Bernd Fix | |
|---|---|
 At 24C3 in Berlin (2007) | |
| Born | Bernd Robert Fix 19 March 1962 Wittingen, Germany |
| Occupation | Hacker |
| Known for | Computer virus research |
Bernd Fix (born 19 March 1962 in Wittingen, Lower Saxony) is a German hacker and computer security expert.
After final secondary-school examination from Gymnasium Hankensbüttel in 1981, Bernd Fix studied Astrophysics and Philosophy at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg. He received his diplom for a work in the field of theoretical astrophysics in 1989. From 1998 Fix was living and working in Switzerland; he moved to Berlin in 2014.
In 1986 Fix joined the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Hamburg and started to work on computer security issues, focussing on computer virus research. He published a first demo virus (Rushhour) in autumn 1986 in the Datenschleuder #17, the hacker magazine edited by the CCC. [1] He also contributed results of his research to the book "Computer Viruses" by Ralf Burger. [2] From 1987 to 1989 Fix was one of the spokespersons for the Chaos Computer Club [3] and author for the "Hacker Bible 2". [4]
In 1987 he devised a method to neutralize the Vienna Virus; this event marks the first documented antivirus software ever written. [5] [6]
Fix is also the author of several research viruses; among them the VP370 virus for IBM mainframe computers. The VP370 source code was allegedly stolen by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service in Germany) in 1988 to be used in attacks against East Block and NATO mainframe computer systems in the so-called "Project Rahab". [7] [8] [9]
After the death of his friend Wau Holland (co-founder of the Chaos Computer Club) in 2001 Fix helped to establish the Wau Holland Foundation [10] and serves as a founding member of the Board of Directors ever since.
According to Fix, when the Wau Holland Foundation started official operations in 2003, he and other founding members were in contact with Julian Assange and in 2009 they decided to support WikiLeaks. [11] According to an interview from 2011, he got fired from his job at SIX Financial Information because of the foundation's support for WikiLeaks. [12]
In July 2016, on the same day "Guccifer 2.0" sent Assange an encrypted 1 GB file containing stolen DNC emails, German hackers Andrew Müller-Maguhn and Bernd Fix met with Assange for at least four hours. Müller-Maguhn, the Wau Holland Foundation Vice President, is named in the Mueller report as a possible conduit for delivering hacked emails to Assange. [13] [14] According to The Washington Post, a former WikiLeaks associate said that year Müller-Maguhn and a colleague oversaw submissions to WikiLeaks server that year, which Müller-Maguhn denied. [15] According to court documents, Müller-Maguhn and Bernd Fix were identified as priority targets of UC Global's spying. [16]
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an eingetragener Verein in Germany, with local chapters in various cities in Germany and the surrounding countries, particularly where there are German-speaking communities. Since 1985, some chapters in Switzerland have organized an independent sister association called the Chaos Computer Club Schweiz (CCC-CH) instead.
Herwart Holland-Moritz, known as Wau Holland, was a German computer security activist and journalist who in 1981 cofounded the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of the world's oldest hacking clubs.
Andy Müller-Maguhn is a member of the German hacker association Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Having been a member since 1986, he was appointed as a spokesman for the club in 1990, and later served on its board until 2012. He runs a company that develops cryptophones.
The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and online freedom of speech. It has taken place regularly at the end of the year since 1984, with the current date and duration established in 2005. It is considered one of the largest events of its kind, alongside DEF CON in Las Vegas.
Robbert (Rop) Valentijn Gonggrijp is a Dutch hacker and one of the founders of XS4ALL.
WikiLeaks is a media organisation and publisher founded in 2006. It operates as a non-profit and is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist, who is currently challenging extradition to the United States over his work with WikiLeaks. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief. Its website states that it has released more than ten million documents and associated analyses. WikiLeaks' most recent publication was in 2021, and its most recent publication of original documents was in 2019. Beginning in November 2022, many of the documents on the organisation's website could not be accessed.
Jacob Appelbaum is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian computer programmer, editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad, US military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables.
The Wau Holland Foundation is a nonprofit foundation based in Hamburg, Germany.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, previously known under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, is a German technology activist. He is best known as the former spokesperson for WikiLeaks and the author of Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website (2011).
WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing website founded by Julian Assange, has received praise as well as criticism from the public, hacktivists, journalist organisations and government officials. The organisation has revealed human rights abuses and was the target of an alleged "cyber war". Allegations have been made that Wikileaks worked with or was exploited by the Russian government and acted in a partisan manner during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Jérémie Zimmermann is a French computer science engineer and co-founder of the Paris-based La Quadrature du Net, a citizen advocacy group defending fundamental freedoms online as well as a co-founder of Hacking With Care, a "collective composed of hackers-activists, caregivers, artists, sociologist, growing quite literally by contact and affinity".
The Courage Foundation is an international organisation based in Germany, the UK and the US that supports whistleblowers and journalists by fundraising for their legal defence.
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, commonly known as Siggi hakkari, is an Icelandic convicted criminal and FBI informant against WikiLeaks. He is known for information leaks, multiple cases of fraud and embezzlement, sexual solicitation of minors and adults. He has multiple convictions for sexual offences.
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation. These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016 and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States' Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection. The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.
"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. According to indictments in February 2018, the persona is operated by Russian military intelligence agency GRU. On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU agents for allegedly perpetrating the cyberattacks.
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, detailing the activities and capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dating from 2013 to 2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers, and the operating systems of most smartphones, as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. A CIA internal audit identified 91 malware tools out of more than 500 tools in use in 2016 being compromised by the release. The tools were developed by the Operations Support Branch of the C.I.A.
In 2012, while on bail Julian Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden, and what his supporters said was the possibility of subsequent extradition to the US. On 11 April 2019, Ecuador revoked his asylum, he was arrested for failing to appear in court, and carried out of the Embassy by members of the London Metropolitan Police. Following his arrest, the US revealed a previously sealed 2018 US indictment in which Assange was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to his involvement with Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks.
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