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I found his story more sad than funny, this guy clearly had some inadequacy issues. Evidently he was a hacker of some ability; had he stayed that way today he c

by Jun8 15y ago

I found his story more sad than funny, this guy clearly had some inadequacy issues. Evidently he was a hacker of some ability; had he stayed that way today he could have been leading a medium sized legit startup perhaps. But what's even sadder is the cavalier attitude Germany has shown towards him: after his first set of crimes, during the extradition from Thailand he should have got a more severe punishment it seems (what good that would have served with a guy like that is another question altogether). Insider trading was not a crime until 1995? It was banned around 1930s in the US I think.

moe 15y ago
Evidently he was a hacker of some ability I was actually (digitally) in touch with kimble and his BBS in my own BBS-days and feel a need to set straight that, to my knowledge, he was never very tech-savvy, and never a "hacker" by any standard. Instead he quickly made a name for himself for being a full-on fraudster of the sociopath kind. Here's a (german) article that sheds some light on his earliest endeavours: http://www.gulli.com/news/12565-nachruf-guenter-freiherr-von-gravenreuth-2010-02-22 http://www.gulli.com/news/12565-nachruf-guenter-freiherr-von... The gist is: Kimble started out by running a warez-bbs and dealing calling cards (which was quite common back in that day). Things turned nasty when his BBS got busted. He did not only cooperate with the cops but there-after partnered with an infamous german lawyer to set up traps for other BBS operators and sell them (literally) to the authorities. This went on for years in an organized fashion. From all accounts that I've heard he was not strong-armed into it but rather made money that way and even bragged about it. From there I think the ars article is mostly correct. But I wouldn't like to see him get away with his self-proclaimed "hacker"-image. In the german BBS-scene of the 90s the hate for him was unrivaled. There were quite a few graphic kimble-related ascii-banners on some post-login screens.
- nikcub 15y ago
  I can confirm this. I was part of a few groups back in the 90s and was there when Kimble first showed up. He shot up in notoriety rapidly, but we figured him out as not having any skills pretty quickly. He would take 'hacks' from others and then claim them in the media for himself. The first time he did this with one of the groups was when he went to the media with the NASA hack. What happen was somebody on the channel had dumped shell accounts on a few jpl.nasa.gov boxes, and a day later the story was in the media that Kimble had done it. I then watched him get kicked from other groups when he would do the same thing - either claiming hacks as his own or taking exploits, ripping out the attribution and putting his own name in. He became a subject of derision with these groups so he then setup his own group and bought in some fans - claiming he was going to 'hack' all of us. Nothing ended up happening. There is truth to most of his claims - for eg. the 'military secrets' claim comes from a hack where some Indian and Iraqi military networks where hacked and documents leaked. Around 20 people on IRC had access to them, and Kimble claimed that one as well (one of the other guys ended up getting arrested for it because he tried to sell the documents to an undercover agent). Funnily the media attention that Kimble bought to himself bought a lot of attention to Undernet and the groups that were on there at the time. It ended up driving us to private SIRC servers and renaming most of the groups as a large number of newbies (and probably federal agents) flooded onto the servers and tried to gain access to the group channels. A couple of years later he re-appeared with his security company and then racing videos. We would be in conflict with him continuously - he would email us with taunts and we would return them. The website of his security company was defaced numerous times and his home directory dumped. He then tried to call a 'truce' and to hire a few of us, I was on a few conference calls that Kimble was on. I then bumped into him again a little later on, after he started MegaUpload. I wasn't surprised at all that he was behind the site. What we did back then and with him was a bit childish and we grew out of it - but Kimble definitely isn't a hacker in that old regard. He does have skills in promoting himself and getting people to believe in his ideas.
- Radim 15y ago
  Kimble was also a notorious quake 2 botter (cheater), back in the day. He ruined online quake play for many Germans and was as much of a selfish cunt as this article suggests. A sad reminder that the "online persona" will often say more about you than one is willing to admit.
- skystorm 15y ago
  Thanks for that link, I had completely forgotten about the "Freiherr". Blast from the past...
static_cast 15y ago
I remember around 2001 - when he started his digital "Jihad" against Bin Laden - his web server was hacked several times with a public FreeBSD telnetd remote root exploit. I won't deny that you have to give him some respect for being able to pull all these stunts and acquiring the money from investors, however as it seems most if not all projects where at least partly illegal.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
chalst 15y ago
Insider trading was not a crime until 1995? Capital allocation in Germany revolves around raising money for the Mittelstand, which are medium-sized business where the executives usually own more than half the business, equity investors are connected to the company, and it is only the debt investors who have distance from the company. There are bigger companies in Germany, but liquid equity is still not as important to the Germany economy as it is in the US, so it should not be surprising that the needs of non-insider equity holders has not been as important in Germany. It makes me wonder what the start-up scene here in Germany is really hoping for: I don't see Germany having a straightforward "young IPO" market any time soon. There was an Economist article a couple of months back that might be interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/21535175 http://www.economist.com/node/21535175
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  That's interesting I had not come across that negative aspect of the German system before. Maybe that's why all the "names" on the German internet scene are so "dodgy" with limited share holder protection the is much less incentive for normal start ups. You just get the edgy barrow boy types - all the real engineers want to go an design the next 3/4 light sub system for Audi
celticninja 15y ago
It was banned in the US (for everyone except your politicians) but that doesnt mean everyone else has to have the same laws as you. You still have the death penalty, the rest of the developed world considers it barbaric, I dont see you questioning why Germany dont have the death penalty.
kahawe 15y ago
> Evidently he was a hacker of some ability; That is the really important part: NO, he never was. He was always all smoke and mirrors, show and PR stunts. And from his BBS days all the way to megaupload, he has never done anything but shady, borderline-illegal or downright criminal activities.

