Bryce Case Jr. AKA YTCracker - Anonymous Hacker | SRS #85

hey everybody it's Thanksgiving. 2023 we're releasing our Thanksgiving. special we were actually going to break. this up into several portions because. the episode is that good but me and the. team. decided to release it and give it to you. all in one shebang because we know there. are a lot of you out there who are. spending this day alone so we want to. give you something to enjoy with my next. guest what a fascinating.

Gentlemen The Hacker. Community it's uh it is. a community that I am very unfamiliar. with but am becoming more and more. familiar with with each interview that. has to do with this stuff and I'm not. going to stop I believe I've said it. multiple times I believe that the. Warfare in the world is changing I think. that conventional military is becoming.

obsolete in a hurry and gentlemen like. this with the knowledge that this man. possesses is what it's all going to come. down. to I'm just so thankful that uh I got. the opportunity to meet this guy he has. the country's best interest he always. has in fact he tried to get the. country's attention by exposing. vulnerabilities when he was just a kid. 16 17 years old nobody took him.

seriously until he successfully hacked. into NASA and defaced their homepage on. the website which then they sent strike. teams to come find them that got their. attention and then they fixed the. problem ladies and. gentlemen I hope you have a wonderful. Thanksgiving I'm thankful for my team my. family my. country and all of you.

please head over to Apple podcast and. Spotify leave us a review like comment. and subscribe to the. channel and without further Ado please. welcome Mr Bryce case Jr one of the. Premier top hackers in the entire world. to the Shawn Ryan Show Happy. Thanksgiving everybody much love one. last thing we see a lot of you taking. our content making reals putting them on.

your channels we love it there's a link. below it's got thousands of reals raw. uncut download them for free put them on. your channel monetize them make money. all we ask is Tag the Sha Ryan Show. Happy Thanksgiving we love you enjoy the. [Music]. show Bryce case Jr welcome to the Shawn. Ryan Show man pleasure is mine it's an. honor to have you here it's an honor to. be here I'm sitting in a chair that has.

been graced by so many luminaries I feel. a. little uh under honored I don't know I. there's so many Heroes that have been. here I just uh feel out of place but oh. man please don't look everybody that say. there thinks the same thing okay so you. very much deserve to be sitting in that. chair but I appreciate the uh humility. thank you but um so you kind of came on. my radar I interviewed your buddy.

your your friend Ryan Montgomery who's. now a good friend of mine I love that. guy I mean just a huge heart and uh. doing a lot of good in the world but he. described you as his. mentor when he was coming up and so I. was like oh man I got to meet this guy. and so we got connected and here you. are this subject hacking in general is. just so foreign to me and I I'm super.

interested in it so we got a lot to talk. about but sounds good. but man how did you get into this uh. well when I was young I had a computer. in my house and it wasn't entirely. common I'm 41 now and so when I was a. kid now kids have everything they. tablets phones whatever else uh but uh. yeah my father worked in the defense.

industry uh he worked at uh Hughes. aircraft company and then Martin maretta. and became locki Martin but he was more. on the hardware side he did a lot of uh. stuff with. um uh. Rockets they designed the guidance. system for the tow missile uh which is. out of the Bradley tanks and then he uh. moved on to the Titan and Atlas Rockets. which.

carried space ship up there uh the. satellites and and stuff but uh he. obviously you know had access to. computers at um you know for. uh in a time when it probably wasn't as. common you know for people to have. computers in their home and so I just. fell in love with the computer from a. very very young age uh my mom was a. stay-at-home mom and she was big. into interacting with me and kind of.

keeping me precocious and whatnot and so. I learned how to read when I was two and. then by 4 I was already just infatuated. with how computers worked and. programming them and stuff so uh there. used to be these books and magazines. that would have basic programs that you. would. transcribe uh line by line you into. these computers and so if you wanted to.

run games or applications or something. they would have just a print out of all. of. the the lines of code that you would. need to enter and so it was kind of. learning by doing type thing like you're. mimicking and you're kind of seeing how. these things work and interoperate and. so started out obviously changing you. know the names in the game to myself or. you know whatever else fun stuff I. wanted if I wanted more ammunition with. for my space ship and you know I knew.

how to change those things so yeah just. really curious about computers from uh. so it all started with coding for games. trying to get the cheat codes that's it. right on man y y that's where my hacking. career started it was. uh very shortlived but before we get two. in the weeds cuz I want to cover your. whole life story so I want to cover. where you grew up how you grew up what. it was like what you were into getting. into your hacking career I know you did.

some black hat stuff and uh hopefully we. can talk about some of that then you. defaced some government websites uh. which I think is incredible and um. especially the way you did it and so I. want to get into all that but um let me. give you a quick intro real quick before. we get into your life story so Bryce. case Jr also known as YT cracker Whitey.

cracker which we'll get into that is. that a call sign uh it comes from a. cyber Punk novel uh but it's a sort of a. in joke amongst computer professionals. it means you know Whitey cracker. obviously means something to I think. most people but people that are in the. know uh YT comes from a book called snow. crash which is this seminal cyberpunk uh. novel and there was a character called. Yours Truly who went by YT in that and. she was a CER. which is and I had a pretty storied.

career in spamming and then cracker used. to be the term for a black hat uh. basically they hackers were always kind. of known as the. Curious computer technicians instead. like you're trying to just find out how. a system works so it's it's more about. the Curiosity thing and then the media. like even in the ' 80s and '90s started. to take the hacker word. and change it into this nef ious.

malicious connotation and I think. recently hacker has kind of become more. back to where its roots like you'll hear. about things like hackathons which are. just where they'll set up a bunch of. coders in a room for 48 hours and have. them just write code and so it's kind of. become a little bit less uh pointed than. the term used to be but cracker you know. in the hacker jargon file and stuff used. to be a malicious person who's cracking. into systems oh okay does do all hackers.

have a call sign or code name or oh uh. yeah that generally we know each other. we're call them handles but or Nicks uh. start for nickname but that for a long. period of time on the internet before. Facebook and everything uh when it was. cool to put your real name online. everybody existed with handles and. there's people you know even to this day. it's I feel more comfortable calling. them by their handle you know than their.

uh their real name but it's a very. common Trope I think now with gaming as. popular as it is people's gamer tags is. very similar that people refer to each. other as their uh you know what they. play Call of Duty under but that all. that stuff kind of stemmed from the. hacker Community um interesting yeah. yeah I mean this is kind of how it is at. CIA you know somebody's call sign but. you don't know their real name power. funny you know there's like a joke when. a guy.

there's a lot of drama within that. agency oh I imagine and uh it's funny. you'll see like a guy that hooks up with. a girl in there and they always fall in. love you know and then it's like come on. man you really like you don't even know. a real name it's basically the same. conversation as you have when your buddy. falls in love with somebody at the strip. club I understand it's like you don't. even know the real name come on 3 in the. morning like what are you doing you just. know the call sign yep yep but um let me.

finish uh your intro so the original. digital gangster cyber security hacker. the forefather of nerdcore which is a. hipop genre first generation Anonymous. hacker. group hacked into multiple intern. international government and corporate. Networks you're a published. mathematician now you develop cyber. weapons to. me after our dinner conversation last.

night I talked to Ryan Montgomery. obviously cuz he's the only other hacker. that I know now I know too yeah perfect. and uh but you seem to be like the. Obi-Wan Kenobi of the hacking. Community which you probably you. probably don't I don't appreciate that. yeah but to me it's uh that's the way. you appear. so but anyways everybody starts off with. a gift that comes on the show mhm so.

here it is we take I know you've watched. a bunch of these and you know we take. mental health very very seriously on. this show and so uh those are. performance mushroom it's a performance. mushroom blend you can dump that into. your coffee beautiful it's uh layered. superfood so we partnered with them. because of because we're. so uh into mental health and brain. health and part of mental health is. keeping your brain sharp and that will. doal it very important and then uh.

there's some other stuff in there sounds. like you like flavored coffee so that's. a coconut creamer can go with it for. fall and uh there's another one in there. that's an instant latte it's got all. kinds of adaptogens in it basically all. the products there have the cleanest. they just have the cleanest uh. ingredients known to man and it's good. for brain health so well uh my brain is. probably my most important uh instrument. so uh I'm 110% on board with that I.

think we can all say that at least I. hope but um thank you very much yeah. you're welcome but um let's let's just. dig into it so I want to dig into your. childhood and and and we covered a. little bit of it um how you got into. hacking but where did you grow up uh I. was born in California uh because again. my dad works in the defense industry he. absolutely hated California um and he. was born in Colorado Springs and my. grand Grand parents were there so pretty.

much the two years that we lived in. California when I was a kid he did. nothing but try to get back to Colorado. and so then uh when I was two we moved. to Denver um which was closer to the. facility that he worked at Martin. maretta um and then two years later in. Colorado Springs and that's pretty much. where I spent my most of my life was uh. was there and um Carl Springs had a lot.

of military I'm supp still does to this. day there's um Shri Peterson. NORAD uh Fort Carson the Air Force. Academy you know lots of kind of. military influence there funnily enough. uh in computer hacking like War Games. had come out I think the year I was born. which is a movie about a kid who's. breaking into uh government systems and. there's a huge focal point of of NORAD.

and as a result of that I think there. was a lot of there were these weird laws. that existed like kind of anti-hacking. laws that were in Colorado that area. specifically in Colorado Springs um that. just pertained I think. to uh because of that movie I'm assuming. it's probably like where a lot of this. comes from uh back then phones used to. be you would connect to you would just.

dial them up with a modem and uh there's. a concept called War dialing which is. where you would just take a prefix and. an area code and then try to Dial. Systems um and You' see if you get a. carrier tone on the other end that was a. computer um but that was illegal in. Coler springs for it wasn't illegal most. other places but for some reason they. made it illegal there so grew up in this. kind of where the environment I guess. wasn't NE necessarily too friendly I.

think to that type of exploration which. is something I think some kids growing. up in different areas had different. experiences but uh yeah again I just. really loved computers um I used to just. sit in the computer lab was pretty good. student early on in all the gifted you. know whatever programs uh but I just. like finished my work and I would just. go to the computer lab and was like. writing software on Apple 2 basic to I.

mean how old are you oh just uh school. age like Elementary School probably. let's rewind yeah let's rewind 2 years. old you've claimed to know how to read. at Age 2 years old I didn't believe it. myself my mom has cassette tapes and. pictures and everything like that so I. mean she was very uh a documentarian you. know obviously I think some most mothers. are at that age type thing but yeah. learn how to read uh and then like how.

how what were you reading it to oh just. basic stuff not like you know Cat in the. Hat level Bryce eats watermelon Bryce. pets cats you know just very very. simplistic uh you know not like uh. Tolstoy or Shakespeare anything but yeah. but still 2 years old I know I I wish I. was still that smart it' be great but. yeah it was just uh I don't know like I. there's just some sort of whatever I. well hold on. yeah hold on so you learned to I have.

that you learned to read at age two yes. and that you were you learned to program. at age four that's correct yeah so are. you are you one of these are you one of. these Geniuses that we read. about I be honest I wouldn't go that far. I don't think it's so weird it's. obviously it's something that you can't. call yourself or something I don't see.

it that way just but a lot of it is. because I'm exposed to hyper just. insanely intelligent people at all all. times and I see that the way their mind. works in some senses and I mean I've. heard the feedback that I am a that I'm. a genius and stuff but it's not. something I think I. really I think the taller it's not. something you can run around and call. yourself I yeah it's and it's not humble. or anything I just believe that it's.

weird if you think about just this. mountain of skill and that the people on. the bottom of the mountain like are. looking up the mountain and they see. just this Pantheon of human beings or. whatever that's engaging in all this. intelligent Behavior but it seems like. the higher up the mountain that you go. the mountain gets taller like that. there's people that I think would some. would consider were in the same Realm. of skill set or whatever and they are.

like you know it's like LeBron James in. the NBA like everyone's in the NBA and. they're all amazing but there's just. some people that are you know Wayne. Gretzky hockey there you know there's. people that are just so far beyond you. know even like at this very elite level. and I think those are the people that I. consider you know Geniuses so it's not a. term that I really throw around very. very lightly but I just yeah I'm I stand. in deference to all these you know the.

great you I stand on the shoulders of. giants as well like a lot of where I. came from and the knowledge that I have. uh I if it wasn't there for me to learn. you know and and kind of build on top of. I mean I'm sure most people feel the. same way but yeah but yeah I just it's. not something I'm very comfortable I'm. not I'm not trying to make you. uncomfortable by any means but when I. when I I mean I. found look I'm extremely Green in this. space you know obviously I don't even. know a lot of the terminology that.

you're throwing at me in the EDC pocket. dump that you did but you know when I. talk to ran Montgomery who is the only. other hacker that I know at this point. and I consider to him him to be. extremely intelligent very talented and. uh a very intelligent human being and. when he is sitting here cuz I talked to. him about you before you came obviously. cuz I wanted to learn a little bit more. and um when a guy like that when when a. man like that tells me yeah this was my.

mentor I mean that resonates and then. even during your EDC pocket dump when. you're talking about the The Forum that. you created which we'll dig into you. know and what what these guys are I mean. I don't know what they're learning from. you yet we're going to find that out but. when you have guys that are inventing. that cable you know that you showed me. that looks identical. to an I literally ENT identical to an. just hold it up you know identical to an.

iPhone cable and basically enables you. to manipulate and access anything that. that's plugged into and the NSA is. selling it for $2,000 a pop I mean. that's impressive you know and then you. got the guy who came from your form that. invented that phone uh which we'll talk. about later which is sounds like it's. about as hacker proof as you can. possibly get I mean this is people that.

started learning off of your knowledge I. mean that's what's that I mean how does. that even feel when somebody puts that. into perspective for you have you ever. even thought about. that when I first started this whole. podcasting thing an online store was. about as far from my mind as you can get. and now most of you already know this. but I'm selling vigilance Elite gummy. bears online we actually have an entire. merch collection that's coming soon and.

let me tell you it is so easy because. I'm using a platform that is extremely. userfriendly and that's Shopify Shopify. is the global Commerce platform that. helps you sell at every stage of your. business what I really like about. Shopify is it prompts you all the things. that you want to do with your web store. like connect your social media accounts. write blog post just have a Blog in.

general Shopify actually prompts you to. do this you want people to leave reviews. under your. items you can do that on Shopify it's. very simple Shopify helps you turn. browsers into buyers with the internet's. best converting checkout 36% better on. average compared to the other leading. Commerce platforms Shopify is a global. Force for millions of entrepreneurs and. over7 75 countries andow 10% of all.

eCommerce platforms here in the United. States you can sign up right now for $1. a month it's shopify.com Shan that'sall. lowercase go to shopify.com Shan now to. grow your business no matter what stage. you're in that's shopify.com. at Grand Canyon University they believe. that the military men and women are the. unique Among The Uncommon you fought for.

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Grand Canyon University private. Christian and affordable visit gcu.edu. military sometimes I mean it's something. I've considered obviously but that I. people you know it's kind of like a mama. bird in her nest sort of thing that a. lot of the times you know you'll just. find these chunks of coal and then you.

sort of fuse them. into diamonds in some senses and I I. think that that's pretty much the duty. of anyone that's good in a field or. whatever is to identify talent and then. try to make it something that's better. you know than than it is but largely. like thing is the the accomplishments of. everybody I think that has come from. something that I've done uh uh they own. that you know I I don't want to take.

credit for anything any of the work that. they've done like you know the work that. Ryan's doing and stuff uh that you know. I I do see myself as like a it's just. like a a daycare practically that you. know it's it sounds like you are the. inspiration for many The Muse of these. guys that uh are out there doing just. incredible things you know what I mean. and and that's cool man it's an honor.

just that's a compliment but I'm sure I. mean I know said even like the Tactical. training or something that you've done. you know somebody that wins a shooting. competition or something and they you. know attended you know a class of yours. like I mean how how do you feel about. that that type of thing like it's it's. cool that I was the one that was able to. inspire their career you know and that's. I'm I understand what you're saying. you're not I'm not giving you credit for. what they've accomplished I'm just. saying I mean you what sparked that.

inspiration it sounds like for a lot of. these guys and that's I mean that's cool. man it's an honor I said I'm really just. that's very cool but um so back to. reading at Age 2 and programming at age4. I mean so did is reading at Age 2 did. you just pick it up or yeah I think were. your parents teaching you my mom just. very like involved parent you know that. we she used to have these um like a kind. of note card pieces of poster board and.

stuff that she would draw circles on and. uh then have me recognize like how many. circles were on the page like so I just. found a site like one to 100 and I got. really good at recognizing just the. patterns I knew like which ones were. which and so she did a lot of just. seminal work on me I think and I mean. there's some of it it's that nature vers. type thing so I give my mother like a.

lot of credit just I think she just. really wanted to inspire some type of. greatness in me and so I mean I'm sure. you know she read to me but you there's. obviously whatever innate thing you can. actually have it to you know was uh was. present in me you know to to want to do. those types of things but there wasn't. obviously the distractions that there. are today there wasn't any YouTube you. know dating myself like it's not exactly. the Stone Age but you know there wasn't. uh you know a whole lot of I mean there. was was television and stuff but I.

wasn't really really watching that it's. just kind of yeah Hands-On and things. that I found interesting but um yeah. then so just the computer was a. something that I just I said I don't. know I can't describe some people just. you know you take to an instrument or. you know start playing the piano type. thing I just really was fascinated that. you. could make these things do whatever ever. you wanted to do and uh so that was just.

I think a huge uh reason why I got into. into programming was just well like that. you can actually make these machines. like do what you tell them and if they. screw up it's because you screwed up. what kind of what kind of programming. were you doing at age four uh so there's. a language called basic and uh it's as. it's basic like it sounds um it was. developed uh John many I think his name. was a Polish or not polish sorry.

