[Previous: Open letter to Nature Part 1] [Next: To be advised].
This is the first instalment of part 2 of my "Open letter to Nature: Shroud of Turin: Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker?" See Part 1 for information about this series.
The hacker and his accomplice I have identified the hacker and his accomplice[JS25], as Timothy Weiler Linick (1946-89)[JS89] and Karl Werner Koch (1965-89)[KKW]. As previously mentioned, the three laboratories' AMS systems were not online, so while Linick could install and test his program on Arizona's AMS computer, he needed a hacker to install his program on Zurich and Oxford's identical AMS computers[RTB].
Linick was a physicist at Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory, in Tucson[JS89]. He "did the programs"[MJ20b] at Arizona laboratory, that is, Linick was its Systems Administrator. Linick was "extremely mathematically gifted"[JS89]. But Linick had major psychological and personal problems. He was extremely introverted[RTB], suffered from depression[RTB] and had threatened to commit suicide[RTB]. Linick was separated from his wife and young son[RTB] ansd had become an "underachiever"[RTB].
Linick was quoted in Shroud sceptic David Sox's 1988 book, "Unmasking the Shroud":
"Timothy Linick, a University of Arizona research scientist, said: `If we show the material to be medieval that would definitely mean that it is not authentic. If we date it back 2000 years, of course, that still leaves room for argument. It would be the right age - but is it the real thing?'s[SH88, 147].This was despite Linick having, along with all present at Arizona laboratory's first dating of the Shroud on 6 May 1988, signed a confidentiality agreement:
"... not to communicate the results to anyone-spouse, children, friends, press, etc., until that time when results are generally available to the public."[GH96, 262].While the Shroud's dating was ongoing, leaks appeared in the British media that the Shroud had been dated as "medieval"[WI88] and "1350"[WI88]. The Editor of the British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, Ian Wilson, publicly concluded that Sox was "the true source of possibly all the leaks"[WI88]. Sox later admitted that he was indeed the source of those leaks[PM96, 49], But Wilson realised that Sox was only the secondary source of the leaks and his "`inside information ...can only have come from Arizona or Zurich" laboratories[WI88]. Zurich radiocarbon dating laboratory Director Willy Wolfli was the source of the "medieval" leak to Sox[RP88] and Linick was the source of the "`1350" leak to Sox[RTB]. ...
Koch was a confessed and convicted paid hacker for the KGB[RTB]. He had been a member of a three-man hacker ring[RTB]. The other members were Markus Hess (1962-)[MHW] and Hans Heinrich Hübner (1968-)[HHW]. From West Germany they logged into insecure computers in other countries via a free dial-up modem service called Tymnet[TYM]. From those insecure computers they logged into other insecure computers, and copied information from them which they took into East Germany and sold to the KGB[RTB], Hess had hacked into an estimated 400 military, government and business computers, mainly in the USA[MHW]. In 1986 Hess was detected and caught hacking into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory by Clifford Stoll (1950-). Hess was convicted of espionage in West Germany, but due to a bungle by the West German police, who did not catch him in the act of hacking as planned, Hess escaped on appeal, with a suspended sentence[MHW]. Koch and Hübner, rightly fearing that the authorities were closing in on them, independently took advantage of West Germany's amnesty law for espionage, if they turned themselves in before they were caught, fully confessed their hacking and cooperated fully with the prosecution, which they did[RTB]. Koch and Hübner were each convicted of espionage but were not imprisoned[RTB]. However Koch had not confessed his hacking of Zurich and Oxford laboratories' AMS computers for the KGB[RTB], which if the West German authorities had found out, Koch would have breached the terms of his amnesty and he would have been imprisoned for all the hackings he had confessed to, as well as the hacking of Zurich and Oxford's radiocarbon dating of the Shroud[RTB]!
In March 1989, a well-known American Shroud author (with the pseudonym "Harry" because he does not want his name being revealed publicly[MJ20a, 515]) received a phone call about 1:30am[MJ20a, 515], The caller did not apologise for the lateness of the hour[MJ20a, 516], so presumably he was not phoning from within America. He had a German-sounding male voice[MJ20a, 516]. The caller sounded extremely distraught[MJ20a, 516]. He told Harry that he had been involved in falsifying the results of the 1988 dating of the Shroud[MJ20a, 516]. The caller mentioned the word "espionage" in relation to his having falsified the Shroud dating[MJ20a, 516]. The caller repeatedly refused to identify himself, explaining that he could get into some real trouble if he did[MJ20a, 516]. This can only have been Koch. While a German hoaxer might conceivably know about the German hackers who had been convicted of espionage, only Koch would know about both him having been convicted of espionage and his part in the hacking of the Shroud! This is proof beyond reasonable doubt that my Linick-Koch hacker theory is true!
Koch was found dead of assumed suicide on 1 June 1989[RTB], and Linick was found dead of assumed suicide on 4 June 1989[RTB]. Koch had left his workplace, the office of the West German Christian Democratic Party, in Hanover, West Germany[RTB] on 23 May 1989, in his employer's car to deliver a parcel across Hanover but he never arrived there[CM92, 163].
A farmer checking his irrigation noticed a car parked on the edge of a forest opposite his farm, near the town of Celle, about 44.6 km. (27.7 mi.) from Hanover and called the police[RTB]. They found Koch's burnt body near the car[RTB]. Koch had been burnt alive by having been doused with gasoline and set alight[RTB]. Being burnt alive was a punishment by the KGB for its spies who has betrayed the KGB's own secrets[RTB]. Koch's fellow hackers Hess and Hübner were unharmed[RTB], because although, like Koch, they had confessed to hacking government and business secrets for the KGB, only Koch had later been found by the KGB to have betrayed is own hacking of the Shroud's radiocarbon dating (as we shall see)[RTB].
The police assumed that Koch's death was suicide[RTB]. But that was impossible[RTB]. Koch's burnt body was found at the edge of a forest[RTB]. It was summer and the forest was dry[RTB]. Yet the gasoline fire which killed Koch had been controlled in a circle around his body[RTB] and extinguished[RTB]. No fire extinguishing equipment was found nearby[RTB]. And Koch could not have extinguished the gasoline fire which killed him[RTB]! There was no reason for Koch to have committed suicide[RTB]: he was had been granted an amnesty from imprisonment for his hacking, under West Germany's espionage law[RTB], he was recovering from drug addiction[RTB], had become a Christian[RTB], and had a job[RTB]. Koch would have read the news in February 1989 that three radiocarbon dating laboratories, including those at Zurich and Oxford universities, had dated the Shroud as 1260-1390 and he would have realised that the hacking the KGB had required him to do at those two universities in 1988 was the Shroud's radiocarbon dating (as we shall see). On 3 June 1989 the West German police publicly identified the burnt body as Koch's[RTB].
To be continued in the third instalment of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
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Posted 19 June 2026. Updated 19 June 2026
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