Johan '
Julf' Helsingius of
Finland is one of the early pioneers of the
Internet and the famed owner of the once very busy
penet.fi anonymous remailer.
Helsingius' career in networking and IT is convincing. He's one of the founding members of FUUG (Finnish Unix User Group), started the first commercial ISP in Finland: EUnet Finland and one of the first pan-European ISP's: EUNet International. Helsingius is also the person who first hooked up the Soviet Union to the Net. He maintained the world's most used anonymous remailer before being forced to close by the wacky Scientologists in 1996 and went on to become
the Chief Technology Officer for the network giant KPNQWest. He's also active in various organisations and standardization efforts.
In 1997 Johan was named EFF's "Pioneer of The Electronic Frontier" for his active role in shaping the Net.
Currently Helsingius is a consultant and investor and is actively involved in several smaller IT companies.