My private memoirs
Meta
The following text is not only
extensive, one could also consider it as an unsparing soul
striptease. Many would surely wonder how stupid (and/or
narcissistic) one can be, to put one's life in such a detail into
the net. Well, since most of my life has played out in data
networks, there is nothing to deny - almost everything can be
ergoogled. I therefore decided at some point to deal with my life
story in a completely transparent way and not to keep any secrets in
this respect. The very few things I consider really private are on
encrypted hard disks - they are more secure than in my memory, which
is extremely bad and unreliable.
Childhood
With pronounced (but undiagnosed) autistic trains I could hardly cope with my environment at first. In the kindergarten I was exactly three quarters of a day - after they wanted to take away the wooden railway for lunch (which anyway had too many defects on the wheels and buffers), I went crazy. Even in school I was always an outsider. Even in elementary school regular visits to the principal were called for, and the school system in general was desperate for my character. I made few social contacts and the interests of my classmates were completely alien to me. For example, I did not understand the concept of belonging to different styles of music and fashion until I was 15 years old.
Computer
Thanks to my big brother Stefan Kissel I had access to a computer - a Texas Instruments CC40 - for the first time at the age of 7 years. At the age of 10 he gave me my first computer, a Commodore C16, and I started programming and learning English based on BASIC manuals. In this world I was completely absorbed and felt at home.
As a further hobby I learned by heart from bus and tram timetables.
When we lived in Essen in the Ruhr area for a while, we also
travelled by tram and metro. At the age of 9, I was travelling alone
in trams in the Ruhr area on trams - one of the most beautiful
memories of my childhood. It wasn't a safety problem - I can
memorize all tracks and timetables.
Trial & Error - an iterative learning approach
Why did the constant school changes help me? They laid the
foundation for the rest of my life, which consisted of trial and
error. I could start again and again from the beginning, after I had
manoeuvred myself socially completely into the offside. So I began
to draw attention to myself as a clown at an early age, but learned
that I was actually laughed at. So I learned to analyse the psychic
weaknesses of the strongest in the class (the soccer players,
children of rich parents, etc.) and to make it a weapon in the
course of the numerous iterations. Now I was able to make them
laugh. That made me invulnerable. At some point I started to extend
the concept to the faculty. I couldn't see a limit, and I had no
sense of hurting other people. At the age of 13 I was ready to
become an invulnerable pack leader within a few weeks after entering
a new school. When I landed at a somewhat shady grammar school in
Wiesbaden after another move, I was surrounded by a lot of violence.
At that time I got myself a "gang" and had a personal protector - a
big, strong Italian. At that time I had finally become a tyrant. I
hunted schoolmates all over the city until they hid in a bakery and
fled the backyard - although these students were physically superior
to me, they were terrified of my psycho terror. Fearing me,
classmates took leave from school. I still didn't understand that
other people suffered because of me. They wanted to expel me from
school, my parents sued the state of Hesse - but in the end the case
was solved by moving to another state.
First contact with the demoscene
At that time I first came into contact with the demoscene. At the
time, the few existing computer freaks in the schoolyard were
exchanging floppy disks. Most of them were about games. These games
had often been robbed of their copy protection by cracking groups,
and instead they had an intro called "Intro". With music, a logo, a
scroll text and maybe some animations the crackers indicated how
good they were at removing copy protectors. Over time, this
competition of crackers shifted to whoever programmed the most
beautiful lead-in. In the next step, newly programmed opening
credits began to be exchanged via floppy disks without a cracked
game. And finally, the games were left out and shifted entirely to
programming real-time animations with music and effects, an early
C64 cracktro and playing against other groups as a group to advance
to the "elite". The works were now called "Demos"because they
demonstrated what the author could do, the groups had cool names,
and all the members of this community were just as cool
nicknames,"handles" - also because they were still connected to the
illegal cracker community and therefore had to remain anonymous. The
works were exchanged via "traders", who spent all their pocket money
copying floppy disks and sending them to their contacts around the
world. As the scene continued to grow, a hundred disks came together
every month. They also worked with fake stamps and anonymous post
boxes. At some point, the members of the scene began to meet at
different places in Europe over weekends. At the beginning this was
called "Copyparty", because the whole weekend floppy disks were
copied. With time, however, they also began to present new works to
others at these parties themselves. And so the "demoparty" was born
- they spent the weekend finishing their productions and then
showing them to the others. Later on, there were also competitions
where the actors and their demos competed against each other this
weekend. The average age at that time was 16-17 years.
