Tron (hacker)

Tron (8 June 1972 – October 1998) was the nickname of Boris Floricic, a German hacker and phreaker who used that pseudonym out of respect for the character in the 1982 Disney film of the same name. He became famous due to the unclear circumstances of his death. Tron was interested in defeating computer security mechanisms and broke, amongst other things, the security of the German phonecard by producing working clones. He was later sentenced to 15 months in jail for the theft of a public phone (for reverse engineering purposes), but the sentence was suspended on probation.

Tron is also known for his diploma thesis, in which he created the Cryptophon, which was one of the first implementations of a telephone with built-in voice encryption. At the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 Tron was again the subject of media attention when he became the background of legal actions brought before by the parents and Andy Müller-Maguhn (one of the spokespersons of the German Chaos Computer Club but acting on his own behalf in this case) against the Wikimedia Foundation and its German chapter Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. This action found its most current peak in a court interdiction against using the German domain wikipedia.de as a redirect to the German wikipedia version. The redirect is out of service since January 18,2006.

Life

Tron grew up in a suburb in the south of Berlin. His interests in school focused on technical belongings. He left school after 10 years and completed a three-year Vocational education (Berufsausbildung) offered by the Technical University of Berlin and became a specialist in communication electronics with a major on information technology (Kommunikationselektroniker, Fachrichtung Informationstechnik). After this he gained the Abitur (diploma from a German secondary school qualifying for university admission) and began studies in Computer science at the Technical University of Applied Sciences of Berlin.

During his studies Tron attended an internship with a company developing electronic security systems. In the winter term 1997/1998 Tron successfully finished his studies and published his diploma thesis. Within his thesis he developed the Cryptophon, an ISDN telephone with built-in voice encryption. As parts of the work, which were to be provided by another student, were missing, he could not finish his work on the Cryptophon, though. His work, however, was rated as exceptional by the university professor responsible. After graduation Tron applied for a job at at least one company, but did not find work. In his spare time he continued, amongst other duties, the work on the Cryptophon.

Interests

Tron was highly interested in electronics and security systems of all kind. He engaged, amongst other things, in attacks against the German phonecard and Pay TV systems. As part of his research he exchanged ideas and proposals with other hackers and scientists. On the mailinglist "tv-crypt", operated by a closed group of Pay TV hackers, Tron reported about himself in 1995, that his interests are microprocessors, programming languages, electronics of all kinds, digital radio data transmission and especially breaking the security of systems perceived as secure. He alleged to have created working clones of a chipcard used for british Pay TV and would continue his work to defeat the security of the Nagravision/Syster scrambling system which was then used e.g. by the German Pay TV provider "PREMIERE".

Later american scientists outlined a theoretical attack against SIM cards used for GSM mobile phones. Together with hackers from the Chaos Computer Club, Tron successfully created a working clone of such a SIM card, thus showing the practicability of the attack. He also engaged in cloning the German phonecard and succeeded. While Tron only wanted to demonstrate the insecurity of the system, the proven insecurity was also abused by criminals which led to the attention of law enforcement agencies and the German national phone operator Deutsche Telekom. After the Deutsche Telekom changed the system, Tron tried to remove a complete public card phone from a booth by force (using a Sledgehammer) on 3 March 1995 in order to, as he told, adapt his phonecard simulators to the latest changes. He and a friend were, however, caught by the police upon this attempt. Tron was later sentenced to a prison term of 15 months which was suspended on probation.

Cryptophon

"Cryptophon" was the name Tron himself chose for his prototype of an ISDN telephone with built-in voice encryption. It was created in the winter term 1997/1998 as part of his diploma thesis titled "Realisierung einer Verschlüsselungstechnik für Daten im ISDN B-Kanal" (German, about: "Implementation of Cryptography for Data contained in the ISDN B channel"). Tron focussed to make the Cryptophon cheap and easy to build for hobbyists. The phone encrypts telephone calls using the symetric crypto algorithm IDEA. As IDEA is protected by a patent, the crypto algorithm was implemented on a replaceable daughter module which would have allowed to exchange IDEA for another (probably patent unencumbered) algorithm. Also the system was about to be supplemented with a key exchange based on the asymetric crypto algorthm RSA in order to achieve security against comprimised remote stations.

