Karl Werner Lothar Koch
this URL http://marc.info/?l=isn&m=100707930115339&w=2 refers to the last post on this page of 24.Dec.98.
this URL
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1998/12/17050 refers to Tron !
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German Hackers Break Into Los Alamos and NASA March 2, 1989
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Three hours ago, a famous German TV-magazine revealed maybe one of the greatest scandals of espionage in computer networks:
They talk about some (three to five) West German hackers breaking into several secret data networks (Los Alamos, Nasa, some military databases, (Japanese) war industry, and many others) in the interests of the KGB, USSR.
They received sums of $50,000 to $100,000 and even drugs, all from the KGB, the head of the political television-magazine said.
The following news articles (and there are a lot) all deal with (directly and indirectly) the recent Spy scandal situation that occurred in West Germany.
The majority of the articles shown here are taken from RISKS Digest, but they have been edited for this presentation.
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Computer Espionage: Three "Wily Hackers" Arrested March 2, 1989
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Three hackers have been arrested in Berlin, Hamburg and Hannover, and they are accused of computer espionage for the Soviet KGB.
According to the television magazine "Panorama" (whose journalists have first published the NASA and SPAN hacks), they intruded scientific, military and industry computers and gave passwords, access mechanisms, programs and data to 2 KGB officers; among others, intrusion is reported of the NASA headquarters, the Los Alamos and Fermilab computers, the United States Chief of Staff's data bank OPTIMIS, and several more army computers.
In Europe, computers of the French-Italian arms manufacturer Thomson, the European Space Agency ESA, the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, CERN/GENEVA and the German Electron Accelerator DESY/Hamburg are mentioned.
The report says that they earned several 100,000 DM plus drugs (one hacker evidently was drug addict) over about 3 years.
For the German Intelligence authorities, this is "a new quality of espionage."
The top manager said that they had awaited something similar but are nevertheless surprised that it happened so soon and with such broad effects.
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Computer Spy Ring Sold Top Secrets To Russia March 3, 1989
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excerpt:
In Karlsruhe, the West German Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which is in charge of spy cases, would only confirm last night that three arrests have been made March 2nd during house searches in Hannover and West Berlin.
Those detained were suspected of "having obtained illegally, through hacking and in exchange for money, information which was passed on to an Eastern secret service.
"But the spokesman did not share West German television's evaluation, which The Interior Ministry in Bonn last night also confirmed several arrests and said the suspects had supplied information to the KGB.
The arrests followed months of investigations into the activities of young computer freaks based in Hamburg, Hannover and West Berlin, the ministry said.
According to the television report, the hackers gained access to the data banks of the Pentagon, NASA Space Center, and the nuclear laboratory in Los Alamos.
They also penetrated leading West European computer centers and armament companies, including the French Thomson group, the European Nuclear Research Center, CERN, in Geneva; the European Space Authority, ESA, and German companies involved in nuclear research.
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News From The KGB/Wily Hackers March 7, 1989
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Now, five days after the "sensational" disclosure of the German (NDR) Panorama Television team, the dust of speculations begins to rise and the facts become slowly visible; moreover, some questions which could not be answered in Clifford Stoll's Communications of the ACM paper may now be answered.
Though not all facts are known publicly, the following facts seem rather clear.
In 1986, some hackers from West Berlin and Hannover discussed, in "hacker parties" with alcohol and drugs, how to solve some personal financial problems; at that time, first intrusions of scientific computers (probably CERN/Geneva as hacker training camp) and Chaos Computer Club's spectacular BTX-intrusion gave many hackers (assisted by newsmedia) the *puerile impression* that they could intrude *into every computer system*; I remember contemporary discussions on 1986/87 Chaos Computer Conferences about possibilities, when one leading CCC member warned that such hacks might also attract espionage (Steffen Wernery recently mentioned that German counter-espionage had tried several times to hire him and other CCC members as advisors -- unsuccessfully).
