I remember attending Dan Kaminsky’s talk at DEFCON 12 and being blown away by it. Three years later, I went on the original “Hackers on a Plane” trip and ended up seated next to Dan on one of the flights. We quickly became friends. His mentorship over the years had an enormous impact on me.

In the early 90s, when I was in elementary school, I got assigned to write a report on a topic of my choosing. I decided to write about computer viruses. There weren’t many books at the time I could use as sources, but I found Levy’s “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution”

One thing from the book that stuck with me was “You can create art and beauty on a computer”.