Robbert (Rop) Valentijn Gonggrijp (born 14 February 1968) is a Dutch

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

and one of the founders of XS4ALL.

Biography

Gonggrijp was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. While growing up in

Wormer Wormer is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Wormerland, and lies about 13 km northwest of Amsterdam. The town is situated in the Zaan district, on the eastern side of the river Zaan, across f ...

in the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

Zaanstreek area, he became known as a teenage hacker and appeared as one of the main characters in Jan Jacobs's book ''Kraken en Computers'' (''Hacking and computers'', Veen uitgevers 1985, ) which describes the early hacker scene in the Netherlands. Moved to

in 1988. Founded the

magazine

Hack-Tic ''Hack-Tic'' was a Dutch hacker magazine published between 1989 and 1994. Throughout its existence, ''Hack-Tic'' had a cult following and upset the authorities beyond the Dutch borders. History In 1988, a small delegation from the Chaos Comput ...

in 1989. He was believed to be a major security threat by authorities in the Netherlands and the United States. In the masthead of

, Gonggrijp described his role as ''hoofdverdachte'' ('prime suspect'). He was convinced that the Internet would radically alter society. In 1993, a number of people surrounding

including Gonggrijp founded XS4ALL. It was the first ISP that offered access to the Internet for private individuals in the Netherlands. Gonggrijp sold the company to the former enemy Dutch-Telecom KPN in 1997. After he left XS4ALL, Gonggrijp founded ITSX, a computer security evaluation company, which was bought by Madison Gurkha in 2006. In 2001, Gonggrijp started work on the ''Cryptophone'', a

mobile telephone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

that can

encrypt In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

conversations. Since 1989, Gonggrijp has been the main organizer of hacker events held every four years. Originally organized by the cast of

, these events have continued to live to this day. Throughout the years, he has repeatedly shown his concerns about the increasing amount of information on individuals that government agencies and companies have access to. Rop held a controversial talk titled "We lost the war" at the

Chaos Communication Congress The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and online ...

2005 in Berlin together with Frank Rieger. In 2006 he founded the organisation "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We do not trust voting computers") which campaigns against the use of electronic voting systems without a

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow ...

and which showed in October 2006 on Dutch television how an

electronic voting machine An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: '' optical scanning'' and '' direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning In an optical scan voting system, or marksense, each voter's choices ...

from manufacturer

Nedap Nedap (N.V. Nederlandsche Apparatenfabriek; ) is a Dutch multinational technology company. Its principal place of business is Groenlo, Netherlands. It has subsidiaries in the United States, Belgium, France, Germany, UK, the Netherlands and Spain, ...

could easily be hacked. These findings were taken seriously both by the Dutch government and by international election observers. On 16 May 2008 the Dutch government decided that elections would be held using paper ballots and red pencil only. A proposal to develop a new generation of voting computers was rejected. Gonggrijp has worked for

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

, helping prepare the

Collateral Murder On July 12, 2007, a series of air-to-ground attacks were conducted by a team of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad, during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the invasion of Iraq. On April 5, 2010, the attacks ...

April 2010 release of video footage from a Baghdad airstrike. On 14 December 2010, in relation to ongoing investigations of WikiLeaks, the

US Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

issued a subpoena ordering Twitter to release information regarding Gonggrijp's account as well as those of

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...

Birgitta Jónsdóttir Birgitta Jónsdóttir (born 17 April 1967) is an Icelandic politician, anarchist, poet, and activist. She was a Member of the Althing (MP) for the Southwest Constituency from 2013 to 2017, representing the Pirate Party, having been elected at th ...

Jacob Appelbaum Jacob Appelbaum (born 1 April 1983) is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker. He studied at the Eindhoven University of Technology and was a core member of the Tor project, a free software network des ...

and all 637,000 users following @wikileaks. The reason is Gonggrijp's assistance in enabling WikiLeaks to release the "Collateral Murder" video in April 2010, a WikiLeaks action.Rop Gonggrijp
On the Twitter court order
blog post, 10 January 2011

References

External links

Personal blog

(Dutch and English)

(Hack-Tic archive)

History of XS4ALL (in Dutch)

interview with Gonggrijp (in Dutch)

Interview on Voting machines (in Dutch)

Extensive Talk with Rop Gonggrijp about his life and the hacker communities in the Netherlands and Germany (in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gonggrijp, Rop 1968 births Living people People from Amsterdam Computer security specialists Cypherpunks WikiLeaks Dutch magazine founders Dutch company founders 20th-century Dutch businesspeople 21st-century Dutch businesspeople