Edwin Robbe had a rough upbringing but found adventure and meaning among a group of daring hackers. Then his online life had an impact in the offline world.

Robbe was leaving her Rotterdam office when she noticed a man and a woman approaching her. The date was the afternoon of Tuesday, March 20th, 2012. Can I ask if you’re Mrs. Robbe? She confirmed this with a nod. The female, who was dressed casually in jeans and a black windbreaker, identified herself as a police officer. Please give me a moment of your time. This is concerning Edwin, your son. We have him under arrest. A stunned José just looked. The female inquired as to whether or not she might tag along. José reluctantly agreed.

The officer told her at the police car that they planned to surprise her son at the family home in Barendrecht, which is located south of Rotterdam. She inquired if José wished to witness the arrest of her son. No,” was her glum response. She felt terrible, like she had abandoned her son. To do nothing but watch would be disastrous. The cops left José off at a plaza outside a small supermarket, just a few blocks from her home after asking for her house keys. The officers’ departure with her problematic 17-year-old son made her feel bad. Eventually, three police officers came out of the home and led Edwin between them. He made no attempt to fight back.

After several failed attempts to get in touch with him, I was able to locate down Edwin’s contact information through a third party. My initial WhatsApp communications to him went unanswered. He answered from a different number when he did finally get back to me. My main question was why he decided to attack the largest telecom firm in the Netherlands, causing widespread disruption. I was curious as to how he had picked up his criminal skills and what had become of him after his imprisonment.

Our conversations were all over the place. At times he was warm and friendly, but then he’d withdraw. It could take him many days to respond to a message. He was, as it turned out, in Asia. Once, we even had a Skype conversation. I was hoping to set up a gathering. And he claimed he did as well.

No, we’ll never do it. Edwin had already passed away when I went to see his folks. Many times throughout our conversation, their recent death of a son surfaced unexpectedly. The fact that he was the last person to have seen Edwin alive weighed deeply on Ruud.

Edwin was taken from his mother when he was less than a year old. A baby would have been too much for her to handle on her own. She avoided physical contact with him for weeks. Edwin was fostered by José and Ruud. While José was in the medical field, Ruud worked as a chemical engineer at a pigment-making facility. They were looking for a good family to adopt baby Edwin.

Yet, he had a difficult childhood. I always assumed that his nervousness had its roots in his early childhood. As José recounted, “he just couldn’t connect with other people.” His stomach would always hurt, he said. There were numerous trips to the clinic or emergency room. There would be medical examinations at each visit. Sincerely, José speculated that it was all in his head. Edwin suffered from severe anxiety, but his doctors only looked for physiological explanations.

Edwin was not your typical child. His parents and instructors witnessed it. At a parent-teacher conference once, a mentor posed the question, “What’s genuinely wrong with him?” He seems to have few if any pals. When Edwin was in the company of others, he became tense, clammed up, and distant.

He rarely engaged in physical activity or went outside. He would rather be in his room, upstairs at the computer. His parents gave in, happy that he had found something he enjoyed doing. They had very little expertise in the field of computing. A computer was used occasionally for sending emails and researching vacations.

Edwin attended a technical high school, and then in 2010 he enrolled in an information technology program at Albeda College in Rotterdam. He mentioned that he was interested in working with computers. His parents gave him money to buy a computer, which he assembled himself. It was quite powerful and had a large memory card. His bedroom became the new home for it. Jose reflects, “it might have been our biggest error.”

Edwin was so preoccupied with his new toy that he only left it to eat. His parents would occasionally catch peeks of what he was up to. He was most interested in games in which innocent people were killed, such as those in which amusement parks were constructed and visitors were thrown from them. Several first-person shooter games were also available. According to Ruud, “we assumed it would be all right in the end because he took classes in ethics at school.”

Edwin spent 42 days in jail after his arrest, was found guilty of hacking, and received a 240-day suspended prison term and community work. Instead of doing community service, he served his sentence. Edwin became even more reclusive afterward. He used tranquilizers and other medications as a means of self-medication. Edwin’s father often came home to find the house littered with the leaves and plants he had used to make a psychedelic concoction.

