Karl Koch (Hagbard)

Karl Werner Lothar Koch was a German hacker from Hannover who used the handle Hagbard, after a character in the Illuminatus! trilogy. In the mid-1980s he became part of a group that broke into Western military, research, and corporate computers over X.25 networks and the ARPANET.

The KGB hack

Between roughly 1985 and 1988 Koch, Markus Hess, Hans Hübner (Pengo), and others sold information and access obtained from these intrusions to the KGB through intermediaries in East Berlin. The activity intersected with the intrusions Clifford Stoll traced from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. In 1989 the case became public when German television reported the espionage; Koch and Hübner had cooperated with authorities.

Death

Koch, who struggled with drug addiction and paranoia, was found burned to death in a forest near Celle in May 1989. The death was ruled a suicide, though the circumstances have been questioned. His story was dramatized in the 1998 German film 23.

Timeline

• 1965-07-22Born in Hannover, Germany.
• 1986Begins selling hacked material to the KGB with Markus Hess and others.
• 1989-03-02German television reports the KGB hack; arrests follow.
• 1989-06-01Found burned to death near Celle; death ruled a suicide.