Bill Cheswick's Home Page

I am interested in visualization, user interfaces, security and security usability, typography, tinkering, and science, medicine, and technology in general.

Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way—and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.—C.A.R.Hoare

I love living in the future! (But I wish the software was better.)

Biographia

CV, includes patents and stuff; Publications; Talks; Bio and short bio; A nice movie about me; If you'd like me to speak at your conference, speaker information; My blog and (RSS feed).

Current Projects

• I am practicing my budding DSP skills on audio from passing trains on the Norfolk Southern Lehigh Line, which mostly handles intermodal freight. The raw data and analysis are online and updated hourly.
• It's back, the passphrase generator, featuring probably work-safe insults from some old code by Ron Hardin.
• How long does it take to win the lottery? A new app cominging to the iTunes store soon, for the cost of a lottery ticket.
• Time lapse of some USGS webcam views of the current lava flows near Pahoa, Hawaii.
• A weather radar display for the Tesla S console.
• 105: My experimental authentication app I discuss in my password talks. Would you rather remember one "> hard password you use almost daily, and never have to change, or deal with the big pile you have right now? I look forward to feedback.
• iTeX:, high quality document formatting for the iPad and similar devices. This is a document format and a free app on to be in itunes. The project includes
  • An attempt to make a PDF reader especially suited to reading techincal documents,
  • access to arXiv and Project Gutenberg documents formatted for the iPad and other tablets,
  • semi-automated creation of LaTeX versions of Project Gutenberg texts.
• Better passwords, a problem that is likely to plague us for a long time. I would like to make authentication easier, stronger, and more fun. Current approach: trying to convince users to memorize one passphrase to rule them all, protecting a smartphone wallet. Also, trying to convince authentication providers to ease up on the world: the eye-of-newt password rules aren't helping anybody.
• Can redaction (especially bad redaction) be used as a typographic tool to enhance interest in a document?

Older projects

• The Windowseat

  , a very wide panorama I made with Carlos Scheidegger. The technique uses orthographic projection, but the film industry calls it slitscan. There are a number of terrific examples here. There are even some air travel-based images though none, I think, capture the distance across the continental US.

• Recovering a stolen iPhone

  . There are at least four ways to locate a stolen iPhone.

• Movie visualizations:

  I've developed a new way to see movies, and I am looking for movie owners interested in seeing their movies visualized this way.

• Web page redesign:

  Some of the web pages on this site have not been updated since 1995. It was time to explore style sheets and some typographic options.

• Passwords:

  Have ten insults from Ron Hardin, and a hundred bits of fresh entropy, using words that are iPhone spell checker friendly.

• Medical:

  The Open Source Hearing Aid Project. Rimonabant - the first in a new class of anti-obesity drugs, and maybe the last. Hacking eyewear for aging folks.

• Movies and Visualizations:

  Time lapse movies. Internet layout algorithm visualizations.

• Hacks:

  MythTV HDTV notes. Emergency power for the home heater during a power outage.

  Our digital house

  (1995-). Building the house of the future, one Saturday project at a time.

• The McCollough Effect (Nov 1994)

  : A cool effect and an interactive science exhibit.

• Tech:

  Electric commuting bike.

• Fiction:

  How to Trisect an Angle With a Chainsaw, by Arjen Lenstra. Bug, a very short story.

• Science Museum Exhibits

  . I have worked on several science museum exhibits over the years, starting with the original Digital Darkroom at the Liberty Science Center, something I developed with Gerard Holzmann in the early 1990s at Bell Labs.

  There are several new exhibits now, mostly debugged, and available for the asking, including What Does Sound Look Like?, How Long Does it Take to Win the Lottery?, an upgrade for the Chattanooga Children's Discovery Museum, and a color blindness simulator.

• Others:

  Many other projects over the years, including some favorite projects from early in my computing career.

Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker

Internet Mapping

These Internet maps have appeared in dozens of books, magazines, posters, and papers worldwide. Our technology remains at Lumeta, so you should contact Lumeta if you wish to use the images. I am always willing to discuss them with interested parties.

Recently, AT&T put up Internet maps at the Washington airports for the 2009 inauguration. These versions are not available outside of AT&T.

I am still interested in the visualization challenges these kinds of data pose, but am not working on it much.

Miscellany

• Some useful notes to myself on how to do things, that might be of interest to others. I use these things rarely enough that I forget the details.
• An

  old blog

  and an even

  older diary

  .

• Our tube

  , family time lapse and animation experiments.

• Cheap research:

  various old project queries for which I invited specific feedback.

• Favorite software

• I am a modern-day tinkerer, a.k.a. hacker

• Brushes with greatness

• John Horton Conway

  is eager to hear solutions to these five problems, and is eagerly offering a reward of $1000 for positive or negative solutions to them. This list was updated as of 10 October 2014 to get the wording exactly right, and I will make it available at the OEIS and elsewhere. I spent a modest portion of my youth diverted by his games of Life and Sprouts.

• Childhood heros

• Geek destinations

Misc

• Email: ches à cheswick.com
  
• home: +1 908 766 3831
  
• cheswick.com CA certificate.
• sponsors;

This lock is your assurance of security.

Brian Clapper is a boofhead. Arden is a boofhead as well.