Remembering a Hacker's Hacker

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46013,00.html

By Steve Kettmann 
2:42 p.m. Aug. 10, 2001 PDT 

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands -- The friends and admirers who memorialized
legendary German hacker Wau Holland on Friday did their best not to
turn the man into a saint.

That would be too boring.

Instead, the mostly awestruck, mostly young crowd of 200 that gathered
at the Hackers at Large 2001 hackfest were reminded that even storied
figures such as the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) co-founder have
surprising sides to their personalities.

"He always had a screwdriver with him," remembered longtime hacker Tim
Pritlove. "If you asked him why he had a screwdriver, he said, 'Well,
I might have to make a phone call.' ... We considered Wau to be a true
hacker. I think there's a lot to learn from him."

Just what that lesson was and is remains somewhat elusive, which may
be the case whenever it comes to being taught hard lessons.

"If you are so far ahead of the people around you, sometimes the other
people get lost," Pritlove said. "That happened a lot with Wau.... He
said 'Wauland is everywhere.' We are still trying to figure out what
that meant. Often we did not understand him."

Holland -- Herwart Holland-Moritz, known to one and all as Wau --
co-founded the CCC just under 20 years ago and had, in recent years,
become a sort of elder statesman of the European hacking scene. He
died late last month of complications from a stroke. Funeral services
are planned for Aug. 31, but given his ties to hacker events like this
one, last night's memorial was an eagerly awaited event.

Holland was a man remembered by many as someone who would give you his
opinions, even if those opinions were liable to be hard for you to
take. And yet he was also a character who inspired great affection and
devotion. Maybe it had to do with his appearance, which earned him the
name "Maulwurf" -- German for "mole" -- back when he was a university
student.

Ursel Reichhardt, who met Holland when they were university students
in Marburg studying mathematics, explained where the name "Wau" came
from.

"Everyone called him Maulwurf, because that was how he looked," she
said, smiling gently for emphasis. "And it is also another word for a
spy, a kind of underground agent. So when he wanted a name for the
computer, he took three letters from that -- W, A and U."

She remembered his impish enthusiasm, which he showed off when they
met. A teacher in a crowded classroom said they all needed to team up;
and Holland elbowed his way across the entire room, said hello to
Reichhardt, and announced "We are a team."

The friendship lasted nearly three decades.

"He was a friend I could always count on when I had a problem," she
said. "He was there and helped."

Gerriet Hellwig, a longtime Holland associate, was one of many who
reminded the group that Wau would not have wanted hangdog looks. He
would want people to raise a "white beer" in his honor and head off
cheerful and argumentative.

Some of the people in the crowd who gave recollections about Holland
talked of the many times he would be traveling and show up unannounced
in town, needing a place to stay and to, of course, hold court.

"He could easily have been a millionaire but he chose to live like a
wandering monk, travelling to see people he wanted to speak to," said
Hellwig.

Holland's death at age 49 has reverberated widely, and not just to
members of the CCC, which Holland co-founded after dreaming up the
idea in an article for Berlin's left-wing Tageszeitung. To many, the
passing of the balding, bearded, tough-minded, lifelong hippie
represents the passing not just of their own youth, but of the youth
and innocence of the hacking movement.

As recently as the CCC's winter congress in Berlin two years ago,
Holland was a robust presence. And more recently, he spent his time
working with young East Germans in Jena. But Holland also embodied the
early days as no one else could, days of government monopolies on
telecommunications so intense that they required a special permit in
Germany just to own an acoustic coupler.

Twenty years ago, Holland was thinking about what the world would look
like when anyone could have access to a computer and
telecommunications links and could connect with other people around
the world. To him, that mostly meant letting people's voices be heard,
whether they were powerful or not, eloquent or not.

Andy Mueller-Maguhn, ICANNs European representative and a CCC leader,
said that the CCC and its philosophies are two of Holland's major
legacies.

"He once said 'We must respect the rights of the dissenters, even
though they might be idiotic or harmful,'.... He said, 'We have to pay
attention.'"

"Today that might sound boring. But if you take it in all its meaning,
that was the core of Wau. He knew the planet was full of people who
had fear and did not understand the new technology."



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