In 2008, literary scholar Johannes Ullmaier was invited to speak at the annual meeting of Chaos Computer Club. As his topic, he chose the personal journal written by German anarchist and poet Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 – 10 July 1934), and the way it was used against him by the authorities after Mühsam’s incarceration in 1919.

In his talk, Ullmaier interprets the historical facts as foreboding characteristics of a ‘stone age of surveillance’, which allows him to draw parallels to contemporary legislation on privacy and surveillance in Germany.