<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE article  PUBLIC '-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN'  'http://www.docbook.org/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd'><article><articleinfo><title>Karl Werner Lothar Koch</title><revhistory><revision><revnumber>10</revnumber><date>2016-10-17 20:13:46</date><authorinitials>ppp-188-189.15-151.wind.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>9</revnumber><date>2011-09-05 01:18:04</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-222-183.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>8</revnumber><date>2011-08-23 13:04:45</date><authorinitials>ZioPRoTo</authorinitials><revremark>pdb spam</revremark></revision><revision><revnumber>7</revnumber><date>2011-05-21 00:19:47</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-191-95.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>6</revnumber><date>2011-01-25 00:51:54</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>5</revnumber><date>2011-01-25 00:46:47</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>4</revnumber><date>2011-01-25 00:40:33</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>3</revnumber><date>2011-01-24 22:10:34</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>2</revnumber><date>2011-01-24 22:07:26</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision><revision><revnumber>1</revnumber><date>2011-01-24 05:17:07</date><authorinitials>dynamic-adsl-94-37-183-219.clienti.tiscali.it</authorinitials></revision></revhistory></articleinfo><para><link linkend="">Karl Werner Lothar Koch</link> published on ninux.org by: Paolo Del Bene </para><para><ulink url="http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/17019.html"/> </para><para>Berlin Prepares for Chaos by David Hudson 3:00 a.m. 24.Dec.98.PST </para><para>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. </para><para>Indeed, Berlin police were quick to call Tron’s death a suicide, as Koch’s had been<emphasis role="strong">. </emphasis>But the CCC, as well as Tron’s family and friends, have vehemently denied that suicide was even remotely in his nature.<emphasis role="strong"> Unlike Karl Werner Lothar Koch, Tron was not only a well-balanced personality but also a brilliant hacker. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">“Often, he was the focus of attention,” remembers Heinrich Seeger, a Hamburg journalist who has covered many CCC congresses. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">“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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">” Despite ruling the death a suicide, Berlin police have assigned eight officers to investigate, noting more than a few oddities about the case. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Although Tron appeared to have hanged himself, for example, his feet were firmly on the ground. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">German newspaper and television reports have suggested that considering the potential value of Tron’s knowledge of smartcards and telephony, organized crime may have been involved. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Our next dead Chaos Computer Club hacker is Karl Werner Lothar Koch, who became obsessed with Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus trilogy. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">A German film based on his life was even called “23″ due to the number’s prominence in Wilson’s book. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">He was involved with the KGB scandal that involved hackers being bought by drugs in exchange for breaking into key NATO and corporate installations. . </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Here are several articles dealing with this case. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">They were originally in German and translated, so that explains the clumsiness (sometimes hilarious on multiple levels) of some of the writing. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong"> <inlinemediaobject><imageobject><imagedata fileref="http://psychedelicdungeon.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/kochkarl2.jpg"/></imageobject><textobject><phrase>http://psychedelicdungeon.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/kochkarl2.jpg</phrase></textobject></inlinemediaobject> </emphasis><ulink url="http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=27&amp;id=12#article"/><emphasis role="strong"> </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">One of Cliff Stoll’s “Wily Hackers” Is Dead (Suicide?) June 5, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">According to West German publications, the “Wily Hacker” Karl Werner Lothar Koch, of Hannover, West Germany, died Friday, June 3, probably by suicide. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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). </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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). </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Information Provided by Klaus Brunnstein (University of Hamburg) </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Illuminatus! June 14, 1989 </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The book in question is believed to be “Illuminatus!” by Harold Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">A leading character in this book is named Hagbard Celine. <ulink url="http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=25&amp;id=10#article"/> </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">German Hackers Break Into Los Alamos and NASA March 2, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Three hours ago, a famous German TV-magazine revealed maybe one of the greatest scandals of espionage in computer networks: </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">They received sums of $50,000 to $100,000 and even drugs, all from the KGB, the head of the political television-magazine said. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Computer Espionage: Three “Wily Hackers” Arrested March 2, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Three hackers have been arrested in Berlin, Hamburg and Hannover, and they are accused of computer espionage for the Soviet KGB. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The report says that they earned several 100,000 DM plus drugs (one hacker evidently was drug addict) over about 3 years. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">For the German Intelligence authorities, this is “a new quality of espionage.” </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The top manager said that they had awaited something similar but are nevertheless surprised that it happened so soon and with such broad effects. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Computer Spy Ring Sold Top Secrets To Russia March 3, 1989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">excerpt: </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">” But the spokesman did not share West German television’s evaluation, which said the case was the most serious since the unmasking in 1974 of an East German agent in the office of ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The Interior Ministry in Bonn last night also confirmed several arrests and said the suspects had supplied information to the KGB. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">News From The KGB/Wily Hackers March 7, 1989 </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Though not all facts are known publicly, the following facts seem rather clear. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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*; </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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). - </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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): </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">-&gt; 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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">-&gt; </emphasis>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.<emphasis role="strong"> </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">-&gt; 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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">-&gt; 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.” </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">-&gt; Peter Carl, from West Berlin, a former croupier, who “always had enough cocaine.” No information about his computer knowledge or experience is available. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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.<ulink url="http://lists.jammed.com/ISN/2001/07/0082.html"/> </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">By Boris Groendahl Berlin Bureau Chief July 30, 2001 </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The year is 1981. IBM still has to introduce its first Personal Computer. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The movie “<ulink url="http://ninux.org/Karl%20Werner%20Lothar%20Koch/WarGames#">WarGames</ulink>” 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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">They followed the call of Wau Holland, a bearded, balding man in dungarees who looks more like an eco-warrior than an electronics enthusiast. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The assembled group is about to found the jj Computer Club (CCC) and go down in computing history. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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.” </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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.” </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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.” </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Involving everybody, not just big government and big business, into the information revolution, ways always Hollands and the CCCs main goal. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Its first famous hack was performed 1984 on Germanys first online service Btx, an atavistic network operated by the German postal service. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">The CCC found a security hole in the network, but the postal service didnt 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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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 wouldnt recover for more than a decade. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">He was deeply embarrassed when some CCCers sold their discoveries from within the U.S. military computer network to the KGB. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">This incident and the subsequent discussions in the club brought the next generation to the CCCs helm. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">While the new leadership has a less strict moralistic, more postmodern sense of hacking, it remains true to the CCCs political objectives. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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 </emphasis>the secret service<emphasis role="strong">. That part fascinates me. The German secret service, the BND? That is quite a process of legitimization for a supposedly “outlaw” hacker club. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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? </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">A hacker gang that breaks into major corporate and defense systems has a PHYSICAL location? </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">How naïve are these guys? To underline the point that the story of <ulink url="http://ninux.org/Karl%20Werner%20Lothar%20Koch/WikiLeaks#">WikiLeaks</ulink> “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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">As someone who has a fairly strong understanding of computer networks, </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Hell, can you imagine what it would take just to police a day’s worth of Ebay transactions? </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">Also, the business culture of America sees the free Internet as part of our national brand that we market to the world. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">In fact, many of those hackers are sitting right next to the outlaws at their cute little “hacker conventions”, like <ulink url="http://ninux.org/Karl%20Werner%20Lothar%20Koch/DefCon#">DefCon</ulink> in Las Vegas, wearing the same piercings and black shirts with skulls on them. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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 relatively small portion of the hardcore nerd community. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para><para><emphasis role="strong">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. </emphasis> </para></article>