Hungarian um he'd come over uh kind of. like Leo zard and John Von noyman and a. lot of the scientists uh but he had. developed um this language uh that was. really it was designed to get people. into uh kind of programming computers. and it had line numbers there was Pascal. and Cobalt and Fortran and see you may. have heard those uh but they were those.

are for like business applications. whereas you basic was um designed more. just for people to kind of get into. programming they' started to do these. classes in schools um prior to even my. being born uh but the home Computing. Revolution is kind of where a lot of. this stuff came from so I had a Texas 9. uh Texas Instruments 994a which is um it. was a cartridge loader it could take a.

tape drive instead of a disc drive you. could use cassette tapes on it but the. basic the operating system like what you. would consider when you boot the. computer up uh was just a basic. interpreter so it allowed you to just. enter the code into these machines uh. just right off the bat Apple twos were. very similar those were in pretty much. all of the schools but you know if you. booted the Apple up um and just let it. go to a prompt it would it would just be. a basic inter so that was kind of the uh.

lowest just the most interactive thing. you could do with a computer like right. as soon as you booted it up uh I had a. time xinclair um which is 1 kilobyte of. memory is kind of a little hobbyist. computer that my dad and I had worked on. um but it also like the said the basic. thing that you would once you booted the. computer up it was a basic interpreter. and then you could just kind of input. your code and and do stuff with it. so as I said there was a plethora of.

books and computers and stuff that came. out that or computer books that came out. that had this code just transcribed in. it and so instead of passing around. floppy discs or CDs or anything like. that you would just write the code like. line by line and so it it's a good way. to learn you know what the code kind of. kind of did and that's pretty much the I. said entry level for a lot of people I. think that get into programming at. around then that was how they they. learned.

interesting what else were you into as a. kid outside of. computers uh baseball cards magic the. Gathering uh I don't know. just uh Magic itself like I I just I was. kind of a normal kid sucked at sports. you know complete dork like uh I tried. you know played football played baseball. but was absolutely horrendous at it uh. computers were really just the thing. that I gravitated towards mostly um in.

my teens I got into cars and um like. doing engine swaps and that type of. thing but yeah it sounds like uh it. sounds like you grew up in a really in a. in a great home oh yeah a family. oriented it was I mean I said my my dad. you know he's from the old school I. think I showed you a picture of him you. know like you know there's it was. obvious ly. some things in my upbringing that.

probably wouldn't be too kosher today I. mean my dad wasn't like a super violent. person by any stretch of the imagination. but you know got he got beat a couple. times you know that type of thing uh my. mom you know too she I think she came. from military household as well and so. there was a little bit of strictness but. I all in all the intentions of my. parents I think were always really. really really good um my dad wasn't. around a whole lot just cuz he was.

working and traveling and you know going. to rocket launches and stuff but you. know I said I had my mom there pretty. much and you know she was always really. good about growing up you know any types. of extracurricular programs I I wanted. to do like there's these competitions. like Odyssey of the mind I don't know if. you're familiar with that but I was in. Odyssey of the mind oh hell yeah all. right then yeah so uh it took State one. year uh but yeah just no way what was. your project uh did you do the balsa.

wood thing there's the bridges the Ping. bong ball has to come out yeah I'm. trying trying to remember the uh that's. cool dude I did that yeah right on uh. but yeah those were this after school. type stuff we did like uh well there was. these kind of plays that you had to do. uh and then you had to have certain. elements in them and you'd like kind of. design machines to to go uh with the. play there was different categories but. yeah they had this the the bridge. strength ones where they try to break. them and yeah so just any of those types.

of weird math engineering programs that. uh you know were extracurricular than so. you're a super creative type as well I. probably I mean I loved poetry and. writing too you know that was like a. huge uh thing I used to just write. stories all the time and stuff but uh. but yeah I just say. that I don't know for whatever reason. said computers have just always been. this thematic red luckily they're. everywhere now. so it sounds like this is this is.

interesting because it sounds like. things when kind of. array maybe as a. teenager yeah I mean for somebody who I. mean Odyssey of the Mind was for. creativity it it was for extremely. Creative Kids and the other stuff that. you're talking about computer. programming learning to read it too. poetry writing to dropping out of high.

school sounds like maybe there was some. car theft yeah stabbed stabbed in the. neck that's true what what happened what. what happened here uh well I think like. most teenagers I got in. this. rebellious I there's some things I can. pinpoint cuz I wanted to be an astronaut. I think to say growing up there and. everything. that was just I wanted to be a pilot you.

know in the Air Force go to the Air. Force Academy so my grandfather my mom's. side was in the Air Force and you know. it was right up the road so you know I. was obviously exposed to it and then in. sixth. grade uh this dude Chris Ray told me. that you needed 2020 Vision to be a. pilot uh and my vision's not that bad uh. and but um like I at that age it just. destroyed me I was like oh okay well. then I can't you know I guess I'm not. going to be a pilot so that that was a.

left turn there in some senses uh but or. that was a right turn but left turn uh. the then in my teenage years I was. obviously I think every teenager kind of. goes through a rebellious phase and I. said we lived in a pretty modest like. you know middle class household like. there was no reason to really get into. too much trouble but uh I don't know if. it's the rap music that I was listening. to some you know whatever you just had. this like kind an identity crisis and.

pretty much everybody that I hung out. with that from that era you know wound. up in dead or in jail and I think that's. it's hold on we got to go we got to go. back okay so what so you got into crime. yeah what age well probably like 15 is. when I got my when I was arrested for. the first time um what did you hold on. you got to what did you get arrested for. I was uh spray painting uh buildings so.

uh yeah I was in the graffiti um. and but the the thing is this there's a. simultaneous like the computer stuff. like I said happened in parallel like. the entire time that this is going on. but kind of the crowd that I got. involved. in um. was they Saida more traditional you know. crime like you know we. designed I don't know if you know those.

uh can safes that uh you can hold like. uh drugs in and and stuff we' we'd made. these all these devices to help us. shoplift better so like these lined cans. that had PVC pipe in them so you could. still pour liquid out of them if anybody. ever came up to you and told you that. you know hey like what's what's in the. drink but uh you know we' xacto knife. the top out and have like a foam. covering and PVC and then just like use. it to steal jewelry and stuff from the.

from the store I haven't thought about. this but oh my God yeah just the again I. I had no real like you know some people. have to like steal to eat and feed the. family and you know that's you kind of. go out and do those things but this was. just all I just I've always loved crime. for some reason like I don't know why. it's just uh it's something that that. that also is just inherent in my my life. I just just find it's the hacking thing.

you know you find out how systems work. find out you know the things that you. can do to exploit them and then kind of. carry on but this so it's a challenge. challenge yeah yeah there a me can you. do this without getting caught I never. got caught. shoplifting walk me through this so you. would take like a soda can yeah take. like a soda can and then I just cut like. so take the the aluminum top part off. and then hot glue a PVC pipe to the to. that that section of the of the uh of.

the can and then have a bottom on it and. so I could pour liquid in there and then. but in the can line the can with foam so. it wouldn't like clatter or anything so. I'd have uh but you know we used to like. go to place like steel jewelries. anything like little that could actually. fit into a can that was like kind of. high dollar item and then that uh the. top would fix over it and so if anyone. like ever questioned or whatever like it. looks like a Canon you know cuz you you. have have to see me putting it in there. you know so it's just this kind of.

spycraft uh you know whatever you can. call it at that age but uh yeah just. these devices to help us shoplift. better. [Music]. anyway interesting very Innovative yeah. tried to be yeah it's it's going to. necessity is the mother of invention but. in this case like I said there was no. real necessity it was all just about. yeah what could you get away with the. necessity was the challenge yeah yeah I.

suppose so that's it what what did that. lead. into well uh. so the other there's another turning. point that happened when I was around. that age and I had. gotten a so I was on the what would have. been considered like the internet at. that time it wasn't like anything super. super crazy but I uh was working with.

these people on Internet relay chat and. uh there was a company called Network. Associates in the Bay Area like Santa. clar I think and they did antivirus. software and stuff but they had seen. some of the work that I had done and I. was said 16 years old and I uh they had. offered me a job and so I was like so I. went to my parents and I was like can.

you emancipate me so I can go out to. California and you know take this job. because this is uh would have been 98 I. guess. and uh both my parents were like no. there's you know you're too young too. stupid like all this stuff well that's. the thing is that my parents were the. type of people that could say like you. could do anything you could be anything. you want but then the those. opportunities start to come up it's like. you can't do that you can't do that you.

can't do that and I was like how are you. going to sit there and tell like a kid. you know cuz she's like you need to. finish school my mom was you know huge. on that she didn't want to be the the. mom of somebody who dropped out of high. school cuz she knew idiots that. graduated high school and so how could. you do this and stuff but you know in my. estimation I'm like well the entire. reason that people go to college and go. to you know graduate high school and go. to college is because they're going to. get a job at the end of it so I might as. well just skip all that stuff and I. would have been you know in Silicon. Valley like when you know kind of.

the.com Boom was sort of percolating and. again if it didn't work out I could have. always you know come home and you know. stay on my parents couch again but the. opportunity like. had presented itself and yeah they were. all just totally against it and so that. kind of just made me well and you know I. don't really care anymore I'm just going. to do whatever I'm going to do uh so. that's like I started getting into the. uh like the Rave scene like really.

really hard um my first like the first. Rave I went to was in I think 96 I think. I was like 14 or 15 um might have been. 97 but yeah that then I just was you. that was an entire world that I uh. adored because I loved you know music. and electronic music and stuff and I'd. been making it but that obviously that. culture I think had talked about that in. some of his upbringing but that's you.

know that lends itself to a lot of kind. of weird behaviors that uh you know. especially at that age you know. formative kind of teenage years uh I do. recommend it for anybody because it's a. blast but at the same time you got to be. able to pull yourself out of it uh when. it comes but that's where I said I got. involved with uh a lot. of drug dealers and you know uh people. drug users and doing a lot of stupid. things myself what kind of drugs oh just.

ecstasy cocaine meth you know. the all the I tried heroin like once. snorted it I am deathly afraid of. needles entering my skin so uh I totally. missed that boat uh unlike I said Ryan I. think that was his his drug dour but. um yeah that uh the crowd I was involved. in I said was the way that you know that. none of them really had gainful.

employment or anything at the time and. so you're you know trying to find a way. to like get stuff and I was the you know. the smart the brains of the operation in. some senses so did like breaking and. entering in businesses and. just like what let's get into some. specific examples oh God like there was. there was this stereo shop that was kind. of. near uh that was so dumb so there was a.

stereo shop it was called Sunshine audio. I don't even think they're in business. anymore but uh we had rammed my homeboy. truck through cuz they had an install. Bay like where they would do all the uh. like the installs of the stereos and. stuff and so we backed my homie truck. into it and we just took out the garage. door and then just ran in it was like. probably six or seven of us and we were. able to Jack. everything uh that we can get our hands. on and get out of there um but then like.

just said just to to tell you like how. dumb the crew I was hanging out with was. then is then like about two weeks. later uh the same group of friends a. couple were like let's do it again and. it was just like me and my buddy Jason. were just like that's stupid like you. know you don't want like lightning. striking twice they had like a board. over uh where we had uh kind of wrecked. into it last time time and so you guys. didn't even get caught it didn't get. caught that time I didn't get caught for.

any of the stuff which is like very but. it's it's where now like if things. happen like we used to take you know the. spark plugs uh the porcelain off spark. plugs and shatter windows and just grab. out of people's cars and but I said. in retrospect it's where the karma any. negative Karma I've incurred I try to. like spend the rest of my life sort. of whitewashing it as much as poss. possible because there wasn't I said it. wasn't an immediate need to really do.

any of these things like I said it. wasn't like I needed to feed myself or. anything it just this was just the. thrill of the you know the adrenaline. rush I guess of of all this stuff um but. uh but yeah that like most of the homies. end up getting caught the second time. like I don't know if they'd install a. better security system or you know what. had happened but uh yeah the cops sworn. formed everybody and I said my buddy. Jason and I just weren't there that time.

and we were able to avoid prosecution. um man I haven't thought about this. stuff in a long long time that's so. crazy uh here yeah it's getting it back. um but yeah the car thing like I before. Fast and the Furious came out there was. a ton of us that were into this import. tuning and so uh you know I did. there was few shops in the area but.

there were also kind of notorious chop. shops and stuff and so you had friends. that you knew that we like these people. we would never Jack their cars and you. know stuff like that but the Honda an. Acuras around that that was my focus I. had a um a 98 GSR that I bought with. Spam. money I get into that later but that. that was when I was 18 so just a little. bit kind of going up I had a 89. CRX with a b16a front clip from uh motor.

swap from. Japan uh so I just but I cars another. like engineering Fascination so I loved. working on them but then you know yeah. we were that those Motors were just the. cream of the crop you know and so like. other integras the gsrs and type RS and. the C. Civics uh that that that OBD1 series and. OBD Z zero series was just really really. easy to steal um and so yeah we're like.

stealing cars and then we how would you. steal cars like just we'd find them you. know just be like cruising around and. again like if it was somebody that you. know we didn't know uh or you know. didn't care about then uh yeah just I. said the whole smash the window get in. there put call them out the. screwdriver uh take off and then I said. just take it to one of the shops and. uh what would you do just dismantle it.

out dismantle it you know because some. of these things you said just add the. good exhaust or they had you know but. the motors on those ones were just like. insanely expensive so they you said the. heads uh people would do these. Frankenstein swaps with the ls's and the. GSR heads I don't know how much you know. about uh these rice Racers yeah but yeah. it was just this and this was before you. know then like movies like Gone in 60. Seconds and Fast and the Furious are. coming out and we just felt like vind. ated. uh this is this is it it's what we've.

been training for uh but yeah that whole. I said a lot of those I don't one of. them I I don't know just all those. people again in and out of jail um I. said I somehow there was one time I know. even that they were investigating me and. they'd gone to my friend and uh they. were asking her about you know my. involvement and and she didn't snitch. she was like he's just a computer nerd.

he doesn't really do any of this stuff. and I had the pedigree obviously to back. that up but it was just yeah living this. kind of weird double life. uh and for no reason at all like it was. just simply I think just a teenage angst. and you know whatnot. uh. yeah you had it sounds like you had. premonitions that you were going to die. by your 18th birthday yeah that's part.

of it so like I had. this I have have these dreams and. everything like when I was super young. like teen like said 13 14 that I just. like was going to die before I turned 18. for some reason and so I think that what. did you know how kind of dreams it was. yeah like it was in a lot of ways it was. like car accident shooting like just but. that was the kind of the overarching. theme like something you just I just.

felt uh that it was going to happen I. mean I talked to like a lot of my. friends about it and stuff and you know. they were just like whatever obviously. it didn't happen but yeah a month before. my 18th birthday a bunch of the car. nerds like we were out in the back of uh. of Best Buy the Best Buy parking lot and. my homeboy had done like a burnout and. he left and there was a ton of people. there uh you know we're just kind of. hanging out and then these two like.

workers come out from Cub Foods uh which. is like a supermarket I know if it. exists anymore but you know they were. like you guys smoking up our you know um. you know we're trying to work like all. this other stuff and I was talking to my. ex-wife's sister at the. time and uh all of the sudden I just see. this frock is break out and. um one of the guys has my buddy in a. headlock and he's like doing this to him. and I didn't even react I just saw kind.

of what was going on so I left the. conversation I just go just ran straight. up to the dude and I punched him three. times and uh he let go of my friend and. then he came after me and uh he like I. said I didn't know he had a box cutter. in his hand and so he was cutting my. buddy up he had like just slice all so. he was yelling like he's cutting Meo. he's cutting Meo and I didn't uh I said. I didn't even react to that I just. reacted cuz I saw that happen and then. um he sliced my arm and then when I.

dropped down to hit him I open exposed. my neck and he sliced me twice like. there's one big one here and then one. little one here but it was like 3 mm. from my kateed artery so I'm like. bleeding. everywhere uh my buddy Jason was able to. pull the dude so he he like kind of. suplexed the dude. um not the same Jason that was another. Jason but he got him off me and then the. other dude was like like off uh fighting. my friend Adrien and then they took off.

and I remember just like looking at my. friend I was like is this bad and I'm. just bleeding like all over the. place and he's like no that's no good. and so they we hopped in this car and we. went to the hospital and I remember. passing out on the way the hospital but. uh you one up getting like 18. stitches uh and it I was like this close. I almost died like it was just to said. had I leaned into it just a a little bit. more anything I would have been been a.

goner uh but yeah that was just one of. those again just said you hang out you. are who you hang out with like type. thing and so it was it was dangerous um. but yeah I survived so was that a wake. up call for you not at all no kidding. that's that's the part of the problem is. I think like that if anything it just. galvanized my false invincibility like. at that point you know again teenager. you think you're you know nothing's. going to happen to you type thing and so.

it sort of made me spiral. even more in a sense cuz I just there. was a period of indestructibility I. think that I was inheriting you know cuz. it's like man it couldn't even kill me. my neck is like sliced open and stuff so. uh yeah what was it that. finally I. mean finally yeah that scared you out of. it or grew you you grew out of it or. what was.

it I would say that my daughter uh being. born was probably. the uh the one thing that really cuz. there was a so after like that had. happened there was this year that I had. spent and I I it just it was like a. personal challenge to myself but I was. like can I deal drugs and support myself. just off of dealing drugs like for a. year like you know my apartment my car. like all this stuff um and this is like.

you know even after I hacked NASA and. and stuff um I was just still in this. kind of mentality and uh but that was. before my daughter like was born so I. was like kind of 18 to 19 I worked three. months at Gateway. computer uh which was a computer company. I was doing tech support for them um I. got hired shortly after stab in the neck. stuffff and then uh I worked the floor.

for three months but everybody that I. met. there uh you know like loved cocaine and. meth and so like I pretty much just got. this clientele from you know the tech. support world and then I had the Rave. people and stuff and so I had like a. decent Rolodex of people that I could. trust that weren't necessarily you know. violent or anything and so uh yeah yeah. that's like I said I just this was this. personal challenge I had all this seed.

money from uh spamming the internet and. then so I use that to Parlay it into. drug dealing and um but that got mad. annoying cuz it's like Tweakers and. stuff would call you at like 2: in the. morning they don't care what you're. doing you know you drive them like a you. know a gram then you'd be like halfway. back home and they're calling you and. they're like can I get another gram or. whatever and it's like why don't you. just buy them both way there it's going. to be cheap before you so that type of. stuff just it's not conducive to a very.

restful lifestyle so shout out to all. the drug dealers out there I don't know. how you do it I'm very very proud of you. sticking to it uh but again the. everything I said I just there's a lot. of stuff I've done it's in retrospect. even saying it now I just sound stupid. but yeah it's sort of what you know. you're all the some of your experiences. you know type thing so like kind of just. engaging in all this type of Behavior I. think showed me like quite a bit and I. so the birth of your daughter how old.

