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computer guidance systems. These back doors would allow the French military to send a radio signal to the on-board computer, rendering the weapons harmless to the Allies.

The scheme, neat as it appears, was never put to the test. The Iraqis never used their Exocets during the conflict – perhaps because they too had heard the stories. On the other hand, the entire scenario could well have been simply French disinformation.

It was in this murky world of espionage and double-cross that the Soviet hacker gang found itself. The Germans were utter neophytes in this world, and probably too high to notice that this wasn’t just another computer game. Inevitably, there is another explanation of the break-ins at the French computers at Philips-France and SGS-Thomson. It goes like this: in 1986 and 1987 Mossad was becoming increasingly worried about deliveries of French weaponry to Iraq and other Arab states. Some of the electronic components for these weapons were designed at the two companies. The Israelis wanted to destroy or steal the data for these components, and to do so they hacked into the companies’ computers, using the techniques Mossad knew were being used by the Germans. Mossad knew the German hackers would get the blame. Indeed, the Israelis knew Pengo and Koch were wandering about the same computers. But the two Germans didn’t destroy anything of value, or steal anything worth billions of francs. That was Mossad.

Koch, with his love of conspiracies, would have appreciated such a theory. The Illuminati – the French police, the KGB, the Stasi, Mossad – were real after all.

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