I didn’t know Dan, but I spent about an hour yesterday afternoon reading through the parade of tweets documenting small stories of his kindness and generosity towards people he knew well, worked with, met once, and even random strangers who asked him questions on the Internet.
It’s one of the most wholesome things I think I have seen on Twitter.
Whether you knew Dan or not, consider doing the same. I found it refilling some reservoir in me I didn’t realize had emptied.
I met Dan briefly at two CCCs, and had a few back and forths online over the years - while we socially/technically never “clicked”, he was a most interesting and competent fellow, with a great fingerspitzengefühle for overall trends, their tipping points and principal flaws.
He was a security researcher in the truest of forms with his research stretching across the spectrum and not fixating on “chasing the dragon” of narrow peculiars (say, malware unpackers or exploit chains for memory corruption); ending up being all the more powerful and impactful for it. That, coupled with his general camaraderie, spirit and “hacking as playful exploration with good intent mixed with a dash of trickster” attitude leaves infosec a much colder place without him in it – his light is irreplaceable.
I didn’t know Dan, but I spent about an hour yesterday afternoon reading through the parade of tweets documenting small stories of his kindness and generosity towards people he knew well, worked with, met once, and even random strangers who asked him questions on the Internet.
It’s one of the most wholesome things I think I have seen on Twitter.
Whether you knew Dan or not, consider doing the same. I found it refilling some reservoir in me I didn’t realize had emptied.
I met Dan briefly at two CCCs, and had a few back and forths online over the years - while we socially/technically never “clicked”, he was a most interesting and competent fellow, with a great fingerspitzengefühle for overall trends, their tipping points and principal flaws.
He was a security researcher in the truest of forms with his research stretching across the spectrum and not fixating on “chasing the dragon” of narrow peculiars (say, malware unpackers or exploit chains for memory corruption); ending up being all the more powerful and impactful for it. That, coupled with his general camaraderie, spirit and “hacking as playful exploration with good intent mixed with a dash of trickster” attitude leaves infosec a much colder place without him in it – his light is irreplaceable.
I highly recommend going through a few of his talks (of which there are many), https://media.ccc.de/v/28c3-4930-en-black_ops_of_tcpip_2011 is one of my favourites still. Follow the bitcoin tirade and recall that’s ten years ago..
Such a shame. I only know Dan from his work and from his fantastic defcon 22 talk. He will be missed.
Defcon talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xneBjc8z0DE
Thank you for the link. I wasn’t familiar with his work before today, but that talk was very interesting.
As a sidenote, does anyone know the (scooby doo?) shirt he’s wearing?