were you when she was born uh I was 20. 20 so the wow that's young yeah so the. birth of your daughter is what got you. to the realization hey this is a dead. end Road that's to there was a little. bit of a t tapering yeah uh shortly. after she was born like I think there. was still some kind of remnants of. stupidity but uh. yeah that the realization that yeah you.

now have this other life that you're. responsible for and St so I encourage. everybody out there who doesn't have. kids to if you're well I mean some. people I guess it's it's like having a. baby to save your marriage is always a. bad idea but you know I I'd always. wanted to be a father you know so it's. just one of those things that it's like. might as well get it right you know so. that was just that was probably like a. huge turning point and yeah definitely. all that uh that type of behavior so I.

mean going through all of your I'm sure. we didn't touch on there's a lot we. didn't touch on but you know on a. serious note there's a lot of kids that. go down this road you know what would. your advice to them. be the part. of what's problematic is that and I. think some people have a gift for this. but learning vicariously through other. people.

and that with me no one could tell me. anything that's the thing is that if I I. mean and that's even somewhat True to. this day like that there's a c if. somebody tells me something's impossible. like let me take a stab at it first and. see if it's. impossible uh I'm not just going to take. people's word for it in a sense and I. think that's part of the problem is you. can't really tell anybody the the advice. that I would give again is that it's a. very personal kind of experience and you.

know of course I knew things were wrong. I had men's Ria you know I I understand. the you know what's what's good and evil. and you know what's right and wrong and. stuff and I still kind of made the. choices to act those those ways anyway. uh but I will say that you know you can. always turn it around that it's that I. don't think it's ever too late like even. if you've murdered somebody in your like. you know coming out of the other end and. uh you know you want to make a conscious.

change but people have to want to help. themselves type thing and so the biggest. thing is you know for the people that. kind of want to get out of that. lifestyle or whatever just know that. it's possible it just takes discipline. and dedication uh and again I also. wasn't really forced into that these are. just things that I for whatever reason. found found fun um you know for lack of. a better word I mean it it did was. exhilarating like it it had a good. component to it that you know made it.

very fun but and interesting and you. know obviously gets the adrenaline. pumping the same thing you know I said I. probably join the military and you know. get shot at or something would had would. have been a little bit different but uh. yeah so military couldn't take me anyway. though well I appreciate you sharing. that because you know they a lot of kids. go down that road you know and then I. think a lot of kids wind.

up deep into it and then they just. continue yeah you know it's unfortunate. they never pull themselves out plenty of. friends that yeah there's people I said. still from that era that are in and out. of jail to this day you know just don't. want to get their act together. and is one of one of the first. businesses that I had uh I had a call. center um but like it was huge one of. the biggest things I tried to do is. higher uh convicts and stuff not only do.

you get some cool Associated tax breaks. but it's like I think everybody deserves. a second chance you know and third. sometimes a third sometimes a fourth you. know you got to just work with people. and you know you see people just kind of. go through weird stuff in their life and. you know so I I would say that the. perspective I gained you know from that. there's a lot that I you. know that I understand sort of from that. end like why people behave the way they. do or what they do and you know there's. again there's people that are forced. into it and there's people that are just. kind of doing it as a hobby and so uh.

you know both of those obviously have. different uh reasons and outcomes and. stuff. but I have. that it's also under childhood that you. were starting. businesses and and selling them when did. when did your kind of. entrepreneurial career begin so that um. one of the I.

think one of the services that was. really really prevalent uh to get on the. internet was America Online it was. pretty much the only game in town for a. really long time and it it. made uh the internet accessible to just. normal people um my first exposure to. the internet was through uh my father. had what's called a slip account serial. line Internet Protocol it's U it was an. account through work and there wasn't.

really a worldwide web or anything to. that nature yet it was all like Archie. and gopher and F FTP and these. Antiquated protocols that you know. people rarely even use anymore uh but. AOL was this kind of Gateway for people. compy serve Prodigy there was a few. Services um but America Online had kind. of the biggest user space and it was. just for the every man to kind of see. what was going on on the internet and uh.

with that you know obviously the. technical competency of the people that. were on that service was drastically. different than you know the people who. came on the internet before uh there is. this concept that started in news groups. called The Eternal September and uh it. was something that the early internet. nerds had had noticed uh that when kids. got back into school and would use the.

the university computers then the co the. posting quality would go drastically. down in these uh in these news groups. and stuff and so people would just say. like oh September must be it must be. September or something because you know. obviously everyone's back in school and. so there's this concept it's been placed. you know attributed to different places. in Internet history but the Eternal. September is kind of you know what's. considered when there's a corollary to. when AOL kind of came on the scene.

because then you just have all these you. know normies that are using the internet. now and they're posting on these news. groups and doing this stuff so it's the. September that that never ended. uh with America Online um they made it. very very easy to programmatically. extract uh cuz they had chat rooms and. they had member directories and so they. had all these ways to basically. cultivate members of that service and uh.

so unsolicited commercial email like. spam um became just a giant force of. nature like to be able to make money. like off of these people because you. knew they had credit cards obviously and. they they are on the internet so you. could go through programmatically like. we'd write programs to go and um grab. the names out of the chat rooms and. grabb the names from the member. directory and just Harvest all this. stuff and then you could just email like. just constantly um so whatever products.

that you wanted to sell uh and at the. time you know uh obviously pornography. and the internet kind of go hand inand. so uh I was doing affiliate programs um. so you'd get like a cut of the sales. when you would after you would uh Drive. traffic to these sites you know when. they put their credit card in or. whatever you'd get a certain amount of. money per sale or they would pay you per. click but you had to have a certain. ratio of clicks to sales you couldn't.

just send you know garbage clicks or. whatever um but that you know when I was. you know I'm a teenager uh in high. school most people are having summer. jobs like I worked at the movie theater. for a little while with my friends but. even when I worked at the movie theater. we were it was all of us we're all. friends so like if if we were working. the ticket counter and two people came. up and wanted to buy a ticket to a movie. we would sell them one rip the ticket in. half give them each a stub pocket the. other half we would short count the.

there was just scams everywhere there's. always running scams but that I didn't. have like a. regular said job that this this was how. I made money was like I'd go home and I. would uh you know dial up uh I was on. another um I was on Earth link which is. another ISP um that I that I stole those. accounts and then I would just use AOL. accounts that we would crack and then I. would use those to send out all this uh.

these spam messages I guess to porn. sites and so you know at that age you. know I'm doing this maybe like one two. hours a day and I was making about. $1,000 a week and just you know as a kid. and this is like 1990s money so uh so. these affiliate programs go all the way. back to the 9s yeah and again. porn the the thing about pornography is. it is the Genesis of a lot.

of internet technology and these types. of Concepts that the affiliate program. was really really birthed and. metastasized from porn industry I mean. the VHS beta masks I don't know if you. remember like the the tape format stuff. yeah and then VHS like wound up winning. um largely due to porn they I mean. broadband internet you can attribute. pretty much to pornography that. pornography's always been this weird. sort of Vanguard you know it's this. oddly enough like in the industry itself.

like you would always refer to porn as. porn and mainstream as mainstream like. this kind of these two pieces even. though that it was weird a lot of the. advertising techniques and everything. that were being employed in porn you. know sort of eventually found their way. into what what we consider mainstream. and you know that's just been true since. maybe the dawn of time but especially. like in this you know in the internet um. so porn is. porn. is it's like the Pioneer to advertising.

and the affiliate programming big time. yeah a lot of the yeah a lot of the ways. that the operating models that the. affiliate programs used in porn like now. they're ubiquitous and you find them in. in a lot of you know the different. programs you know now like any any type. of affiliate program you're going into. there's some sort. of uh ancestral thread that goes back to. to the porn industry uh but at the time. again it was just one of the more.

lucrative that you know you could sell. most products and stuff but it just. seemed to be you know it was always the. one and you knew that they paid on time. and you knew that they had the the. coffers to to do it and so uh I wasn't. even really old enough to look at porn. at that age but uh so signed up with. fake information but you know I had to. be able to cash the checks and stuff so. uh that was it just a lied about my age. and started slinging that so how.

if if I just this is the snapshot I'm. getting so. basically you infiltrate some of these. chat rooms or whatever messaging. services extract all the email addresses. out of them create some kind of. a marketing email with porn clips in. them something to something to capture. somebody's attention you send it out out. they click on it it does capture their. attention drives them to the site and.

then there's some kind of tracking that. goes from your email or or like a cookie. Trail or something yes and then you. get paid off of that so you have a. um so they a lot of. times so there was these things called. thumbnail gallery posts and movie. gallery posts tgps and mgps and and. those were considered like the kind of. the clean ways to generate traffic um. there was a huge one the hun.net I don't.

even know if it's around anymore but it. was the repository and it just have like. daily lists um but the affiliate. programs the porn companies would. basically post these landing pages you. know that just had links to them you. know on these tgps and mgps so this was. like more of a direct uh like the way. we'd set it up is um the same way kind. of only fans and things like that are. done now they're based around single. girl you know uh structures and so you.

know we'd have like a landing page that. looked like a girl like using a webcam. or something like that our friend our. friend Lindsay was. like love her she's she was like the. model for a lot of our stuff like. willfully like you know we could use her. pictures to I I don't even know how much. porn Lindsay sold back in the day but uh. her handle was magic um but you know. create a page that like looks like it's.

just her kind of homepage and then you. know hey like if you want to see me. naked you know click here type thing and. so in the query string back then it was. done more with uh with that like I said. from cookies but you know so as part of. the URL you know you would have like an. affiliate ID that kind of get put in the. code and so then that's how it would. track you when you clicked on that link. you know and it sent you to the page. that's how the affiliate program track. that you're the one that sent that and. uh and and who you sent it to optionally.

but yeah you're basically just. pretending to be that girl emailing. people like hey it's me magic like or. Lindsay or whatever she she's going to. love that I dropped her in this but uh. the that yeah this is this is you know. come see my pictures you know or come. see me live whatever it was and so then. they would click on that link and then. yeah the then usually the thing is that. you'd get paid on free trials so whether. or not somebody um which is another.

thing that porn started and then. mainstream kind of picked up on because. it's in the neutral industry and all. types of things now like where you know. you get the get the free bottle and then. they hit you every uh every month it's. called a continuity offer like where. they will rebu you they'll hit you for. $40 a month and keep sending you bottles. until you cancel it was a similar thing. with like the porn sites is that they'll. they'll pay you as an affiliate on the. free trial but then you know said in 3. days 5 days when the trial's up then. they're hitting them for $100 or you. know whatever it was cuz there was.

usually all these cross sales and. network sales and stuff that were. working out but but yeah um what age did. you get into that why what age what age. uh 15 16 yeah. wow yeah that was uh you're on like The. Cutting Edge of all this yeah and back. then there were no rate limits like so. you know now if you try to send a ton of. emails you know it'll say no more of. that uh you know you probably see it now. especially with captas and stuff like if.

you try to do something too much it'll. po pop a Capt up I mean there was. nothing like that a lot of the reason. that those Technologies were developed. was because of you know people like. myself that were just having a field day. on these these sites kind of doing. whatever um because there was no. limitation to how much you know all you. had to do when you pulled somebody's. screen name out of these chat boxes and. stuff is just add aol.com and then you. have their email address and so they had. an entire basically directory like just. a list of uh you know the chat rooms.

that were open at the time and so you. could click this Who's online or who's. chatting button uh all this is done with. a computer program so you subclass the. windows uh and then you would basically. simulate the click to these buttons and. then read these text boxes and so this. was all done. programmatically Visual Basic was the uh. this is has almost nothing to do with. the basic I was talking about but Visual. Basic was kind of the the language that. a lot of kind of AOL hackers were using.

um to create these uh these um these. programs but yeah it was the AOL just. made it insanely easy to blanket carpet. bomb their whole uh their whole service. and iteratively they improved on it you. know over the years but there was always. some sort of workaround uh to kind. of to kind of get in very interesting. Let's uh let's take a break and when we. get back I was going to say let's start.

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free moto 5G phone with a qualifying. plan again Pur talk.com ran Pur talk. simply smarter. Wireless all right Bryce we're back from. the break we're getting ready to dig. into kind of how you got into hacking. even though we I guess we talked a. little bit about it with the the uh with. the uh porn industry and AOL but uh I. want to talk about you know some of the.

beginnings you know what what was. your what first caught your interest in. hacking. uh as I said I think it was a natural. progression. of you know insert thing get system to. do thing type uh mentality but. the the first hack that I remember. doing um so there. was before the internet um there were.

these things called bulletin board. systems that you would call into uh with. your computer and then you access. information you know they had file. libraries and uh rudimentary chat and. kind of threaded stuff s similar to. bulletin boards now that are on the web. but except you know you just basically. call these systems and uh there was a. ton of hobbyists that ran them some. companies ran them um and stuff so I ran.

a couple myself uh and there were the. way to kind of get files and knowledge. like the Anarchist Cookbook I don't know. if you've ever heard of that but it was. it was this book to taught you how to. create bombs and you know do all this uh. ID theft and you know all these. different different things it was a. print uh I think it was a I think it was. in print but then you know the online is. kind of where it was disseminated but in. said pre- internet uh these systems were.

linked through a thing called phonet um. for a while where you could send. electronic mail to different systems uh. but there were just these sort of local. nodes and so it was this cool little. Community because a lot of times you'd. dial in those bbs's and it would just be. you know people we'd have meetups at. Denny's uh you know smoke cigarettes and. drink coffee all night type thing uh but. it was kind of the precursor to what you. know we know as the the internet uh and.

the public. library system ran one of these bulletin. board systems so you could like see what. books were checked out and you know it. had news and all types of things but it. was a multi- node system meaning that uh. it had multiple phone lines that you. could dial into and so there could be it. was a multi-user environment a lot of. times it was kind of a onetoone thing if. you had a single node BBS you could only. only one person could be on it at one. time and so you usually had a time limit.

that you could stay on there and other. users you know would uh try to call in. but you'd call and you'd get busy and. you just know you have to call back. later uh but the public library had a uh. bullettin board system that it was. running and I found it was running some. custom software but I found out how to. drop into a uh an executable shell um. which basically like a command prompt. that would allow me to type in and do. anything with the system that I wanted.

to and so I had used it. to uh set up an eggdrop bot which uh. back then it was hard to find computers. that were online all the time you know. because again this the whole thing when. you call in the systems and stuff then. you know you get knocked off if somebody. picked up the phone line type thing so. universities obviously companies you. know they had these dedicated lines that. were set up and have persistent. connection to the internet and so this.

was a way for me to have a machine that. was online all the time and Internet. relay chat was this is kind of like. where a lot of hackers and stuff hung. out um computer Enthusiast period but. it's you know think AOL chat rooms but. it was way more Bare Bones than that and. predates it uh but if you you would have. these channels that uh. were assigned to different interests or. groups or whatever and the thing is is.

if the last person left the channel then. uh the channel would shut down and so. you want to have computers that were in. there at all times that would basically. hold the channel for you like while you. were gone and so the thing that I had. set up on this library computer was. basically a persistent connection to. allow me to have. a a robot online all the time that was. monitoring these these channels um and.

that was that was cool uh but. then yeah the a AOL was kind of this. breeding ground for a lot of hackers too. there was a software that had come out. called wind nuke um that it was a it. took advantage of there's a a port. that's open on Windows syst systems even. to this day but it's used for file. sharing like if you're sharing. information between two computers but.

there is a. specialized out of band packet that you. could send to Port 139 on a system that. was. online and uh if you send it this Mal. form packet it would basically blue. screen the computer meaning that it. would lock it up and you couldn't use it. anymore and so if you had someone's IP. address this is before consumer. firewalls or um you know people usually. plug their computer directly into the. internet there wasn't routers or. anything so anything that you're sending. to that machine is like direct to that. machine so uh the this wind nuke.

software uh when it had come out it just. allowed you if you knew somebody's IP. address and they had a Windows machine. you could always knock them offline like. and crash their entire computer. basically and so that had kind of come. out and some other people on the. bulletin boards that I was talking to. one of the coess Ops uh you know I said. man this tool is really neat like I. can't I believe it works this way and. and he's like have you ever been on AOL. and I kind of dabbled on it but hadn't.

really ever taken anything seriously. he's like you got to check this out. because uh you know on there people are. just they're you can knock people. offline all the time and it's like again. like with the computer Enthusiast crowd. it's like one thing but then to do it to. just completely normal people is is. another uh and so that's where I got got. into uh America online and doing said. this the spamming and everything kind of.

sort of came out of this uh this. curiosity but the uh you could send. malformed uh HTML in over instant. message and it would have the same. effect like where it would knock. people's computers or there was certain. reserved. uh directories in in DOS uh which was. the operating system that things ran at. the time uh there's certain protected.

directories that if you tried to access. files on those directories uh it would. knock people offline and so uh you you. could play sounds on AOL like you could. make say goodbye or welcome or the I. sound and you just do like a curly. bracket s and then a directory of a. sound um and then some of them were just. built into AOL but that using that. uh formatting and then trying to access. like con con or a parallel port or.

something would knock an entire room. offline so you could get into a chat. room 23 people are in there and then you. drop this sound file that's fake and. then it would just kick everybody off. and so these were the just it was just. hijinks like stupid stuff like that uh. but then so was it just the thrill that. caught your attention oh yeah yeah I. mean it doesn't seem like there's really. a point to it other than getting a. thrill out of it yeah it's well it's. just that you know the internet's always. been a source of acrimonious behavior in.

some senses and Flame Wars and you know. people talking to each other and. stuff so the ability to you know just. screw someone's computer up after you. know you get into a fight with them over. you know who is the best Power Ranger. you know which Ninja Turtle was your. favorite or whatever then you just. knocked them offline uh that was the. appeal I think of it is that just it's. powerful you know you're able to just. kind of uh yeah just it's it's your.

playground like you own this stuff like. so you know people will and again back. then uh you know it wasn't very common. you know your screen name baby like some. people would pick screen names that. would give away their birthday you know. they'd be like Bryce 1982 or whatever. and so you infer a little bit of. information about some people but a lot. of times it was completely anonymous as. far as as you were concerned and so it. kind of became more of our Focus to hack.

