Klaus Brunnstein

Klaus Brunnstein (born May 25, 1937 in Cologne ; † May 19, 2015 in Hamburg ) was a German computer scientist and politician . He was considered the first computer scientist of academic rank in Germany, who made it his mission in the early 1980s to bring data protection and the security of information technology into the public discussion.

Life and work

Klaus Brunnstein studied physics and mathematics in Marburg , Münster and Hamburg. With a doctorate in physics , he was a member of the founding commission of the computer science course at the University of Hamburg from 1969 . There he was appointed professor for computer science applications in 1973 .

As one of the complainants, Brunnstein obtained the census ruling in 1983 , with which the right to informational self-determination was first recognized in Germany. Using PC software developed at his institute, he demonstrated at public events how easy it was to de-anonymize census records using the means available at the time.

In addition to data protection , Brunnstein dealt with IT security , computer viruses and the controllability of computer systems. In 1988 he founded the "Virus Test Center" at the University of Hamburg.

Brunnstein was President of the International Federation for Information Processing from 2002 to 2004 .

Brunnstein retired on September 30, 2004 and has been a Fellow of the Society for Computer Science since 2008 .

politics

Brunnstein was a member of the FDP until 1987 . From 1980 to 1983 he was regional chairman of the FDP in Hamburg , from 1981 to 1983 he was also a member of the FDP federal executive committee . He left the party after Ingo von Münch had become second mayor and president of the authorities for culture and for science and research in Hamburg . He gave the federal party "complicity" in the "systematic deterioration in data protection" and the "serious shortcomings of the 1987 Census Act".

From February 1983, when he replaced Helga Schuchardt , until the end of the electoral term in March of the same year, Brunnstein was a member of the German Bundestag .

Web links

• https://www.inf.uni-hamburg.de/de/inst/ab/svs/team/brunnstein.html
• Literature by and about Klaus Brunnstein in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prof. Dr. Klaus Brunnstein passed away. Retrieved January 11, 2018 . 
2. ↑ officiere.ch Hackerbibel : For a handful of data, ISBN 3-925817-24-7 .
3. ^ GI Fellow Klaus Brunnstein has passed away. Gesellschaft für Informatik , May 21, 2015, accessed on April 14, 2020 . 
4. ↑ FDP critic goes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1987, pp. 14 ( online ).