Peter G. Neumann, renowned computer scientist, ARPANET/Internet pioneer and expert on technology risks, working at SRI International since 1971, has died at age 93. Peace. He has been my friend and colleague for over half a century. He will be greatly missed.
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@lauren I first worked with Peter N. back in the mid 1970s on secure operating systems. We both became advocates of capability based hardware and software, although we disagreed over whether those capabilities should be short term (and subject to garbage collection) or of infinite durability - I'm in the short-term camp.
Peter N. (and Richard F.) designed a hypothetical provably secure operating system back then - and my group at SDC set forth to try to build a machine to run it and to implement it. (We substantially modified the design, and we got some hardware pieces running by rewriting the microcode on a rather flexible Univac machine.)
Our paths intersected, intermittently, several times since then.
I remember one visit to Peter in which a group from RSRE (UK) and I took a roundabout driving route and got trapped in a Sierra Nevada blizzard - but we made the meeting on time.
I hope that I can be as mentally able as I age as Peter N. was.
@lauren may his memory always be a great blessing for you. 🌟
I believe comp.risks was very essential in 90s for the development of my thinking about risks. Exchanged few emails with him.
@lauren
@lauren I'm so sorry for your loss (and the world's). May his memory be a blessing.
@lauren Just this morning I was writing something that was, in essence, a reply to a conversation we had... 14 years ago.
I was making sure that the points he raised, still relevant to my arguments, were properly addressed and was wondering "Should I send him a 'thinking of you'' note?"
Collaborating with Peter was one of my favourite things about working on CHERI. You can see traces of his influence throughout the CHERIoT design.
@lauren Oh no. Peter lives in my neighborhood. A kind person. A musician. A devoted husband to Liz. He will be missed.
@lauren Met him at a DoE meeting. I really enjoyed our conversation.
He made a big impression.
Does this men the end of
https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/ ?
I always enjoyed reading his addendums to the 'stories'.
@Ralph I don't know. I have thought about this some but there's been no discussion I'm aware of so far. Too early.
@lauren @Ralph My condolences. I wish I had the opportunity to have met him in person, what an extraordinary life.
Lauren, as an outsider and only having observed from a distance, I had kind of assumed you might be the natural successor to take over the digest. No idea if that is practical, but your many valuable contributions to it have been noticed.
@jtk @Ralph Thanks for the kind thoughts. As for RISKS, I dunno. Running mailing lists now (e.g., my own PRIVACY and other lists) has turned into enormous hassles along a number of vectors. I won't start listing the ways here now but trust me it's nightmarish given all the collateral damage done by spam, etc. I might be able to do something but I couldn't run it the way Peter has, it's just not practical. I'm not enthusiastic about the prospects. We'll have to wait and see.
@lauren alas. I consider PGN one of my mentors. Such an interesting fella.
@lauren Sigh. I knew it was coming, and coming soon, but it's still a shock when it happens.