The Cryptophon is built on the foundation of a 8051 compatible microprocessor which controls the whole system and peripherals (e.g. ISDN controller, keypad and display). For the cryptography Tron used cheap DSPs from Texas Instruments which he scrapped out of old computer modems, but which could also be bought for affordable prices. As this type of DSP is not powerful enough for the crypto algorithm chosen, Tron used two of them for the Cryptophon - one for sending and one for receiving. Tron developed both the operating software of the phone as well as the crypto implementation in the DSPs. He found a new way to implement IDEA to save significant on processing time.

Mysterious death

Tron went missing on 17 October 1998 and was found dead in a local park in Berlin on 22 October 1998 after being hung from a waistbelt wrapped around his neck. The cause of death was officially recorded as suicide. However, some of his peers in the Chaos Computer Club, as well as his family members and some outside critics, have been vocal in their assertions that Tron may have been murdered. It is argued that his activities in the areas of Pay TV cracking and voice scrambling might have disturbed the affairs of an intelligence agency or the organized crime and thus Tron was murdered.

A German journalist named Burkhard Schröder published a book about the death titled "Tron - Tod eines Hackers" (German, about: "Tron - Death of a hacker") in 1999 in which he presents the until then known facts about the case. Because he concludes that Tron has commited suicide, the author is harshly criticised by both members of the Chaos Computer Club as well as Tron's parents. A lot of myths and conspiracy theories about the death are circulating, and the case was also used as the background for various fictitious works.

Current controversy

His family does not wish his full name to be used, and many German newspapers refer to him as "Boris F." On 14 December 2005 the parents obtained a temporary restraining order in a Berlin court against Wikimedia Foundation Inc. because its freely editable online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, mentioned the full name in its German language version. The order prohibits the Foundation from mentioning the full name on any website under the domain "wikipedia.org". It furthermore requires the Foundation to name a representative in Germany within two weeks following the decision.

This was widely reported in the Dutch and German press . German law requires that the order be delivered within four weeks. The initial order was however mistakenly addressed to Saint Petersburg, Russia rather than to Saint Petersburg, Florida; this was corrected five days later. It is unclear how the German court can enforce the order in the United States.

On 17 January 2006, a preliminary injunction from a court in Berlin prohibited the Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. [1] local chapter from linking to German Wikipedia, resulting in the change of the wikipedia.de address from a link to German Wikipedia to a page explaining the situation, although the page does not mention Tron. Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. confirmed to the internet news site golem.de that the new injunction is linked to the prior case against the Wikimedia Foundation and was issued on behalf of the same plaintiffs. Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. is cited as willing to stand against the injunction, arguing that no valid case is seen and the freedom of the press must be defended.

Because Andy Müller-Maguhn, being one of the spokespersons of the Chaos Computer Club, is involved deeply into the case on side of the plaintiffs, some media reported this as a case of the Chaos Computer Club against Wikipedia. The Chaos Computer Club itself, however, issued a statement, that this is a case between a few of its members and Wikipedia, and that the CCC does not take any position in this.

The Austrian online magazin "futurezone" interviewed Andy Müller-Maguhn on 19 January 2006 about the case and its backgrounds. Maguhn admitted that the true reason behind the incident is a fictitious work recently published by a german author in which the main actor has the same (civil) name as Tron. The parents sent a protest to the publisher but were turned down with the argument that the German Wikipedia does use the name as well. In turn Müller-Maguhn asked German Wikipedia to remove the name, but was turned down for a number of reason, including failure to present proof that he is entitled to speak and act on behalf of the parents.

Further reading

• Burkhard Schröder: Tron: Tod eines Hackers ("Tron: Death of a hacker"). rororo, 1999, ISBN 3-499-60857-X

External links

• Wired.com about the suicide, by David Hudson, 28 December 1998