Re: NYT on Target Shimomura

[crawford@scruznet.com (Michael D. Crawford)]

John Markoff <jya@pipeline.com> quotes the NYT quoting Tsutomu Shimomura:

>   "Looks like the ankle-biters have learned to read technical
>   manuals," Mr. Shimomura said derisively. "Somebody should
>   teach them some manners. "

Yeah, that's the Tsutomu I know.  We were classmates at CalTech back in the
early 80's.  Tsutomu has never been known to mince his words.

I'm completely dumbfounded that someone found a way to break into the
computer in Tsutomu's home.  _Firewalls and Internet Security_ mentioned
that he participated in tracking down the Berferd hacker that attacked Los
Alamos, Stanford and AT&T.  Perhaps this latest hacker is related, or was
inspired to try because Tsutomu was mentioned in the book.

When Tsutomu left CalTech after his sophomore year, it was to go to Los
Alamos to do research on using dedicated hardware for fluid dynamics
calculations.  His group made some headlines back then for designing a new
parallel processing machine that Tsutomu described as costing about as much
as a Cray, but performing about 1000 times as fast as a Cray for performing
the single, very widely used function of calculating turbulent fluid flow -
for anything from predicting the weather to designing fighter planes.

(He and I were physics majors, not computer science).

He later went to UC San Diego, where I understood he was doing some manner
of research in theoretical physics.  I've not heard much from him for a
while, though I went to visit him a few years ago, and got to play around
on the computer that got broken into (if it's the same one still around).
Funny thought - Tsutomu just logged me in and went off to sleep, leaving me
to do as I pleased.  I mostly played around with Sun's NeWS software.
Funny that someone else should cause nationwide headlines through coming in
unwelcomed.

Tsutomu is one smart dude.  I consider him among the most intelligent
people I've ever met - and I've met some smart people, working in the
physics community and the computer business.

It happens that I got better grades, overall, than he did at CalTech - but
this is because he spent much of his time off doing research rather than
concentrating on mundane things like sophomore mathematics.  When he did
leave, Lawrence Livermore, Cray and Los Alamos were competing for his
attention.  When I left not too long after, I was unable to get a job at
Taco Bell.  (I'm doing much better now, being well established as a Mac
programmer, and thinking of getting into Linux kernel hacking &
consulting).

Michael D. Crawford
crawford@scruznet.com
crawford@maxwell.ucsc.edu <- Finger me here for PGP Public Key.