Karl Werner Lothar Koch | |
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Born | July 22, 1965 |
Died | c. May 23, 1989 (aged 23) |
Nationality | German |
Occupation | hacker |
Known for | Cold war hacker |
Karl Werner Lothar Koch (July 22, 1965 – ca. May 23, 1989) was a German hacker in the 1980s, who called himself "hagbard", after Hagbard Celine. He was involved in a Cold War computer espionage incident.
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Biography
Koch was born in Hanover. As his moniker would suggest, he was heavily influenced by The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Besides adopting his pseudonym from a character in the book, he also named his computer "FUCKUP" ("First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic Ultra-Micro Programmer"), after a computer designed and built by that character. He was addicted to cocaine and became extremely paranoid, convinced he was fighting the Illuminati like his literary namesake.
Koch was loosely affiliated with the CCC. He worked with the hackers known as DOB (Dirk-Otto Brezinski), Pengo (Hans Heinrich Hübner), and Urmel (Markus Hess), and was involved in selling hacked information from US military computers to the KGB. Clifford Stoll's book The Cuckoo's Egg gives a first-person account of the hunt and eventual identification of Hess. Pengo subsequently came forward and confessed to the authorities.[1]
Koch was found burned to death with gasoline in a forest near Celle. The death was generally considered a suicide.[2][3]
Karl Koch in media
Books
- Katie Hafner, John Markoff. CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised (November 1, 1995 ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 400. ISBN 0-684-81862-0.
Movies
A German movie about his life, entitled 23, was released in 1998. While the film was critically acclaimed, it has been harshly criticized as exploitative by real-life witnesses. A corrective to the film's take is the documentation written by his friends.[4]
In 1990 a documentary was released titled "The KGB, The Computer and Me"
Music
- Koch was memorialized by Clock DVA at the opening of their music video for "The Hacker".
See also
- Boris Floricic a.k.a. Tron, a computer hacker who suffered a similar fate
References
- ^ Knight Lightning (March 29, 1989). "Phrack Inc. - Volume Three, Issue 25, File 10 of 11". Phrack. http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=25&id=10#article. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
- ^ Knight Lightning (June 20, 1989). "Phrack Inc. - Volume Three, Issue 27, File 12 of 12". Phrack. http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=27&id=12#article. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
- ^ Marko Rogge (July 2002). "Dead Hackers do not talk anymore! All that remains is the memory?". brain-pro. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brain-pro.de%2FSeiten%2Fhacker%2Fhacker.htm&langpair=de. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
- ^ Karl Koch aka. Hagbard Celine 22.7.1965 - 23.5.1989 - mostly in German