-
A "kernel group" of 5 hackers who worked together, in some way, in the "KGB
case" are (according to Der SPIEGEL, who published the following names in its Monday, March 6, 1989 edition):
-> Markus Hess, 27, from Hannover, Clifford Stoll's "Wily Hacker" who was often referred to as the Hannover Hacker and uses the alias of Mathias Speer; after having ended (unfinished) his studies in mathematics, he works as programmer, and tries to get an Informatics diploma at the University of Hagen (FRG); he is said to have good knowledge of VMS and UNIX.
-> Karl Werner Lothar Koch, 23, from Hannover, who works as programmer; due to his luxurious lifestyle and his drug addiction, his permanent financial problems have probably added to his desire to sell "hacker knowledge" to interested institutions.
-> Hans Huebner, alias "Pengo," from Berlin, who after having received his Informatics diploma from Technical University of West Berlin, founded a small computer house; the SPIEGEL writes that he needed money for investment in his small enterprise; though he does not belong to the Chaos Computer Club, he holds close contacts to the national hacker scenes (Hamburg: Chaos Computer Club; Munich: Bavarian Hacker Post; Cologne: Computer Artists Cologne, and other smaller groups), and he was the person to speak about UUCP as a future communications medium at the Chaos Communication Congress.
-> Dirk Brezinski, from West Berlin, programmer and sometimes "troubleshooter" for Siemens BS-2000 systems (the operating system of Siemens mainframe computers), who earned, when working for Siemens or a customer (BfA, a national insurance for employees) 20,000 DM (about $10,800) a month; he is regarded (by an intelligence officer) as "some kind of a genius."
-> Peter Carl, from West Berlin, a former croupier, who "always had enough cocaine." No information about his computer knowledge or experience is available.
Next, we get to the man Wau Holland himself! Note: Like the other famous CCC members, Holland died young, of a stroke at the age of 49. http://lists.jammed.com/ISN/2001/07/0082.html
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Hacking For A Competitive Edge May 12, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Taken from the Los Angeles Times Two former Tampa, FLA TV news managers have been charged with illegally tapping into phone lines and computers at another station to gain a news edge over their competitors. Former new director Terry Cole and assistant news director Michael Shapiro at WTSP-TV have been charged with 17 counts of computer hacking and conspiracy in the theft of information from WTVT-TV through computer phone lines, authorities said. Their arraignment was set for May 19. If convicted, each could face a maximum prison sentence of 85 years. The two were fired from WTSP when the station learned of the alleged thefts. The break-ins began in November, 1988, but were not noticed until January 12, 1989, when WTVT's morning news producer noticed that files were missing, authorities said. Computer experts determined that an intruder had rifled the files. Authorities said Shapiro knew WTVT's security system thoroughly because he had helped set it up while working there as an assignment manager before being hired away from WTVT in October. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRW and Social Security Administration May 12, 1989
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The credit bureau of TRW has been working with the Social Security Administration to verify its database of 140 million
names and Social Security numbers. In order to cover the cost, TRW is paying the Social Security Administration $1 million,
while Social Security Administration will provide a matching $1 million.
Since the Social Security Administration is asking for a budget increase for their computer and telecommunications systems,
several legislators are outraged by the fact they they are spending $1 million for this non-government project.
Claiming that the project is "as far away from the mission of the Social Security Administration as anything I have ever come
across," Senator David Pryor (D-Ark) questioned the competence and credibility of Social Security Administration Commissioner
Dorcas R. Hardy and asked for an investigation by the HHS inspector general.
In addition, several lawmakers such as Dale Bumpers (D-Ark) believe the project to be a violation of civil liberties.
Said Bumpers, "I don't like any public institution releasing an individual's private information." The American Law
Division of the Congressional Research Service has already concluded that the project is a violation of the Privacy
Act of 1974.
[A related article, "Verifying Social Security Numbers," (April 11, 1989) appeared in Phrack World News Issue XXVI/Part 3
(as well as the New York Times on the same date). -KL]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Phrack World News XXVII Quicknotes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. The current name assigned to the new network being created by the merger of BITNET and CSNET is ONENET.
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2. NPA 903 Assigned to NE Texas (May 10, 1989) -- It was just announced that those portions of 214 outside Dallas will be
changed to 903 in the Fall of 1990.