the system itself um and there were. these private rooms that were on AOL. that were just sort of the in the back. the back channels of uh and it was all. people that were you know kind of. interested in these types of things you. know making programs that interfaced. with AOL to do the spamming or you know. these programs that would automate the. punting. there was terms of service violation. programs I mean these these types of. things work on Instagram and stuff today.

like if you have we used to call them. network tosses but if I have a ton of. Instagram accounts and then I report you. and I say like you know you've been. harassing you know me then if if there's. multiple people that are saying like. you're you're harassing us then what. they'll do is they'll just take your. account offline there's automated. systems that do this type of thing so. you know we used to um you submit. reports that somebody's harassing my. children you know or whatever and so you. craft these custom Mals you send them.

from a bunch of different accounts and. then You' kill people's accounts uh so. said these are just kind of hassles but. this is all just figuring out how you. know to manipulate the system. to for our. advantage uh the progressively like what. had happened is started to investigate. the internals of AOL so with these. groups you know we'd get together and. and um there was one of my partners. glitch that I lost touch with but we got.

into hacking. into uh assets like AOL like internal. assets ones that only the employees. could access and we found kind of debug. tools that allowed us to use the America. Online interface the same way an. employee would um or we could access. hidden forms like sometimes instead of. when they deprecated. like a mail form or something like that. it might still be in the code and there. might still be a way to to interact with.

it but as far as the front end is. concerned and anyone else that was using. this system they're getting the normal. one but then we have this kind of. alternative version that we could. manipulate and use uh and things back. then too wasn't like a lot of people had. AOL keywords instead of websites and so. you know uh if you look at any kind of. video from the late '90s or 2000s you. know they'll say see us on a keyword NFL. or whatever so instead of nfl.com being.

a place where a lot of people got their. stuff because America Online had so many. people on it like You' go to keyword NFL. and that would be where you'd get all. your information on the on football um. so progressing through that like it was. fun to take those keywords over and like. uh if you could find the accounts that. were basically view ruled to edit those. keywords then you could make it so that. you know know NFL keyword was whatever. you wanted to put on it and so we would. edit keywords and deface keywords uh.

with these empowered. accounts and again AOL just had this the. most of the member base was just regular. you know Everyday People type thing so. it's insanely. easy just because they're non- Tech to. take advantage of a lot of kind of just. Mis uh misassumptions about you know how. the technology really really worked that. even though they would have uh like a.

notices on instant Messengers like you. know AOL staff will never ask for your. username or password that you could. craft like a specially you know like a. name that looked like it could be an. employee like staffen 92345 and then say. like hey you know this is AOL tech. support we need your username and. password again these attacks still. persist today but this was the sort of. Proving Grounds for how all this stuff. uh worked and so we got into actually.

breaking into AOL employees accounts as. well as what's called overhead accounts. these are ones that uh AOL if you were. advertising on AOL they basically give. gave you a free account and so and they. had certain powers because they were. able to edit keywords and stuff uh but. after targeting employee accounts uh. then we were able to Pivot into the. internal network of America online and. they had some compensating. controls uh but me and this guy carbox.

and Casey developed uh I well I wrote. the software for it but it was a reverse. tunnel uh so I was saying there's not a. lot of systems that were persistent on. the internet at that time uh so I had a. university jump box and what it would do. is it would tunnel into aol's internal. Network and then it also had an outgoing. connection that we could connect to and. then it would basically get us into the. local area network of America. online and so if I connected to that.

jumpbox then I could log on to employee. accounts without any secure ID any type. of two-factor authentication and so from. there you were able to access uh Chris. which was the like customer relations. information service or I forgot exactly. what it stood for but from that panel. you could type in someone's screen name. and it was like customer service you. could get your address phone number. credit card all the accounts you know.

everything that had to do with those. accounts and so that it evolved into now. if I'm having a flame war with someone. on the internet I can just look them up. and be like you live here like this is. where you oh my gosh and so you see. people. just like because there was you know. your buddy list would show you when. people were online when they came online. when they didn't. um and uh you know said messenger. everything kind of stems from this but. yeah you wouldn't see him sign on for.

weeks they' just be terrified cuz you. know again this is information that's. supposed to be secret but you know. you're accessing it from this uh from. you know aol's control panel basically. uh but the major thing that we used it. for was to take screen names that we. wanted so like I had my first name like. I had Bryce aol.com and you know so all. of the homies all had their first names. and they had their handles you know and. some people's handles are a lot less uh.

I guess like oday for instance you know. is is a term in Computing that I know. actually know multiple oday besides Ryan. but you know if he wanted that screen. name like I would get it for him uh type. thing and so we used it more for that. type of stuff again we weren't stealing. people's credit cards to you know charge. them or anything but it was just fun to. have that type of access because again. it was very. you know imagine you could just look. somebody up that you were having a. internet fight with and you know you. knew exactly where they lived and you.

know how often they paid their bills and. stuff um man it sounds like you were. really on the precipice of packing in. the very. Beginnings I would say in the in the 80s. is like when it really took flight there. was a lot more you could do with phone. systems and computers back then there. was absolutely no compensating controls. at all and so Glory Days like in New. York there was like masters of deception. Legion of Doom like there's these hacker.

Wars of the 8S that were just legendary. but I would say a lot of kind of the the. modern twists and stuff this was yeah it. was very cool to be a part of that that. time because again the internet was just. barely coming into itself and it was. just starting to get available to to. normal people and and that's kind of why. I really like. the era I grew up in because it I had. that kind of the the Giants that came. before me and you know sort of set that.

Foundation but uh the stuff that we were. doing around then is a lot more kind of. analogous to the the types of threats. and everything that we're dealing with. today when you talk about some of your. buddies that you were hacking with like. I think you mentioned uh somebody named. glitch yeah glitch you know I mean do. you do you know these people or are. these online connections you don't know. what they look like I've never met. glitch in my life he had we had talked. on the phone and we do we do conference.

calls like a lot like that was another. big thing in the hacker scene is we. would hijack conference lines and then. everyone would just kind of call in and. so but he had the deepest voice out of. anybody I've ever heard but I don't know. if he was white black like nothing about. him never saw a picture of him and he. was like my my boy like we were super. super tight uh and I don't even know. where he is now I mean how do how do you. how does this work work where do you how. do you meet him so like oh I'm Bryce I'm. a fellow hacker let's be let's be.

friends like how does this work so like. I said we had these private rooms that. uh so once you kind of get into the. network the fabric then you sort of SP. spider out into you know the other kind. of corners but there were these um. because of the programs that were being. released on AOL at the time there were. rooms that were named after programs. that people would go to like you would. just type in the name of the program. like fate X was a huge program Havoc was. a huge program that's the one that's the. first room that I was really really a.

part of um but uh they had a ton of. software piracy rooms uh so if you. wanted to get what we called Wares it. was short for software uh you would go. some people pronounce it Warz but it's. it's Wares because it comes from. software and you would go in these rooms. and they were like numbered so it's like. server one server two server three. server four D but any type of software. that you wanted to get they basically. would use AOL as a file distribution.

service IRC has an analogous uh system. called DCC but on AOL it was stored on. their servers and you would just. basically get emails with pieces chunks. of a file so if you wanted Photoshop or. something you could go into these server. rooms and then download sequentially you. know each chunk of this file but going. into these rooms like there was a. just a a network I would say of like. this person would be in these two rooms. this person would be in these three. rooms type stuff so you just get to.

talking and collaborating and I was. already a pretty good programmer at that. time so you know I'm going in there and. it was a very like the open source. Community um there's software that is. released now that you can look at a. source you can you can contribute to. anybody can contribute to this stuff. Linux you know the operating system is a. uh is an example of this open- Source. software where you know everything's. available to you you can see all the.

code you can edit it if there's a. feature that you want in there and you. can code it you can submit a pull. request and then they'll put it in AOL. had that same type of culture except. very very early where you know we would. share methods with each other if I found. like a cool way to pun somebody then I. could copy paste my code to somebody. else and so you just sort of gain a name. for yourself in that Community um. so it's just sharing information. information and and and Innovation yeah.

it was very collaborative in those years. too that was very little I mean of. course you had some things you kept. close to the chest you know some Secret. Sauce but I like the things that I was. famous for writing were um I had like an. all-in-one chackman program but then I. did a I wrote a program called concert. that uh allowed you to get free AOL. accounts um it was when AOL Instant. Messenger had been released. and uh you used to not be able to have.

lower case screen names everything had. to be uppercase but when AOL when. America Online released um aim then you. could create you could take your AIM. account and you could turn it into an. AOL account and uh we called them I. cases because if you when the A C. lowercase i or capital I looks like a. lowercase L like in the font that was. um uh that was uh in the font that that.

AOL displayed in and so the. uh that these were kind of desired. screen names to have because everyone. else had these uppercase screen names. and you get these lowercase screen names. but the program that I wrote it used it. leveraged. Canadian registration to create free AOL. accounts that would last for about 3 to. five. days and uh so people that didn't I. never paid for AOL in my life like I. always used stolen accounts or cracked.

accounts or something uh and so a lot of. us were like that too and this program. would just basically defraud AOL to make. these free accounts that uh you know. were just burner accounts they would. last for a few days uh but it was a way. it just it leveraged a problem in the. way the Canadian registration system was. set up and how it validated credit cards. that you could basically get these. burner accounts that would stay alive. for a few days uh and then I made this. series of animated movies in Visual. Basic that were kind of about what was.

going on in the at in AOL at the time. and the music was kind of adjacent to it. too but that's sort of how I got a name. for myself in do you have any of those. videos uh which ones the any of the ones. that you created yeah yeah can we put. one in the episode uh I would have to. there cuz I converted them to flash and. uh now flash is not really a thing but. yeah we could I could yeah fine there're. stick figures and stuff it's just really. dumb but it would just be cool to put. that okay history in here yeah it's fine.

somebody has seen it somebody somebody. watching somebody has seen it yeah they. were they were micro popular uh but then. I said that was taking once you AOL. hacking sort of taken seriously you know. then I said it was more about breaking. into the actual systems that AOL ran on. rather than you know reverse engineering. the protocols and how it talk to each. other like we were building thin clients. that could emulate America Online pretty. closely without actually having to use.

aol's software uh so uh th those were. the that was kind of the progression of. how we weaponized the the hacking stuff. uh but there's ton of people on AOL that. you know this day it it was like a I. said an academy you know there's a ton. of people that came from era that you. know moved on to my form at DG and you. know are doing insane things you know. now but they got their start I think.

Mark Zuckerberg even talked about like. he used to hack aw the messenger and. that's like he wrote a what was called a. fader and what it would do is it would. change the text color like as so as you. typed it it would just be like a cute. rainbow type thing and I think that was. one of the programs that he had. mentioned kind of writing but that. sounds like something Zuckerberg would. have sounds Zu but uh well you mentioned. I got a couple questions actually so in. these in these online communities would.

you call it a forum of hackers this was. more these were more chat rooms yeah. chat rooms how many hackers would be in. a chat. room vary 10 to 15 and you know it's the. and people have all varying skill levels. uh there was a maybe a couple handfuls. of us that were really that got you know. to the kind of the. Echelon yeah but then you had a lot of. people that were just again learning. some people didn't care to learn too. much they just really liked running the.

programs that we would make you know and. make themselves look cool and and stuff. uh but yeah the uh the there was a group. that I looked up to insanely that were. somewhat local uh called lithium node. and those guys came up with some of the. just most. gangster things uh there was like. limitations on the amount you had to. have at least three characters in your. screen name you know that was a kind of. a bare requirement and they found out.

how to make one and two character screen. names and they also had found exploits. in aol's web server the way the software. that they used to serve all their their. web traffic uh actually exploited a bug. in that I think it was in. TCL uh but just that even then you know. there was people that were kind of a. strata above my crew um there were there. was I said there was just a ton of. different groups but all of various uh.

kind of skill level node was probably. the most elite but I was part of AOL. files and. observers and uh those were probably. like I said this second tier this is I. you know how the hierarchy of I'm sure. there's one special forces or something. but yeah the the the groups that I was a. part of were up there but not like the. top top top T tippy top not the tip of. the sphere yeah maybe other people have. different opinions and they be like oh.

yeah you know you were the you were at. the top but uh yeah I just said I. remember just at the time there'd be. things that people were pulling off and. I was like how the hell did they do that. so you had. mentioned you don't put everything out. some stuff you keep close to the chest. did you have anything you were keeping. close to the chest that was for your. eyes only uh by the end of it probably. not um it was more yeah that there was. certain I would.

say internal websites that I knew about. that I didn't want anybody else scraping. or knowing because then it would just. raise the signal on them type stuff uh. but as far as the we call them methods. like it just as far as any of that stuff. goes eventually I would just try to you. know share that type of knowledge cuz. generally it'll come back to you if. people aren't super greedy they'll take. your stuff and then you know they might. mutate it in some way and then you're.

going to get back something cool later a. very sharing economy people that weren't. like that that just kind of consumed you. know you don't deal with them but they. didn't last long they didn't last long. yeah so it was more about the people. that were really forthcoming with all. the cool technology that they were. developing give take relationships. exactly yeah yeah right. on would the stuff that you were doing. in a AOL would that be considered black. hat hacking 100% yeah there was no there. was nothing benevolent about any of that.

stuff it was all just and the way I I. think about it now and there's no way I. must have I terminated on the order of. hundreds of thousands of accounts. probably and you know the member base of. AOL was in I think the eight figures you. know it was a mid million I don't know. it was 20 million I forgot 25 million. but but significant chunk of those I. mean I definitely spammed everybody on. AOL um at one point but I the hassle.

thing I was saying earlier about you. know when your credit card gets canceled. that if your AOL account got terminated. because I happen to break into it or. something that's you know three hours on. the phone that somebody had to it's it's. not far-fetched to think some. 90-year-old Grandma who just wanted to. see pictures of her grandkid you know. sitting on the phone for 3 hours and you. know had a stroke because she was so. frustrated with talking to customer. service like there may have been some. ancillary deaths I you know I could take. it to the nth degree on any of it but.

yeah there was nothing I mean I'm. learning about the system and it was. really cool cuz you're you know things. that you know maybe some most of the. internal employees don't even know and. you're kind of consuming all this so but. very selfishly uh and yeah there is no. way to characterize that as anything but. black hat did you did you meet any of. these like glitch or any of these other. people did you meet any of them in. person yeah so like a couple of my best.

friends uh of all time like we started. out on AOL together and uh actually I. mean most of my friends that I still. hang out with uh today uh they came from. some facet of online but that AOL like. my friend EOD my friend Flo my friend. haretsu like all of them like they all. came from America online that's that's. where we met and known each other so. we've known each other for like yeah. whatever it is uh 25 years how long how.

long did it take you to meet them in. person uh probably in in adulthood um. like yeah mid 20s type thing is like. when we finally came came together I we. weren't really and this stuff was. starting at age 15 yeah yeah so it took. a decade right to start meeting people. but we'd been you know internet well I. said some of it was uh earlier than that. I should probably say like yeah 22 23.

even I think like when Taylor was in. college at. UCSB I was I was 19 yeah so maybe it was. a few of them yeah we met like but a lot. the grand majority of them yeah I would. say throughout my 20s is kind of when we. started kicking it you know I. mean man that's weird very I mean you. think about nowadays and and people that. you know they they they made all their. friends on social media and you were.

doing this what 30 years ago yeah 25 30. years ago and back then it was you know. you don't meet weirdos off the internet. type thing that was the attitude that a. lot of people had uh but yeah and. they're my some my best friends now to. this day uh the people that I've you. know just known through that uh that. scene it's it's cool uh but they're the. people that I identified with the most. uh you know obviously and you know we. had like a lot of common interests and.

stuff so this is uh I mean this is. fascinating to me do you do you think. that look everybody has a stereotype. right mhm stereotype in the Special. Operations Community stereotype at CIA. stereotype at NSA all these different. places I've worked at there's definitely. a stereotype that kind of fits the mold. would you say there is a stereotype in. the hacking Community oh yeah I think. everybody sort of.

pictures the guy in the hoodie with the. anonymous mask on and cans of Red Bull. or a monster whatever just polluting the. desk and that's what's so crazy is that. a lot of or you know Ultra nerdy like. super you know coke bottle glasses like. any of that type of that that archetype. is just you see it is a Trope in in. Hollywood pretty consistently but uh. what I found is it's a really eclectic I. said all Races all Creeds religions.

whatever you know different looks it's. very there a lot of people that you. wouldn't even know are you know looking. at them that they had anything to do. with computers was it's it's a very it. was a wakeup call I think even even then. you know it's like well not everybody's. just a. dork pretty cool people. here what about personality. traits. that I think everybody that's on the. computer as much as we are has some.

mental illness like there you just have. to so that stereotype is true there's no. no going anywhere there's everybody's. subject to some. idiosyncratic Behavior or trait uh the. most there's a lot of depression anxiety. schizophrenia bipolar you know all that. type of stuff just coales is in the. hacking World. fairly uh regularly I I said that.

stereotype I would say is pretty true. about everybody I know and autism is. like super super big like that uh it's a. in. joke uh within a lot of us is that you. know the more autism you're showing like. the better you are type thing the. Asbergers you know just focused and just. super. meticulous and everything that it's a. quality that I see as a superpower a lot. of ways you know when it comes down to. it interesting interesting so all right.

so let's move past the AOL stuff what. what started coming next uh so I had. started doing the web page defacement. type stuff in um in parallel like I said. the keyword defacement was one thing but. I was would you know watch television. and there'd be an an ad for a car. dealership or something and then I would. just go type it in my computer and then. I would just hack the car dealership or.

whenever I'd see any sort of. indicator uh so I wasn't very. prescriptive about which targets I was. uh doing just see if I could do it but. eventually after doing a lot of those. types of defacements like what would you. do to a car dealership oh uh I there was. a a Honda dealership called Empire Honda. and I. had posted a picture of Christina. agilera on the site and I said that I.

demand that they give me a Honda so I. could drive around with Christine. agilera so I just held their H their web. page hostage uh cuz I had a crush um but. things like that just to where anybody. else that would go to the website would. see you know what I'd put up there okay. so let's disect this so you you put a. you put an image up on the homepage. of Christina. Aguilera yeah how I mean where does the. reaction come from oh I don't I don't.

