

Len Sassaman has passed away - ColinWright

I'm hearing rumors/reports that Len Sassaman has passed away.  If anyone has news then I'd appreciate more concrete details.<p>Thanks.
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maradydd
I'm his wife. Sadly, the reports are true; I've been visiting family in the
States and I got the call from the Leuven police department a couple of hours
ago.

He was the most brilliant man I ever met, and I still can't believe this is
happening.

~~~
d0ne
A brilliant mind has been lost today. However, his brilliant ideals shall live
on. My sincerest condolences.

------
pablos08
<https://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=500467612>

I met Len in 1999, he was a kid. A cocky kid who thought he knew everything
and I wasn't impressed. I think we were arguing about K of N keysplitting.
Rodney Thayer said "Yeah, he's like we were at that age." Rodney was gracious
and patient, accepting and loving towards Len and I felt obliged to follow his
lead. This is a highly improbable description of Rodney, but it was the truth.
I became friends with Len and we were coconspirator cypherpunks at a time when
that was a wild frontier. We were reimagining our world, riddled with
cryptosystems that would mathematically enforce the freedoms that we
treasured. Anonymous remailers to preserve speech without fear of retribution;
onion routers to ensure nobody could censor the internet; digital cash to
enable a radically free economy. We have schemes to decentralize & distribute
everything. We imagine complex and esoteric threats to problems we might
someday have - we architect futuristic protocols to insulate against those
threats. All this is a highly academic geek utopia exercise. I tend to keep it
that way, but Len wanted to get his hands dirty. There were times when Len got
visits from various Federal agencies over remailer abuse. At first Len would
get scared and I'd get him out of the house which he assumed was bugged, and
drive around for a while. Especially in those early years, Len was trying to
impress us. We invited him to join The Shmoo Group, where I'm a fringe
radical, and Len became the lunatic fringe. I'm sure we helped temper his
apocalyptic tendencies and at times he even bordered on diplomatic. But it
isn't in our nature to acknowledge prowess directly. You only know a hacker
respects you if he's willing to waste his time shooting holes in your ideas. I
have thousands of messages to and from Len spanning the last decade, and I
doubt a single one of them offers any direct praise.

Len got his hands dirty. He committed himself to building the stuff we
imagined. I play it safe and remain blameless, but I get to stay balanced
because courageous guys like Len fulfill the extremes.

Len, you are, in fact, an inspiration to those of us who inspired you. You
made something great of your life. You left a lot behind for us. Thanks for
letting me be a part of it all.

Cypherpunks write code.

~~~
ephermata
Thank you for posting this. Puts into words what I and I expect others are
feeling. Sad to think he is gone.

------
dfc
I met Len at PET in Toronto. Despite the fact that I was unable to add
anything but stupid questions to the conversations Len let me tag along with
him for a while. He would take the time to explain things to me that were
patently obvious to everyone else taking part in the discussions. I was
clearly out of my league but for some reason Len let me listen and
occasionally take part in conversations that I only dreamed about.

My thoughts go out to his friends and family. It is a testament to Len's
character that the loss of a person who I spent no more than eight hours could
have such a profound impact on me.

~~~
MajorVariola
Never met him, but was on the cp list and recognized his name and that he had
contributed greatly. I've lost a friend to depression and I have it too; meds
can help clamp the extreme lows.

------
ColinWright
His home page is here: <https://securehomes.esat.kuleuven.be/~lsassama/>

WikiPedia page: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman>

Reported by Rob Bird (@conduit242) and Bram Cohen (@bramcohen)

* <https://twitter.com/conduit242>

* <https://twitter.com/bramcohen>

------
dweekly
It was a suicide. :(

<https://twitter.com/#!/maradydd/status/87586809818775552>

Len was brilliant, the inventor of mixmaster, cocreator of CodeCon, and a
wonderful human being. The world just lost a great mind and a great man.

------
kanzure
When I met Len at Open Science Summit 2010, I was struck by how friendly Len
was. He was the genuine article. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that,
had I asked him for a kidney or his liver, he would have said yes. That's just
who he was.

While most of us know of Len because of his security work, I first met him
through the do-it-yourself biohacking community. He gave a great talk at Open
Science Summit on this topic. I was in the audience at the time, and figured
I'd type a transcript. I apologize for typos, but QWERTY can only be pushed so
hard. He was talking about the involvement of the FBI with DIYbio, conveying
his unfortunate experiences in the past with law enforcement and what he hopes
will become of these trends.

[http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/open-science-
summit-2010/l...](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/open-science-
summit-2010/len/)

 _We're going to run into similar problems here where your local sheriff, your
backwoods outpost for FBI agents who are not qualified to be doing their jobs,
to the nosy neighbor who files a report that has the men in biohazard suits
coming through your windows and raiding your art projects with glowing
bacteria. Education and outreach to the legislature and the law enforcenment
is critical if we want to be viewed not as advisories, the bad guys, and not
be viewed as a threat. If you've ever had to be on the wrong side of the
table, an unfortunate situation, say, the FBI, as I have, you'll realize that
at that point, it's too late to try to convince a law enforcement officer that
you're the good guy- you're the suspect._

...

 _This is our heritage, this research, these ideas that we have, that is
leading to knowledge that no human in history has had the opportunity to have
before. This is what we're going to be handing down to future generations. We
need to make sure we are not backed into a corner where we are not able to
distribute this research to others, and that this isn't locked up in IP vaults
with lawyers standing guard. And finally, there will be accidents and
problems. We need to mitigate these risks._

------
lemmata
His wife's Twitter account (@maradydd) appears to corroborate this. A tragic
loss, especially considering his age (I don't know, but I'd estimate ~35). At
that age, it would almost have to be an accident or suicide, and I'm fervently
hoping that it was an accident.