With 708 assigned to Chicago, 903 assigned to Texas, and 908 assigned to New Jersey, only 909 and 917 remain to be
assigned before the format changes.
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3. Details On New Area Code 510 (June 6, 1989) -- The press release from Pacific Bell, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle,
gives the phase-in dates for the new NPA 510.
Inception is scheduled for October 7, 1991, with a four-month grace period when NPA 415 will still work for the affected
numbers. Final cutover is scheduled for January 27, 1992.
NPA 510 will encompass Alameda and Contra Costa counties, which currently have 842,388 customers out of the current 2,
005,687 customers in NPA 415.
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4. New Jersey Area Code To Be Split (April 27, 1989) -- The split is not supposed to occur until 1991. The new NPA will be
908 and it will basically cover the southern "half" of the current 201 area. The affected counties will be Warren,
Hunterdon, Middlesex, Union, Monmouth and Ocean, and the southwest corner of Morris). Counties remaining in 201 will be
Sussex, Passaic, Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and the majority of Morris.
New Jersey Bell will also start requiring area codes on calls into New York and Pennsylvania that have been considered
part of New Jersey local calling areas. This will apparently take effect October 2 and free up about 25 exchanges.
Information from the Asbury Park Press.
[This last line somewhat contradicts the first line as far as the dates are concerned. More information as we get it. -- KL.]
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5. New Area Codes For London (April 27, 1989) -- British Telecom has announced that the area code for London is to be changed
on May 6th, 1990, due to the increased number of lines needed in the capital.
The existing code is 01-, and the new codes to be introduced are 071- for the centre of the city and 081- for the suburbs. A list was published in
the Evening Standard, showing which exchanges will fall in which area.
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6. Member Learns The Hard Way: American Express Is Watching (May 4, 1989) --
This article taken from the San Jose Mercury News describes how American Express called a member to voice their concern
that he might not be able to pay his recent bill. American Express was able to access his checking account and find that
he had less than what was owed to them. His card was temporarily "deactivated" after the member refused to give any
financial information except that he would pay up the bill with cash when it came in.
Apparently, the card application, in finer print, declares that "[American Express reserves] the right to access accounts
to ascertain whether you are able to pay the balance." After some arguments with the company, the member comments that
"I learned a lesson: My life is not as private as I thought."
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7. Southwestern Bell's QuickSource (April 24, 1989) -- Southwestern Bell Telephone Company is running a one year trial
(March 1989 89 - March 1990) of two information services: QuickSource (audiotex) and Sourceline (videotext).
The latter requires a terminal of some type, but the former only requires a touch-tone phone for access. The QuickSource
number is 323-2000, but cannot be accessed via 1+713+; SWBTCo has blocked access to "the Houston metro area served by
SWBTCo," according to the script the woman reads to you when ask for help (713-865-5777; not blocked). The help
desk will send you a free QuickSource directory though.
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8. Telemail, MCI, AT&T Mail Interconnection (May 16, 1989) -- U.S. Sprint's subsidiary, Telenet has announced an
interconnection agreement between Telemail, Telenet's electronic mail product, MCI Mail, and AT&T Mail.
The new arrangement, scheduled to be in effect later this summer, will allow the 300,000 worldwide users of Telemail, the 100,000 users of MCI
Mail and the 50,000 users of AT&T Mail to conveniently send email messages to each other.
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9. Illinois Bell Knocked Out For Four Hours! (May 18,1989) -- Service to over 40,000 Illinois Bell subscribers in the
northwest suburbs of Chicago was disrupted for about four hours because of problems with the computer in the
switching center.
Phones were either dead or inoperative for incoming and outgoing calls between 9:30 a.m. and 1:40 p.m. because of a
software glitch at the central office in Hoffman Estates, IL. Most of the disruption occurred in Hoffman Estates,
Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, Hanover Park, and Streamwood, IL.
The exact nature of the problem was not discussed by the Bell spokesman who reported that the outage had been corrected.
Apparently the backup system which is supposed to kick in also failed.
