I am so sorry to hear about the passing of the mighty Fred Piper. When I was the external examiner at Royal Holloway, University of London, I always remember travelling down, and where there would always be a long line of dignitaries waiting to meet him. How he was never awarded an OBE, or even a Knighthood, is beyond me, and where the cybersecurity community should admit that it missed the boat on awarding him the acknowledgement he deserved. I feel bad that I did not help this cause, too. With his cool long hair and love of maths, he was the type of professor that inspired others.
After founding the Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway, in 1990, he basically, almost single-handedly, started the cybersecurity profession in the UK. For this he was a founder of the IISP (now CIISec), and only recently stepped down from being the chair of CIISec after 17 years. Overall, he has made an extraordinary contribution to the Infosec profession and education (typically known as Cybersecurity). His passion was cryptography, and many people got into the area through his work [here]:
and his research work:
