Optimus Pete

Tech Superstars is a new segment that I’ll be running. In it I will be profiling individuals that have made an important contribution to the fields of Computer Science or technology. Readers of my Peteamania blog will know I love facts, I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear my Tech Superstar Profiles will contain facts galore!

Tech Superstar #1 is security guru Bruce Schneider. Regular blog commenter fat-faced Phil Evans sent me a link to this brilliant Brucey facts website a few months ago. This is my favourite fact from it:

• FACT: Bruce Schneier can losslessly compress random data by 50%, with his fists

The people that have made the Bruce facts site seem to like Knuth a lot as well. Personally I was never too keen on Knuth, he just seemed too wrapped up in Theory not the application. I mean the man is supposed to be a Computer Science legend but he doesn’t even read his email!

Anway I got a bit sidelined with my Knuth ranting, lets all agree that he’s “no Bruce” and I’ll be happy. Back to Bruce: The Bruce Schneier book Secrets & Lies is an excellent read on computer security. Unusually for a technical book it’s very readable [1] and entertaining, while containing some great explanations of how digital security works. I’d give you a quote from the book but Phil Evans has stolen it from me. Bruce’s Applied Cryptography book is supposed to be extremely good but I haven’t read it yet, don’t worry it’s on my ever growing list of things to do!

Anyway hope you enjoyed this first Tech Superstar Profile, if you would like to see someone in particular covered then add your suggestions in the comments section.

/* Pete Graham */

[1] Technically nearly all books are readable; I mean in this case it reads like an actual book rather than a technical manual