Edwin had reached a point of paranoid delusion and began to object to everything. His parents felt helpless as they watched the situation worsen. De Bouman, the rehabilitation center in Rotterdam where he was committed, discharged him after a week, citing his behavior as the reason. Edwin wanted to move back in with his father, Ruud, but at age 22, his father was not ready to take care of him.

Ruud felt terrible as he turned away Edwin, who was standing on his doorstep. Come on, Edwin pleaded. But Ruud had reached his breaking point. We can’t, he declared. I apologize. With a backpack, Edwin went. No one in his family knew where he was going.

When Ruud didn’t hear from someone for a while, he reached out via WhatsApp and email. As for Edwin, he only answered one email with, “Yes, everything’s good. It’s Pyongyang, North Korea, right now. A picture was included with the message. Edwin appeared in all black, with a striking array of chains decorating his jacket. There was a Korean soldier by his side. He was photographed alongside an image of Kim Jong-un, leader of North Korea (probably, in fact, a tourist attraction in South Korea). During a lengthy email exchange, Edwin finally said, “They monitor things like WhatsApp and phones.” But, at least they have computers now. His communication was one of the last he ever sent. A respectful nod from Ruud. Should I have allowed him to return? he questioned himself. Would it have been better to give him another chance? My patience had run out. I simply was unable to proceed.

I preferred to hear Edwin tell it. When we had our one and only Skype conversation, he was staying in a South Korean hotel. Around the eight-minute mark of our conversation, he hung up with a grin and a peace sign. After that, our WhatsApp conversations became more infrequent. His final communications were filled with gloom. He wrote, “I don’t like it here; they’ve got firearms; and I want to get out of here as soon as possible.” He stopped answering my KPN-related questions. Then, a reliable source got in touch with me. Were you aware of Edwin’s passing?” His body was discovered in a hotel tub near Seoul’s main airport. From the inside, he had blocked the door to his room with various pieces of furniture and pillows. When I visited them, José and Ruud showed me photos of Edwin from his childhood and told me about his troubled upbringing. As I recounted my final moments with him, they inquired as to his health and Ruud remarked, “That was shortly before he died.”

They told me that Edwin’s arrest and imprisonment were the turning point, and that everything went downhill from there. And if it’s so simple to break in somewhere, shouldn’t we be concerned about a far larger social issue? It didn’t help that Edwin’s parents only had a vague idea of what he did. Authorities’ use of technical jargon in their case against Edwin was lost on them. This was “one of the most serious hacks in Dutch history,” the public prosecutor said. Edwin’s work had a “ingenious” impact on KPN and, by extension, on society as large. KPN estimates that they lost $3 million due to this.

KPN increased its system security after the incident. Despite Edwin’s prompt guilty plea and cooperative nature during the judicial inquiry, the public prosecutor was quite harsh in his criticism. He claimed that Edwin’s behavior posed a “imminent danger to life” with his “malicious and premeditated” conduct. As Ruud put it, “we truly had no idea what he was up to.” It really hit home to him how different the dangers of the internet are from the actual world. We never considered that he might be responsible for something like this.

The use of technology makes me nervous now, Ruud said. He is frustrated when he tries to file his taxes online but is unable to access the site. “There are times when I worry that someone else is posing as myself. My reliance on technologies I don’t fully grasp causes me anxiety.

To that end, we’d like to ask you a favor. Since its inception 200 years ago, tens of millions of people have relied on the Guardian’s courageous journalism in times of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity, and hope. We’re able to remain accessible to everyone and fiercely autonomous because to the more than 1.5 million patrons we’ve attracted from 180 countries. Will you join us in making a difference?

The Guardian is not owned by a corporation or a millionaire, unlike many other publications. Just the will and drive to provide insightful global reporting that is never skewed by commercial or political considerations. This kind of reporting is crucial for democracy, for justice, and for holding the powerful to a higher standard.

And there is no charge for anyone to read this information that we supply. We act in this way due to our commitment to sharing knowledge equally. The number of people who are aware of and educated about the global events that are shaping our globe and who are motivated to take constructive action has increased. Millions of people, regardless of their financial situation, can benefit from free, open access to reliable news.