.hitb.org/content/rip-len-sassaman-crypto-expert-and-privacy-advocate |title=RIP: Len Sassaman, crypto expert and privacy advocate |author=l33tdawg |date=3 July 2011|publisher=Hack In The Box SecNews |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706004127/http://news.hitb.org/content/rip-len-sassaman-crypto-expert-and-privacy-advocate |archive-date=6 July 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724104 |title=Len Sassaman has passed away |author=maradydd (Meredith Patterson)|date=3 July 2011 |publisher=[[Y Combinator|Hacker News, YCombinator.com]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709003204/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724104 |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> Patterson stated on the same day after speaking to Belgian police that her husband's death was "unambiguously [[suicide]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724265 |title=Len Sassaman has passed away |author=maradydd (Meredith Patterson)|date=3 July 2011 |publisher=Hacker News, YCombinator.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709003224/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2724265 |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/87586809818775552|title=@wimremes unfortunately, it is. I got the call from the Leuven police about three hours ago. (I'm in TX visiting family at the moment.)|first=Meredith L |last=Patterson|date=3 July 2011|publisher=Twitter.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210404180923/https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/87586809818775552 |archive-date=4 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> After he had stopped responding to [[Instant messaging|instant messages]] from Patterson while she was in the United States, she asked a friend to fly to Belgium to check up on him and the friend "found him hanging in the closet".<ref>{{citation |last=Jeffries |first=Adrianne |title=Cracking suicide: hackers try to engineer a cure for depression |work=[[The Verge]] |date=August 14, 2013 |url=https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4618718/hacker-depression-def-con |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130815002903/https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4618718/hacker-depression-def-con |archive-date=August 15, 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|A Leuven-based "good friend" of the couple recalled learning of Sassaman's death from Patterson after returning from the nearby annual [[Rock Werchter]] music festival,<ref>{{citation |author=Daan |title=How Len Sassaman Got a Memorial on the Bitcoin Blockchain - Story of the Passing of a Good Friend |publisher=[[Steemit]] |date=22 January 2019 |url=https://steemit.com/blog/@daan/how-len-sassaman-got-a-memorial-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-story-of-the-passing-of-a-good-friend |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227193203/https://steemit.com/blog/@daan/how-len-sassaman-got-a-memorial-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-story-of-the-passing-of-a-good-friend |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> which ended on July 3, 2011.<ref>{{citation |title=Rock Werchter 2011 |publisher=[[Rock Werchter]] |url=https://www.rockwerchter.be/en/history/rock-werchter-2011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20241129051147/https://www.rockwerchter.be/en/history/rock-werchter-2011 |archive-date=29 November 2024}}</ref>}} He was laid to rest on July 9, 2011, at De Jacht Cemetery at [[Heverlee]] in Leuven, Belgium.<ref name="Reg6th">{{cite web|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/06/len_sassaman/ |access-date=2013-10-27 |title=Cryptographer Len Sassaman, RIP |work=[[The Register]] |date=July 6, 2011 |first=Andrew |last=Orlowski }}</ref>

An ASCII art tribute by Dan Kaminsky in honor of Len, to be permanently embedded into Bitcoin's Blockchain, was first announced during "The Wake for Len Sassaman" held at the [[DNA Lounge]] in San Francisco on July 30, 2011. Kaminsky revealed it publicly during Black Hat USA 2011 at the Caesars Palace Venue in Las Vegas.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kaminsky |first=Dan |title=Black Ops of TCP/IP 2011 |date=August 4, 2011 |pages=12–16 |url=https://www.slideshare.net/dakami/black-ops-of-tcpip-2011-black-hat-usa-2011}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Information privacy]]
* [[Information security]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ |date=July 6, 2011 |title=Sassaman's home page }}
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090406075525/http://rabbi.vox.com |date=April 6, 2009 |title=Sassaman's former blog }}
* [https://len.sassaman.net/ Archive of Len Sassaman's homepage from July 2011]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sassaman, Len}}
[[Category:Cypherpunks]]
[[Category:1980 births]]
[[Category:2011 suicides]]
[[Category:Modern cryptographers]]
[[Category:Computer systems engineers]]
[[Category:Suicides in Belgium]]
[[Category:The Hill School alumni]]
[[Category:2011 deaths]]