:Sam Hocevar

Hocevar was born in Forbach, Moselle, France. From 1995 to 1997, he took preparatory classes at the Lycée Fabert in Metz, Moselle, France."[http://sam.zoy.org/bio/cv-english.html Samuel HOCEVAR - CV]." ([http://sam.zoy.org/bio/cv-english.dvi DVI], [http://sam.zoy.org/bio/cv-english.pdf PDF], [http://sam.zoy.org/bio/cv-english.ps PS] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060924072319/http://sam.zoy.org/bio/cv-english.ps |date=2006-09-24 }}). Sam Hocevar Official Website. Retrieved on September 18, 2010. He graduated in 2002 from {{lang|fr|École centrale Paris|italic=no}}, after receiving the "Award of Information Technology and Communication" from the SNCF as the most promising student in his class.{{cite web|url=http://www.ecp.fr/fr/G_voir/G2_actualites/G2a_actualites.htm?rubrique_id=rubrique_13&actualite_id=actualite_41 |title=École Centrale Paris |access-date=2007-04-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061127063419/http://www.ecp.fr/fr/G_voir/G2_actualites/G2a_actualites.htm?rubrique_id=rubrique_13&actualite_id=actualite_41 |archive-date=November 27, 2006 }} He specialized in electromechanical systems and applied mechatronics, and project management.

From 2005 to 2006, Hocevar was a Wikimedia France board member.{{cite web | url=http://ca.wikimedia.fr/index.php?title=Conseil_d%27administration&oldid=2325 | title=2005-2006 WikiMedia France Conseil d'administration | access-date=2007-04-09 | language=fr | archive-date=7 May 2007 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070507073901/http://ca.wikimedia.fr/index.php?title=Conseil_d%27administration&oldid=2325 | url-status=dead }}

Hocevar has been active in the Debian project, and was elected Debian project leader on 17 April 2007.{{cite web | url=http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2007/04/msg00004.html | title=debian-devel-announce mailing list: Debian Project Leader Election 2007 Results | access-date=2007-04-09}}{{cite web | url=http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3670521 |author=Sean Michael Kerner |title=Debian Etch Takes Over Command From Sarge | publisher=InternetNews | access-date=2007-04-24 |date=2007-04-09 }} Hocevar's Debian leadership platform stated a preference for finishing larger numbers of small projects in succession, echoing the Japanese management philosophy of Kaizen that constant, incremental improvements to a project would generate more gains per unit of time than large single leaps of performance.{{cite web | url=http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/platforms/sho | author = Sam Hocevar | title= Debian.org: Platform for Sam Hocevar | publisher=Debian project | access-date=2010-03-20 }} Hocevar was succeeded by Steve McIntyre on 16 April 2008.

Hocevar has also contributed to the VideoLAN project.{{cite web | url=http://wiki.videolan.org/VideoLAN_Team | access-date=2010-02-18 | title=VideoLAN Team}} 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 programs, such as {{proper name|zzuf}}, 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.{{Citation | last = Rumori | first = Martin | year = 2005 | title = footils – Using the foo Sound Synthesis System as an Audio Scripting Language | publisher = Klanglabor, Academy Of Media Arts | location = Cologne, Germany | url = http://google.com/scholar?q=cache:hWsB05-xeZUJ:scholar.google.com/+"sam+hocevar"+elk&hl=en&as_sdt=1000 | access-date = 2010-03-20 }} 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.{{Citation | url = http://sam.zoy.org/elk/ | access-date = 2024-10-19 | title = Elk webpage }}

