Patrick Naughton is an American
software developer
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...
and convicted sex offender. He is one of the creators of the
Java programming language.
Career
Early career
In 1983, Naughton co-wrote a
MacPaint clone
Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to:
Places
* Clones, County Fermanagh
* Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland
Biology
* Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...
, ''Painter's Apprentice'', with
Russ Nelson.
Sun Microsystems
As a
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
engineer, Patrick Naughton had become frustrated with the state of Sun's C++ and
C APIs (application programming interfaces) and tools. While considering moving to
NeXT, Naughton was offered a chance to work on new technology and thus the ''Stealth Project'' was started.
The Stealth Project was soon renamed to the ''Green Project'' with
James Gosling and Mike Sheridan joining Naughton. Together with other engineers, they began work in a small office on
Sand Hill Road in
Menlo Park, California. They were attempting to develop a new technology for programming next generation smart appliances, which Sun expected to be a major new opportunity.
In June and July 1994, after three days of brainstorming with
John Gage, the Director of Science for Sun,
James Gosling,
Bill Joy, Naughton,
Wayne Rosing, and
Eric Schmidt
Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and software engineer known for being the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, executive chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 20 ...
, the team re-targeted the platform for the
World Wide Web. They felt that with the advent of the first graphical
web browser,
Mosaic, the Internet was on its way to evolving into the same highly interactive medium that they had envisioned for cable TV. As a prototype, Naughton wrote a small browser, WebRunner, later renamed
HotJava.
After Sun
In 1994, Naughton quit Sun for
Starwave (then a property of
Paul Allen) to develop
server Java applications for web sites.
He was the author of "The Java Handbook", (, Osborne, 1995) and co-author of ''Java: The Complete Reference'', with
Herbert Schildt (, Osborne, 1996)
In 1998,
Walt Disney Internet Group acquired Starwave and amalgamated it with
Infoseek in the
Go Network
Go.com (also known as The Go Network) is a portal for Disney content that was created after The Walt Disney Company acquired the search engine Infoseek. Go.com is operated by Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, one of four divisions of the ...
company. As a result, Naughton became
executive vice president of
Infoseek.
After his arrest in 1999, Naughton was fired from Infoseek.
Sex Crime Arrest and Conviction
On Sept. 14, 1999, Naughton flew from Seattle to Los Angeles on a private
Disney jet.
expecting a five-foot, blonde haired 13-year-old
girl to wait on the
pier near the roller coaster, carrying a green backpack as instructed by Naughton.
Naughton had
written to her about love and sex and that he "wanted to get
eralone in his hotel room and have
her">/nowiki>her/nowiki> strip naked for him". Naughton had arranged this meeting, posing as "Hot Seattle", his online predator handle in an online chat room called "dad&daughtersex." The "girl" was actually an FBI agent.
Two days later, he was arrested by the FBI and was charged with traveling in interstate commerce with the intent to have sex with a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. ยง2423(b). After a trial ended in a hung jury, Naughton struck a plea agreement where he took a reduced sentence and admitted that he traveled from Seattle to Los Angeles last September with a "dominant purpose" to engage in sexual acts with "KrisLA", an online chat buddy he believed was a 13-year-old girl. He ended up serving no prison time, in exchange for working for the FBI for free for a year.
Novel defense
His line of defense was that he claimed he was persuaded to participate online in a ritualized sexual role-playing exercise, dealing with a mature woman acting as a girl. His then-novel defense, became known as the fantasy defense
The fantasy defense is where a defendant accused of attempting a crime (enticing minors into sexual activity, for example) claims that they never intended to complete the crime. Instead, they claim they were engaged in a fantasy and, in the case ...
for pedophiles.
See also
*History of Java The History of Java can refer to:
* The history of the island of Java
* ''The History of Java'', an 1817 book on the history of the Java by Stamford Raffles, founder of modern Singapore
* The version history of the Java programming language
* The ...
* Online identity
* Sexual predator
* Internet-initiated sex crimes against minors
References
External links
Mr. Famous Comes Home
a '' Forbes'' magazine interview with Naughton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naughton, Patrick
Living people
Sun Microsystems people
Java (programming language)
American computer scientists
Programming language designers
People convicted of sex crimes
Child sexual abuse in the United States
Year of birth missing (living people)