One of the blog posts that was expunged from Craig's blog was about his friend Dave Kleiman. I don't think I've seen this mentioned before.

Last night a good friend of mine passed away. He is a friend to many people. Dave Kleiman was more than a friend. For the last decade or so we've sparred verbally as friends about many topics in security and digital forensics. Dave tempered many of my wacky ideas and provided the grounding to make them come to fruition. We did many things that people would consider out there. It was with Dave that I took an electron microscope and tested the theory of whether you could recover data from an overwritten hard drive. This was long and time-consuming project that ate 18 months of my life. It was Dave’s support that allowed me to finish it. Dave was my sounding board and in some ways my muse. Whenever I became stuck Dave would help me step through the issues until we came up with a solution. Dave was my person on the ground for DoD research contracts. Dave shared many of my secrets and I some of his. He knew me better than most people, better than nearly any other. Mostly and most importantly Dave was my friend. When I thought that my cancer had come back it was Dave who offered me strength. When my marriage broke down, it was Dave who offered a shoulder. Dave and I are a long way apart physically but I was always close to him and he always had a part of my heart. It was Dave's Vistomail account that allowed me to start some of my more radical ideas. We helped fund long-distance communications with our talks that would go for hours. We discussed anonymity and ways to both forensically recover data as well as means to ensure non-recovery. The world was a better place with Dave in it. Every time I came back injured I remember Dave's strength. Dave was a remarkable man. Whenever I was in pain I would think of him. There are few people who would hop out of their wheelchair, board a plane and skydive. That was the type of man Dave was. He was a man. He was a Vet and knew what it means to serve. Dave was strong, Dave is resilient and Dave had a large heart. In the decade and a half I've known Dave I've come to love him. Anyone who knew Dave, knew a friend. Dave will be sorely missed.

Posted by Craig Wright at Tuesday, April 30, 2013 2 comments