even know what the I would love to see. what people's faces would look like when. they saw that or when the people that uh. that yeah that own the website would you. be the one to take it down what do you. mean like eventually would you just be. like all right fine no I would leave it. up until they fixed it so just do it and. then drop the mic and I'm out I'm sure. somebody's going to notice eventually. yeah but it was just funny. things like that um and I was that I.

infected my high school pretty well uh. and it's it was eventually part of what. I got investigated for but I hacked. every school district in Colorado like I. had all their anything that was internet. facing or Internet appropriate I had you. know either defaced or I had some sort. of foothold in um cuz I could bounce my. connections through them all kinds of. stuff but I kind of after doing the.

company stuff for a while but the. government the dogs and Mills were the. that's the top level domain for you know. government and uh military sites and. that was the progression you know again. it's got to give an addict you know more. and these were just. shinier uh targets. and car dealerships and stuff uh so I so. Pride started getting in the way yeah. it's well in the challenge like can I.

you know I'm a just a dorky high school. kid can I break into you know the. military uh these websites and I was. part of a group called Global hell that. uh famously you mean hacked like white. house.gov and army. Mill and. we. uh I don't know we looked at it that you.

know people were like well why' you hack. this were you looking for UFOs or. nuclear secrets or anything like that. and it wasn't really like that. everything that I was doing was. just whoa let's backtrack for a minute. here so I think we're going. into you we're going into when you. defaced all of the.gov do Mill big. government AG. see websites right so let's let's go. down the list okay I know this is what I. have you to face NASA's Goddard space.

flight Center website a cartoon of a. hooked hacker a hooded hacker a piece. symbol and a warning of website security. holes did you also hack the FFA or FAA. dcaa NATO Colorado Springs Police. Department Texas Department of Public. Safety Honda niss. and AT&T yeah am I missing anything I'm. sure you are but it was a it was a crime.

spree uh at that point. uh yeah it again it's done great things. for me obviously this is it's a. fantastic resume to have but in. retrospect that. again was the juice worth the squeeze. how old were you when you're hacking. these uh 17 16 17 16 years old and. you're hacking NASA. yeah what but that was the juice worse.

the worth the squeeze I mean I the. consequences weren't really that that. bad you know I didn't do prison time and. they didn't keep the computer away from. me or anything uh what was really. telling about it was my investigation I. had seven different agencies. investigating me at the same time and I. I wasn't really careful about I wasn't. deleting logs I was really kind of up. front I figured you know the more. transparent I was about the crime I was.

doing and whether or not that worked in. my favor is debatable but I I knew. specifically how to keep myself out of. it you know I wasn't if I would have. done it under a different handle there's. things that I did under different. handles that you know but everything I. did here I was pretty much looking to. get caught in some senses and I'm a. minor I'm not you know what are they. going to do to me so that's the attitude. that I have uh but that I think about it. you know now as an adult on the other. side of stuff and I just I don't even.

know how many days I ruined you know. people chewed out by their boss or you. know people got fired I'm sure it was uh. fry not very very fun um but the things. well I mean you did expose a. vulnerability yeah and this was so this. is the turn of the Millennium and I was. really you know I've always been. insanely patriotic like I you know love. my country fear my government type kind. of guy uh and that it was sort.

of I just saw the way that the winds. were blowing you know and and that if uh. somebody with some high school kid with. free time on his hand is sitting there. and just doing this massacre of all. these government websites and huge. companies that that doesn't if I was a. concerted you know State actor and I. wanted to get persistence in these. machines or I really cared about doing. more than instead of being loud about it.

and defacing the front pages if I wanted. to get in there secretly and stay there. secretly like that would have been very. very easy for me to do and so as a just. again a kid with free time on his hands. able to do this like imagine if you were. paying me you know quar million dollars. a year to do this type of thing and do. it nefariously like I just that that's. the logic I had walking into it is like. you know why aren't why isn't people. fixing this because I could I would.

email you know web Masters and I'd be. like hey this is wrong like you need to. fix this nothing so then but the moment. you break it like then all of a sudden. it's a it's a rush to to fix it and so. that was the onus uh for a lot of what I. was doing is just to raise this. awareness uh that this illusory power. structure that exists that you know you. think is all impenetrable is being. defeated by so you actually had a a. positive motive here 100% yeah yeah I.

mean but again like I said the means by. which I accomplish these goals probably. considered criminal or black hat but. yeah that I it's said I'm on record and. I've quoted that since you know then. it's just it was more just like I it was. absurd to me that you know you have. companies with all this money or. governments with all these resources. like weren't paying attention to this. type of stuff and I mean now it's even. more of a death sentence than it was. there's just so much that's hinging on.

technology that well let's let's walk. through the beginning then just walk me. through step by step so you said you. started to see the way the winds were. turning mhm and and all these agencies. were extremely vulnerable to being. hacked. so what what got them on your radar just. at the very beginning you just you were. just up in the an see and if you could. do it then you realized oh this is. atrocious yeah that hacking a car.

dealership a local car dealership and. holding the ransom for uh Christine. agilera or something is one thing but. then yeah being able to do these uh. types of things to government websites. was totally you know different um but. you realize it's the same like in a. sense that the amount of protection that. that car dealership has is almost the. same amount of protection that this has. so there's a. asymmetrical value to you know where you.

would think the the people would be. paying attention to uh but again it was. the same type of thing like it was just. as a hip-hop fan you know there's uh the. elements of hip-hop are like uh you know. turntablism break dancing mcing and. graffiti was always considered an. element of of uh of hipop pop and so I. the first ticket I got like I said was. spray painting uh and so it's just the. same type of behavior except using the.

internet as a medium for my graffiti and. so yeah whatever manifestos I had about. the state of security or you know. whatever dumb thing I was ranting about. at the time it was called activism was. the kind of term that uh emerged is that. you know whatever political message. you're trying to send or you know trying. to drive. traffic to a cause like that's but my. evangelization of security was more you. know hey look I'm a dumb kid and I'm.

hacking this stuff so you know what are. you going to do about it what was the. first website that you hacked government. wise the first. one o I don't remember. um cuz the one that say it was the that. the the three that NASA and the defense. contracts. defense contract audit agency and the F. the Federal Aviation Administration were. the were all done in the. same I think it was November 23rd.

1999 oh man you remember the exact day. yeah uh I'm pretty sure I might get. skill checked nerd sniped but that. uh that that was like what caught the. attention of mainstream media uh and. yeah this one everywhere correct yeah I. it was on wired CNN Fox uh it it got. pretty big.

traction. uh yeah but that's what I that's the one. I know because I said I was doing local. government stuff I done the the thing. that was crazy that I found out later. was that the the police department. systems that I hacked actually like if I. would have traversed the. network uh I would have been able to you. know pull up like access uh like the is. it the is NCIS I think it is the. national like the you know be able to.

look at warrants like International or. national warrants and you know I I could. have manipulated like actual police. records like speeding tickets and da D. that uh the what for whatever reason. their website was on the same network. that all the rest of that stuff was uh. so I didn't find that out until after. the fact again my me my mission was. basically to go in sometimes I would in. some amount of some kind of persistence. that way I could get back in but for the. most part it was just uh I would deface. the website and then it would have.

instructions on how to fix it and how to. remediate uh what was going on so uh. yeah just I'm trying to remember I'm. pretty sure that some of that stuff some. state government stuff had happened. before that but the NASA one was the one. that kind of uh blew up but I didn't. stop after that I I still kept going how. long does it take how long did it take. you to hack into NASA not long so the. the thing that was I think people have a. misconception about what hacking really.

is like think you're just grinding out. passwords or anything that there was a. exploit that I was. leveraging uh in a database service that. that came on like if you had a website. that was running on a Windows system. there was a uh MS. adcd L it was a for data connections um. but it was a dynamic link library that. was accessible from the internet the. problem is is the way that it was.

configured out of the box is you could. send it shell commands and basically. issue commands to the box as if you were. you know sitting there if you had an. account on the machine and it would run. under the web user. permissions uh so I had. modified a lot of people when they were. using these this way of defacing all. they were doing is they would Echo a. text string to the index page of the. website so you would just get this black. and white screen that said Sean Ryan was.

here type thing uh the way I did it was. I was I would basically manifest Network. shares on the machine that I could. connect to and then I could do I had. full directory access and so it's. basically more robust than what was. originally designed like the proof of. concept type thing so it was an exploit. somebody else this guy rainforest puppy. had developed and found and then I just. kind of did my own little spin onto it.

uh it's really easy because you could. just grind out sites and if you saw that. this Library existed uh on the website. you were investigating then you knew it. was probably vulnerable so I would write. Grinders that would take like you know. seanryan show.com vigilance elite.com D. all these different websites and then I. could just plug in and see you know is. this file present is it not present you. know type things so it was carpet.

bombing uh the internet um so if I saw. one that I you know if I was more. focused on something then it was easy. for me to just kind of go in there and. look but I was just loading up domain. lists anything that ended in.gov you. know Mill you know I had uh there was a. site called Netcraft back then that. would it kept a repository of what. operating systems uh and versions and. stuff that sites were running and so you. would you can get good DNS intelligence. from that and find out you know what not.

only top level domains but subdomains of. of uh that belong to the government or. the military uh said there's different. ways to do it now through passive DNS. scanning and stuff but that was how I. got that was how I got the laundry list. back. then how many of these how many. government organizations did you hack at. once. 20. something a lot it how did you get. approached I mean what I got a lot of.

questions how did how did they approach. you when you when they were on to you so. there was this kid there. was again these hacker groups we all. have these little clicks and we had. this one called Sesame Street hackers uh. but it's a it was a joke on secure shell. because SSH is a uh software that he. used to log into a machine. securely uh but we had the same. initialism but it was uh Sesame Street. hackers and there was this kid his name.

was. darkness and uh he was 15 a little. younger than uh than I was and he broke. into a satellite and he instead of. deleting the logs he accidentally. deleted everything on the machine like. completely screwed up. and the administrator of that. machine was named black dog and he came. into our IRC chat uh and he was like.

you're all like all of you are you know. the they're after you like you don't. understand he even put this site back up. and he had like edited the stuff that we. edited so he red defaced our. defacement um but he said they know all. about you and he knew way too much for. it to be a troll cuz sometimes you know. obviously we'd be messing with each. other and uh but this guy was 100% for.

real logs on from a you know you could. see the IP address that he logged in. from and it was an Assa go one and and. he just knew way too much information. about what was going on and so he he was. like you know you should probably. contact them before they contact you and. so I was like all right I'll call so he. gave me the number of uh NASA has an. investigative arm called o oig the. office of the Inspector General I think. a lot of government agencies have a. similar thing but it's like the law. enforcement arm of NASA and so I.

called uh Sheila Brock I think was her. name and uh yeah and I just basically. said I'm Whitey cracker I heard you're. looking for. me you know how can we make this. peaceful and somehow and so they said. all the information came out. later uh but the so the Texas Department. of Public Safety was after me which is.

uh it's like their Sheriff's Department. uh because I had hacked them uh there. was the FBI uh you hacked the FBI well I. didn't hack the FBI but they uh they. were obviously they had inves yeah there. was uh. dcis uh like which uh I forgot what that. stands for defense criminal. investigative service or something like. that I think they handled like DOD. stuff uh there was na NASA office the.

Inspector General there was the Carl. Springs Police Department I know there. was seven like I that number seared into. my head and it was a the case report. file was you but what I found that it. was nuts because it said after all this. stuff NASA came. in uh it was two agents sat down in the. kitchen table you know we went over. everything uh but the inter agency. coordination I mean I'm sure you know. how this stuff works just I I cannot.

believe that it happened but the FBI was. supposedly two weeks away from kicking. my door in um my the local police. department they'd been set up across the. street and just monitoring you know my. when I would go in and out of school and. stuff they were getting ready to kick it. in somehow NASA was able to contact all. the agencies that were at open cases. against me and tell them it was their. caller or whatever so I never wind up. getting my door kicked in like it was. just nice invite them in have you know.

coffee or whatever and we just kind of. discussed everything but they took all. my computers and you know back for. forensic investigation a a lot of that. stuff had emerged during the case uh and. the case report was just huge but yeah. all the different agencies that were. investigating me like each had you a. little kind of section in this file uh. which was in saying to me there like how. much Manpower had. been wasted on on little me uh.

but yeah said I uh did you see the news. did you see the news break with all the. website def facing before you had these. meetings yeah well I was interviewing. with the press and so that's what I mean. they were that uh you know they'. contacted me through there was this so. the site that there was a site that. mirrored all of the hacks that people. were doing called it it was attrition uh.

attrition.com that were happening and so. it became this. leaderboard uh amongst hackers like who. could hack the most stuff and so said. the different groups and all but there's. a whole just Chronicle of every website. defacement that has ever happened pretty. much attrition was keeping kind of. record of that and so we would be. sending stuff to them you know to make. sure that they mirrored it and uh showed. that that we had done it um and so a lot.

of times media would contact them and. say like how do how can we get in touch. with this hacker or that hacker or. whatever and uh again if you're looking. for that Fame and that recognition then. it was you know no-brainer and a lot of. us around that time they said they were. kind of pointing out the insecurities in. government all shared that same ethos. and so talking to the Press was just. another way of getting the word out of. what we were doing so did you.

talk did you talk to the Press before or. after I talked to the Press before I got. busted yeah wouldn't that be cat out of. the bag right there well like I said I. didn't really care that I'm 17 I was. like what's the worst going to happen to. me type stuff and I wasn't thinking. about the consequences in in that way. and I'd written an article for hack news. too about that you know it's like the. best time to do things obviously is like. when there's no real repercussions and. this was before 911 so it wasn't there.

wasn't a whole lot. of uh and it was apparent what I was. doing like I said I was very open about. the way I was getting in how I was. getting in what I was doing there wasn't. much know clandestine you know secret. Behavior going on I just I was really. upfront about the the H the how and the. why uh which I believe saved me in a lot. of ways but yeah I mean I want to I. didn't do any jail time I was on. probation for a really long time and I. had to pay a little restitution but. other than that the there was wasn't.

much Fallout you know in the sense that. it didn't affect my professional career. at all or what did um what is that. conversation like when NASA walks into a. 17-year-old's home and. is asking you why you hacked their. website and defaced it they had a I said. just a wealth of evidence and they had. chat logs they're monitoring our chats. and they had a list of. people that they were asking me if I.

knew and even if I did know them I said. I didn't know them I I was real Cy I. about uh I again anything that I did I. was taking responsibility for and ready. to go down for but said conversation was. super cordial and they just I said they. left with all of my hard drives and. equipment and stuff and off for analysis. and imaging or whatever they did to it. but they had most of the evidence. obviously there you know and my. confession but uh it's the most.

impressive thing was that somehow they. were able to coordinate with all the. rest of the agencies and so I didn't get. my door kicked in seven times and be. like oh the computer's already gone like. NASA's already got them so that that was. that was. nice did they did they fix the problem. oh yeah oh yeah did they did they need. your assistance to fix any of the. problems no and that's something people. ask me all the time is like why didn't. the government offer you a job and uh.

the the answer that I actually got was. an odd one but said made it made sense. at the time and it was just that you. know justifying you know the Catch Me If. You Can type uh philosop that it you. know can you justify to taxpayers that. we now have a criminal kind of. overseeing the security of our systems. and so you know how do you go from being. you know this prolific hacker and then. all the sudden you know change of heart. now you're like working for them type. things so that was the justification.

that they use that they never uh did. there's some stuff that I had done for. the FBI later like CU I have a strict. code of no snitching like I'll will. never like go down on my boys I even to. this day like I just something never. sits right with me and you know but like. technical type of uh consultations you. know like how does this attack work or. something like that that those are the. types of things that I was wound up. offering to agency as part of my C um. community service that I had to work off. you know just you know what is you know.

how does this credit card attack work. like how do they you know how are they. finding these numbers and you know how I. don't know if you know how that I mean. what what's going through your head when. you have the when you have the FBI and. NASA and all these government websites. or just government agencies asking a. 17-year-old kid how how how does this. work. the the movie Matrix had come out that. same year. and I did it's just those things that.

are fused into your head that it's just. weird cuz you just feel like you're. living in a in a movie in some senses. and that was probably the weirdest. takeaway from it that because the. reality set in it's like well you know. you do the crime do the time type thing. but it was fascinating to me that the. said I can't even imagine the amount of. Manpower and resources it was taken to. compile cuz the the stuff that they had. I mean again it's like a King James. Bible just thick full of all this uh you.

know said chat logs and pictures and. images and you know things they had. already had informants that had flipped. on us and stuff so they you know they. had documentation you know from other. people that they'd already kind of. encountered and talked to uh one one of. the leaders of the group I don't think. he ever got busted he was a Canadian. National maybe RCMP did hit him up but. the one of my homies Missing Link rack. mount he never got caught uh I say I.

said that's part of the reason that the. Anon anonymity was super important for a. lot of us is that you know again if you. didn't we didn't didn't know who each. other really really was you know you're. just a face a name and we just respected. each other's skills uh so you don't know. what race somebody is you don't know. what gender they are it's just you're. just a name on a computer screen as far. as I'm concerned I guess I guess where I. was going is did it did the incompetence. of the government agencies as far as. cyber security did that register with.

you at that age oh yeah the but again. with age comes experience type thing I. understand uh The Defenders dilemma I. had said brought that up when we were. eating dinner but that a Defender has to. be successful against all uh points of. Ingress or an attacker only needs to be. successful with one and it's very very. hard to maintain a decent security.

posture with all of the attack service. that might be going on and some of these. systems that I was breaking into were. probably just overlooked you know on the. internet some kind of well I mean you. had mentioned earlier that you were. sending the I don't know sending them. emails or messages or something saying. hey there's a hole here you guys might. want to fix this okay you don't want to. fix it then I'll expose it I mean so you. gave them the opportunity to fix it did. you did you did that come up in the in. the interviews when oh yeah yeah yeah.

that's that's why I said my sentence as. far as I think most of my contemporaries. was really really lenient uh that pretty. much they said the restitution was. charged it was it was a quarter million. dollars but it was like that they. basically Justified it through the. salaries of you know how much time they. wasted you know and you know how. government math is like where toothbrush. is $500 and screwdrivers a billion so. yeah there was some kind of gorilla math. that had gone on uh with how they. calculated it uh but the said in looking.