When I immersed myself in this world, at the age of 13, I was still too young to go to these parties myself. But a classmate who was active as a trader got out and bequeathed me his floppy disk collection with demos, as well as his trading contacts. I started programming my first own little demos and swapping disks.
Mind the gap
I had already proved on my day at kindergarten as well as my
unaccompanied tram tours through the Ruhr area that I was strongly
interested in railways. When my father joined the Wiesbadener
Nassauische Touristikbahn - a steam train museum railway which was
plagued by misfortunes - as a member, he fulfilled a long cherished
dream: Becoming a train driver. DampfzugI was just as enthusiastic,
and at the age of 13 I became the youngest active member of the
association. My vocation as a computer freak was joined by another
hobby: rail games on a scale of 1:1, and as a train driver I was of
course still too young. But the club bought a big mini-bar-trolley
(much more powerful than the children's stuff that is used in
airplanes...) and from then on I took care of the catering on the
train weekend after weekend. That was a lot of fun for me, and as I
looked so cute with my railway uniform, there was also a lot of
tips. This was accompanied by the first television appearance of my
life: I had a short appearance in a report of the television
programme "Eisenbahn-Romantik". Even when we moved from Wiesbaden to
Bingen a little later, I had to accept the quite long journey to
Wiesbaden for another year on the weekend in order to be able to
participate. Because of recognizable similarities in our character
traits, my father quarrels with the association, with which the
chapter Railway was finished first for him, and not long after that
also for me.
The school rebel
At school, my interests were now focused exclusively on power and rebellion. I founded school newspapers, let myself be elected as a class president and later as a school spokesman with an intensive election campaign, and tried to fight against it wherever I felt wrong (and there are plenty of them in schools). In the end, I took the entire school system as an enemy was. After all, at that time I had made lasting friends for the first time, and I found the older schoolmates who came to my school newspaper team to be intellectually stimulating. After a rather successful student internship, I became a part-time reporter for the local newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung.
Modems, mailboxes and data networks
In
the meantime I had arrived in the world of data networks. In 1993 a
patron gave me my first modem and I started dialing into so-called
mailbox systems (BBS). I used it to produce gigantic phone bills. So
I became part of the FidoNet, a worldwide network of mailboxes,
which could be used to send something similar to emails and discuss
in a kind of forum. In 1994 I founded my own forum on the topic of
demoscene in Germany, and as a moderator I showed tyrannical traits
there as well. Nevertheless, the forum was extremely successful. I
also participated in regional meetings of operators and users of
mailboxes and got to know more people here. I had finally found a
home in the data networks. At the end of 1994 I had access to the
young Internet via ISDN for the first time, which was not very
spectacular at that time - the FidoNet was even more interesting. By
the way, my digital identity has been publicly documented since
then. One of the first search engines, Altavista, had gained access
to and indexed an archive of all FidoNet messages. When Google
opened in 1995, Google took over this archive again. That's why you
can find very bad and embarrassing love poems from this time of mine
at Google today, more than 20 years later. It's better not to.
My first demo party and my first business
All in all, 1995 was the year in which it all started in a hurry. I set up a computer shop (the part is described under Business). My father supported me to the best of his ability. At the same time, I had finally reached something similar to puberty and developed into a rather unpleasant person. Meanwhile, the school system was finally desperate for me and I for him. For a while I went to school while working in my computer shop, but then read it. Since my parents were already moving again, but I felt rooted in Bingen in the meantime, I moved from home to my first own place.
