deceased

Gary Kildall

IRL Name: 
Gary Kildall
Biography: 

Gary Kildall is an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur who was noted for creating CP / M operating system first industry standard. He was born on May 19, 1942 in Seattle, Washington.

He died on July 8, 1994 where he fell at a Monterey, California, biker bar and hit his head.

In March 1995,he was honored by the Software Publishers Association (now the Software and Information Industry Association) for his contributions to the microcomputer industry:

-Introduction of operating systems with preemptive multitasking and windowing capabilities and menu-driven user interfaces.
-Creation of the first diskette track buffering schemes, read-ahead algorithms, file directory caches, and RAM disk emulators.
-Introduction of a binary recompiler in the 1980s.
-The first programming language and first compiler specifically for microprocessors.
-The first microprocessor disk operating system, which eventually sold a quarter of a million copies.
-The first computer interface for video disks to allow automatic nonlinear playback, presaging today's interactive multimedia.
-The file system and data structures for the first consumer CD-ROM.
-The first successful open system architecture by segregating system-specific hardware interfaces in a set of BIOS routines.

Pictures: 
References

Wau Holland

IRL Name: 
Herwart Holland-Moritz
Biography: 

Herwart Holland-Moritz, aka Wau Holland, was born December 12, 1951 and died July 29, 2001 from complications caused by a brain stem stroke. He co-founded the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in 1981, one of the world's oldest hacking clubs, as well as the CCC's hacker magazine Datenschleuder in 1984.

Holland fought against copy protection and censorship, and for an open information infrastructure. He compared the censorship demands by some governments to those of the Christian church in the Middle Ages and regarded copy protection as a product defect.

Pictures: 
References

Coolio

IRL Name: 
Dennis M. Moran
Biography: 

Dennis M. Moran, aka Coolio, is an American hacker who at 17, was accused of a series of smurf attacks that shut down some of the most popular sites on the web, and defaced the websites of DARE and RSA Security. While acknowledging the defacement of DARE and RSA, he flatly denied the DoS attacks on Yahoo, eBay, and others.

He was eventually arrested and plead guilty to the defacement charges, as well as unauthorized access of US Army and Air Force computer systems and was sentenced to 9 months in prison.

Mirrors of the defaced DARE and RSA sites can be found here. The DARE site is particularly amusing.

Pictures: 
References

bitemytaco

IRL Name: 
Christopher McLean Dixon
Biography: 

bitemytaco was a root admin of Surfboard Hacker (www.sbhacker.net), the largest modem hacking website and forum. He is an expert on DOCSIS and Motorola cable modem modification, especially the SB5100 and SB5101. He also made possible and funded the development of the first hacked firmware for the SB5101, SBH Haxorware (by Rajkosto). bitemytaco has been involved in cable modem hacking for quite awhile and was one of the speakers on the Anonymous Internet (DOCSIS: Insecure by Design) speech at Defcon 16. He died on January 1, 2012.

Pictures: 
References

Michael Leonidas Dertouzos

IRL Name: 
Michael Leonidas Dertouzos
Biography: 

Mr. Dertouzos, a faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1964, became the director of the institute's Laboratory for Computer Sciences in 1974. Under his leadership, the laboratory developed many of the technologies that underlie today's computers, including one of the best-known methods for scrambling data, the RSA encryption system, and innovations that helped bring the World Wide Web into popular use.

Pictures: 
References

Hagbard Celine

IRL Name: 
Karl Werner Lothar Koch
Biography: 

Born in Hanover, called himself "hagbard", after Hagbard Celine. He named his computer "FUCKUP".(there are more people who should do this, but oh well) Addicted to cocaine and became extremely paranoid (like Durandal). Convinced he was fighting the Illuminati like his fictional literary namesake. (occasionally tripping out of his mind)

Loosely affiliated with the CCC.
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 US military computers to Russian KGB.

A German movie about his life, entitled 23, was released in 1998.

Pictures: 
References

Agent Steal

IRL Name: 
Justin Tanner Petersen
Biography: 

Hacker that was part of a group consisting of himself, Kevin Poulsen, and Ron Austin. Turned informant and worked for the FBI. He got his handle when he was first being investigated by case agent Special Agent Steele. Was arrested for credit card fraud, and breaking & entering.
Was caught on August 1994. He was only living around the corner from the FBI.

He died in early March 2010 in his apartment in LA.

Pictures: 
References

Ghent

IRL Name: 
Branden Hancock
Biography: 

Worked for the Dailey Trojan magazine.
Defcon Goon and staff member.
Passed away at age 26, October 26, 2003 due to injuries sustained from a motorcycle accident.

References

Jay Dyson

IRL Name: 
Jay Dyson
Biography: 

Dyson was best known for his work as a security consultant with NASA during his life. In addition, he would be known as one of the people who started Coffee Wars at Defcon 8.

Pictures: 
References

v00d00

IRL Name: 
Jason Burks
Biography: 

Born on October 2, 1976, v00d00 is best known for writing the Juggernaut Hydra and releasing it into an office building mainframe. It caused electrical failures throughout the building, and crashed the system servers.

In 2005, Mr. Burks was a suspect in the remote access of the National Security database. The investigation concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to gain interest to a primary suspect due to the fact that there was no evidence of file disturbance.

In 2006, he designed a method of programming that utilizes probability theory. The method is still under investigation however it is being utilized at several Universities throughout the United States.

v00d00 passed away on September 29, 2008 in a single vehicle traffic accident.

References
Syndicate content