at it now you know especially just the. resources I think that were available. and the types of professionals that were. doing it I mean that I know knowing now. like what I or knowing then what I know. now is just that of course a kid is. going to be able to do these things like. I have all the time in the world I you. know I'm I'm on the bleeding edge of. this stuff that I might be my adversary. on the other end you know may have been. a longtime computer user or something.

like that but they have no idea of this. the realm that I'm operating in type. thing and it's just each generation that. comes after me you know is going to be. better than than mine was type stuff uh. so I forgive them but in a sense like. this is these are the stakes you don't. want to be playing you know especially. today you know in this day and age like. you you want the best and brightest you. protecting that type of stuff. because uh just the opportunity. costs well I mean anything that would go.

to the. contrary has catastrophic consequences. it and if you're not I mean I'm just it. it I'm just really curious how the. convers when you told them I mean I. don't know if you remember I realized. this is a very long time ago this a. while ago but um. what 24 years I guess but uh yeah when. you when you tell them I mean because. they're they're sitting there telling. you hey you know all the adding up you.

know their gorilla math on oh well we. had to expend this amount of money you. know because of salaries and whatever I. mean and your response could have been. well you know actually this issue could. have been fixed with zero yeah with zero. money had you who been on the other end. of my message said you might want to fix. this you could have done this an easier. way and so I'm I'm just. curious I mean they have to feel.

relatively foolish talking to a. 16-year-old 17-year-old kid who just. broke into. NASA's website after giving them. warnings about what you're going to do I. assume I would feel like a fool well. well I told you guys to fix this but you. didn't pay attention to your customer. service platform so I had to hack it to. get your attention because this is a. matter of National Security if the if. the administrator had come to my house.

let's this is just you know a couple of. agents that just have all this. information that I'm sure the. conversation would have been completely. different uh you know because from the. tech side but I the it just blows my. mind cuz a lot of. these you know you think that it's the. government and it's got to be secure. like just some sort of inherent you just. feeling that you have and that I that I. don't know the reasoning why like there.

could have been a huge patch backlog or. maybe that email Isn't monitored as. closely or something there's a million. reasons as to why the they didn't act. upon you know the the um the messaging. that I was giving and I said after a. period of time like I was shoot first. ask questions later type guy cuz that's. what happened is it started out as I was. emailing people and like this is. up and then they wouldn't respond or fix.

it and then so that's when I just went. on the war path you know and then then. there there may have been other agencies. that I hacked that would have been more. receptive to that type of you know uh uh. exchange but I just I had a few of those. ones where no one did anything and so I. was like all right you know what just. best way to fix it is to you know break. it because then somebody's going to see. it you know somebody's going to be like. oh okay you know this guy's for real he. wasn't just you know pulling our chain. and and you can imagine that I mean they. might get people trying to prank them.

all the time or fake ransoming them or. whatever so I I seeing is believing so. you got to demonstrate. the sometimes yeah fair enough well. let's move. into your Forum digital. gangsters so it sounds like this was a. very prolific. Forum yeah uh a lot of so there was some. other internet forums around that time.

that I was kind of a part of uh but. there was. no there wasn't one that kind of brought. together the hacker community that uh we. had fostered during the AOL days so. there was a period of time kind of. between the AOL hey a and digital. gangster uh so in 2005 digital gangster. IID started it out as a production. company I was throwing Raves CU I was.

DJing and all this stuff so it started. out as this local production company. that I was throwing Raves and stuff on. Earth the the website used to just point. to whatever club nights and things I was. throwing but I had stopped doing that. and so the website was just sitting uh. defunct nothing nothing pointed to it. and there was a couple other forums. there was this one called General Mayhem. um that was kind of big and it was just.

kind uh it was it started out as a. computer gaming kind of forum and then. there was one called gfy stood for go. yourself and it was an adult oriented uh. for adult web Masters and stuff for the. internet so I had this semi Community. you know from the work I'd done the. adult industry and then you know the. gaming stuff and then all these people. from AOL that didn't have a home and so. that's when I started digital gangster. and then all the kind of the Elder.

Statesmen who were already quit hacking. AOL Elder Statesmen meaning like you. know 23 24 year old type uh you know. came to the Forum and the current kind. of AOL hacking scene was more shifted to. aim and then they joined and then I had. the internet marketing people join and. some gaming people join and it just. started to snowball and gain traction uh. we were hugely active.

on kind of just the more of that data. sharing collaborative like Tech tactics. techniques and procedures that would be. useful against places we I think one of. the first things that we did was uh we. created a a bunch of fake coupons that. uh. would say like thank you for being an. eade investor you know take this coupon. into McDonald's to get a free extra. value meal and we just make them look.

like super super legit and. so people were always taking like videos. of them this is before social media was. really prevalent and uh but yeah using. these coupons at places like getting. free pizzas and uh free McDonald's and. Taco Bell I had a guy that works for me. now that. uh had no idea that that was us that had. started doing that and he was like D I. fed myself for like a whole year like. with this it got to the point where.

these stores were putting up you know do. not accept these coupons type thing but. it was all just this. disruptive kind of that we were. doing uh but there was a guy um camo cam. zero and uh he had hacked into Paris Hil. sidekick uh the sidekick was a phone. before the iPhone that had like a full. keyboard and it was sort of the phone of. the Stars before the iPhone became big. but uh her password was her dog's name.

was Tinkerbell and the thing was is that. that address book was just full of. celebrities and then had a bunch of. images on it and so that hack had. happened and that kind of brought that. came from your form that came from my. form yeah and so then my Forum got known. for. doing just things like that hold on so. what did you guys do with the. information we posted it like we just.

shared it so I mean it so it had all. these celebrities names addresses phone. numbers yeah emails uh yeah and then I. said there's private pictures and I said. in retrospect like I did it was it. became a huge sensitive thing especially. recently I don't know if you remember. the fappening like when people had their. they were getting their iclouds hacked. and celebrities had their sex tapaste. posted and was that you guys that wasn't. us but. that's but by that these are the things.

I think about it now and it's like. that's a it is a serious invasion of. privacy type thing like I totally see. the wrong in it um and whether or not. people are media figures or not doesn't. necessarily give you the right to be. posting the stuff so of of course. regrettable Behavior you know but at the. time it was juicy and you know the media. was just all around it and. uh so did that did that break the news. cycle too oh yeah yeah that totally did. and tangentially like that's the thing.

that's funny is that on the on the porn. side of things like one of my buddies is. the dude who brokered cuz remember her. sex tape is like kind of what launched. that I mean theoretically by Butterfly. Effect it launched Kim Kardashian's. career in some senses but uh that yeah. that was there was an entire. you know deal being brokered between. like Rick Solomon and peris Hilton and. this porn company that basically. released the the sex tape for to to buy. it uh so all of this press I think was.

in a way it was good but at the same. time the methodology as you know for. what we had done with it I I I don't. it's not something I would condone you. know now uh or whatever and but that's. kind of what our board was doing for a. while is um Myspace was really huge and. so we' hacked Tom's Myspace who was the. founder he was everyone's friend and. we'd hacked his website and we directed. A bunch of people the digital gangster.

um we hacked Tila Tequila's Myspace and. she was like the Starlet this is all. ancient internet history stuff uh how. much of this stuff hit the news cycle. quite a bit of it yeah we're going to. put it all up here and that's where find. it that's where it really started to. snowball cuz then members would come. come in that were the fresh blood that. had heard about this hack that had. happened um so everybody wants to be a. part of this exactly yeah and so you had.

these but the thing that was funny is. that people would come in and then just. like any a club there'd be just insane. amounts of hazing that would happen. because you'd get all these newcomers. and then it would be everyone who was. sort of veterans on the board it would. be their it would be their job to kind. of weed out out and find you know who's. just who's a poser who's just here who's. trolling like whatever and would just. run these people through psychological. torture practically and then anyone who.

end up staying you know made the grade. and then they would be the person that. would make fun of the next batch of. people that would come in so it's this. revolving door of uh of just idiots but. that what's cool is then people would. come and they' be like how did you do. this like what was you know what was the. method and they' really be curious and. then we would you know me actively. Mentor these uh these people and teach. them you know exactly what what we're. doing and how it worked and uh so some. people would stick with it and some.

people wouldn't but it was that was what. was most awesome is that you basically. had this pipeline of fresh Talent at all. times and people just really curious. about you know what was really going on. is the digital gangster form still in. existence it is not anymore I took it. offline a while ago uh there's remnants. of it uh there's a lot of stuff that was. posted there I mean I still have backups. of it but uh that successfully taking. off the internet like Ryan even I'm sure.

has a lot of embarrassing things on. there that shouldn't see the light of. day there so in for like what who knows. like uh help me out here what would be. on a hacker Forum that you wouldn't want. to see the Life by today h just that's. humiliating maybe not humiliating but. you know just we're. very like self snitching on you know. very public about the types of things. that we were doing and engaging in just.

the behavior and so self-incriminating. self-incriminating yeah very much so and. there's some some people may not want. that out like I said I don't care. personally but the other thing is too is. that all the private messages that were. sent you know between people and stuff. in the in the Forum I'm sure I have a. copy of there's there's ones that we got. when we got hacked a few times there's. dumps that exist of all this stuff too. so it's not like it's completely out of. the uh the record but yeah just I just. felt like it when I sunsetted it I.

sunsetted it wasn't uh big but in its. prime what is the most amount of users. you had on there oh Millions it was. Millions yeah it millions of hackers. well just the the user base was probably. like in the 100 thousands like but the. the page views were just astronomical. cuz we at had really good page ranking. on Google and stuff so people would type. in you know anything and they'd wind up. finding their way to the site but yeah I. mean like at any given moment yeah it.

was there might be a million people. active on the site it was it was insane. uh the one the big one that actually. happened was when Miley Miley Cyrus's. email got hacked and it was she was. still like uh a teenager but it got it. was there was it wasn't any like naked. pictures or anything like that but they. were just like still because she was. still Disney kind of person there was. one the hacker on my forum who uh had. released those pictures and that made it. on to like Nancy Grace and it was just.

funny. cuz you ever notice in the news that if. there's a story that you happen to know. like kind of what really happened none. of it matches the narrative matches but. you read another article about something. you have no idea about you're like oh. okay like it's this weird cognitive. dissonance and there's so much stuff. that got published about us that was. completely false but it's like what's in. the news and then you know again you. don't apply that same heuristic you know.

analysis to like other articles that you. read about in the you know in in the. news it trains your brain to think like. that like where there's a disconnect. behind like what's reported and what's. like really really happening uh so I. tend to look at news through a different. lens that way but uh yeah with respect. to like the the Miley Cyrus one was. probably what got us the most uh traffic. and and and traction but there was I. said a series that that Forum had just a. ton of different stuff uh that was.

attributed to members on it Barack. Obama's Twitter got hacked. and what yeah and my. homie that came from digital gangsters. too yeah this is incredible you can look. it up but the stupid as thing okay. so the guy he had access to Twitter. admin panel and he so he he I think it. was there was a guy Mark Sanchez or. something he was a. reporter uh then but Barack Obama so.

remember I said that there was this. amalgamation of uh hackers internet. marketers and Gamers that were kind of. form the core group so the the bleed in. our skill sets started to become. apparent cuz we had this section of the. for that was called why work uh it was. well maror which is programed backwards. and why work and those were actually AOL. chat rooms that existed back on in the. AOL days that IID had a sub form that.

was just named after those and it was. for business talk and you know things I. said if you're doing internet marketing. or anything like that it was like kind. of the for the sub form for that but uh. the when they took it when they took. control of Barack Obama's Twitter. account they were tweeting out uh gas. card AFF affiliate links like. so it's just like too stupid to thing. cuz how are you going to get paid they. have to know who you are because that's. how where they send the checks but he.

was like hey yeah Barack Obama was like. get get your free gas card you know here. at this link and dude just so you had. that on Barack Obama's Twitter yeah on. Barack Obama's Twitter I said you can I. said there's there is news articles. about that that happened uh but you know. and then just hold on hold on so what. Just Dub it down for me explain to me. why of all the things you could have put. on Barack Obama's Twitter account why. was it free gas cards I don't you have.

to ask gmz was a dude uh you have to ask. him like what what he was thinking. because there was well as I said the. other ones it was just like tweeting out. like like homophobic slurs like there's. no that's a that some of this stuff is. finan motivated obviously some of it's. just motivated what we call for the ls. it's just you know for the hell of it. like you're just doing things just to do. it and uh but yeah the the gas card. thing it was just funny because it's an.

affiliate link so you're supposed to get. money off of it but how are you going. like they're going to bust you CU it's. like how like what other you're totally. tying it to yourself there is not just. moments not everybody's like completely. you know brilliant in these in these. Arts uh but so a lot of times it was. just everything was just kind of done. for fun like it wasn't really there. wasn't a monetary gain for a lot of. those things they just get us and Nancy.

Grace and that crowd thought that we. were a girl of Paparazzi site that we. were just that was what we specialized. in is just outing celebrities but that. was only really like a small subset of. the types of things that we were really. doing uh what are some other things you. were doing in there well I said that we. we had. just this Factory of like mentors. mentees type stuff Ryan was a he was a. administrator on that Forum eventually. um but you know he had come and he was.

really young at the time he's younger. than most of the people that were there. and he just kind of took to a lot of the. internet marketing stuff and. learned. um like learned how that game worked and. said he applied it to you know his rehab. centers and everything like just the the. school there is that you know we just. had ways of making money on the internet. and you know how do you take advantage. of like the systems that existed and.

maximize the amount of profit that you. can get them and at this time like I was. even I was kind of one foot in and one. foot out of the porn sites like i' still. getting mailbox money from it but I was. focused more on like diet pills like. garcinia diet and asai Berry stuff and. uh like business opportunity uh leads. like people that you know how to make. money from home type stuff there's all. these plethora programs out there that.

like you know again you just kind of. find out what converts with your traffic. and and uh You' focus on on those those. verticals uh but yeah it was mainly I. said a training ground teaching people. how to program teaching people how to. how to hack teaching people how to. Market on the internet and stuff because. a lot of. us uh again saw the value and you know. you get some fresh eyes on it and then. all of a sudden they they're coming up. with new methods and stuff and it.

becomes this cool collaborative. Community where everyone's sharing. things and so a lot of. that the illegal activity was sort of. inconsequential like to the actual. Mission or what was actually going on in. the Forum uh like one of the crazy. things I think Ryan had spoke about the. Bitcoin driveby malware that he had uh. that was like infecting it was infecting. systems yeah he had mentioned that you. were in the hotel room and saw the. actual amount of money yeah it was.

ridiculous and well I remember like the. computer that he had on his wall that. was naked the the the that was a very. intelligent that's what I'm saying it's. like he had this really cool way of. spinning you had all these different. components these pieces but to put them. all together and to create an operation. like he did was one of a kind and um. yeah that it was it was millions of.

dollars in those days like of just yeah. Bitcoin and he exited his position he. didn't uh I I said he might still have a. little bit but as far as I know like all. that I remember like when he got rid of. it um but he if he if he would have sold. it now like or even at the all-time high. type thing it was 10x or 20x than what. it was what it was then I don't think he. has any regrets about it because it was. still like a good chunk but uh but yeah. that was just such a insane cudra like.

the the way that he had done because he. was using pretty much instead each. element the driving internet traffic to. things and you know having this malware. on so it used all those elements of. pretty much what digital gangster. represented and he package them and he. wound up making like a good amount of. money off of. it did you have a lot of what do you. call them. users in the Forum members oh yeah.

members yeah yeah yeah of course did you. have a lot of people in there that that. impressed you I mean it sounds like that. hack that Ryan did impressed you oh yeah. of course. constantly the and there's one one of my. friends uh glue bag. we all have dumb names real name is Nate. but glue uh he had come. on there was another form member that. played World of Warcraft with him and he.

uh and so my other friend told him like. hey you should join this board or. whatever and he was just a teenager from. Ohio uh never coded anything in his life. type stuff and we used to have. this uh it was called adopt a noob. program like where you know You' be. designated like Mentor for you know. someone depending on what they wanted to. learn and so glue really wanted to learn.

how to program and so he I think he was. under this dude audio and within three. months he'd already blown past uh kind. of what audio had been teaching him and. he started doing a lot of the affiliate. stuff we had a a porn program that was. kind of like I didn't really get any. cuts of it but it was a good friend of. mine and this other dude that I sort of. let them advertise and have this uh what. do you call like their kind of their.

support form was sort of on my board but. glue just started writing all of the. software uh for the spammers and stuff. that would do all this you know hosting. posting messaging type and he was just. giving this programs away for free for a. while and then another one of my buddies. like picked up on it and was like dude. this stuff is a solid gold like we need. to package it up and Market it and you. know just do it with my program. exclusively and to this day like he's.

one of the most insane programmers on. planet Earth like hands down K yeah and. he the stuff that he did. just uh because I had worked really. closely with him cuz he basically kind. of worked for me like he was under me. like in this the organizational stru but. the stuff I learned from him even and I. said I've been coding my whole life and. you know and he's what uh like 10 years. younger than me or a little bit more. than that and just mindblowing like the.

stuff that this dude come up with and. just the ideas he would have and it was. fun cuz he would invent he would think. he invented something and then I would. be like actually this is like a huge. problem in computer science that has. existed or you know this is a really. cool solution for it or you know he. would just self discover you know it's. like learning how to make fire you know. everybody knows how to do it now but. imagine like inventing like your own way. to make fire and stuff and that's the. type of person that we would just. somewhat.

attract uh and yeah some of like just. some of the people on there just to this. day said just surprise and impress me um. there so one of the guys who's like. super super big in the bug Bounty scene. now uh. is uh like world class but yeah he came. from the Forum and just said a lot of. business um it's just yeah I don't know. I'm just really proud of everybody you. know I said Ryan being another shining.

example of that that there's a lot of. people that took everything that they. learned there and applied it correctly. you know in some way that brought Fame. and Fortune and all sorts of stuff but. can you can you explain Ryan's hack into. the into the cryptocurrency stuff. yeah it was just that. so the way to Bitcoin mining uh has to. do.

with if you think about your computer. just doing solving sidoku or something I. I want to try to draw the best analogy. for it but there's. a well I'll just I'll I'll do the. technical so there's a there's a. cryptographic hash so there's a fun. there's functions that exist in. mathematics and cryptography where you. input something into the function and. then you get something out but there. isn't a way to get it back it's it's not.