by Jun8 15y ago

moe 15y ago

Evidently he was a hacker of some ability I was actually (digitally) in touch with kimble and his BBS in my own BBS-days and feel a need to set straight that, to my knowledge, he was never very tech-savvy, and never a "hacker" by any standard. Instead he quickly made a name for himself for being a full-on fraudster of the sociopath kind. Here's a (german) article that sheds some light on his earliest endeavours: http://www.gulli.com/news/12565-nachruf-guenter-freiherr-von-gravenreuth-2010-02-22 http://www.gulli.com/news/12565-nachruf-guenter-freiherr-von... The gist is: Kimble started out by running a warez-bbs and dealing calling cards (which was quite common back in that day). Things turned nasty when his BBS got busted. He did not only cooperate with the cops but there-after partnered with an infamous german lawyer to set up traps for other BBS operators and sell them (literally) to the authorities. This went on for years in an organized fashion. From all accounts that I've heard he was not strong-armed into it but rather made money that way and even bragged about it. From there I think the ars article is mostly correct. But I wouldn't like to see him get away with his self-proclaimed "hacker"-image. In the german BBS-scene of the 90s the hate for him was unrivaled. There were quite a few graphic kimble-related ascii-banners on some post-login screens.

nikcub 15y ago
I can confirm this. I was part of a few groups back in the 90s and was there when Kimble first showed up. He shot up in notoriety rapidly, but we figured him out as not having any skills pretty quickly. He would take 'hacks' from others and then claim them in the media for himself. The first time he did this with one of the groups was when he went to the media with the NASA hack. What happen was somebody on the channel had dumped shell accounts on a few jpl.nasa.gov boxes, and a day later the story was in the media that Kimble had done it. I then watched him get kicked from other groups when he would do the same thing - either claiming hacks as his own or taking exploits, ripping out the attribution and putting his own name in. He became a subject of derision with these groups so he then setup his own group and bought in some fans - claiming he was going to 'hack' all of us. Nothing ended up happening. There is truth to most of his claims - for eg. the 'military secrets' claim comes from a hack where some Indian and Iraqi military networks where hacked and documents leaked. Around 20 people on IRC had access to them, and Kimble claimed that one as well (one of the other guys ended up getting arrested for it because he tried to sell the documents to an undercover agent). Funnily the media attention that Kimble bought to himself bought a lot of attention to Undernet and the groups that were on there at the time. It ended up driving us to private SIRC servers and renaming most of the groups as a large number of newbies (and probably federal agents) flooded onto the servers and tried to gain access to the group channels. A couple of years later he re-appeared with his security company and then racing videos. We would be in conflict with him continuously - he would email us with taunts and we would return them. The website of his security company was defaced numerous times and his home directory dumped. He then tried to call a 'truce' and to hire a few of us, I was on a few conference calls that Kimble was on. I then bumped into him again a little later on, after he started MegaUpload. I wasn't surprised at all that he was behind the site. What we did back then and with him was a bit childish and we grew out of it - but Kimble definitely isn't a hacker in that old regard. He does have skills in promoting himself and getting people to believe in his ideas.
Radim 15y ago
Kimble was also a notorious quake 2 botter (cheater), back in the day. He ruined online quake play for many Germans and was as much of a selfish cunt as this article suggests. A sad reminder that the "online persona" will often say more about you than one is willing to admit.
skystorm 15y ago
Thanks for that link, I had completely forgotten about the "Freiherr". Blast from the past...

static_cast 15y ago

I remember around 2001 - when he started his digital "Jihad" against Bin Laden - his web server was hacked several times with a public FreeBSD telnetd remote root exploit. I won't deny that you have to give him some respect for being able to pull all these stunts and acquiring the money from investors, however as it seems most if not all projects where at least partly illegal.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

chalst 15y ago

Insider trading was not a crime until 1995? Capital allocation in Germany revolves around raising money for the Mittelstand, which are medium-sized business where the executives usually own more than half the business, equity investors are connected to the company, and it is only the debt investors who have distance from the company. There are bigger companies in Germany, but liquid equity is still not as important to the Germany economy as it is in the US, so it should not be surprising that the needs of non-insider equity holders has not been as important in Germany. It makes me wonder what the start-up scene here in Germany is really hoping for: I don't see Germany having a straightforward "young IPO" market any time soon. There was an Economist article a couple of months back that might be interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/21535175 http://www.economist.com/node/21535175

mjwalshe 15y ago
That's interesting I had not come across that negative aspect of the German system before. Maybe that's why all the "names" on the German internet scene are so "dodgy" with limited share holder protection the is much less incentive for normal start ups. You just get the edgy barrow boy types - all the real engineers want to go an design the next 3/4 light sub system for Audi

celticninja 15y ago

It was banned in the US (for everyone except your politicians) but that doesnt mean everyone else has to have the same laws as you. You still have the death penalty, the rest of the developed world considers it barbaric, I dont see you questioning why Germany dont have the death penalty.

kahawe 15y ago

> Evidently he was a hacker of some ability; That is the really important part: NO, he never was. He was always all smoke and mirrors, show and PR stunts. And from his BBS days all the way to megaupload, he has never done anything but shady, borderline-illegal or downright criminal activities.