~~~
maradydd
Unfortunately no; it was unambiguously suicide.

Depression is a horrible, horrible thing, both for those who experience it and
the people who love them. Len was a brilliant, sensitive, loving man with the
rotten luck to be too tormented by his own brain chemistry to realise how much
he was valued by so many people, no matter how often we told him.

He was 31.

~~~
chuckmcknight
I am so saddened by your loss. Depression has taken so many people from all of
us and shows no sign of being solved. My hope is that he's at peace and that
you are able to find the inner strength to continue living, as difficult as
that will be. Please know that you're in our thoughts and hearts as you go
through this awful time.

------
nonaht_leyte
Len, you will be missed.

CP's may write code, but you were among the true believers who would run that
code as well. I hope that you are somewhere at peace, writing happy code, and
in charge of turning away hopeful former fedz arriving at the Pearly Gates.
Your legacy will live on in polynomial time.

//Nonaht Leyte

------
robertguerra
I had the pleasure of meeting Len in the early 2000's through my involvement
with the cyberpunk and privacy community. I always respected his advice and
saw him as trusted collegue.

My sincere thoughts and prayers are with you in this time of loss. Please do
let me know if you both had a charity and/or organization you supported.

Hugs from Washington

Robert Guerra Managing director, Privaterra

------
blinkingled
@maradydd - Deepest condolences.

It is extremely sad to lose a brilliant young guy to depression. Oh the
vagaries of life.

------
glamrock
Len is such a wonderful person, it's really hard to put into words how much he
meant in my life.

He was so incredibly encouraging of taking big leaps and always striving to do
courageous things, even if it meant taking on risk. You could always count on
him for a _totally_ unvarnished opinion of your code or project, which is both
rare and incredibly cherished.

It was amazing to work on a project for two weeks and have him tell you in two
minutes what was wrong with it, why, and a better way to do it. For a plebe
like me, it meant the world for him to actually take the time and explain
things to me.

On top of everything else, he really made a difference at a time when I was
struggling with depression.

It just seems like there are not enough words to truly talk about the impact
his life had on the world. His legacy is just tremendous.

------
nostarch
My jaw dropped when I read this. I always looked forward to Len's surprise
appearances. He was, without a doubt, one of my favorite people.

I will really miss him.

My thoughts are with you, Meredith.

\-- Bill Pollock

------
fyrfitrmedic
My most heartfelt condolences to Meredith et. al. I crossed paths with Len
only briefly during his days at Netaxs; he was without a doubt one of the most
brilliant people I've ever encountered and one of those I most enjoyed
conversing with.

It's been years; when I got work from a colleague from the Netaxs days, I was
an am still stunned.

------
nanazom
Meredith, I am so sorry. A gentle man. I was there for the wonderful on-stage
proposal at CodeCon. I didn't realize he was so young. He will be missed for
many years by many people. \--Nana

------
SandySandfort
I am so sorry. Yes, Len was brilliant, but he was also a truly good human
being. I don't think he had a mean bone in his body and he was always pleasant
and of good humor. What a loss.

------
glob
I remember Len barking at a squirrel on a tree during one of Cypherpunk
gatherings at Stanford campus in early 2000s.

It was one of more coherent threads at those meetings.

~~~
billstewart
That's also one of my first memories of Len - mostly he chased it around the
tree and then it got really fed up and started yelling at him.

------
agl
Oh man. That's a sad, sad, loss if true.

------
corelanc0d3r
that's horrible news, really really sad - our deepest and sincere condolences

corelanc0d3r

