Dan Gittik just started working at google, and geeked this out as his first side project:
Getting a virtual autograph from a virtual world celeb
When I started working at Google, I had the sudden realisation that I am working at the same company as people like Ken Thompson, Vint Cerf and Bram Moolenaar.
These are people whom I'd ask for an autograph, if I ever get to meet them. So I thought: why not! And what's even better than an autograph on a piece of paper, is a cryptographic signature on an actual executable file. Imagine how cool it'd be to say "Hey Bram, can you please sign my vim?", or "Ken Thompson, oh my God! Mind writing 'To my dearest friend, Dan' on my gcc?"
That's what Virtual Autograph is about: you upload a file, write a dedication, and we email it to your hero to sign. Once they do, you get an email with your very own copy of, say, tcpdump, signed by Vint Cerf himself - so now you can, uh, sniff packets, just like before, but be dorkily happy about it.