When Whit Diffe had the epiphany to break up encryption using a public and private key, he almost forgot it. He was so excited that he went downstairs to get a coke and his brain froze trying to remember his triumphant thought. Without this start, Internet security and encryption may not be the way it is today.

ENIAC - If you put enough effort into something the end result will work

The ENIAC took years to build, span 1,800 square feet and a cloud of doubt around it greater then any project of its day. The machine was built to calculate firing tables for the war and was not completed until after the war was over. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert could have given up along the way, but believed in what they were building.

Just for Fun - Keep people involved in what you are doing

Linus started his little project just to create UNIX for his PC. He could have just worked on this all by himself. But he chose to open up to the Internet what he was working on and sharing his latest builds. This book shows the power of people and what you can accomplish if you let them in to help.

Masters of Doom - Opposites can create a thing of beauty

Jon Carmack and John Romero were very different but the one thing they had in common was to create something great. It was almost as if two brains had merged together to make a master piece and change the industry forever. No one likes sitting around with people who agree with them all the time.

Hackers - Competition makes things better

Writing code for the first PDP computers at MIT required the code was well written. There was only so much space on those machines. Since all the programs were open, users could take them to try and get the same results with less lines of code. This would make people think outside the box of what could be done.

Hacker Crackdown – There is always someone smarter

As much as the phone companies tried to manage keeping out hackers they were there in numbers. If they locked down one thing, someone would figure out how to get in another way.

Dream Machine – If you see the future, keep telling people

J.C.R. Licklider believed in the sympnosis between man and machine so much he would talk about it with anyone that would listen. Using his vast resources at Arpanet he was able to fund many different projects at colleges to see his dream and the future come to as it is today.

Art of Deception - People are the biggest security risk

Computers still just do what people tell them. As you go through story after story in this book you learn that Mitnick is not so much a great hacker but a great social engineer. Computers are not the problem people.

Dealers of Lighting - The right team of people can change the world

The mouse, laser printers, laptops and the GUI interface to name a few things that came right out of PARC. Xerox setting up a group of geniuses with a open budget and time to work proved amazing things can happen.

Dungeons & Dreamers - Give people a chance

Richard Garriot (Lord British) after seeing the new computer at his school asked the teachers to give him extra credit if he could write a game on it. All the teachers I knew in school would have laughed in my face. For them to show this belief in him and his mother working with him on his first game, gave Richard the confidence he needed to pursue what he otherwise might have thought was crazy in life. Write video games for a living.