Hocevar has worked on reverse engineering and image processing. He reverse engineered DVD subtitles in 2000,{{cite web | url=http://sam.zoy.org/writings/dvd/subtitles/ | access-date=2007-04-09 | title=DVD subtitles}} and in 2005, it was found that the DRM software which triggered the Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal had unlawfully pirated open source code from the VideoLAN project which Hocevar was involved in authoring.{{cite web | url=http://sam.zoy.org/blog/2005-11-21-suspicious-activity-indeed | access-date=2010-03-20 | title=Suspicious Activity? Indeed}}{{Citation | last = Hussain | first = Muhammed Afzal | year = 2005 | title = CD-DRM & Sony BMG: A Case Study | periodical = Penn State University Citeseer | publisher = Penn State University | page = 8 | url = http://google.com/scholar?q=cache:TrIPnnXI-mkJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=1000 | access-date = 2010-03-20}} {{dead link|date=September 2013}} Hocevar's experience in image processing includes authoring a CAPTCHA decoding framework called PWNtcha.{{Citation | last = Hocevar | first = Sam | last2 = Niger | first2 = Gary | publication-date = 2008 | year = 2008 | title = Reinstating Floyd-Steinberg: Improved Metrics for Quality Assessment of Error Diffusion Algorithms | periodical = Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Vol. 5099: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Image and Signal Processing | publication-place = Berlin, Heidelberg, Germany | place = Cherbourg-Octeville, France | publisher = Springer-Verlag | url = http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1426606.1426612 | isbn = 978-3-540-69904-0 | access-date = 2010-03-20}}{{cite web | url=http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/PWNtcha | title=PWNtcha website | access-date=2007-04-09}}{{cite web | url=http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/24/1629213 | title=Defeating Captcha | publisher=Slashdot |access-date=2007-04-09 | date=2005-08-24}} 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 publication.{{Citation|last=Bursztein |first=Elie |last2=Bethard |first2=Steven |last3=Fabry |first3=Celine |last4=Mitchell |first4=John C. |last5=Jurafsky |first5=Dan |publication-date=2009 |year=2009 |title=How Good are Humans at Solving CAPTCHAs? A Large Scale Evaluation |periodical=Program of IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy |publication-place=Stanford, California |place=Oakland, California, United States |publisher=Stanford University |url=http://www.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/burszstein_2010_captcha.pdf |access-date=2013-03-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120521105242/http://www.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/burszstein_2010_captcha.pdf |archive-date=May 21, 2012 }}

Hocevar authored the WTFPL version 2, an extremely liberal, permissive free software license that is recognized by the Free Software Foundation.{{cite web|url=http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses|title=Licenses — Free Software Foundation|publisher=Free Software Foundation}} He has also been cited for his "whimsical" copyleft activism.{{Citation | last = Eaton-Salners | first = Alex | publication-date = 2004 | year = 2004 | title = DVD Copy Control Association v. Bunner: Freedom of Speech and Trade Secrets | periodical = Berkeley Technology Law Journal | location = Berkeley, California | publisher = UC Berkeley Law | url = https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=19+Berkeley+Tech.+L.J.+269&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=3e70ccb3daa82efe8c0560eaa8253fd7 | access-date = 2010-03-20}}

Hocevar is part of Goatse Security, an information security working group which revealed a security flaw in AT&T's website, leading to the release of 114,000 email addresses of Apple iPad users.{{Citation|last=Keizer |first=Gregg |publication-date=2010 |year=2010 |title=iPad hacker arrested on multiple drug charges after FBI search |periodical=Network World |publisher=IDG |quote=Another Goatse member, French hacker Sam Hocevar, said he couldn't answer questions about Auernheimer's arrest. |url=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/061710-ipad-hacker-arrested-on-multiple.html |access-date=2010-08-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110920235351/http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/061710-ipad-hacker-arrested-on-multiple.html |archive-date=2011-09-20 }}

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{Official website|http://sam.zoy.org/}}
• {{github|samhocevar}}

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| title = Debian Project Leader

| before = Anthony Towns

| years = April 2007 - April 2008

| after = Steve McIntyre }}

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Category:1978 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Forbach

Category:French computer programmers

Category:Debian Project leaders

Category:École Centrale Paris alumni

Category:French computer scientists

Category:French Wikimedians

Category:Apple Design Awards recipients