See my resume for a more condensed version.

EDUCATION

• Cal State University at Hayward, Hayward, CA., 1977-79
  (dual matriculation; attended while in high school)
  
• Linfield College, McMinnville, OR., 1979-1982, admitted with Honors and
  graduated (Cum Laude) with a B.A. degree in Math & Physics (with emphasis
  on Computer Science). Obtained this degree in 3 years.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• A job with an unspecified branch of the US Federal Government, 1979-1982
• United Data - Project Manager, 1982-1983
• National Semiconductor - Systems Programmer, 1983-1986
• International Obfuscated C Code Contest Judge, 1984-present
• Amdahl - Systems Programmer, 1986-1988
• Tolerant Software - Systems Programmer, 1988-1990
• Pyramid Technology - Senior Staff, 1990-1992
• Network Computing Devices - Computer Scientist, 1992 to Apr 1995
• City of Sunnyvale - Councilmember / Vice-Mayor, Nov 1993 to Nov 1997
• SGI - Professional Services / ISP Development, Apr 1995 to Jan 2000
• SGI - Cryptologist / Number Theorist, Apr 1995 to Jan 2000
• SGI - Linux Kernel / Networking Development, Jan 1999 to Jan 2000
• Certive - Principle Architect - Jan 2000 to Nov 2000
• SystemExperts Corporation - Security Analyst - Nov 2000 to Nov 2005
• NeoScale Systems - Cryptologist / Chief Security Architect - Nov 2005 to Nov 2007
• SystemExperts Corporation - Consultant - Nov 2005 to Nov 2011
• Cisco Systems - Resident Astronomer / Security Architect - Dec 2007 to Dec 2020
• Retired - Dec 2020 to date

UN*X  EXPERIENCE (since 1974)

I have worked on/used: v5, v6, v7, PWB, System III, System V, 4.0BSD,
4.1BSD 4.1cBSD, 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD, 4.4BSD, BSD/386, BSD/OS, OS/x, DcOS/x,
Minix, Linix, UTS, CTS, HP/UX, OSF 1, AIX, Symertic 375, Genix,
Linux, Ultrix, IRIX, OS X ... doing ''you name it, I've done it!'' :-)

ELECTED/APPOINTED GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE 

• Vice Mayor of Sunnyvale, 1995-1996
• Sunnyvale City Councilmember, 1993-1997
• Sunnyvale Library Board, Member, 1992-93
• Sunnyvale Charter Review Committee, 1992
• Santa Clara County Emergency Preparedness Council - Chair, 1994-1997
• Tasman Corridor Policy Oversight Committee - (Alternate) 1994-1995
• Sunnyvale Telecommunications sub-committee - Chair, 1995-1997
• Sunnyvale Technology sub-committee - Chair, 1997
• Sunnyvale employee evaluations sub-committee, 1994-1995
• League of California Cities 1993-1997
• Transportation and Public Works Committee Peninsula Div. Representative, 1994-1995
• League of California Cities Telecommunications Subcommittee, 1994

COMMUNITY AFFILIATIONS

• Save Our Sunnyvale, 1991
• Member of the Democratic Party
• League of Women Voters
• Fremont Peak Observatory Association
• Group 70, Large Amateur Telescope Project
• American Society of Physics Students
• AMS - American Mathematical Society
• Oregon Shakespeare Festival
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
• Habitat for Humanity
• President of Mayfair Homeowners Association, 1997-1998
• Founding member of the The Computer Museum
• Founding member of the The Computer Museum History Center

Partial list of Skills

• Linux specific skills

  Linux installation, Linux patches, Linux system administration, Linux distributed virtual memory, Linux clustering, Secure Linux workstation and server configuration.

  My Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certificate number 803004803110157, which was awarded on 13 Feb 2004, may be verified by Red Hat.

• OS X specific skills

  Configured and maintained desktop and laptop systems. Used OS X as a base to maintain multiple Linux production servers. Used OS X as a base to maintain security scan customer systems. Converted my primary desktop and Un*x development system to OS X.

• SGI IRIX specific skills

  IRIX installation, IRIX patches, IRIX system administration, IRIX I/O performance, Secure IRIX workstation and server configuration.

• General Computer

  Unix/POSIX libraries and utilities, C, Perl, FORTRAN, Calc, Makefiles, Awk, Sed, Shell, Mathematica.