bidirectional it's unidirectional so you. insert this garbage and you get this. garbage out um that even if you alter. this data very very little change a bit. like just change a letter any of that. stuff the output of this function is. going to be drastically different than. what went in so there's even small small. perturbations. in the input of the function leads to. drastically insane output of a. function and so one of the uh ways that.

or the the way that Bitcoin is mined. like how you get the how you get. allocated Bitcoin off of the network is. that depending on the difficulty you. have to find an. input uh that combines the transactions. as well as a nonsense value and you. input it into this function and you want. to get a ton of zeros at the beginning. of this of this. output the more zeros the less difficult. but that it's very very hard because.

it's not deterministic like what's. you're going to put in here and get out. the other end and so that's the proof of. work that how Bitcoin works is basically. unless you found a way to hack. mathematics itself the ways the way that. the function operates that you you need. to go through through this process. manually like it just has to be done you. have to do an exhaustive search of give. me random number versus this block and. then you get out this this output and so.

there's these pools that exist that uh. for mining Bitcoin where it's a shared. group work of a bunch of people so we. could each be. mining uh Bitcoin and so we're both. solving sedus our computers are doing. like a percentage of the work that. everybody else is doing but let's say. you and I are in a group of 100 people. and we've all contributed a certain. amount of computing time towards this. effort but instead of the guy that.

minded it actually getting all of that. money it goes to the pool and then we. all share it as piece of you know kind. of a portion to the amount of work that. we did so even though you weren't. successful in finding that you would. still put in you know x amount of. computer hours or whatever so you should. get you know your piece of the pie as it. fits with the entire. pool. um what Ryan was doing was basically the.

kind of the penny jar type analogy thing. it's like one for you one for me uh. where he was mining that they' be mining. Bitcoin for themselves but then they. would also be doing work for for his. pool so on his so taking a slice of all. the work that's being done so instead of. all the Computing resources being. devoted to your mining operation and and. what you're doing it's a it's there's a.

slice of it that's kind of cut out and. carved out for him but he had a botet. basically of distributed computers that. are all doing this slice so while. everyone else is doing something. individually like he's got a little. piece of everyone's action and it's with. that piece of action that when scaled. and it goes along. uh but you could basically just visit. this site and that was the that was the. thing is that before Java used to just. run in your browser like without any. types of prompts or anything and so it.

was called a driveby like where you know. again if you just visited this site so I. could put this plugin on like one of my. porn Landers or I could put it on I. could have a game a flash game running. or whatever where you're just playing. Tetris but I have it running in the. little corner you can't even see it and. it's basically just cooking your. processor making you uh making you mind. Bitcoin so it that but interesting. that's the uh yeah that's that's how. that operation kind of worked and this.

was how many computers did this go out. to hundreds of thousands at least like. uh that but the way he see that's the. thing is it's where that line is drawn. that with that. same the same technology he could have. done different stuff with like he could. have taken over people's computers and. downloaded all their banking information. like that these the access that this. virus trojan horse would Institute would. be the same as any other type of malware.

but that's say he chose to use it to. mine cryptocurrency instead of key log. you you know and steal all your. passwords and stuff so that is like the. lesser of multiple evils I guess is in. his case it's it is burning some you. know non-trivial amount of power. mining coins for him but yeah the way. that he had done it it was the nicest. way that you could probably you know get. hacked it was a very gentlemanly hack if.

if you will. nice do you have. a something that you did that was a. major payout for. you similar to that. uh yeah but well not similar to that but. in the same a lot. of what I was able to take advantage of. in with the the marriage of hacking. knowledge and then also the marketing.

stuff is I being able to find exploits. in like site account creation and things. like that I had. this I mean there was a race condition. in in Google uh that was taken advantage. of for a long time uh because Google has. one of the best. anti-spam filters on the planet it's um. it's called.

botard Mike herd I think is who. developed it but it the amount. of work and research that these things. have like Bogard is like one of the. toughest I would say it technically it. runs runs its own micr code inide a. JavaScript virtual machine but it's a. way to detect if people are making. automated accounts or just. doing making stupid actions and if you. think about the intelligence Network.

that Google has in usage of its site. it's very easy to identify. patterns uh that exist that human beings. are doing versus ones that are Bots Bots. are doing and so them and Facebook. obviously has a huge like network of. being able to detect anomalous Behavior. like you know what are human beings. doing when they're on Facebook as. opposed to an automated program uh. Google similarly but uh and so one of. the biggest things obviously is account. creation and uh I had found a way like.

using the path with like older Android. phones they had a way to basically make. accounts without capture uh things and. so Capt is just a speed bump in a lot of. cases you can usually send captas over. to Bangladesh and there's you can pay. people pennies to you know fill out. captas and click them and stuff so. there's they're not really a huge. barrier to uh to account creation and.

stuff all the bot protections that's. usually how it's done is if it's not. done through programmatic optical. character recognition or anything. there's usually a human being that's. just getting paid pennies that's playing. it like a video game but finding. bypasses and things like that where you. know I could get I could defeat capture. or there was raise conditions like where. I could create um create sub accounts. off of like how Tinder for instance if. you you use a Facebook account to sign.

up to Tinder uh similarly like Google. has single sign on type stuff that you. could do but there's there's a period of. time before the account gets deleted and. detected by boggard that you're able to. sign up to sites with that Google single. sign on and you get a valid token and so. even though the account eventually dies. you wind up getting spidered accounts on. a bunch of different services and using. those to do whatever but a lot of say. what was lucrative for me is just. staying ahead of the technologies that.

people were trying to Institute because. the cool thing is when they do change. something like they change a rate limit. or they change the way software. Works uh it becomes a new playing field. because everybody that knew the method. that was doing it you know they're. taking advantage of it then they changed. something now all of a sudden all these. people can't do it anymore and so now. you're the only one on that site that's. able to to spam or or whatever and it's. big with the dating sites uh like. because obviously the cam you know I'm a.

girl like sign up to my webcam prove. that you're 18 you know type stuff. worked really well as lucrative so those. are the types of things that I did. Finding like just idiosyncrasies in the. way that sites operated to either create. accounts or uh if they how their prod. protocol has worked like you know what. order do things need to be in What's the. timing that they have to be in how do I. emulate a human being is as accurately. as possible so that way that their. detections don't work damn interesting.

stuff well Bryce let's take a break when. we come back we'll get into some of the. equipment that you use to hack and uh. then we'll get into your your. professional. career sounds good. hey everybody I want to talk to you. about two products from first form one. is opag greens 50 the other's opar Red's. 50 we all know how life can get very.

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all right Bryce we're back from a long. lunch break and uh so I think we left. off we were talking about out digital. gangster some of the stuff you and Ryan. did together um dissected his whole. cryptocurrency hack and we're getting. ready to dive into.

your professional career but um I know. you and Ryan are super close and. so I've actually got him on the line. here beautiful yeah and uh so what was. it like Ryan you on here yeah I'm here. welcome back to the show man hey hey hey. but uh we were just talking about how. you found the Forum digital.

gangster got it so uh back in I guess I. couldn't even tell you what year it was. but when I was a very young kid I was on. a I'm sure you guys have spoken about it. already but AOL Instant Messenger there. was another way of communication back. then called um IRC. which um you know he he can go into. detail if he hasn't already about it's a. it's a you know Monumental part of uh. both him and I's upbringing in this in. this field um and uh on AOL Instant.

Messenger uh there were group chats and. then individual chats and somebody. introduced me to digital gangster as a. as a platform for affiliate marketers. and hackers and you know I was just. getting myself into cyber security at. that time um didn't know much about. affiliate marketing and found digital. gangster and I don't know what it was. because I didn't know anything about. Bryce I didn't know anything about the. spam game didn't know anything about any. of that at the at the time and uh I just.

like I said fell in love with it and you. know I learned from everybody there. quickly Bryce and I got along very. quickly and got into marketing and using. my I guess cyber security abilities. along with the market to automate things. um am I allowed to conversate because. this is absolutely yeah yeah okay so um. Bryce uh like did you already talk about. what we what we sold back.

then uh naked. women right well you know I was more on. the on the you know the dating dating. website side of things but uh you know. there was there was a combination of all. of it when I was a very young teenager. and that was where um you know a lot of. the money was made but there was other. other things we worked on too like. business opportunities uh like get rich. quick type advertisements they would pay.

out ridiculous uh they would call it. like a cost per click or um or a pay I'm. sorry I'm getting a brain fart a pay per. pay per sign up PPS and there would be. pay for free signups um did you already. explain all this. yeah but it's let me ask another. question. so me and Ryan have become pretty good. friends uh in a relative in a very short. amount of time and uh but he is always.

so I asked him about you and he had said. that you were one of his. mentors and so what I'm wondering is I. mean it sounds like you had millions of. people on digital gangster at least tens. of thousands yeah tens of thousands of. people on on digital gangster what what. was it that kind of caught your. attention with Ryan out of all the. people that you had on there just really. sharp and as I said his the the a lot of.

his as I said in the Myspace era he was. a bit of a force to be reckon with so. that there was already some inherent. ability for self-marketing I think that. Ryan again you wouldn't know this. external like you'd only know this. externally like it's something I don't. know that if he kind of recognized his. own shining type thing but obviously. just naturally kind of understood. everything you can kind of tell when. people already they already have that.

spark or like what's needed to position. somebody you know in in for success and. so those types of people try to identify. you know fairly quickly and again cuz. the the more money you're making with. your friends and the collaborative. nature of that stuff it makes it that. much more fun you know to to do and I. said in Ryan's case like again he was. super young when he was kind of engaging. all of us and then also just had the. mind you know for it uh and that's I. mean he was eventually an administrator.

moderator on the Forum like where uh you. he basically was able to ban people and. you know kind of make decisions. unilaterally you know for the good of. the board uh but yeah he just did start. it out as like a a user but you can just. tell by people's posts and how they. interact and stuff if they happen to. have what it takes you know so it's a. great Proving Ground you know some. people are just posters and that's. all they do type thing but yeah Ryan. definitely took like a huge interest in.

the holistic picture of like how to make. money online you know is like a big. thing and as I was saying investigating. methods and trying to figure out ways to. outsmart like these dating companies or. you know any type of place where you. could possibly get your message out uh. that there's a hacking component to that. where you have to figure out how to. defeat things like rate limiting and IP. restrictions and uh just whatever. protections are in place and the less. amount of people that can Target a.

platform successfully the more money. you're going to make because it's. basically no one else has the secret. sauce to break into the that market. interesting Ryan yeah yeah he couldn't. have explained that. better one one more thing I just want to. cover with you guys we already covered. uh Ryan's crypto hack that that seems to. be pretty ingenious very much and uh and. uh but Ryan I'll let you pick what what.

was one of the what was one of your. favor it sounds like all these hacks. happen as a group a lot of them you guys. are working as a collaborative team so. what was your favorite what was like the. first big exciting hack that you were a. part of with digital gangsters Ryan and. then both you guys can tell the. story um let me try to think uh. something that people know about.

um yeah give me a second to come up with. something because I don't know what you. guys already talked about so doesn't. matter just go for. it um I think I think. uh well I don't know if this is even. public knowledge so even better book. Bryce which one the address book. situation who whose address. book I don't even want to say it then. um a celebrity but uh Paris never mind.

Paris Hilton um no oh not that one oh no. yeah it's it's not a big deal think. something. else come on I can't do it I can't you. can do it. no no I shouldn't it's good idea. um let me think the audience is dying. right now I think the better thing for. me to do would be to talk about about.

how how uh you know we would put. together methods as as he said um to to. bypass certain restrictions and back in. back in that time especially in the. early days there weren't as many. restrictions for email so you could. inbox a lot easier than you can nowadays. I mean there was a time in my life when. I remember most email providers not even. having a Spam or junk folder so you. could just just send literally a million. emails or you can send out on a.

different completely different angle you. could send out 100,000 text messages. with you know PID prepaid uh SIM cards. um so there was these things back in the. day called GSM modems that you would you. know I had I had a little dock for mine. and uh I don't know if Bryce did too but. most of us did and um we would we would. perform not only these mass email. campaigns that would send millions and. millions of emails out with ads from. asai weight loss berries to you know.

dating websites to uh you know you name. it we were we were spamming the crap out. of it and um and then that you know. progressed into text messages which or a. felony that you know you're not allowed. to spam via text it's a it's a serious. crime you're going prison for it and uh. I think there's a specific Court there. there was at that time there was a. specific Court in Virginia you'd have to. go to for they used to call it spam. Court back in our time yeah and uh you.

know if you got caught for doing. something like that luckily uh I didn't. and um we never ended up on that that uh. that the list I didn't. yeah I said I didn't either yeah tallest. blade of grass is the first to get cut. by the lawn mower type thing so it just. got to do it just enough what was it it. was the Rosco right yeah roxo roxo roxo. yeah roxo so Lily we didn't end up on. there and um you know there was like a a. spammer most wanted list so we I guess.

that was probably my favorite part Not. only was it fun to send out a ridiculous. amount of text messages and and millions. of emails um but not only like not only. the process was fun but making the money. you know seeing seeing something digital. that you did that is a a at process. where you you put in your message you. put in your recipients you press a. button and then you just sit back and. refresh your screen and you just see. money accumulating and you just wait. like let's say that program has a net 15.

payout in 15 days you're getting paid. out some of them had a net one payout so. you get paid out in one day so even if. they don't agree with the methods that. you're spamming you know like like maybe. it's against their policies to. incentivize somebody to sign up for a. product or it's against their policies. to to to do text message spamming if. they have a net one payout you already. got paid out and sometimes that number. is pretty large so I would say outside. of the hacking side of things we still. were hacking and we still were we still.

were a collaborative effort but um you. know that I I know I I really like that. that was my main motivator there was. making money in this field um so hacking. hacking was a passion for me but so was. marketing and so was making money so I. would say if you had ask out of all of. the attacks that we've done some that I. won't won't even bring up um I don't. even know what Bryce has told you I hope. it's nothing horrible but uh you know. it's that that's it yeah definitely. spamming and the money that came from it.

how about the first swatting experience. oh gosh this is crazy um do you remember. this Bryce when uh when when I did. become administrator you uh you gave me. administrator to the site and there was. this guy. which I won't say his name because he. does he doesn't deserve the attention. yeah he doesn't deserve the attention. yes this guy sucks and not not just. because of uh not just because of me um. like this guy is just over being yeah.

bad and and and one of his friends as. well is horrible human being and if. they're watching this they'll know. exactly who they are they'll be watching. you know they will be oh I hope they are. um but so back then he makes me. administrator and that gives me the much. this pretty much if not the same. abilities that he had you know so I. could do anything I could I could put a. picture of me on you know the front page. of the website um I have the same. permissions that he did and uh when that.

happened people got upset you know. because they the same way people get. jealous nowadays of things and become. keyboard Warriors that that was. different the same back in the day but. just maybe a little bit more of a uh. like a jungle back then and uh of those. guys like like I said name redacted. decided it was a good idea to use what's. called an IP relay service which is a. service that is for people that uh you. know have a disability and you can type.

into a you type into a prompt and you. say what you like what you want the. person on the other end of the phone to. hear so let's say I wanted to call you. Sean and I said and I use an IP relay. service I'd say hey how you doing Sean. and then I would hit enter and then a. man or woman would be on the phone and. repeat what I typed to you through this. IP relay service so this this guy uh. used an IP relay service to call the. local police station of where I lived. and he said that there was bombs. strapped to my windows that there was.

people tied up in chairs that I already. killed some of my family members that if. anyone came in they were going to get. shot all kinds of this horrible stuff. but he was claiming to be me so what. happened was I remember the exact number. there was 86 uh different types of 86 uh. Law Enforcement Officers um bomb squad. snipers police helicopters uh you name. it they were there so what happened was. they originally they went to the wrong. house they went to my old address which.

was. like 10 10 houses down the street so it. was pretty you know they were close but. they had my wrong my wrong home address. but the what happened after that because. at this point no one ever heard of what. swatting no one ever knew what it was so. one of the officers knew me and he said. I know Ryan Montgomery and uh and he. brought all of those officers the. helicopters everybody to my carot. address and then ran down you know to. see you know he ran down to where I was. staying at that time and was like Ryan.

are you okay he's freaking out and uh. and I have no clue what's going on I had. no indication this was even gonna happen. so you know it all ends up being okay. and I didn't I didn't get hurt I didn't. get shot but if you think of you know. the dangers there it was not only the. first swatting to ever happen in the. state of Pennsylvania but it was one of. the first to happen in the country and I. still have the news article on uh on my. computer I'm I'm sorry not news article. I still have the um news clip uh where.

it says like the exact words are it's. like a new incident called swatting and. it goes into like explaining what. swatting is and you know how he used an. IP relay service and like they talk. about what happened they talk about how. I got swatted um but the dangers here. are what if I did walk outside and you. know I made the wrong movement they've. never heard of any incident like this. before and I went and grabbed you know. put my arms down or I didn't like I made. any wrong move I would have been shot.

they they were really believing that I. had you know people dead in the house. bombs on the Windows like they they. believed it so this person put my life. in jeopardy because I became the. administrator of a website holy cow it. was funny. I was talking about that yesterday. without me without me uh you know making. myself sound and I think people would. agree with me here um he he got he got a. Revenge just in a more uh you know.

non-life uh non-life what's the word for. it threatening he got his revenge yeah. yeah he got his revenge in a. non-life-threatening way but I I. definitely got my uh my revenge well. what was. it uh I I don't want to say that but. just trust me it was not he will never. do that again to me yeah we're going to. get back to the interview Ryan but hey. man I appreciate the call and when's the. last time you guys hung out uh couple. months ago oh right on yeah or last.

month I guess yeah last month cool yeah. oh and somebody hit my uh someone hit my. car like two months before that and uh. pretty much right after I seen you uh or. I'm sorry right after our our podcast. started to go viral Sean um we met at a. conference called hack Miami and um and. someone hit hit my car out front which. was you know not not fun but then we. seen each other a month after that and. he was performing at an event called. Defcon which is the largest hacking.