The first self-organized event
Already one year later I decided to
organize a demo party myself - quite a mammoth task. I decided that
the concept of the anarchist and rebellious demoparty could be
further developed by moving the whole thing into a tent in the
forest - the contrast between computer freaks and nature couldn't be
greater. I took over the name "Underground Conference"and some
organizers of the first UC supported me. A sudden onset of winter in
May made this party a survival training for its visitors, who came
in smaller numbers than expected. I had miscalculated my financial
situation and was totally indebted after the event. For weeks I ate
from the leftover frozen French fries (I thought it was fun to
deep-fry in the forest). At the same time, I am making my first
experiences with the female gender. On the Internet, I discovered
Internet Relay Chat and moved my social life to chatting for the
most part.
Puberty and crash
A rather gloomy phase of my youth began. My
father could no longer bear the losses of the computer shop, my
place was extremely dirty and I suffered from depression. My second
relationship broke up with almost fanatical jealousy and fear of
loss on my part. I turned away from the demoscene for a good two
years. In keeping with my dark mood, I turned to the cracking scene
instead of the demoscene - as their activities were illegal, the
participants were much more conspiratorial. Personal meetings were
out of the question, everything was anonymous. I became a member of
the United Cracking Force, a leading group at the time. For the use
of this cracking scene I developed a chat system, which for the
first time created a bridge between the IRC and the World Wide Web
(WWW). This later formed the basis for my commercial product
"Chatjet". Thanks to a patron from my days as a computer technician,
I had the capital to transform the failed computer shop into a
limited liability company specializing in software development. An
acquaintance from IRC moved to Bingen to work for my company. I
brought a friendly cracker from Russia to Germany to be there, too.
The rest of the team consisted of local friends and family.
Commercial things went a little better now, and it was enough to
feed the team for a few years.
Back to the demoscene
After
I had gone up again with myself and puberty and depression were
mostly gone, I returned to the demoscene in 1998. In 1998 I hosted
another Underground Conference. Although this was again subject to
losses, it went much better and was perceived by everyone as a great
success. In 1999 the next party followed immediately, which had
become known as unique in style.
Excursion: The Women and the Nerds
Female computer freaks were thus a myth. From today's point of view, this reality is misunderstood: One wonders why there are so few women in the IT professions and often suspects sexism of the male nerds behind it. The opposite is true. At that time, nerds were simply perceived as unattractive wizards, outsiders and losers, the lower end of any social scale. It wasn't something you would choose voluntarily. Girls who might have had the potential to become a nerd as a child will have been suppressed by their parents and environment. There is still the potential for those who can't be talked out of being nerd: Autistic. Now, however, autism occurs four times as often in men genetically as in women. The conditions for the emergence of female demosceners were therefore quite bad.
The demoscene, on the other hand, has been trying to attract more women for years at the earliest. Women were not treated with sexism, but with respect (or even fear). It was a good decade of tradition that women had free access to demoparties because they wanted to promote their appearance (although this was certainly also the hope of being able to get in touch with women through this channel at all).
The
Internet and the Internet Relay Chat had become relatively well
known by then, however, and already had over a hundred thousand
participants. Thus, despite all the statistical improbability, women
appear there for the first time, and among them were some nerds who
came into contact with the demoscene through this channel. For the
first time at the turn of the millennium, female nerds were present
at demoparties for the first time. The result was a new problem:
There were now two types of women at parties. On the one hand, the
girlfriends dragged along by demoscene people, who in part welcomed
the fact that they were seen by several hundred boys as an object of
desire. On the other hand, there were also active creative female
nerds. They did not want to be seen as a hunting object, but rather
- like the male sceneries - they wanted to be judged on their skills
and creative achievements. To look good made this distinction even
more complicated. When in 1999 a female nerd appeared in the
German-speaking IRC channels of the demoscene, who was both
creatively active as a graphic designer and also very good-looking,
the excitement was of course great.


I get to know my spouse - over the internet!