• World Wide Web

  Standard HTML, Web searching, Web bookmark categorization and organization. Configured and maintained multiple web servers.

• High performance computing

  multi-precision computation, Code optimization, Code vectorization.

• Security via cryptography

  Public key cryptography, Symmetric key cryptography, Secure random number generation, Cryptographic hashing, High speed hashing. Fixed memory leaks and initialization problems in Kerberos 1.3 client and server code.

• Netnews / Usenet

  Netnews system sizing, tuning and administration, InterNetNews source code development.

• Miscellaneous

  Classroom instruction, Tutoring, Chairing meetings, Roberts Rules of Order, Press interviews, Public speaking.

• Misc security skills

  ISACA CISM certified member number 0402532

Partial list of Areas of Expertise

• Algorithms and Computation

  Mathematical computation, Numerical modeling, Primality testing, Computation benchmarking, Hardware computation performance tuning, Vector processing, Algorithm development, Algorithm parallelization, Multi-precision algorithms.

• Cryptography, Cryptology and related fields

  Cryptography, Cryptology, Number Theory, Random theory, Hashing.

• Miscellaneous Security

  Network architecture, Source Code reviews, ISO 17799 reviews, Web application security testing, Computer & Network forensics.

• Architecture

  Network services, System architecture, System sizing and scaling, Operating system architecture, CPU/MMU hardware architecture.

• Physical Science

  Astrophysics, Astrometry, General Astronomy, Telescope design and automation, Telescope operation and optical observation, Nuclear Physics.

• Economics

  Long range budgeting, Performance based budgeting, Mutual fund analysis.

• Government

  Asset allocation Local/Regional government, Local campaigning, Diplomatic protocols and events.

• Prime Number and Perfect number discoveries
  • (formerly) largest known Prime numbers (see Mathematics of Computation):
    • 2^21701-1
    • 2^23209-1
    • 391581*2^216193-1
  • (formerly) largest known Perfect numbers (see Mathematics of Computation):
    • 2^21700*(2^21701-1)
    • 2^23208*(2^23209-1)
  • (formerly) largest known Twin Primes:
    
    • 663777*2^7650 +/- 1
    • 571305*2^7701 +/- 1
    • 1706595*2^11235 +/- 1
  • largest known SUPP (Smoothly Undulating Palindromic Prime:
    
    • (37*10^2883-73)/99 (37373 ... 73, 2883 digits)
  • Guinness Book of Records (1980, 1990).
  • Held or co-held 7 prime number related world records.
  • Member of the Amdahl 6 team.
  • (Co)Discovered many large primes listed Caldwell's prime page including:
    • as a member of the Amdahl 6
    • on my own
    • or with Laura Nickel
    
    
  • 6-cluster discovery (see Mathematics of Computation or Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 2nd edition, problem D20, see below)
  • 7-cluster search (see D20 6-cluster discovery below)

• Solved Erdös problem on congruent products of consecutive numbers (see Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 1st edition, problem A15, see below)
  
  
• Co-author of the Erdös/Noll infinite-or-bust n_m-cluster conjecture.
  
  
• ''Geek Site of the day'' awards
  • 10 Sep 1996 for the Large Prime page.
  • 1 Fed 1996 for the IOCCC page.
  • 3 May 1997 for the LavaRand web site.
• Yahoo pick of the week for the LavaRand web site.
• ''Cool site of the hour'' award: 23:00 9 Sep 1996 for the Large Prime page.
  
  
• Usenix Association Lifetime Achievement Award to the Computer Systems Research Group 1979-1993; listed as a contributor.
• ''Star rester'' award; Hayward California Fairview School Kindergarten class, 15 June 1967 :-).
• ''Honors Calculus'' college class (while attending High School); Cal State University at Hayward, 1978.
• ''Honors Scholar'', Linfield College, 1979.
  
  
• Elected and served as a Councilmember for the City of Sunnyvale, 1993-1997.
• Served as a Vice Mayor for the City of Sunnyvale, 1995-1996.

Mathematics:

• '' Unsolved Problems in Number Theory'', 2nd edition; solution to problem A15: Erdös problem on congruent products of consecutive numbers:

  ''Erdös, in a letter dated 79=10=31 observed that: 3*4 = 5*6*7 = 1 mod 11 and asked for the least prime p such that 3 consecutive products of integers = 1 mod p.'' Our solution is available.

