Talk:Markus Hess

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Untitled[edit]

A good portion of this page reads as if it was taken from Stoll's novel, "A Cuckoo's Egg."

could we get some dates into the article. is this recent at all? what time frame? Tbbooher 21:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes exactly. Dates please! Philip Howard 11:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's dated to somewhere in 1986 or so and that time german hacker group named Computer Chaos Club (and non members also) sold software to KGB. Some software was secret stuff but some of it was just GPL/PD software from public servers. KGB wasn't really happy about that.

--Zache 10:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK the "chaos computer club" (CCC) had nothing to do wth the so called "KGB-Hack". The CCC is still active in germany as a kind of representation of interests for computer programmers. it's not a cracking or hacking group... See www.ccc.de


What's the relation between the actual persons and events and the movie "23" that was based on them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.141.167.23 (talk) 13:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK a "Fangschaltung" was set up (ie. phone calls into a hacked VAX at University of Bremen were traced by the telecommunication provider) and so the police could find out that Hess had dialed into the VAX from his phone (with an acoustic coppler). But the call trace had been installed without being approved by court, so probably lots of the gathered evidence was not allowed for the following case.

Page needs a rewrite[edit]

This is not a page about Hess, it's more about how Stoll found Hess. 74.95.195.137 (talk) 18:22, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definitly. The german Wikipedia put all this together in a single article KGB-Hack, even if it lacks some details about catching. 194.113.71.18 (talk) 13:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where is he now?[edit]

What happened to Hess after his release from prison? He must have popped up somewhere doing something in all that time, or a journalist must have tried to track him down. Credulity (talk) 17:24, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hess wasn't in prison, he got probationary sentence of 20 months and a moderate fine of 10.000 DM (even in sum with the other fines significantly less than the amount the group made by selling the stuff) since his deeds were not found much destructive. According to a German newssite from 2018 (https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2018/27/1541306985096694) he later worked for a subdivision of their publishing house (Heise Verlag, known for high profile computing magazines). There is no obvious account about his life (or death?) now. The media focus mostly was on his hacking friend Karl Koch ("hagbard") who later was found dead in suspicious circumstances, leading to various conspiracy theories. Markus Hess seems to vanish behind this more impressive events, most probably he is happy with that: in his Phrack Prophile he is described as "paranoid on the telephone as he is on the computer" (http://phrack.org/issues/31/2.html). His name may help him hiding, because "Hess" is a fairly common name in Germany and he even is known to use aliases, for example he used the name "Mathias Speer", which is a fairly common name as well and thus not easy to track. Don't know if anyone had tried this, public internet accounts mostly just tell the hacking story, nothing after that. --91.2.55.44 (talk) 03:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

This article is desperately in need of references to reliable sources. I have tried to add a few to verify the key details. In doing so, I checked the claim in the article that Hess was sentenced to one to three years in prison. Initially, I found sources confirming this, but I thought that one to thee years was an oddly vague sentence, so I checked Nexis for coverage from the time. His sentence was actually 20 months and suspended. The more recent sources must have got the information from this Wikipedia article. This demonstrates the danger of unsourced articles and WP:CIRC. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Remove reference to Chaos Computer Club?[edit]

Why is there a reference to the CCC? I really don't see the reason, except that both are German. If I am missing a detail, this is not clear from the article...217.33.202.98 (talk)

I don't see the reason either, but then I'm not an expert on hacking. I suggest removing the link if you feel that it is inappropriate. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it links back to Stoll's actions. Stoll had heard a number of rumors about the CCC, and had considered whether Hess was a member. Hess was not a member, however, nor were either of the two that Hess worked with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:0:E81:4675:0:0:0:1019 (talk) 02:55, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no reference; only a free link in §See also and is perfectly fine for inclusion within that section given categorical similarities between subjects. "Urmel" (Hess) had associations with "hagbard" who was somewhat affiliated with CCC. Also all are part of very early German hacking scene; albeit from slightly different positions on the spectrum. It is fine; leave it alone. -- dsprc [talk] 03:55, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Soviet Intelligence[edit]

Are there any sources that establish that he had contacts with the KGB rather than GRU for example? Or maybe the intelligence services of a satellite state like Hungary? The data he procured doesn't seem to be of interest of the KGB as they dealt with internal affairs and counter-intelligence. GRU on the other hand would love to have as much technical data as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimitar ot gorata (talk • contribs) 21:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That should be soureable as part of the trial against him. Beyond that, the relationship with the KGB is indeed mentioned explicitly in the Cliff Stoll references (The Cuckoo's Egg, the ACM paper, and the Nova special). -Verdatum (talk) 22:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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