Talk:Len Sassaman

Spouse dates

Template:Infobox person unfortunately supports the date range after spouse in a culturally blind way. In my opinion, no end date should be written in the spouse parameter, where the subject of the infobox is the sole decedent, and there has been no divorce. Including an end date implies an end to the marriage or the death of the spouse. So, I suggest simply (Married 2006). Thoughts? --Lexein (talk) 20:49, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth I agree with you completely — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.237.48 (talk) 13:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. --David-Sarah Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 02:42, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Notice

`` WikiLeaks has just announced his death on facebook. Please prep for vandalism and revert any if you see it. Phearson (talk) 15:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Media roundup

Video interviews, presentations by Sassaman

• Irina Slutsky (December 11, 2008). Len Sassaman & Meredith Patterson are CodeCon Valentines. geekentertainmenttv, YouTube.

• Towards a formal theory of computer insecurity: a language-theoretic approach (video). Len Sassaman, Meredith L. Patterson. The Institute for Security, Technology, and Society. Moore Hall, Dartmouth College. February 17, 2011.

• Anonymity and its discontents (video). Black Hat Briefings, USA 2007 January 10, 2006.

• Exploiting the Forest with Trees (video). Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Black Hat Briefings, Las Vegas, NV. July 29, 2010.

DEFCON 15 (Las Vegas, NV) 3-5 August, 2007.

• DC15 Badge Hack: Audio Line-Level Meter and Rap Song (video).
• Defcon 15 Badge. GrandIdeaStudio.

24th Chaos Communication Congress (Berlin, DE) December 27, 2007.

• Anonymity for 2015 (video).
• Anonymity for 2015 (audio).

Articles including significant mentions of Sassaman's work

• Colin Barras (June 5, 2008 ). Laptops could betray users in the developing world. New Scientist. (registration required).

Press mentions/quotes

• Ann Harrison (August 13,2004). Let the Web Games Begin. Wired.
• Declan McCullagh (July 24, 2001). Sklyarov Release in Feds' Hands. Wired.
• Jeffrey Benner (December 19, 2001). Russian Hacker Has a Party. Wired.
• Matthew Fordahl, AP (December 9, 2001). Anonymous e-mail service still running after Sept 11. Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
• Katharine Mieszkowski (September 14, 2001). Send in the online spooks?. Salon.
• Dan Goodin (July 30, 2009). Wildcard certificate spoofs web authentication -SSL felled by null string. The Register.
• U.S. Courting Hackers. Las Vegas - Islam Online. August 6, 2007.

--Lexein (talk) 15:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Revision 568434375

The information from this revision is actually correct, just unsourced. Does Wikipedia allow primary sources for that sort of thing? I'm Len's widow, so I could verify this information with his ID and diploma, I'm just not familiar with how that works on Wikipedia and have been reluctant to edit the article myself due to conflict of interest. Maradydd (talk) 14:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi M. tl;dr I know, but I made that revert because any claim made in a Wikipedia article has to be based on a source which has been published in a way that it can be verified by a sufficiently dedicated reader. WP:Verifiability is a foundational policy at Wikipedia; see also WP:Reliable sources. Some primary published sources (say, written by Len or perhaps you) are sometimes ok, but we can't have major claims in an article rely on them. This means that if Len ever wrote about his birthday in a blog item, that would probably suffice. I had hoped that some obit would have included these details. Independent publications are preferred. For some biographical information, we might have to wait for a bio to be published (book, magazine).

But as an involved (non-independent) person with what we call a WP:Conflict of interest, you're very welcome to request/suggest changes here in Talk, and provide sources if possible, so that uninvolved WP editors can review and perhaps implement that change. --Lexein (talk) 02:47, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 12 external links on Len Sassaman. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-857.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-98.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-620.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-907.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-895.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-896.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-1111.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-1130.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-1042.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/talk-186.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-1433.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706135355/https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/ to https://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-1432.pdf

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bibliography

i just removed the entire bibliography section, as i am under the understanding that bibliography info (listing off all scientific publications, etc) is not allowed on wikipedia. please correct me if i am wrong, as i have more experience with pages for living people than i do for pages of people who are no longer alive. maybe the criteria is different for them? thanks. CanoeUnlined (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Early Life section

I've been listening to old DefCon talks on YouTube lately and found reference to Len and the ASCII embedding in Bitcoin in one of the Jeopardy games. I knew Len from his days at The Hill School and that led me to look him up. I'm sad to find that he passed away. Sadder that it was so long ago.

His early life section is more than a bit thin. I can offer this story about how Len first started to learn about Linux:

--- While at The Hill School, Len participated in the computer club, helping install and maintain PCs for the faculty. It was there that he first found and fell in love with Linux (Slackware). Len was given just a single two-word clue to get him started: ‘man man’.

With that clue and the challenge not to use the web for cheap and easy answers, he decoded for himself enough of the command structure of Linux to eventually assist in maintaining the Linux-based email, newsgroup, web, and audio streaming servers at the school until his graduation. His dedication to unraveling puzzles would be a recurring pattern throughout his life. ---

Of course that's primary source material. On the other hand, everything except for the last sentence seems like it could be allowable. I'm not an editor so I leave it to the talk page.

I know the information is true because I'm the one who installed and ran those servers and I'm the one to told Len to go type the words 'man man' if he wanted to step out of PCs and into a larger world that he couldn't yet imagine.

Even if it doesn't make it in the bio, I hope those who knew Len will smile appreciatively at the story. We so rarely get a chance to see the moment when everything changed and I think, for Len, this was one of those times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brettcoryell (talk • contribs) 15:06, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

... he suffered traumatic experiences at the hands...

I don't doubt that is true but I question the sourcing. The citation leads to a blog post with the very same statement -- without further detail or citation. Also, the posting seems to be the only one by that author on "Medium". So it seems like OR posted to a blog, and then shortly after, added here. If that is okay with the WP community it is okay with me. But it seems to fall short of the usual standard. Again, I am not doubting the claim itself. Arbalest Mike (talk) 04:36, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I removed the most questionable (non-encyclopedic, weakly sourced) statement. Arbalest Mike (talk) 15:20, 12 October 2021 (UTC)