"With great sadness, I regret to inform you that Itojun will not be presenting his great knowledge of IPv6 at PacSec. I have been informed by several sources that he passed away yesterday," Dragos Ruiu announced the unhappy news on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. He noted, "funeral services will be held on Nov 7th at Rinkai-Saijo in Tokyo. There aren't many details of his passing, so please let his family and relatives mourn in peace for now." Dragos offered the following words about Itojun:

"I knew Itojun as one of the smartest and kindest persons I have ever met. He helped everyone around him. He graciously hosted and assisted many foreigners new to Japan at the PacSec conferences, and was a good friend to all. He would go to extraordinary lengths to help anyone around him. We will all miss him - and his work on IPv6 will continue to help us for a long time.."

"If you knew or respected him, he would have wanted any energy you put towards grief to be spent on speeding the adoption and the robustness of the version 6 internet to which he devoted so much of his extraordinary life to."