Caspar Bowden, a leading British privacy advocate most well known for foreshadowing the revelations made by Edward Snowden, died of a fast-spreading skin cancer on Thursday in southern France, where he lived, his wife Sandi announced on Twitter. He was 53.
Bowden was an outspoken figure who worked for Microsoft and advised the British government and the European Union. He was traveling the world to speak about privacy at conferences.
At a hacker festival in France in May 2013, Bowden warned that European phone calls, emails and any kind of data could be watched by U.S. authorities without a warrant. A few weeks later, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the existence of a massive surveillance program.
I have seen Walls of Honor for famous statesmen, baseball players, civil rights leaders, scientists, and even computing pioneers, but not yet for pioneers of digital liberty. This guy should be on it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheMessageNotTheMessenger on Tuesday July 14 2015, @03:03AM
Like Satoru Iwata, this man died way too young :( We should all be allowed to enjoy a bit of retirement before we leave this earthly realm.
I wonder if he frequented tech sites like Soylent and the ones from the past, like / and the usenet newsgroups. We would talk about Echelon, and would M-x spook our e-mails.
He, like many of us nerds, realised mass internet surveillance was a technological possibility, limited only by budget and the constitution.
As he and us feared, and as Edward Snowden confirmed, neither were much of an obstacle.
There goes Caspar, a man of vision, leaving us in the time we need him most.
Hello! :D