The young lady and I started talking more and more in IRC and we got along well. At the Demoparty Mecca & Symposium 1999 I met her personally for the first time. My appearance must have been confusing: I had brought along a trailer load of straw bales to the party, which I distributed around my computer place, and an exaggeratedly huge sound system. And finally, I had hung a quake t-shirted and stabbed sex doll from the ceiling - this should be a protest against the fact that more and more players turned up at the creativity-dedicated demoparties. Add to that my black dyed hair, which was rightly called by other scenes as "Wischmob", sunglasses and Fila sneakers - a really strange figure. After all, there was a spark between us. A short time later we were in love and found ourselves in a long-distance and weekend relationship. At the third "Underground Conference" we appeared as a couple and have remained so ever since.
My first trade fair appearances and the dot-com bubble
At
that time, the "Dot Com Bubble" was in the process of bloating.
Suddenly, Internet companies were totally hip. For the first time,
nerds were no longer perceived as mere outsiders, but for the first
time it was recognized in the beginning that they might have been in
the process of reshaping the future of humanity. With my chat system
I am exhibiting at several computer fairs during these years, among
them the Systems in Munich, the Internet World in Berlin. I was
supported by two good friends from Bingen. They are still my closest
friends and they also work for Viprinet.
I had found my great love, I was successful and respected in the
demoscene, and business was pretty good. Life was good. I organized
further editions of the Underground Conference, as well as other
demos and tools. When the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, it hardly
affected me at all - an investor who entered my company shortly
before the bubble burst went bankrupt, but we were allowed to keep
the invested money. My biggest expense item was a dedicated line
with 2 MBit/s, at that time an insane speed - but also incredibly
expensive.
The train is coming, fourth act
At
that time, my father fulfilled a dream that was absolutely equal to
my madness: he bought an old rail car from Esslingen from the 1950s
together with a sidecar and founded a railway company - the
"Rheinhessische Eisenbahn"(Rhine-Hessian Railway). The aim was to
offer excursions on the railway line from Bingen to the Hunsrück
mountains, which had been shut down for a long time. This was not an
easy goal, because Deutsche Bahn tried to prevent this by every
means possible - legally speaking, it should not have allowed the
track to deteriorate, but would have been legally obliged to
maintain it. But even my father was not reluctant to have a good
quarrel and brought Deutsche Bahn to its knees in court. And so
indeed some of the special trips took place, and our whole family
helped us. Within this framework, I took the train driver's
examination at my father's company and was now allowed to drive the
railcar myself. The whole thing culminated in a completely crazy
adventure - the hack train.
A
well known member of the German hacker community - Enno Lenze - came
up with the idea that it would be a great thing to have a special
train to the annual hacker congress "Chaos Communication Congress"
in Berlin. After he had collected cancellations from all accessible
railway companies, he posted in Usenet (a forum system related to
FidoNet, which already existed on the internet before the WWW),
whether someone had an idea how to realize the whole thing. I read
this post again and contacted them. I suggested to carry out the
tour with our Esslingen railcar. A completely insane plan was
created:
On the second Christmas holiday in 2002, a train full of hackers was
supposed to travel from Mainz via the Ruhr area and Hanover to
Berlin on an 18-hour journey - and three days later return to
Berlin. And all this with a 50-year-old railcar with a top speed of
80 km/h and two Hobbylok drivers (my father and I). But everyone
involved was at least as enthusiastic as crazy, and that's how we
did it. The age of the train was contrasted with a considerable
willingness to innovate. And so there were things that the Deutsche
Bahn did not exist until 10 years later, or until today. First of
all there was a sophisticated booking system, where you could choose
your seat in a graphical overview and also see which other hackers
were sitting around you. There was an interactive jukebox system
where you could upload your own songs, and then all the passengers
could vote online which songs would be played next. Only Internet
access was not yet available - unfortunately I had invented the
necessary technology only 4 years later....
