Samuel Hocevar (born 5 August 1978) is a French

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

. He was the project leader of the

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

operating system from 17 April 2007 to 16 April 2008, and one of the founding members of Goatse Security.

Biography

Hocevar was born in Forbach, Moselle, France. From 1995 to 1997, he took preparatory classes at the Lycée Fabert in

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

, Moselle, France. He graduated in 2002 from , after receiving the "Award of Information Technology and Communication" from the

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

as the most promising student in his class. He specialized in electromechanical systems and applied mechatronics, and project management. From 2005 to 2006, Hocevar was a Wikimedia France board member. Hocevar has been active in the

project, and was elected Debian project leader on 17 April 2007. Hocevar's Debian leadership platform stated a preference for finishing larger numbers of small projects in succession, echoing the Japanese management philosophy of ''

Kaizen is a Japanese concept in business studies which asserts that significant positive results may be achieved due the cumulative effect of many, often small (and even trivial), improvements to all aspects of a company's operations. Kaizen is put ...

'' that constant, incremental improvements to a project would generate more gains per unit of time than large single leaps of performance. Hocevar was succeeded by Steve McIntyre on 16 April 2008. Hocevar has also contributed to the VideoLAN project. He has made large contributions to almost all software of the VideoLAN project, especially to VLC media player and libdvdcss, since 1998. He is the author of various

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

programs, such as , a data fuzzer, and libcaca, a color ASCII art renderer. He is also the current maintainer of the Extension Language Kit Scheme interpreter, which has found use in many multimedia applications including audio processing. However, as of October 2024, the Elk webpage has been blanked, and Hocevar has not responded to queries about the status of the project or whether the site will be brought back. Hocevar has worked on

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

and

image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...

. He reverse engineered DVD subtitles in 2000, and in 2005, it was found that the DRM software which triggered the Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal had unlawfully pirated

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

code from the VideoLAN project which Hocevar was involved in authoring. Hocevar's experience in image processing includes authoring a

CAPTCHA Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) ( ) is a type of challenge–response authentication, challenge–response turing test used in computing to determine whether the user is human in order to de ...

decoding framework called PWNtcha. PWNtcha was the first CAPTCHA decoder framework to defeat multiple CAPTCHAs and was referred to as the "most famous" CAPTCHA breaker in a 2009

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

publication. Hocevar authored the WTFPL version 2, an extremely liberal, permissive free software license that is recognized by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

. He has also been cited for his "whimsical" copyleft activism. Hocevar is part of Goatse Security, an

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

working group which revealed a security flaw in

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

's website, leading to the release of 114,000 email addresses of

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

iPad users.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hocevar, Sam 1978 births Living people People from Forbach French computer programmers Debian Project leaders École Centrale Paris alumni French computer scientists French Wikimedians Apple Design Awards recipients