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10. SRI Attacked By Kamikaze Squirrels (May 29, 1989) -- It seems that the Data Defense Network SRI's
"no-single-point-of-failure" power system failed at the hands, or rather the paws, of a squirrel. The power was off for
approximately 9 hours and they experienced no hardware problems. This was at least the third time that a squirrel has
done SRI in.
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11. New York Telephone Freebies (June 10, 1989)(San Francisco Chronicle, p. 2.) -- 24 pay phones along the Long Island
Expressway were in fact free phones because of a programming/database screw-up. They were being heavily used for long
distance calls by those who had discovered the oversight, including many to Pakistan (Police found 15 Pakistani men using
the phones when they went to investigate after a shooting). There were no estimates on the unrecovered cost of the phone
calls.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TV News Executives Fired After Hacking Charges From Rival ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tampa, Fla. -- A Florida television station fired two news executives in the wake of reports that one of them allegedly penetrated a rival station's computer system and stole sensitive information. WTSP-TV (Channel 10), an ABC affiliate in St. Petersburg, announced that it had fired Assistant News Director Michael Shapiro and News Director Terry Cole. Shapiro was arrested on February 7th on felony charges for allegedly breaking into a computer system at WTVT-TV (Channel 13) on at least six occasions in January. He was once employed by WTVT as an assistant manager and was responsible for administering the station's computer systems. Law enforcement officials seized from Shapiro's home a personal computer, 200 floppy disks and an operating manual and user guide for software used at the rival station. He has been charged with 14 felony counts under Florida Statute 815, which covers computer-related crimes. Each count carries a maximum sentence sentence of 15 years and a $10,000 fine. Vince Barresi, WSTP's vice-president and general manager, refused to comment on the two firings. However, in a prepared statement, he said that he told viewers during an 11 PM newscast last Tuesday that the station acted to "avoid any questions about the objective way we do our business in keeping the public informed." Cole, who hired Shapiro last September, has not been charged by Florida law enforcement officials. He was fired, according to one source, because as director of the news room operations, he is held ultimately for the actions of news staffers. Shapiro and Cole were unavailable for comment. [Another story that discussed this case was "Television Editor Charged In Raid On Rival's Files" (February 8, 1989). It appeared in Phrack World News Issue XXIV/Part 2. -KL] _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ National Crime Information Center Leads To Repeat False Arrest May 14, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by James Rainey (Los Angeles Times) Mix ups with the databases at the NCIC have caused Roberto Perales Hernandez to be jailed twice in the last three years as a suspect in a 1985 Chicago residential burglary. The authorities confused him with another Roberto Hernandez due to a single entry in the FBI's National Crime Information Center computer. The two Roberto Hernandezes are the same height, about the same weight, have brown hair, brown eyes, tattoos on their left arms, share the same birthday, and report Social Security numbers which differ by only one digit! The falsely imprisoned man has filed suit charging the Hawthorne, California Police Department, Los Angeles County, and the state of California with false imprisonment, infliction of emotional distress, and civil rights violations stemming from the most recent arrest last year. He had previously received a $7,000 settlement from the county for holding him 12 days in 1986 before realizing he was the wrong man. In the latest incident, he was held for seven days then freed with no explanation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another False Incarceration May 18, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In his testimony on May 18, 1989 to the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives, relating to the National Crime Information Center, David D. Redell cited another case of false incarceration concerning Roberto Perales Hernandez as well as various cases noted earlier -- such as that of Terry Dean Rogan [see below]: "Only last week, a case in California demonstrated the potential benefit of easy access to stored images. Joseph O. Robertson had been arrested, extradited, charged, and sent to a state mental facility for 17 months. During that entire time, mug shots and fingerprints were already on file showing clearly that he was the wrong man, but no one had taken the trouble to check them." