René Carmille

René Carmille (born Trémolat, Dordogne, 1886; died Dachau, Bavaria, 25 January 1945) was a punched card computer expert and comptroller general of the French Army in the early 20th century. In World War II he was a double agent for the French Resistance and part of the Marco Polo Network. He ran the Demographics Department (Service de la démographie) of Vichy which soon through a merger with the SGF (General Statistics of France) became the new National Statistics Service, which he continued to head up. In this capacity, he sabotaged the Nazi census of France, saving untold numbers of Jewish people from death camps. The IEEE newspaper, The Institute, describes Carmille as being an early ethical hacker: "Over the course of two years, Carmille and his group purposely delayed the process by mishandling the punch cards. He also hacked his own machines, reprogramming them so that they’d never punch information from Column 11 [which indicated religion] onto any census card." He also used his department to help mobilize French resistance in Algeria.

Carmille was arrested in Lyon on 3 February 1944. He was interrogated for two days by Klaus Barbie but did not break under torture. He was caught by the Nazis and sent to Dachau where he died on 25 January 1945.

A short documentary was released about Carmille in 2010 called Interregnum which stars Nicole Stamp.