Johan "Julf" Helsingius, a Swedish-speaking Finn, has been living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, since 1997. As a result, he has affinity for (and a very hard time deciding between) both the Finnish and the Dutch chapters of ISOC.
His involvement with the net started back in the 1980's when Julf co-founded and served as the chairman for the Finnish UNIX Users Group, and managed the UUCP/USENET node for Finland. He subsequently started the first commercial internet service provider in Finland, as well as the Finnish Internet Exchange (FICIX), and helped set up network connectivity to the former Soviet Union.
Julf achieved world-wide notoriety as a result of implementing and operating the Penet remailer (anon.penet.fi), one of the most widely-known and popular e-mail-based pseudonym servers with over 600,000 users, from 1993 to 1996.
As a result of the unresolved questions related to anonymity on the net Julf became involved in the emerging legislation and policy issues, and was awarded the 1997 Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award.
In 1997 Julf moved to Amsterdam, and became responsible for product development for the first pan-European internet service provider, Eunet International.
From 1998 to 2001 Julf was Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President for KPNQwest, a global networking infrastructure and service company formed by Qwest Communications (Denver, Colorado) and KPN (Netherlands), with a backbone that was carrying more than 50% of European IP traffic.
Since leaving KPNQwest, Julf was a founding member of the board of the Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom, as well as Bridges.org, an international non-profit organisation that promoted the effective use of ICT in the developing world.
Julf was until recently Chairman of the Board for Viola Systems Oy, a company that provides Internet of Things solutions for remote data monitoring, visualization and control.
Julf is currently a Member of the Board for BaseN Networks Oy, an international technology company that develops and markets software as a service (SaaS) suite for public and private IoT infrastructure data management. He is also a member of the board of Technologia Incognita, a hackerspace association in Amsterdam.
