Vladimir Levin

Vladimir Levin is a character in Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. He is the prosperous landowner who felt that democracy was the answer to the great divide that existed between the aristocracy and the peasants in Tsarist Russia.

Vladimir Levin is also the handle of the mathematician who is alleged to be the mastermind of the Russian hacker gang that stole $10 million from Citibank's computer system. The bank was hacked from St. Petersburg, transferring the money to Finland, Israel, and California. A 1995 Byte Magazine Article has more detail, but to this day, the exact method he used to obtain the passwords is unknown. The hacker likely chose this name for its Robin Hood-like associations.