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - These articles show clear examples of the damage and problems caused by this "super" database. People like William Bayse (Federal Bureau of Investigation's Director For Technical Services) and William Sessions (Director of the FBI) either fail to realize this or perhaps they just do not care (as long as something similar does not happen to them). For those of you who are interested in looking into this further, the first article about this NCIC database was; "'Big Brotherish' Data Base Assailed," (November 21, 1988). It appeared in Phrack World News Issue XXII/Part 3. Another incident similar to the cases mentioned above concerned Richard Lawrence Sklar, a political science professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was mistaken by the computer for a fugitive wanted in a real estate scam in Arizona. Before the FBI figured out that they had the incorrect person, Sklar, age 58, spent two days being strip searched, herded from one holding pen to another, and handcuffed to gang members and other violent offenders. For more details on this case and the case concerning Terry Dean Rogan, please refer to "FBI National Crime Information Center Data Bank," (February 13, 1989) which appeared in Phrack World News Issue XXIV/Part 2 (as well as the Washington Post). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of Cliff Stoll's "Wily Hackers" Is Dead (Suicide?) June 5, 1989 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to West German publications, the "Wily Hacker" Karl Werner Lothar Koch, of Hannover, West Germany, died Friday,
June 3, probably by suicide. His body was found burnt (with gasoline) to death, in a forest near Celle (a West German town near Hannover where he
committed his hacks, as had been observed by German Post). Karl Werner Lothar Koch was one of the 2 hackers who confessed their role in the KGB hack to the public prosecutors, there
with bringing the case to public attention. As German newspapers report, he probably suffered from a psychic disease: He thought he was permanently observed by alien
beings named Illimunates' which tried to kill him.
Probably, he had internalized the role of "Captain Hagbard" (his pseudonym in the hacking scene), taken from a U.S. book,
who (like him) suffered from supervision by the Illuminates. Police officials evidently think that Karl Werner Lothar Koch committed suicide (though it is believed, that there are
"some circumstances" which may also support other theories; no precise information about such moments are reported). According to German police experts, Karl Werner Lothar Koch's role in the KGB case as in daily life can properly be
understood when reading this unknown book. Information Provided by Klaus Brunnstein (University of Hamburg)
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Sex Put On Probation By Mystery Hacker June 13, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ft. Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel "Yes, you sound very sexy, but I really need a probation officer." DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Callers trying to dial a probation office in Delray Beach, Fla on Monday, June 12, heard a smorgasbord of sex talk from a panting woman named Tina instead. Southern Bell telephone officials said a computer hacker reprogrammed their equipment over the weekend, routing overflow calls intended for the local probation office to a New York-based phone sex line. "People are calling the Department of Corrections and getting some kind of sex palace," said Thomas Salgluff, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County probation office. Southern Bell officials said it was the first time their switching equipment has been reprogrammed by an outside computer intruder. Southern Bell provides local telephone service in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. "We're very alarmed," said Southern Bell spokesman Buck Passmore. He said such a feat would require someone with considerable computer knowledge. The implications of such a computer breach are considerable. Intercepting corporate communications, uncovering unlisted phone numbers, and tampering with billing information are all plausible consequences of computer security breaches at the phone company. Hackers have invaded Southern Bell in the past, but they have never reprogrammed a telephone link, Passmore said. Security technicians from Southern Bell and AT&T are trying to trace the source of the computer breach, Passmore said.
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Illuminatus! June 14, 1989 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The book in question is believed to be "Illuminatus!" by Harold Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
The book is a spoof on conspiracy theories, and suggests that many and probably all human institutions are just fronts for a small group of "enlightened ones," who are themselves a front for the Time dwarves from Reticuli Zeta, or perhaps Atlantean Adepts, remnants of Crowley's Golden Dawn, or even more likely the Lloigor of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
A leading character in this book is named Hagbard Celine.
http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=25&id=10#article
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http://mycal.net/Group42/zines/phrack/phrack27.txt
By Boris Groendahl Berlin Bureau Chief July 30, 2001
The year is 1981. IBM still has to introduce its first Personal Computer.
The movie "WarGames" and Steven Levys book "Hackers," which will make the self-description of alternative computer nerds a household name in the U.S, are two years away.
In Western Berlin, in the offices of the left-wing daily "die tageszeitung," fringe computer hobbyists are sitting at a conference table, sharing their knowledge of early computers and computer networks.
