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APPROACHING ZERO

Four years previously, in 1985, Karl Koch had been the first hacker in Germany recruited by agents working directly or indirectly for the KGB. Koch was living at the time in Hannover. He was a drop-out from society and school, and he had recently squandered the small inheritance he had received following the death of his parents. A small-time drug habit helped him through bereavement, and beyond. His life was going nowhere.

Apart from drugs, Koch's only interest was hacking. His handle was Hagbard, an alias taken from the Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. According to the books, the Illuminati are a secret cult which has been in existence since time began and has orchestrated every major crime, misfortune and calamity for its own ends. Only one man had ever emerged who could counter the cult: the intrepid hero, Hagbard Celine. Koch was drawn by the conspiracy theories nurtured in the books; he believed there were parallels in real life.

That year Koch met an older man named Peter Kahl. Kahl was then in his mid-thirties, a small-time fixer who was looking for a big break. He worked nights as a croupier in a Hannover casino; during the day he was occupied with putting together his newest scheme.

Kahl's idea was simple: he was going to recruit a gang of hackers who could break into West European and American computer systems, particularly those on military or defence industry sites. Kahl would sell the data and information they stole to the KGB; he had already made contact with an agent in East Berlin, and the Soviets were cautiously interested.

Kahl first encountered Koch at a hacker meet in Hannover. The young man seemed an ideal recruit: malleable, drifting, amoral. Later, when Kahl explained his scheme to Koch, the hacker appeared receptive. Two weeks later Koch agreed to become a member of the Soviet hacker gang.

In 1985 the computer underworld was a growing force in Germany. Hacking had become prevalent at the beginning of the decade, as low-cost personal computers became increasingly available. It had grown in popularity with the release of War Games - the 1983 film in which Matthew Broderick nearly unleashes the next world war.

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