• '' n-clusters for 1 < n < 7,'' Landon Curt Noll and David I Bell; Mathematics of Computation, Vol 53, Number 187, July 1989, Pages 439-444:

  ''N-Clusters are sets of N lattice points (points in the plane with integer (x,y) coordinates) with no 3 points on a line and no 4 points on a circle, all of whose mutual distances are integers.''

• 6-cluster discovery (see Mathematics of Computation above) or Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 2nd edition; solution to D20: 6-Clusters.

  The smallest 6-Cluster.

• '' The 25th and 26th Mersenne Primes,'' Curt Noll and Laura Nickel (now Ariel Glenn); Mathematics of Computation, Vol 35, number 152, Oct 1980, pages 1387-1390.

  The decimal values of 25th and 26th Mersenne Primes are available.

• Amdahl 6 prime number discovery ''Letter to the editor'', Amer. Math. Monthly, 97 (1990) 214. [The prime 391581 * 2²¹⁶¹⁹³ - 1 is announced].

• ''Discovering the 26th (Mersenne) Prime,'' Curt Noll; Dr. Dobb's Journal, Vol 6, Issue 6, Number 36, June/July 1979, Pages 4-6.
  
  
• ''Largest known twin primes,'' B. K. Parady, J. F. Smith and S. E. Zarantonello; Math. Comp., 55 (1990) 381-382. Discovery of 3 world record Twin Prime pairs. The decimal values of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd are available.
  
  
• Some of my Curious numbers related to primes discoveries have been published in the ''Prime Curios!'' pages under the name Noll.
  
  
• In private correspondence with Chris K. Caldwell, I announced that ^C5 = 2^(2127-1)-1 has no prime factor < 5 * 10⁵¹.
  
  
• Constructing 7-clusters, an arXiv paper co-published with Sascha Kurz, Randall Rathbun, and Chuck Simmons on 2013 Dec 9. A formal paper submitted to Mathematics of Computation.

Cryptology and Cryptography:

• ''Very secure public-key cryptosystems,'' Curt Noll; Linfield College Graduation publication, May 17, 1982.
• ''Partial Key Escrow,'' (1995), Adi Shamir and Landon Curt Noll; a proposal for a more civil liberty friendly key escrow system.  
• ''KHUFU.ZIP'', Landon Curt Noll and Rayan Zachariassen; an implementation of the Khufu algorithm.  
• ''NLC''. The Noll Lighting Cypher that turns SHA-1 (one way hash used by the Digital Standard) into a block cypher.
• Co-invented a method of ''Seeding a pseudo-random number generator with the cryptographic hash of a digitization of a chaotic system'' to produce cryptographically strong pseudo-random numbers.
• Co-inventor (with Simon Cooper) LavaRand, a cryptographically sound random number generator.
• Co-inventor (with Simon Cooper) of the LavaRand Digital Blender^tm: a method of converting digitized chaotic sources into cryptographically sound random numbers.
• Cryptographic Hash Update - a SystemExperts publication
• ''The XTS-AES Disk Encryption Algorithm and the Security of Ciphertext Stealing, (2012): Matthew V. Ball, Cyril Guyot, James P. Hughes, Luther Martin & Landon Curt Noll, Cryptologia, 36:1, pp. 70-79.

• Designed the Management Service client/server model used by IEEE P1619.3.
• Created the Key Management Service URL model.
• Authored the specification for the km, rn, and 00 key address families for IEEE P1619.3.
• Worked in a team that created the first Key Management Service (KMS) toolkit.

Astronomy

Astronomical Accomplishments:

• Calculated the mean Sun/Earth distance - using the 2nd & 3rd contact timings of the 2004 June 8 Transit of Venus
  149596765 km ± 3543 km (0.0237% uncertainty) - AU error (ΔAU): 2437 km (0.0016%)
  Solar parallax (Π): 8.79432" ± 0.00018" (0.0020% uncertainty) - parallax error: (ΔΠ) 0.00010" (0.0011%)
  
  
• Confirmed Henry Norris Russell's 1874 claim that a polar spot can be seen on Venus during transit -
  Sky & Telescope: Nov 2004, p.80
  
