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Daniel J. Edwards, retired computer scientist and early computer pioneer passed away peacefully Monday, January 27, 2025 close to his home in Troutville, Virginia. Born on September 4, 1937 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Dan was the eldest of seven children. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Cincinnati and Shaker Heights, Ohio. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and raised his family with his dearest wife, Joyce Corum Edwards, near Annapolis, Maryland.
Dan was a key contributor in many technical fields including the initial development work with John McCarthy that became the field of artificial intelligence, early automated computer storage management algorithms, computer security, and cryptography. Among his many accomplishments, he was recognized by the Smithsonian Institute for his contributions in the first video game "Space War" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab under the direction of Marvin Minsky, which showcased what was possible on an early computer system and inspired a culture of open collaboration.
Dan received a master's degree from MIT for his thesis, OCAS - An Online Cryptanalytic Aid System which led to a career at NSA where he settled into R, working on both secure communication across the ARPANet and standards for computer security. Dan was credited with coining the term "Trojan Horse" to describe the insertion of malicious code into computers and worked on Orange and Red books that embodied the first standards for secure computers and networks.
After their children were grown, Dan and Joyce moved to Waxhaw, North Carolina to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics out of the non-profit Jungle Aviation And Radio Service center. They traveled extensively, living in Africa, China, and Thailand while Dan created tools to aid linguistic translators in tasks for unwritten language analysis, alphabet creation, character expression and classification.