Rop Gonggrijp

Early Life

Robbert Valentijn Gonggrijp was born on 14 February 1968 in Amsterdam. He grew up in Wormer, in the Dutch Zaanstreek region, where he became known as a teenage hacker. His early activities in the Dutch hacker scene were notable enough to earn him a prominent place in Jan Jacobs's 1985 book Kraken en Computers (Hacking and Computers, Veen uitgevers), one of the first accounts of the emerging hacker culture in the Netherlands. He relocated to Amsterdam in 1988.

Hack-Tic and Early Career

In 1989, Gonggrijp founded Hack-Tic, a Dutch hacker magazine that became a central publication for the country's hacker community. His self-described role in the magazine's masthead was hoofdverdachte — Dutch for "prime suspect" — reflecting both his reputation and his sense of humor about the scrutiny he attracted. Authorities in both the Netherlands and the United States reportedly considered him a significant security threat during this period. Also beginning in 1989, Gonggrijp took on the role of main organizer of hacker events held every four years, a responsibility he has continued to hold.

XS4ALL and Internet Pioneering

In 1993, Gonggrijp and a group of people connected to Hack-Tic founded XS4ALL, which became the first internet service provider to offer internet access to private individuals in the Netherlands. The venture reflected Gonggrijp's long-held conviction that the internet would radically transform society. He sold XS4ALL to Dutch telecommunications company KPN in 1997.

Following his departure from XS4ALL, Gonggrijp founded ITSX, a computer security evaluation company. ITSX was subsequently acquired by Madison Gurkha in 2006.

Notable Work

In 2001, Gonggrijp began work on the Cryptophone, a mobile telephone designed to encrypt voice conversations, addressing growing concerns about communications privacy.

In 2006, he founded the organization "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We do not trust voting computers"), which campaigns against the use of electronic voting systems lacking a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail. In October 2006, the organization demonstrated on Dutch television how an electronic voting machine manufactured by Nedap could be compromised with relative ease. The findings were taken seriously by the Dutch government and by international election observers.

Gonggrijp contributed to WikiLeaks' preparation and release of the "Collateral Murder" video in April 2010, footage from a Baghdad airstrike that killed civilians, including two Reuters journalists. In December 2010, the US Department of Justice issued a subpoena ordering Twitter to release account information related to Gonggrijp, alongside Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Jacob Appelbaum, and all followers of the @wikileaks account.

Digital Rights and Privacy Advocacy

Throughout his career, Gonggrijp has consistently raised concerns about the volume of personal information accessible to government agencies and corporations. In 2005, he delivered a talk titled "We Lost the War" at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, co-presented with Frank Rieger, addressing the erosion of privacy in the digital age.