George Ledin

George Ledin, Jr. is an American computer scientist and professor of computer science at Sonoma State University. Ledin's teaching of computer security at Sonoma State has been controversial for its inclusion of material on how to write malware. Ledin is a strong critic of the antivirus software industry, whose products he considers almost useless.[1][2][3][4][5] Ledin also helped found the computer science program at the University of San Francisco, and published several books on computing in the 1970s and 1980s.

Education and career

Ledin is a 1967 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.[6]

He started teaching computer science at the University of San Francisco in 1965, as the second computer scientist at the university, five years before the university's computer science department itself was founded.[7] In 1970, he served as vice-president of The Fibonacci Association, and host of its annual meeting.[8] In 1973, as a researcher in the Institute of Chemical Biology and instructor in computer science at the university, he was the chair of the first national conference on ALGOL,[9] By 1980 he was head of the computer science department at the university.[10]

He earned a Juris Doctor at the University of San Francisco in 1982, and moved to the Sonoma State faculty in 1984.[6]

Books

Ledin is author or co-author of books including:

  • Programming the IBM 1130 (with Robert K. Louden, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, 1972)[11]
  • A Structured Approach to General BASIC (Boyd & Fraser, 1978)[12]
  • The Programmer's Book of Rules (Lifetime Learning / Wiley, 1979)[10][13][14][15]
  • Understanding Pascal (Alfred Publishing, 1981)[16]
  • Pascal (Mayfield Publishing, 1982)
  • The Personal Computer Glossary (Alfred Publishing, 1983)[17]
  • The COBOL Programmer's Book of Rules (with Victor Ledin and Michael D. Kudlick, Lifetime Learning / Wiley, 1983).

Personal life

Ledin was born in Austria.[9] He and his co-author Victor Ledin are brothers,[10] both sons of Georgii Grigorievich Ledin (1921–2019), an immigrant from the Georgian city of Sukhumi.[18]

References
  1. Halverson, Nathan (May 22, 2007). "Computer viruses invade SSU class – on purpose: Professor defends teaching how to create malicious programs; 3 companies vow not to hire grads". Press Democrat. Archived from the original on 2007-10-25. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  2. Robinson, Bruce (April 2, 2008). "Virtual Virtues: Will we be ready when bad things happen to good computers?". North Bay Bohemian.
  3. Adam B. Kushner (August 2008). "This Bug Man Is a Pest". Newsweek. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  4. Halverson, Nathan (May 7, 2009). "SSU professor, once criticized, now gaining praise for class in malware". Press Democrat.
  5. Sullins, John P. (May 2014). "A Case Study in Malware Research Ethics Education: When Teaching Bad is Good" (PDF). 2014 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops. doi:10.1109/spw.2014.46.
  6. "Sonoma State University 2018–2019 Catalog" (PDF). p. 468. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  7. "Self-Study and Development Plan" (PDF). Department of Computer Science, University of San Francisco. March 12, 2008. See in particular Section 2.10, "Founders", p. 14.
  8. "Natty numbers to draw cryptic crowd to campus". San Francisco Foghorn. March 13, 1970. p. 2 – via University of San Francisco Gleeson Library.
  9. "Ledin discusses computer marvel". San Francisco Foghorn. September 22, 1973. p. 5 – via University of San Francisco Gleeson Library.
  10. Brown, Chris (May 1980). "The Programmer's Book of Rules". Reviews. 80 Microcomputing. No. 5. p. 14.
  11. "Information". The Journal of Data Education. 13 (4): 27–29. January 1973. doi:10.1080/00220310.1973.11646122.
  12. Kerr, Kathy (November–December 1982). "Review: Computer Literacy". Landscape Architecture Magazine. 72 (6): 95–96, 98. JSTOR 44671496.
  13. Wetherell, Charles (1980). "The Programmer's Book of Rules". Programming Pastimes and Pleasures. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol. 5 no. 41. pp. 42–43.
  14. GHM (October 1983). "Review of The Programmer's Book of Rules". Telegraphic Reviews. The American Mathematical Monthly. 90 (8): C93. doi:10.1080/00029890.1983.11971278. JSTOR 2322788.
  15. Gray, Stephen B. (September 1981). "The top ten good books for giving or getting". Creative Computing. Vol. 7 no. 9. pp. 220–225.
  16. "Understanding Pascal". Marketalk Reviews. Softalk. Vol. 3 no. 7. March 1983. p. 169.
  17. "Two handy guides from Alfred Publishing". Marketalk News. Softalk. Vol. 2 no. 8. January 1984. p. 155.
  18. "George Ledin, Mar 11 1921 – Jan 3, 2019". San Francisco Chronicle. January 15, 2019.
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