He knew a lot about computer science as he had been a computer engineer for so long that he first started developing with a pen and paper. His code would then..
When my Dad switched on the big light, closed the office door and pulled out a notepad and a pencil, I groaned a little as I knew I was going to be stuck in there for at least half an hour, listening to him.
He knew a lot about computer science as he had been a computer engineer for so long that he first started developing with a pen and paper. His code would then be stored on punched cards and fed into giant computers.
It was always the exact same routine. I’d ask him tech questions and his eyes would light up. What is an IP address? Object-oriented programming? A DNS? Ajax? A SQL database? A DDoS attack?
Somehow, he always ended up drawing circles, rectangles and arrows to explain how things communicated with each other. I don’t think it was the easiest way to explain technical concepts, but it worked really well with me.
He taught me everything about public and private keys , hash values and certificates more than ten years ago, way before people started talking about end-to-end encryption messaging.
He used to say that privacy was more important than convenience. When Google launched Gmail in 2004, he said that I should assume that the NSA could read everything I wrote in Gmail, way before it became true and Edward Snowden revealed it.
All my writing is based on the technical knowledge he taught me as a teenager. He wanted me to become an engineer but I was more intrigued by foreign languages and inspired by French literature.
He was an important mentor but I don’t think he fully realized it.
