David Aucsmith lives in Seattle with his wife and writes both nonfiction and fiction books and articles. He is a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington and an Affiliate Professor in Computer Science & Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington.

Aucsmith writes about cyber warfare, cybercrime, cryptography, and steganography. He also writes historical fiction, filling in the white space of important historical events.

Aucsmith is a former officer in the U.S. Navy with a background in military history and theory. He has been an industry representative to numerous international, government and academic organizations including the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Computer Science, the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and National Academies Board on Army Research. Aucsmith was also U.S. industry representative to the G8 Committee on Organized, Transnational, and Technological Crime where he participated directly in the G8 summits in Paris, Berlin and Tokyo.

He currently lectures at the Naval Postgraduate School, the Naval War College, and the Air War College.