Karl Koch (hacker) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Karl Koch
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| Born |
Karl Werner Lothar Koch
July 22, 1965 Hanover, West Germany
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| Died | c. May 23, 1989 (aged 23) Celle, West Germany
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| Occupation | hacker |
| Known for | Cold War hacker |
Karl Werner Lothar Koch (July 22, 1965 – c. 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.
Biography
Koch was born in Hanover. His mother died of cancer in 1976; his father died of cancer in August 1984.
Koch was interested in astronomy as a teenager and was also involved in the state student's council. In 1979 Karl's father gave him the 1975 book, Illuminatus! – The Golden Apple by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, which had a strong influence to him. From his income as a member of the state students' council, he bought his first computer in 1982 and named it "First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic Ultra-Micro Programmer" after The Illuminatus! Trilogy. In 1985 Koch and some other hackers founded the Computer-Stammtisch in a pub of the Hanover-Oststadt, which developed later into the Chaos Computer Club Hanover. In February 1987 Koch broke off a vacation in Spain had himself admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Aachen, where he stayed for three months.
Hacking
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 United States military computers to the KGB. Clifford Stoll's book The Cuckoo's Egg gives a first-person account of the hunt and eventual identification and arrest of Hess in March 1989. Pengo and Koch subsequently came forward and confessed to the authorities under the espionage amnesty, which protected them from being prosecuted.
Death
In May 1989 Koch left his workplace in his car to go for lunch; when he had not returned by late afternoon, his employer reported him as a missing person.
German police were alerted to a long abandoned car in a forest near Celle on June 1, 1989. The remains of Koch were discovered close by with a patch of scorched and burnt ground surrounding them and with his shoes missing.
See also
- Boris Floricic a.k.a. Tron, a computer hacker who allegedly suffered a similar fate
