Len Sassaman
Encyclopedia
Len Sassaman was an advocate for privacy
, maintainer of the Mixmaster anonymous remailer
code and remop of the randseed remailer.
He was employed as the security architect and senior systems engineer for Anonymizer
. He was a PhD
candidate at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
in Belgium, as a researcher with the 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 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
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
.
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. The couple worked together on several research collaborations, including a critique of privacy flaws in the OLPC Bitfrost
security platform, and a proposal of formal methods of analysis of computer insecurity in February 2011.
Meredith Patterson's current 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.
In 2009, Dan Kaminsky
presented joint work with Sassaman and Patterson at Black Hat
in 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.
Sassaman is reported to have died on July 3, 2011. Patterson reported that her husband's death was a suicide
.
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, maintainer of the Mixmaster anonymous remailer
Mixmaster anonymous remailer
Mixmaster is a Type II anonymous remailer which sends messages in fixed-size packets and reorders them, preventing anyone watching the messages go in and out of remailers from tracing them. Mixmaster was originally written by Lance Cottrell, and was maintained by Len Sassaman Peter Palfrader is the...
code and remop of the randseed remailer.
He was employed as the security architect and senior systems engineer for Anonymizer
Anonymizer (company)
Anonymizer, Inc. is an Internet privacy company, founded in 1995 by Lance Cottrell, author of the Mixmaster anonymous remailer. Anonymizer was originally named Infonex Internet. The name was changed to Anonymizer in 1997 when the company acquired a web based privacy proxy of the same name developed...
. He was a PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
candidate at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a Dutch-speaking university in Flanders, Belgium.It is located at the centre of the historic town of Leuven, and is a prominent part of the city, home to the university since 1425...
in Belgium, as a researcher with the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography
COSIC
The Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography research group, commonly called COSIC, is a research group at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which is headed by Professor Bart Preneel, Vincent Rijmen, and Professor Ingrid Verbauwhede.The goal of...
(COSIC) research group, led by Bart Preneel
Bart Preneel
Bart Preneel is a Belgian cryptographer and cryptanalyst. He is a professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in the COSIC group, president of the International Association for Cryptologic Research, and project manager of ECRYPT....
. David Chaum
David Chaum
David Chaum is the inventor of many cryptographic protocols, including blind signature schemes, commitment schemes, and digital cash. In 1982, Chaum founded the International Association for Cryptologic Research , which currently organizes academic conferences in cryptography research...
and Bart Preneel were his advisors.
Sassaman was a well-known cypherpunk
Cypherpunk
A cypherpunk is an activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography as a route to social and political change.Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal groups aimed to achieve privacy and security through proactive use of cryptography...
, cryptographer and privacy advocate. He worked for Network Associates on the PGP
Pretty Good Privacy
Pretty Good Privacy is a data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is often used for signing, encrypting and decrypting texts, E-mails, files, directories and whole disk partitions to increase the security...
encryption software, was a member of the Shmoo Group
Shmoo Group
The Shmoo Group is an international organization founded by Bruce Potter in the late 1990s as a non-profit security think-tank. The group is composed of people such as Apache Foundation director Ben Laurie, anonymity guru Len Sassaman, PGP Corporation CTO Jon Callas, and Hollywood film system...
, a contributor to the OpenPGP IETF working group
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
, the GNU Privacy Guard
GNU Privacy Guard
GNU Privacy Guard is a GPL Licensed alternative to the PGP suite of cryptographic software. GnuPG is compliant with RFC 4880, which is the current IETF standards track specification of OpenPGP...
project, and frequently appeared at technology conferences like DEF CON
DEF CON
DEF CON is one of the world's largest annual computer hacker conventions, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada...
. Sassaman was the co-founder of CodeCon
CodeCon
CodeCon was an annual conference for hackers and technology enthusiasts, held every year between 2002 and 2009. CodeCon was not intended to be a computer security conference, but a conference with a focus on developers doing presentations of technologies, rather than products.-History:Bram Cohen...
along with Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen is an American computer programmer, best known as the author of the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, as well as the first file sharing program to use the protocol, also known as BitTorrent...
, co-founder of the HotPETS workshop (with Roger Dingledine of Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
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
Dmitry Sklyarov
Dmitry Vitalevich Sklyarov is a Russian computer programmer known for his 2001 arrest by American law enforcement over software copyright restrictions under the DMCA anti-circumvention provision...
.
On February 11, 2006, at the fifth CodeCon, Sassaman proposed to returning speaker and noted computer scientist Meredith L. Patterson
Meredith L. Patterson
Meredith L. Patterson is an American technologist, science fiction author, and journalist. She has spoken at numerous industry conferences on a wide range of topics...
during the Q&A after her presentation, and they were married. The couple worked together on several research collaborations, including a critique of privacy flaws in the OLPC Bitfrost
Bitfrost
Bitfrost is the security design specification for the OLPC XO, a low cost laptop intended for children in developing countries and developed by the One Laptop Per Child project. Bitfrost's main architect is Ivan Krstić...
security platform, and a proposal of formal methods of analysis of computer insecurity in February 2011.
Meredith Patterson's current startup, Osogato, aims to commercialize Patterson's Support Vector Machine
Support vector machine
A support vector machine is a concept in statistics and computer science for a set of related supervised learning methods that analyze data and recognize patterns, used for classification and regression analysis...
-based "query by example" research. Sassaman and Patterson announced Osogato's first product, a downloadable music recommendation tool, at SuperHappyDevHouse
SuperHappyDevHouse
SuperHappyDevHouse is an international series of social events which organizers originally conceived as parties for hackers and thinkers. Founded May 29, 2005 by Jeff Lindsay and David Weekly , SHDH in Silicon Valley began by hosting 150 to 200 people every six weeks at rotating venues throughout...
21 in San Francisco.
In 2009, Dan Kaminsky
Dan Kaminsky
Dan Kaminsky is an American security researcher. He formerly worked for Cisco, Avaya, and IOActive, where he was the Director of Penetration Testing...
presented joint work with Sassaman and Patterson at Black Hat
Black hat
A black hat is the villain or bad guy, especially in a western movie in which such a character would stereotypically wear a black hat in contrast to the hero's white hat, especially in black and white movies....
in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
, showing multiple methods for attacking the X.509
X.509
In cryptography, X.509 is an ITU-T standard for a public key infrastructure and Privilege Management Infrastructure . X.509 specifies, amongst other things, standard formats for public key certificates, certificate revocation lists, attribute certificates, and a certification path validation...
certificate authority
Certificate authority
In cryptography, a certificate authority, or certification authority, is an entity that issues digital certificates. The digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate...
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.
Sassaman is reported to have died on July 3, 2011. Patterson reported that her husband's death was a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.