61–70 of 216 posts
Dan was at Santa Clara in the spring of 1998 when I was there on an exchange. Unbeknownst to me, I was watching South Park in the dorm’s TV lounge next to a future internet legend. We later made the connection through mutual friends and he became a technical advisor to my startup. Dan was always generous with his time and expertise. He was the kind of person whom you could expect could easily become very rich, but wa…
Thank you for sharing.
Absolutely god damn heart breaking.
A wonderful reminder that true brilliance and humanity can coexist.
Thank you for everything
We both went back to CCCamp in 2011. I excitedly told him about a reverse DNS scanning project (0.0.0.0/0 in 12 hours on AWS for like $50), and then we ended up talking about the Debian RNG bug and password security, walking around camp watching the lightning in the distance.
When I was doing my original brainwallet research back in 2013 and cracked the woodchuck wallet the first thing I did after showing my ex (then girlfriend) was call him. I told him I’d found something but didn’t feel comfortable discussing over the phone. He invited me over.
My ex and I hopped on BART headed into SF and met him at the loft he was living at above a motorcycle shop. We talked and carefully planned and then I accidentally made 250 BTC vanish.
Dan looked at me and said “[my ex] and I are going to go for a walk and return with burritos. You’re going to calm down and have this fixed by the time we get back. It’ll be okay.”
It was, and I did. I’d simply forgotten about change addresses for a brief moment of terror.
I think the first time he mentioned wanting to hire me was a few months later at a Bitcoin conference in San Jose. He believed in me. I went on to work alongside him at White Ops (now known as Human Security) in 2014. He brought me on stage with him at DEFCON that year.
He spent a lot of time helping me put together a CFP submission about my brainwallet research for DEFCON the following year and then helped me put together slides, rehearse, and had a professional help me refine everything. I couldn’t have done it without him.
My wedding was about six weeks before DEFCON - Dan showed up in an Uber, about an hour late. He explained that he’d confused Menlo Park for Morgan Hill when planning to leave. I was just thrilled to have him there.
Dan was a supportive friend, a great mentor, and a delightful colleague. I really can’t overstate what a positive impact he had on my life. It’s hard to believe he’s really gone. That I’ll never get to swap stories about our respective side projects with him again.
I miss him.
;( @dang can we get a black bar please?
I had dinner with Dan once, he ”social engineered” me and claimed he forgot to bring money. I knew what he was doing, but also knew that if picking up the tab was the price i had to pay for getting to hang out with him, I got the better end of the Deal. Rest In Peace
You may have misread the situation. I have known him for decades, and I have never seen him take advantage of another person. Not ever. Not even once. If he said he forgot to bring money, then he probably did. Let us raise a cup to his name. A kind soul and an inspiration to us all.
Very true. Either way, I didn't feel taken advantage of. He truly was special, and I'm incredibly happy I got to spend some time with him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the tweet
The tweet says “Please keep speculation to yourself”. Whether you think it’s appropriate or not, asking if anyone knows what happened is not the same as asking for speculation.
It was an early inspiration for a lot of my L3-in-userspace work.