They followed the call of Wau Holland, a bearded, balding man in dungarees who looks more like an eco-warrior than an electronics enthusiast.
The assembled group is about to found the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and go down in computing history.
Twenty years later, the CCC now has to continue without its honorary president Wau Holland, also known as:
Herwart Holland-Moritz. Holland suffered a stroke in late May and fell into a coma; he died Sunday morning, age 49.
Read today, Hollands editorial that appeared in the first issue of CCCs magazine "Datenschleuder" (roughly: "data sling") back in 1984 appears almost visionary.
For him and for the CCC, the computer was already not merely a technology but "the most important new medium."
He held that "all existing media will be increasingly networked through computers, a networking which creates a new quality of media."
The first and foremost goal of the hackers association was to promote this new medium, by "distributing wiring diagrams and kits for cheap and universal modems."
What should have earned the CCC a medal for the advancement of the information society, however, got him in conflict with the arcane German telecom law.
At the time, as Holland remembered later, "the prolongation of a telephone cable was considered worse than setting off an atomic explosion."
Involving everybody, not just big government and big business, into the information revolution, ways always Hollands and the CCCs main goal.
Its first famous hack was performed 1984 on Germanys first online service Btx, an atavistic network operated by the German postal service.
The CCC found a security hole in the network, but the postal service didn't react to the warning.
So Holland and his colleague Steffen Wernry logged in, masquerading as a German savings bank, and downloaded their own billable Btx page all night long.
When the tab got to 134,000 deutschmarks, they stopped the program and called German TV Btx had its first scandal only months after its launch, and it wouldn't recover for more than a decade.
The Btx hack, as it became known later, would become a pattern for every CCC action.
Holland, in particular, was at least as media-savvy as he as he was computer literate.
Whenever the CCC hacked into regions he wasnt supposed to see, he sought protection by seeking public attention, and used them to warn of weak security and insufficient data protection.
Though only a few of Waus CCC comrades shared his political background most joined the club as regular electronics nerds he shaped the German hackers association into a unique institution, incomparable with the U.S. hacker scene.
The CCC is different from both the technology-oriented Homebrew Computer Club that gave birth to the PC in the '70s, and the cracker gangs that dominated media attention in the early '90s.
Holland taught his fellow CCCers to never hack for profit, to always be open about what they were up to, and to fight for an open information society.
He was deeply embarrassed when some CCCers sold their discoveries from within the U.S. military computer network to the KGB.
This incident and the subsequent discussions in the club brought the next generation to the CCCs helm.
While the new leadership has a less strict moralistic, more postmodern sense of hacking, it remains true to the CCCs political objectives.
Holland became the clubs honorary president. Under his stewardship, the CCC gained considerable status in German politics, with its speakers invited by the parliament, telecoms firms, banks and even the secret service.
That part fascinates me. The German secret service, the BND? That is quite a process of legitimization for a supposedly "outlaw" hacker club.
As we shall see in Part 4b, the Chaos Computer Club has a physical site in Berlin, which just blew my mind as I found out fairly late in my research.
Are you kidding me? A hacker gang that breaks into major corporate and defense systems has a PHYSICAL location?
How na?ve are these guys? To underline the point that the story of WikiLeaks "security" is much more myth than fact, here is an interview by former insider John Young of the cryptome.org website, also designed for leakers.
As someone who has a fairly strong understanding of computer networks, I've always found it comical how secure some of these radical groups (indybay for example) think their online communications truly are.
John Young hits on many of the key points.
In my opinion, the world's governments fail to police the Internet effectively not because of overwhelming technical issues, but because of political, financial, and human resource overload.
The most difficult part is the sheer amount of data to go through and prosecute.
Hell, can you imagine what it would take just to police a day's worth of Ebay transactions?
Also, the business culture of America sees the free Internet as part of our national brand that we market to the world.
But when the will is there to target something, in my opinion, the government cyber-security teams of the West can be QUITE effective.
They have incredibly gifted hackers on their side, many who have been brought in through plea deals to avoid 10 years of federal time.
