A Business Card from the Past

I was sorting out something or other last night and knocked over the pile of business cards I have on a desk. I have exchanged business cards will all sorts of people over the years, I don't throw them away. Ones that I use get put in my Rolodex (yes, even in the digital world I use a Rolodex because I can't remember the name of the people I'm looking for, but riffling through the cards I can often find them). Ones that I just collected I put on a pile. I have lots of piles.

The top one was a former student. Then someone from One Laptop Per Child. And someone from Transparency International that I met at a party where I was just being WiseWife. And then:

WikiLeaks.org
Home of the ethical leaking movement
Julien D'Assangé
Advisory Board

A telephone number and two email addresses, one from Harvard.

Where did I meet him? I have a diffuse memory of standing outside the c-base at night, talking with two geek boys of unspecific age. One was working on the Free Haven project, the other on a project where people could do whistleblowing anonymously. We had an interesting and animated discussion, apparently exchanged business cards, and parted ways. The Free Haven card is in my Rolodex, because I tried (unsuccessfully) repeatedly to interest students for the idea of anonymous computing. Maybe they are more interested now.