The Kids Who Stole US Military Secrets

High-tech engineering, conspiracy theories, and counterculture: the ingredients of the very first cyber espionage operation in the world. A team of young German hackers led by Karl “Hagbard” Koch clash with Cliff Stoll, one of the fathers of modern infosec in an intercontinental battle of pre-Internet hacking. Seriously, how is this not a major Hollywood motion picture yet?

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0:00 Intro
01:42 Operation Showerhead
10:41 Project Equalizer
23:03 Conclusion

Credits:
Producer: Ignas Žadeikis
Writer: Valius Venckūnas
Video Editing: Matas Paskačimas
Narration: Joshua Murphy
Thumbnail: Domantė Janulevičiūtė, Aurimas Danius
Supervising Producer: Aušra Venckutė
Special thanks to Adi Newton & Clock DVA

ℹ️ About us:
We are an independent news outlet with a YouTube channel that posts cybersecurity & tech news videos daily. Our foremost concern is the safety and security of our viewers around the world. We remain vigilant on the issue of hacking and will provide updates as they become available. A number of our investigations and reports have been featured by industry-related publications and global news leaders like Forbes, PC mag, and Techradar.

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[olokelo]

Between crappy VPN/Antivirus ads, news by AI Joe and pretty mediocre podcasts, there are diamond quality videos just like this one.
That's why I subscribe to CyberNews.

[lloydbush]

By the way the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is now a serious organization and on occasion advisor to the german government. It upholds the core principles of information freedom, personal liberties and net neutrality. The club has come a long way since the 80s without losing themselves or their chaos for that matter.

[andrewalonsi]

Anyone else find cyber-crime documentaries much more fascinating than true-crime murder documentaries?? This video was phenomenal!

[johnytamale]

I like how in the beginning of the video they try to downgrade him by calling him a drugee and serious mental issues, they then credit him with doing the first hack and describe him and like a powerful underworld figure. Man sounds like he was a genius.

[kaotiskhund]

Congrats on doing this video. I learnt about Hagbard, Pengo, their team, what they were doing with KGB, their personal stories and of course CCC from a local computer magazine around late 90's or early 00's, never found anyone else mentioning them in youtube and back then in general english speaking internet parts. Pengo's story and skills was also very impressive (he is said that on an online fight with an admin, he developed a worm, possibly the first ever created, cause admin asked him to leave or something like this). Plenty of lessons can be taken from this story. For real, BRAVO! Literally, this story is imprinted in my mind, for YEARS, read it again and again so I could grasp every detail the story was talking about! :) THANK YOU!!! and happy new year btw ;)

[tim]

The way my neurons activated when he said the names benson and hedges together

[mattilindstrom]

In my early university days when the internet was young, the US cut Finland off because of a hacking incident. There were serious diplomatic efforts to mend the situation. Imagine something like that happening in the modern day.

[hondja]

imagine having million dollars of tech and getting hacked by an email 😭

[Tonyflux]

I want to access an account I do not have the login details, I have tried everything possible but all failed. Please help can someone help me out?

[MaxMusterman_]

So nice to see all the Old pics once again, thank you

[seancummings]

They need to make a new movie about this this story is insane

[AnshuSingh-zryn]

The best cyber espionage narration available in youtube .

[Yuzugumi]

Body was "burned thrououghly enough to get rid of any identifying info" yet was still determined to be Hagbards body? How?

[blaisebaileyfinnegan]

One detail I remember from the book was that the SDI honeypot contained a flyer for government contractors to send mail to Lawrence Livermore for more information on an RFP. A known KGB asset responded and that's what really cinched it that this was espionage related...

[fotogiovanni]

The Cuckoo's Egg (Cliff Stoll) & Cyber Punk (Katie Hafner and John Markoff), both good reads.

[derekpapin]

Maybe it’s just me but I really don’t mind a sponsorship ad get that bag just put a bar under so I can skip to the end🤣

[icywiener]

The story of Pengo deserves a separate fullsized documentary along with John Markoff's existing book. I read it more than 20 years ago but the first time I saw photos of actors was your video. Thank you for great job.

[andythedishwasher]

Whenever I hear people talk about Illuminatus, I get the strong feeling most people are missing its sarcasm due to the modern context of disturbingly similar serious beliefs proliferating all around us. Wilson and Shea didn't think people would actually believe them. They were trying to clown on the Birchers while acknowledging the wildness of their times. They got way more than they bargained for when they published that book.

[Nimbs]

Such sick lighting in this video, props!

[theadamtron]

You should check out the documentary "into the realm" that documents the Australian hacking groups that were operating at the same time and had a connection with the Germans.