Nach der Zahlreichen Aufforderung meinen Vortrag über Tron doch mal im Club vorzutragen habe ich mich entschieden das dann auch zu machen. Ich habe mit Juice einen Deal gemacht, er macht seinen gecancelten iPhone hacking Vortrag wenn ich meinen 8 Minütigen Tron Vortrag mache…Gut ich weiss, dass viele meinen Vortrag nicht hören können, da sie zu weit weg wohnen oder was auch immer, daher hab ich mich entschieden meinen schriftlichen Beitrag zu dem gleichen Thema hier in meinem Blog zu veröffentlichen. Zu meiner Absicherung muss ich sagen, dass das ganze nicht sehr recherchiert ist, und mehr einen allgemeinen Blick auf die Sache geben soll. Dieser Vortrag/Bericht war für Leute bestimmt die noch nie was von Tron gehört hatten. Ich bitte auch die Schreibfehler sowie mein teilweise holprigen Stil einfach zu Ingoren. Über comments würd ich mich dennoch wie immer freuen, hier der Beitrag:
How Did the Hacker Legend Tron Die?
With the growing importance of computer security in our modern world, the number of computer experts is growing too. Tron was one of these so-called hackers. The difference between Tron and most hackers was that he definitely was one of the good guys. He was always trying to prove the insecurity of existing systems to bring people to make them more secure and wasn’t interested in the data he could access through the exploitation of the security vulnerabilities he found. The sad part of the story is that Tron died at the age of 26, and the causes of his death aren’t known yet. I’ll try to explain to you, by different points of views why it had been suicide or why murder.
First of all, a brief description of Boris Floricic, alias Tron. He lived in Berlin, in Gropiusstadt which is in the south of the city. The young man was a hacker in the Chaos Computer Club Berlin where he was very appreciated because of his character and his knowledge. He also was a computer science student at the “Technische Universität Berlin”, where he was a very good student. Furthermore he became famous with his Cryptophone, an ISDN-Telephon with integrated ciphering, which he published as a diploma thesis in the winter semester 1997/1998. One of the major features of this project was its low cost, and a very easy circuit diagram, so that everyone could built such an crypted phone. As Tron was a hacker and phreaker he was very interested in attacking chip cards for GSM for example. He also cracked the security system of the payed telephone cards. After the release of the method to expoid this vulnerability, the “Deutsche Telecom” changed the protections. Tron tryed to steal one of the new card phones with a sledge to crack it again but he was arrested. Later, on 22nd October 1998 Tron was found hanging from a tree in a parc in Neuköln, Berlin. Tron had been missing since 17th October. The scene was looking as classical suicide, but was ist really one?
On the one hand, officially, it was concluded that Tron killed himself, even if nobody could imagine a suitable reason why he should have done this. Tron had a girlfriend, a lot of friends, he was well liked, he had knowledge. He just finished his studies and was starting his professional career.
On the other hand, the parents of Tron as well as most members of the Chaos Computer Club don’t agree with this conclusion. They think that Tron was a victim of the secret service or the organised crime. They point on different facts that speak against suicide, for example a reason for the murder could have been the fact that Tron was researching into things like pay-TV hacking and voice encryption.
They also find that there are some strange things in the investigation. So, for example, there have been no investigation proving that Tron touched the cable he was found hanging on. Furthermore there are no evidence that Tron climbed the tree himself where he hanged himself, as they say. In fact the tree may contain some evidence like hair, or fibres. Officially no analysis had been done on this domain, but a report dedicated to these evidence had been found shortly after the investigation was finished. Unfortunately, on this report you can’t find out if these evidence existed or not. Last but not least is the problem with his stomach content. When Tron was found, he was missing for already 5 days. He had disappeared without leaving any word to anyone the 17th and was found the 22nd but the autopsy found out that the content of his stomach was the meal his mother had prepared on the 17th. If Tron had lived he would have digested this meal unless he was killed the 17th. This thesis isn’t realistic, the autopsy also showed that Tron didn’t die more than 24 hours before he was found. So the theory of suicide is very improbable and people think that Tron had been frozen by his murderer.
To conclude I would say that nobody really knows what happened between 17th October and the 22nd October 1998 to Tron, but in my eyes there are more convincing points on the side of Tron’s parents than on the official side, where it was conclude a suicide. Even if you can’t be sure, I think that there are things that aren’t clear in this story. I belief that Tron got killed because he refused to help bad people who were offering him a lot of money, and so they got afraid, because he may publish their names or their intentions so they killed him to quiten him.
I also have to say that I find it very sad that he was killed or committed suicide because he did the right things, he always tried to show people how to improve the security of their system and also to explain to them why it isn’t secure and so on. I would have been very glad to know him, and to learn from him, for example at the Chaos Communication Congress or similar events. It’s a loss for the hacker community of course but also for his family and friends.
Sources:
The German Wikipedia Article dedicated to tron
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)
Boris F. – Die Geschichte von TRON
http://www.tronland.net/
