Wau Holland

Herwart Holland-Moritz, known as Wau Holland, (20 December 1951 – 29 July 2001) cofounded the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in 1981, one of the world's oldest hacking clubs. The CCC became world famous when its members exposed security flaws in Germany's "Bildschirmtext" (Btx) online television service by getting a bank to send them DM 134,000 for accessing its Btx page many times. They returned the money the following day.

Holland also co-founded the CCC's hacker magazine Datenschleuder in 1984, which praised the possibilities of global information networks and powerful computers, and included detailed wiring diagrams for building your own modems cheaply. The then-monopolist phone company of Germany's Deutsche Bundespost had to approve modems and sold expensive, slow modems of their own. The telecommunications branch of Deutsche Bundespost was privatized and is now Deutsche Telekom.

Because of Holland's continuing participation in the club, the CCC gained popularity and credibility. He gave speeches on information control for the government and the private sector. Holland fought against copy protection and all forms of 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. In his last years, he spent a lot of his time in a youth center teaching children both the ethics and the science of hacking,^[1] with unique style and intelligent humor.

Holland was an amateur radio operator and held the callsign DB4FA.^[2]

Holland died in Bielefeld on 29 July 2001 of complications caused by a brain stem stroke from which he suffered in May.^[1]

See also

• Phreaking
• Wau Holland Foundation

References

External links

• (German) Wau Holland Foundation
• (German) Spiegel article
• (German) Condolence book and memorial site
• (German) Book on Wau - Der Phrasenprüfer