User:Davidgothberg

My work at Wikipedia
I mainly program templates and edit articles about cryptography. I mostly work on the English Wikipedia but sometimes I fix stuff on the Swedish and German Wikipedias and on Meta too.

About me
I am a native of Sweden. That's in Scandinavia in northern Europe. I speak Swedish, English and German and understand the Scandinavian languages.

I like Wikipedia since it has provided me with answers to many of my questions during years. So naturally I wanted to join in and make Wikipedia even better.

I think Wikipedia is like the web on steroids. And I think that Wikipedia has become the best encyclopaedia the human race has ever seen. Apart from the web itself that is. But hey, Wikipedia is a part of the web...

I started editing Wikipedia in September 2004 when I saw a red link to filmjölk in an article about Swedish food. And I immediately got hooked. (Now that link to filmjölk sure isn't red anymore!) But I think I will have much more to contribute over time since I am an engineer, researcher and teacher by profession and by habit. By the way, I have used computers since 1982, Fidonet since 1990 and the Internet since 1991. So yeah, I am an old computer geek.

As usual in Wikipedia if you want to communicate with a user (me in this case) leave a message on my talk page. As you might know Wikipedia automatically informs me of any new messages/edits on my talk page when I log in.

.../David Göthberg

Articles and pages I started out

 * Filmjölk - A kind of food that we eat in Sweden and some other countries. Unfortunately the article came under extensive attack by some Finns so I gave up on it and left it. However the wiki process seems to work, over time other editors have made it better and in the end the attackers gave up.
 * Hash list - A method used to detect errors in data such as files in for instance p2p networks.
 * Merkle hash tree - Another method used to detect errors in data such as files in for instance p2p networks.
 * Naprapathy - A kind of manual medicine similar to chiropractic.
 * One-way compression function - Well, really a merger and major rework and extension of three small articles.
 * Merkle-Damgård construction - Based on a section that was in two other articles. I cut them out and reworked and extended the text.
 * Ivan Damgård - Translated the french article using www.qwika.com.
 * Key strengthening - Cryptographic methods to make weak keys such as passwords stronger.
 * Clock drift - Well, really a major rework and extension of the original small and confused article.
 * Keystream - A concept in cryptography.
 * Shared secret - Unbelievable that such a common and simple concept in cryptography did not already have an article.
 * Ambox CSS classes - A Wikipedia how-to-guide related to the ambox project.
 * Line break handling - The definitive "how-to guide" about how to handle word wraps (line breaks) at Wikipedia.
 * Editnotice – About the editnotice system.
 * MediaWiki messages – The central page to discuss MediaWiki interface messages.
 * Secure server – About the Wikimedia secure server.
 * MediaWiki:Accountcreator.css, MediaWiki:Ownuserspace.css – The global CSS-files loaded for accountcreators and when a user edits his/her own user or user talk page. Used in the editnotice system.

Articles I have made images for

 * Hash list
 * Hash tree
 * Hash function - Later remade into svg-format by another user.
 * Cryptographic hash function
 * Hash table - Later remade into svg-format by another user.
 * One-way compression function
 * Merkle-Damgård construction
 * Public-key cryptography - Two of these images have been reused in a book published by a big US bank, in the chapter where they explain how their security works. They sent me a copy, it looks very nice in my bookshelf.
 * Avalanche effect

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