  
• Detailed analysis of the F0V star HD 354069 -
  1.6 solar mass, 1.77 solar radii, 407 parsecs - 2004 Aug 28
  
  
• Demonstrated that it is possible to observe a 0 second old new moon -
  Observed the surface of the moon during middle of 2003 Nov 23 Total Solar Eclipse over Antarctica
  Obtained the record for the sighting of the youngest moon possible -
  Observed 0 second old during middle of 2003 Nov 23 Total Solar Eclipse over Antarctica: Sky & Telescope: May 2004, p.121
  
  
• First to report that a fire Destroys the Mt. Stromlo Observatory to Sky & Telescope: January 19, 2003 and helped raise donations for the Mt. Stromlo Redevelopment and Bushfire Relief fund.
  
  
• Coined the term meteor squall to describe a significant but not quite storm level meteor shower -
  Sky & Telescope: March 2002, p.102
  
  
• Leonid 2001 meteor squall -
  Observed Peak count of 2408 count/hr at the Fremont Peak Observatory
  
  
• Observed effect of the 1999 Aug 11 total solar eclipse on ants -
  Sky & Telescope: Nov 1999, p.122
  
  
• Sighted impact fireball of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Fragment R Collision with Jupiter -
  Fremont Peak Observatory, 1994 July 21
  
  
• Visual identification of the Crab Nebula Pulsar -
  Fremont Peak Observatory, 1987
  
  
• Observed Supernova 1987A from Canberra Australia on 1987 Feb 24 (20 hrs after discovery) -
  Observed color change and an increase in brightness
  
  
• Measured timing, as well recorded temperature changes, wind direction changes, sky condition changes for numerous Total, Annular, or Partial Solar Eclipses. A list of the eclipses observed by Landon is available.
  
  
• Tracked outer moons of Jupiter, Saturn & Uranus -
  Fremont Peak Observatory: 1987 to date

Astronomy Related Memberships:

• Associate member of the American Astronomical Society
• Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society
• Fremont Peak Observatory Association - helped build the observatory & lifetime member
• Group 70 - Founding President & lifetime member
• Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Astronomical Publications

• "The Search for Vulcanoid asteroids", Sky and Telescope, Jan 2006, Pages 87-89.
  
  Note that the this version of the article is a revised version (2008 May) of the original publication. This version has been made available through the kind permission of Sky and Telescope.
  
  
• "The Instability of Jupiter's Moons", Sky and Telescope, April 2010, Pages 30-31.

Publications - Astronomical Observations mentioned in:

• Sky & Telescope: Nov 2004, p.80 - Polar venus spot during the transit
• Sky & Telescope: May 2004, p.121 - sighting the youngest possible moon
• Sky & Telescope: March 2002, p.102 - Leonid meteor squall
• Sky & Telescope: Nov 1999, p.122 - Total Eclipse effect on Ants

Newspaper and magazine articles:

• Numerous newspaper articles around the world.
• Front page San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 3, 1996. They also referenced my press release that I wrote for Slowinski and Gage.
• An article in the San Jose Mercury News about prime numbers, June 22, 1996.
• Numerous newspaper articles about my service on the Sunnyvale City Council.
• Letter to the editor, in Australia's first daily Internet newspaper.
• National Public Radio interview recorded regarding LavaRand; 27 June 1997.
• Wired Magazine article on LavaRand; June 1997, page 43.
• ''Lava Lites: Easy to Break, Hard to Crack'', Wired News Online; 5 Jun 1997.
• The Economist article on LavaRand; 31 May 1997, p 84.
• ''Lava lamp randomness'', Science News; 9 Aug 1997, Vol 152, p92.
• New York Times article on Science Watch; In Kitsch, a Solution, January 13, 1998.
• ''A Healthy Dose of Security Skepticism'', SC Infosec Opinionwire; Jan 2003.
• Random number article in the Aug 2003 issue of Wired Magazine, pp. 88-89.
• Random number article in the Dec 4, 2004; Vol. 166, No. 23, p. 362 of Science News.
• ''Configuring Secure Linux Hosts '', ISSA journal, June 2005.
• Quoted in the Lottery Post; Dated June 15, 2005: ''Maryland Lottery a case study in the science of random numbers.''
• Quoted in the The Wall Street Journal; Dated September 21, 2006: ''How Random Is the iPod's Shuffle?.''
• Quoted in the American Scientist; Dated ''May-June 2007: ''Neatness Counts'', regarding the IOCCC.
• Quoted in the Largest Known Prime Number Found, September 28, 2008; Science News Web edition.
• Made on of the 15 top quotes of 2011, ''Tricks of the trade''