The journey itself was not without problems - 50 years earlier, the railcar had not been designed neither for such a long distance nor for such a target audience. We had to carry diesel barrels in the train, and in between we had to refuel the train with them. The power generators, which had to supply the necessary juice for all the technology brought along, were also not completely maintenance-free. The biggest problem, however, was that the heater did not work properly in the rear sidecar. So the heating had to be done with laptop waste heat. Fortunately, the participants were enthusiastic about it and for them, the journey was also part of the goal. As a train driver, my father and I came close to our limits - non-train drivers always massively underestimate how much uninterrupted continuous concentration means driving a fully manned train. All in all, it was another experience that enriched my life incredibly and I wouldn't want to miss it.
One size bigger, please: Breakpoint
In 2002, the organizers of the
demoparty, which at that time was the largest German and meanwhile
the second most important demoparty in the world with more than 500
participants, disagreed and announced that the party, which has been
taking place since 1996, would not be continued. For the demoscene
this was a super-GAU. Although I had only experience in organizing
my small Unterground Conference with less than 100 participants, I
got in touch with the organizers and offered to set up a follow-up
party. The offer was accepted and parts of the previous organisation
team changed into my leadership. While the party had taken place in
the far north, it was now moved to Bingen - otherwise it would not
have been possible for me. For the first edition of this new party
"Breakpoint" I had rented a former Bundeswehr depot on a hill above
quite adventurous paths. As with my first organized UC, the weather
made me forget about it. In the unheated hall it drew like pike
soup, the rented gigantic fan heaters had no chance, although they
burned thousands of liters of fuel oil (and thus my money) over the
weekend. The party got the nickname "Freezepoint", but it was still
a success. As with the UC, I had reduced the commercial aspects and
made the party "rougher". So meadows were part of the party and
there was a big campfire. That was very well received. So the party
was still a success.
From 2003 to 2010 I hosted the party every year, and it grew from
year to year and was optimized under every aspect. In 2009, for the
first time we were in a situation where we could hardly think of
anything better to do. With 1100 participants and a budget of over
50,000 euros, the event had become a huge financial risk.
The further history of Breakpoint can be found at Wikipedia and in more detail on the Breakpoint Website nachlesen.
I invent broadband bundling and found Viprinet
The construction of Viprinet parallel to the huge annual event Breakpoint kept me on my toes, and I was working at full capacity both nervously and financially. In 2006 I also decided to host another Underground Conference, because many of the scenes and myself missed this anarchistic and "raw" demo party. And so I sat there and satirized my own big demoparty, which with its sponsors like Intel and Nvidia as well as the attention of the press had become a little bit commercial and mainstream in the meantime.
Life at the limit and enemies for life
Reverberation
All my life I have been analysing myself, talking to myself, and trying to actively change myself. If you start as an autistic social phobia, this is simply necessary to find a good place in society. After the shareholder war was halfway over, it was time for intense self-criticism. As in my school days, I did not pay enough attention to the feelings of my co-partners. If I had reacted less mercilessly, analytically and directly, many conflicts would have been significantly defused. Perhaps even the escalation to a shareholder war could have been prevented somehow, apart from giving up the option of letting me and my friends and family destroy the company I had built up. I realized that I could have a better life if I made fewer enemies by paying more attention to my business partners' sensitivities and that other people, unlike me, were not driven and controlled by logic. Since then I have intensified my efforts to become a better and more socially responsible person. I begin to understand how other people work, what drives them. Instead of identifying weaknesses as I used to do in the past, I now take into account the vulnerabilities of other people.
I feel terrorized
Although I was still active in the demoscene, I was primarily responsible for providing the internet connection for every demo party with Viprinet technology that took place in Germany as well as some international demoparties and acted as a sponsor. However, these activities were only half-private. For years, I had virtually no time left for a private life.
When terror becomes everyday life
After a certain rhythm of "Mr. W. ceases to file criminal charges, I invalidate the accusations, the public prosecutor's office ceases to investigate, Mr. W. lodges a complaint against it, the public prosecutor's office examines and also ceases to investigate", and Mr. W. ceases. Even with his private suits I didn't succeed in a decisive destruction blow, I had arranged myself with these circumstances to such an extent that I was no longer nervously walking on my gums. As far as I could take the liberty, I began to travel more with my partner and to get relaxation and compensation for the stress caused by defending myself against the attacks of my former partner and the parallel management of my now quite large company. I also hoped that if I would just sit out the attacks and not start a counter-attack, Mr. W. might lose interest at some point and return to his own life and business. After he had let the original GERES Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, which was centrally located in his group of companies, go bankrupt, and after all that you could read on the internet, there should have been more urgent tasks in his life than revenge on me.
