René Carmille

René Carmille (8 January 1886 – 25 January 1945) was a French humanitarian, civil servant, and member of the French Resistance. During World War II, Carmille saved tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied France. In his capacity at the government's Demographics Department, Carmille sabotaged the Nazi census of France, saving tens of thousands of Jewish people from death camps.

IEEE 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.