In fact, many of those hackers are sitting right next to the outlaws at their cute little "hacker conventions", like DefCon in Las Vegas, wearing the same piercings and black shirts with skulls on them.
The whole "libertarian hacker myth" of courageous, sex-starved 400 lb Bohemian heroes who stay up all night hacking to save the world for Anarchy, while eating fifty packs of Skittles and listening to Nine Inch Nails, applies to a
They are outnumbered by sex-starved 400 lb military contractors who stay up all night tracking and infiltrating other hackers while eating fifty packs of Skittles, listening to crap like the Top Gun soundtrack.
Oh, and playing role-playing games on the Internet with the guys they are going after.
Trust me, I've known guys like this. They're the guys who had posters of F14 schematics on their dorm walls. And lest we forget, who created and paid for the Internet in the first place? DARPA, part of the Pentagon!
Another great "libertarian hacker myth" is that the Internet was just sitting there unused by the military, and waiting in mothballs to be taken over by the world's role-playing gamers, porn seekers, and music bootleggers.
Again, are you serious? Nerds, you're playing on "their" turf! While there is a significant element of "genie out of bottle" in the military's relationship with it's bastard stepchild, the Internet, let's not kid ourselves...
Here's John Young to spoil the party.
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Berlin Prepares for Chaos by David Hudson 3:00 a.m. 24.Dec.98.PST
The mysterious and as yet unsolved case is eerily reminiscent of the death of another CCC associate, Karl Werner Lothar Koch, nearly 10 years ago. Indeed, Berlin police were quick to call Tron's death a suicide, as Koch's had been. But the CCC, as well as Tron's family and friends, have vehemently denied that suicide was even remotely in his nature.
Unlike Karl Werner Lothar Koch, Tron was not only a well-balanced personality but also a brilliant hacker. He was the first European to hack phone cards so that they could be used freely and forever, and had figured out a way to make ISDN phone calls tap-proof. "Often, he was the focus of attention," remembers Heinrich Seeger, a Hamburg journalist who has covered many CCC congresses. "I guess one of the reasons for that, aside from his undebatable genius and expertise, were his good looks and his charm, which made him stand out. "Despite ruling the death a suicide, Berlin police have assigned eight officers to investigate, noting more than a few oddities about the case. Although Tron appeared to have hanged himself, for example, his feet were firmly on the ground.
A German film based on his life was even called "23?? due to the number's prominence in Wilson's book. He was involved with the KGB scandal that involved hackers being bought by drugs in exchange for breaking into key NATO and corporate installations. .
Here are several articles dealing with this case.
They were originally in German and translated, so that explains the clumsiness (sometimes hilarious on multiple levels) of some of the writing.http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=27&id=12#article
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to download the file in *.pdf:
to watch the movie:
to watch the movie: http://paolodelbene.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49183947/23.ogv?force_view=1
to download the movie: http://paolodelbene.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49183947/23.ogv?force_download=1
This website dedicated to Karl Werner Lothar koch, was reviewed by the Swedish StjärnDistribution AB Hästskovägen 12 813 33 HOFORS info@sdist.se
Anyone can read: http://report.sdist.se/resources/readingsamples/83606.pdf
http://dbpedia.org/data/Karl_Koch_(hacker).ntriples
http://www.theusenetarchive.com/usenet-message-karl-werner-lothar-koch-2615022.htm
http://wiki.ninux.org/Karl%20Werner%20Lothar%20Koch
http://www.vebidoo.com/dirk+brzezinski
http://www.yasni.de/dirk+brzezinski/person+information
http://www.yasni.com/hans+harald+hübner/check+people
http://www.yasni.de/dirk+brzezinski/person+information/markus%20hess
http://www.cyclopaedia.de/wiki/Hans-Heinrich-Huebner
http://dbpedia-live.openlinksw.com/page/Karl_Koch_(hacker)
http://ru.cyclopaedia.net/wiki/Karl_Koch_(hacker)
http://www.cyclopaedia.info/wiki/Hagbard-(Karl-Koch)
Updated: Thusday 03 January 2015 at: 07:50:20 p.m.