Wau Holland

Herwart Holland-Moritz, known as Wau Holland, was a German computer activist and journalist. On 12 September 1981 he and others met at the Berlin offices of the newspaper die tageszeitung to found what became the Chaos Computer Club, one of the world's largest and oldest hacker organizations.

The Btx hack

In November 1984 Holland and Steffen Wernéry demonstrated a flaw in the German post office's Bildschirmtext online service by having it credit the CCC roughly 134,000 Deutsche Marks from a Hamburg savings bank account overnight. They returned the money the next day in front of the press, establishing the club's pattern of public, documented demonstration.

Ethics

Holland extended the hacker ethic with principles such as "use public data, protect private data" and argued for free access to information as a civil right. He died in July 2001; the Wau Holland Foundation was created in his memory and later became a funding channel for projects including WikiLeaks.

Timeline

• 1951-12-20Born in Kassel, Germany.
• 1981-09-12Co-founds the Chaos Computer Club at the taz offices in Berlin.
• 1984-11Btx hack with Steffen Wernéry exposes a flaw in the German post office's online service.
• 2001-07-29Dies in Bielefeld, Germany.