Getting it off my chest (in front of an audience, obviously)
As early as 2012,
a rough manuscript circulated within the company on the adventurous
story. At the time I heard more often that the material was suitable
for filming, but I didn't follow it any further. In fact, however, I
found ways to process the history and the traumas suffered: On the
one hand there is this website here (respectively its forerunner,
which Mr. W. had censored by way of legal action and erased from the
Google index), on the other hand there are lectures in the context
of the "FuckUp Nights". The FuckUp Nights are a global movement born
in Mexico in 2012 to spread the word that failure and resurrection
is not a shame, but a virtue. In the course of short presentations,
entrepreneurs report on how they built up rubbish and then get back
on their feet. Especially in Germany, a country where one is branded
with a terrible stigma after an insolvency, there was and still is a
great need for such clarification. My best friend was a leading
member of the organisation team of the first FuckUp Night in
Frankfurt, which took place at the beginning of 2015. When she asked
me if I was interested in telling my story there, I immediately
agreed. It was liberating to be able to share the experienced
suffering with an audience that hung on my lips. As a result, I held
a comparable lecture in the middle of 2015 at the Innovation Forum
at Villa Bosch in Heidelberg. Once again, the topic was so well
received there that I was invited by the University of Heidelberg in
the autumn of this year to tell my story again in front of the full
house. When I was in South Africa for the Viprinet roadshow in 2016,
I told the story at a Johannesburg University. And in the fall of
2016 I returned to Frankfurt with another aspect of the story. In
front of more than 1,000 spectators I was able to convey the
problems I had suffered in life by having, as a nerd, all my
analytical and logical observations and conclusions in people's
faces all my life, and how I learned from them.
Mr W. just does not stop
Viprinet has grown up
After having had to
make a few significant corrections to Viprinet's course in 2015 and
the associated tough cuts in management, I managed to solve many of
the company's problems in the course of 2016. Above all, I managed
to build up and strengthen a management team in such a way that
everything no longer has to wander over my boss's table. This is
also important to me personally, because I gained an important
insight about a year ago: I don't really enjoy the operational
management of larger groups of people, and if you look at my life
story, you wouldn't necessarily assume that this could be my
calling. What fulfills me in my work is analyzing and inventing,
developing strategies and recognizing future opportunities. On the
other hand, if you have to manage 50 employees, you can become a
zookeeper just as well - communication problems, emotions and
sensitivities are always at stake. Bureaucracy comes with a certain
size of company. It matured in me the realization that there was
actually only one reason why I had become the operative boss and
clung to it: My traits of a control freak. So I had to change this
property, and the key to giving up control is trust. After the
assembled management team had been "round" for me since the
beginning of 2016, I started to hand over responsibility and
decision-making authority to it step by step. With this I create a
little free space and air for myself to breathe.
Back to the future
My aim for the near future is to slowly withdraw from the operating business of Viprinet. For the first time in my life, I now voluntarily give up power and control. As soon as I am no longer required for the operative management of day-to-day business, I want to become more creative and inventive again. I also want to have a more personal life with more time for my friends, family and the demoscene. At Viprinet, of course, I want to continue to create meaning and strategy for Viprinet and help with the analysis and alignment, and I also want to continue to be in the spotlight as a front man, so that it benefits the company (my ego is no longer dependent on it). At the same time, however, I also want to launch some of my new inventions in the form of start-ups and finally implement my plans for the Bingen Innovation Park. So I don't think it's going to be boring.
Interim conclusion
If I continue to work on myself and optimize myself, I can achieve even greater things. I'm pretty sure I'll succeed. My ego will see to it that you learn about it. :)