Software:

• ''Prime Time Freeware'' list of contributors.
• ''Inn Commands and man pages'', by Rich $alz and Landon Curt Noll. Source is available from the inn distribution site and is available in a number of Linux distributions. Man pages include:
  • actsync(8), actsyncd(8), innstat(8), news.daily(8), nntpsend(8), nntpsend.ctl(5), scanlogs(8), shrinkfile(8), tally.control(8) and tally.unwanted(8).
• ''factor(6) and primes(6)'', a pair of programs found in the 4.4BSD, FreeBSD (see factor(5) and primes(5)) and some Linux distributions.
• ''inpaths'', a tool used to collect information for the 1000 Usenet sites web page, original source by Brian Reid with improvements by Mel Pleasant and Landon Curt Noll.
• ''calc'', a C-style arbitrary precision calculator by David I Bell and Landon Curt Noll with the generous help of many other people. Calc is available via the calc web link as well from BSDI's BSD/OS source distribution.
• ''taillog.c'', a C program that will tail and watch a path name, reopening if the file is replaced and pause is the file is removed.
• ''savelog'', a Perl script which safely rotates and compresses log files. I wrote this script as a shell script when I was writing bits of smail3.x and was given to the BSDI folks as well. Later is was improved and re-written in Perl. See also ''mail'', a auxiliary script used to create "indx" files based on EMail subject lines.
• ''sha(1), sha1(1) and md5(1)'', optimized cryptographic hash tools with multi-phase, prefix, inode and other enhancements by Landon Curt Noll. Source is available as well as from BSDI's BSD/OS source distribution.
• ''KHUFU.ZIP'', an implementation of the Khufu algorithm. See above for details on how to obtain it.
• ''NLC''. The Noll Lighting Cypher that turns SHA-1 (one way hash used by the Digital Standard) into a block cypher. See above for details on how to obtain it.  
• ''Fowler/Noll/Vo hash'', (FNV hash) a high speed low collision hash developed by Glenn Fowler, Landon Curt Noll and Phong Vo. The FNV hash is widely used. There is a 32 bit example and a 64 bit example as well gziped tar file of demo code.
• webalizer v2.01-10 rollup patch - wrote most of this patch except for the small GeoIP patch portion
• xv 3.10a roll-up 2001-05-12 patch
• multisort v1.1.2 rollup patch
• Philips / Logitech USB camera setup instructions / HOWTO for RedHat Linux 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, etc.
• Author of the essay: On becoming an expert C programmer.
• Maintainer of the calc source forge project.
• Maintainer of the InSite source forge project.
• Maintainer of the LavaRand source forge project.
• Configuring Secure Linux Hosts - a SystemExperts publication.
• Quoted in regards to the 6th edition Bourne shell source in Section 32.1: Unofficial Shell Scripting Stylesheet of the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide.

Misc:

• ''The Virtual Campaign'' Leigh Buchanan; CIO Magazine, vol 12, number 12, Apr 1994.
• ''Obfuscated'', entry of the Hackers Dictionary.
• My automobile license: MO232O9 was seen in Science magazine, random samples department, Vol 273, 9 August 1996, Page 743: ''Grassroots Search for Primes''.
• ''Hello, world!'' contributions for calc and ksh to the ACM hello world project.
• ''Guinness Book of Records'', 1980, page 193.
• ''Guinness Book of Records'', 1990.
• ''Seeding a pseudo-random number generator with the cryptographic hash of a digitization of a chaotic system'', patent.
• The difference between an apple and a banana, 09 Feb 1999.
• 11 Aug 1999 Total Solar Eclipse observations in the Nov 1999 issue of Sky & Telescope.
• Leonid 2001 meteor squall observations in the March 2002 issue of Sky & Telescope. I was the first to use / created the term ''meteor squall'' to refer to a meteor shower that is not quite a meteor storm.

Other biographical information:

• Wikipedia has an a biographical entry for Landon Curt Noll.
• There is a Prime Prover entry for Landon Curt Noll.

Landon Curt Noll
chongo <was here> /\oo/\