convention in the world and it was. amazing I mean I I don't know if you're. into nerdcore hip hop hopefully you. become a fan now but you know he's the. best there is nobody better than than. Whitey cracker when it comes to nerdcore. we're getting ready to dive into that. subject right now thank we're going to. have to get both you guys in one show at. the same time yeah yeah that would be so. cool but uh all right Ryan well thanks. again man and be safe and I'll talk to. you soon love you dog awesome awesome. love you guys peace see you soon.

peace yeah the that swatting stuff I had. mentioned that some of us would never. ever go there you know something we just. never ever do uh but the IP relay. service that he's talking about it was. set up for um for deaf people to be able. to communicate it was a service that was. run but you would just you could instant. message a screen name and then they. would call you on their be on the the. other party's behalf and so the trick.

was I said it used to be trucking which. is where you'd send the fire department. to somebody's house and so you could see. if you're using IP relay as a vector. you'd get on IP relay and you'd say uh. hey uh my phone's inside I don't have my. mobile but I'm I'm I have my laptop and. I'm still connected to the internet and. I you know I need to send the fire. department to blah blah blah my address. or whatever so you don't I give them. your address and not the real one or. whatever and then the fire department. would show up but then it became this I.

said the the next evolution of that was. the swatting stuff where they'll they. you know make a. fanciful uh story about how you're. murdering your family or like you said. making bombs or there's definitely drug. activity over here something and. invariably what'll happen is they send. just a million officers over to your. house and again they're jumpy you know. because they don't know what to expect. in there and so yeah there's been cases. obviously since like it's one of the.

things that like I said it wouldn't I. wouldn't say it originated on digital. gangster but like off the first swatting. they said his was the first swatting. incident in his State and uh there was a. lot of that there was Sim swapping is. another technique that uh is kind of. people do it now but it's where if I. walk into your wireless provider and I'm. like I'm Sean Ryan I lost my phone I. need to set up a new phone with and I. have and I know some of your details or. let's say I've made a fake ID that has.

you know you your picture on it or. something say I lost my wallet here's my. library card like you know you're. dealing with somebody that's making you. know whatever 15 an hour or whatever so. uh what they'll do is they'll swap over. the port that number to a different. phone. and uh this is like where two-factor. authentication and stuff breaks down a. little bit because if I'm able to take. over your phone number I can there's a. lot of services now that'll text your. password to your phone or you can reset. your password as long as you have that.

phone and so I got Sim swapped uh I was. at South by Southwest and I was. performing I think it was in 2011 but. this same group you know had this is. when this attack was really like kind of. uh in it's infancy stages but they'. taken my uh they hijacked my phone and. then they went and stole all my domains. that I had had uh now people use it a. lot more for to steal crypto wallets and.

uh Bank uh Bank details and anything. that you can reset via a phone uh but. obviously it's very difficult because. you have a very short window like you're. going to notice that your phone's not. working you know especially if you're. looking at it all the time and so that's. but it's really really hard to get that. back while that attack's going on. there's a lot that can happen in that. short amount of time before you're able. to get into the AT&T store or whatever. it is to to fix it uh but swatting is a. huge problem like now again it was.

something that was reserved for your. worst enemies you back in the day but. now you'll have kids lose on Call of. Duty or fortnite or something and. they're sting people so the police. departments are a lot more aware of it. uh it was funny because I basically the. police already knew who I was obviously. because IID eviscerated every the local. PD so my name I don't know they might. have a plaque of me up in every. department or something but no swatting. attempt against me was ever successful.

because the police knew that that was. you know if that was going on it was. probably a prank call yeah I got lucky. is this Sim swap thing is this still. happening all the time yeah yeah yeah it. happens all the time but as I said it's. it's a targeted attack like if somebody. knows details about you your phone. number knows your carrier and you have. something that they need to get from you. you can just go into a store or whatever. and I be like I got robbed I lost. everything it's just about being. convincing it's all social engineering.

but you're just taking advantage of the. fact that again this person wants to be. helpful and you're I'm Sean Ryan you. know that's all as far as they know so. if I can just but I can basically just. steal your number and then depending on. what services usually these attacks are. really targeted like I know reason that. I want to uh to attack you on my. phone there it's notated like just a. bunch like it wouldn't there's nothing. that would really stop an employee from. doing anything like as far as a. compensating controlled it's in the.

system itself but I just know that in my. notes my cell carrier it's like do not. you know I have to bring in two forms of. ID at a store in order for anybody to do. anything with my account uh that's it's. just notated like crazy uh so I haven't. had a Sim swapping event in a while I'm. sure if if some viewer wants to try and. ruin my day uh test test the security of. whatever cell phone carryer I'm using. then that's fine but please don't it's a.

hassle please don't please don't yeah. well hey we so we pretty much have. wrapped up your black hat or very dark. gray hat career but how I would like to. wrap it up before moving into your. professional career talk about some of. the equipment that you use okay so uh. wherever you want to start yeah so. similarly uh I said I think that uh Ryan. mcgomery popularized uh this mine. doesn't have a lot of the funny antennas.

on top of it but this has been part of. my everyday carry since it came out uh. mostly what I use it for though is uh. friends that live in condominiums or. apartment buildings that have uh. fobs I uh just copied them so I can. break into their houses uh with. permission of course the other thing. it'll do is it'll also write them uh so. usually apartment complexes and condo. associations will charge like $30 to. $100 just to uh just to have extras so I.

but I can just make extras for my. friends and just subvert the whole. process so it's uh it's a good thing um. this is a uh a prox Mark III it's a more. of a grownup version of The Flipper but. it deals with uh nearfield communication. arfid uh devices or um chips uh it has. Bluetooth power I think is it is it on.

here yeah uh this one I have the battery. attachment that goes onto it uh but you. can use this to copy Hotel Keys it'll. read passports uh you can use it to. pretty much anything I said the same. fobs apartment fobs that uh that the. flipper can access this access but this. is more of a grownup version of The. Flipper uh it is it just has a lot more.

functionality and extensibility uh than. uh than the flipper does it's not as ver. what can that do that the flipper cannot. do so I don't. think like for instance the the passport. documents and stuff I don't think that. the. flipper can do that you may there may be. a Plugin or something that's some sort. of firmware modification but as far as I. know it doesn't uh um it doesn't support. that uh but this I said pretty much any.

type of Wireless. uh like access mechanism the the prox. mark for a long time this was the gold. standard for all the NFC uh type said. copying writing dumping it all came from. uh this was like the the device that. most of us hackers used uh in order to. uh to do those types of. attacks um but it said it doesn't it. lacks the IR capability and stuff that.

uh that the flipper has um I also. have the uh this is a hack RF um I don't. know if I said I don't know if Ryan had. the portter PAC uh add-on onto it but. this is just a software to find radio um. I think I. have some amount of power I forgot. which firmware I'm running on this one. too but uh.

this uh. interface uh like this the hack RF. itself this is kind of an add-on that. bolts into it uh and it has another case. but when you buy the Porta pack then you. kind of use this case and this interface. but it does everything from uh they said. it can send and. receive uh adsb which is the said. airplanes like when they go by uh they. have a beacon that they send obviously. to tell Air Traffic Control where they.

are where they're positioned uh but with. a strong enough antenna you can. broadcast those types of signals as well. this this is a telescopic antenna but I. don't think here within the studio we've. uh we're going to have enough juice to. to do anything interesting with it uh. but this I said if you just think of. this like an amfm radio uh for all. Wireless. bands uh I mean you could actually. listen to am and FM radio on this if you. want uh but it uh you could tune to a TV.

the analog television signals not. digital anymore I guess you could. technically if you had a decoder uh but. the this the firmware that's in the. portter pack is different than the. actual the SDR software defined radio. itself is extensible like. programmatically through. uh um like you can use new. radio uh you can write custom. applications that basically interface.

with this SDR and use it to. decode it's a p25 which is uh it's a. trunk radio that police and fire and. stuff use it's encoded uh poag which is. remember the old school pagers uh. sometimes restaurants use use those to. keep track of what where orders are and. so this is basically a listening device. it's a listening and a transmitting. device so it does both what would you. transmit yeah you could transmit those. signals too like I could send a pager. message I could send uh I could I said I.

if I I could hook it up to a microphone. and I could transmit I could do ham. radio off of this if I wanted to you. need a stronger antenna and more power. obviously but uh yeah I mean this it's. it's def it's determined you said both. for listening and for um and for uh for. transmission um some of them are bit. like the rtlsdr is just built it's a. more of a dongle and it's built just for. receiving but uh the hack RF is used for. for both but anything that goes over the.

that you can't see is all Wireless like. all that technology is facilitated by. some version of the electromagnetic. spectrum I mean even infrared is just. not visible light but it's the same it's. that same kind of uh and this picks all. of that up yeah it's got a very wide. spectrum of uh of frequencies that I can. basically tune to uh this this one down. here is I forgot what um this is a.

spectrum. analyzer but. uh and this is just a battery operated. one but you can see it's just got like I. don't know where the camera would. be but you could tune that to. like I said same thing tune it to a. radio uh frequency you can see where the. Peaks would be. um but that that's that device is just. Allin one uh to in said just monitor.

monitor. frequencies so I mean for somebody like. me that has no idea what the hell you're. actually talking about what would you be. monitoring with this and why well let's. say you had let's say you had a wireless. protocol that. exists is existing like an offu ban like. the FCC like in our case uh which is our. governing body of Federal Communications. Commission or whatever they have certain. bands of frequencies that they've. allocated for public use so like the 900.

mehz band like 2.4 GHz 5 GHz these are. the things that wireless Technologies. exist on but let's say there was a. command and control channel that was. happening in some low bandwidth. frequency let say like 800 MHz range or. something I wanted to attune to that and. pull out like the data like what was. going over it analyze what type of data. that was uh I could basically tune to it. the same way you tune a radio uh. and dump basically the the whatever the.

signals that are going over that that. frequency uh so if there's so like if. you're doing a site survey or whatever. um and you're looking. at why like is a frequency busy or not. is there lots of traffic because in. those bands that I was talking about. earlier that are public use there's are. shared by all manners of devices like. Bluetooth works over 2.4 GHz but so does.

uh so does a wireless like Wi-Fi Wi-Fi. has see in the states like there's. there's a centering on Channel One. Channel 6 channel 11 and the band's kind. of overlap but you could just the band. width which is the width of the band. kind of done that down and so say you're. in 20 MHz or 40 MHz Hops and you can. actually see like okay how much traffic. is you know how much signal what's the. signal and noise ratio like on you know. this band in and of itself so you can.

pull just signals out of here I said. it's just like tuning a radio is the. best way I can explain. it. um I'll shut that off um the uh other. thing that I think I told you about uh. is this uh the phone that my buddy. manufactures o sorry uh but yeah this. phone is an oblisk one uh it's by. obsidian intelligence group and it's a. hardened uh Android phone that uh does.

it has pretty much a lot of. functionality that you would get within. a laptop uh just but it's in a phone it. can do it runs a version of Linux. uh well runs a like a penetration. testing version of how would I explain. that uh because it's it is Linux but. it's designed for tablets and phones.

it's called andrax and so you would use. use this for in the same way that you. would use Ki Linux I don't know if. you're familiar with that but it's a. distribution that's designed. specifically for kind of hacker tasks uh. but this also supports software defined. radio so it can do some of the similar. things that the flipper and the proxmark. and the hack RF do but it's obviously a. little more stripped down version just. because of the the phone itself but it. the this phone is just available like.

when I I go anywhere internationally. this is what I use to tether uh my. communications through it has a static. IP address that's associated with it so. it never changes it's so I always know. kind of what it's like if I want to to. contact it inbound I know exactly what. it's always going to be but it works. pretty much everywhere I go uh and back. I use it to back hold data but it's very. very locked down version of Android uh. and it only supports secure.

Communications so there's no it's it's. all Voiceover IP that there's no like. regular phone kind of conversation it's. all done you know signal esque uh. there's like 3cx and signal on stuff on. here but I just use it I said when I'm. overseas and I want to make sure I have. a secure internet connection or back hul. this is my uh weapon of choice what does. the what does the single IP address do. for you I don't understand that well.

static IP just doesn't change so most. times an IP address is dynamic uh which. means it'll rotate anybody can kind of. come in and take the lease and so it's. not consistent there's services that you. can use that will every time your IP. address changes it'll automatically map. it to a domain uh you'll find these no. IP Services Netgear routers even have a. version of this that they offer their. customers to where you can get a.

subdomain on like or you can set up a. domain yourself that just knows to point. to that so you can always type in home. Shan row.com and you always get your. home computer or whatever uh the idea. behind that is just if you have like I. connect to my home at uh my home network. through a VPN I have a VPN that's set up. on my home network so if I ever need to. access files or I need to look at what's. going on on my computers do remote. desktop stuff I have to log in through.

through there uh but the most of the. isps like cable providers you're going. to have a dynamic IP address that's. subject to change uh static IP address. again stays the same all the time no. matter what you know what to expect I. mean I could refresh it if I want to but. that's that would be something that I. would I would have to initiate myself uh. otherwise I get to keep the same one no. matter where I go and what I do so. running services off it like I could. actually run uh because the way that the.

internet mapping service works is you. have a name and then that name points to. an address the same way your home. address would be uh but you know again. if you move then you need to point that. name to towards your new address just. like a Post Office forwarding type thing. but with a static IP address it just. stays consistent so it's the same. address every time and so you don't need. to have it associated with the domain if. you don't want. to uh so that's that's.

just about as close to 100%. secure yeah Communications as you can. get on the civilian Market I can't make. I said there's no outlandish claims that. I'll make that it's unhackable or. anything but just for the sake of. brevity I'll say that the the way that. this has been stripped down and built. from the ground up like there isn't any. it's like with Android a lot of times. you'll have a lot of Google threaded in. through there and uh you know depending.

on how you might feel about Google or. whatever there's a lot of telemetry that. uh Android phones wind up sending you. know in invariably debugging reasons you. know whatever uh some of it is just. advertising tracking that type of stuff. but a lot of that has been stripped out. so there isn't this isn't a phone you. would use if you usability is not what. this phone is after it's more after. security and the. slider the way I always explain it is if.

every time you left your house you had. to unlock seven dead bolts and then lock. them up again and then you realize you. forgot your wallet inside well then you. got to unlock seven dead bolts and you. got to you know open it so you do that. enough times it's going to be a hassle. so it's all the compromise becomes one. deadbolt you know is that secure enough. I don't know that's the compromise that. you reach you know if you want to uh to. have a house door you know a block on it. but with respect to this phone it's not.

for necessarily for you know being a. social media running a social media. Empire or anything like that on that's. completely locked down there is no. Google Play store so you have to. sideload all the applications that you. want to use explicitly and so it's. designed more with the security first. rather than usability first which for. most consumer devices is a little bit. counterintuitive but it is for again. I've been using it for a couple years. uh from you know for my from my rating.

or whatever it goes hard like I said i'. I've never had problems with it said. been to UAE been to Europe been to Asia. like all over and said just it works as. intended all the time and I've haven't. had any problems with it and said the. phone itself is hardened to a little. degree sometimes you get these things. like they call them M&M's you know CU. they're crunchy on the outside and chewy. on inside this thing tries to be like a. jawbreaker just right on yeah you got to.

suck and suck and suck unless you want. something to happen um these are fun uh. and uh so this is a a this is a OMG. cable and uh it's designed by my friend. Mike Grover. um but he was also a member of digital. gangster and he had started out in the. IT world and uh sort of came on through. to computer security and introduced to. it through digital gangster uh and he's. become an insane Hardware hacker uh but.

I have this is a this is an oem iPhone. cable that you get from Apple itself I. think this this one came actually with. my airpods and then this one is. uh the OMG cable and within in this. little piece right here uh exists a full. computer and full wireless radio to. basically uh connect to and it's a winds. up being a command and control channel.

uh for anything that it's plugged into. so so any phone any. computer this would more this more works. against the computer that it's plugged. into that's but functionally it still. does all of the same things that an. iPhone cable does so it still charges. you can still do data transfer over it. and everything it's just that in this. little piece right here there's uh. there's a ton of system packed into this.

little plastic end M piece here that. allows you to connect you can connect to. it wirelessly and then exfiltrate data. you can take control of any machine that. this stuff is so if I gave this to you. and I said hey I need to charge my uh my. airpod really quick then I mean I can. show said I could do it right here. but this is where it's very important to.

be. careful with CU looks can be. deceiving uh oh yeah this was the I said. the NSA has a I don't know how I should. show these to the camera if this is yeah. just point the screen towards me the NSA. uh was developing utilities like this uh. this is one of the data sheets that was. in a leak uh but they were charging. $20,000 for these cables and said now. you can just get them as a consumer for. for 20 or for less than $200 um but uh.

the implant you know obviously this is. the the old. usba uh connector and the within that. you basically have this command and. control channel that you're able to. access uh wirelessly even though it's. plugged into a unassuming system with. apple keyboards like they charge the. same way that the phones do so if this. cable is actually in between a keyboard. and uh and a computer then it will do.

all the key logging for you it'll it'll. take any key that's been pressed into. the keyboard and exfiltrate it over this. channel uh how how much range does that. have how close would you have to be uh. Pro I. mean it like it obviously depends about. the topology of the room and stuff as. well but I mean I could probably be. within just within wireless range so as. much as you know you would think uh. maybe like 50 to 100 feet type stuff.

with clear line of sight through a. faraday cage or something obviously. there's there's nothing there's certain. but yeah that's obviously one of the. problems as you so basically in the same. house same house would work yeah for. sure uh but the. um again it functions perfectly as a. charger does so you know charging my. airpods there you can see the uh orange. circle uh I cooked a couple payloads.

up I don't know if this is going to be. visible you can screen record it too and. send it oh I could do that too. yeah oh wait let me connect to. so I just have it named I have the table. SSID broadcasting is Hotel Wi-Fi so it. looks. inconspicuous you wouldn't know that. it's it's anything evil.

uh if you point that just a little. towards me Sean Ryan has the best. podcast on the. internet holy uh let him know uh. and. then this right here I said just loading. up a website so what it's doing is it's. emulating a keyboard the same way as if. I was there typing in front of it but. it's just inconspicuous it's still. charging the uh.

airpods um this payload here will. uh open up a. website it opened up. there you go I needed to close the other. one first but uh yeah easy as pie so. you're just controlling that entire. computer through through a phone using. pH that's connecting to that cable yes. it just uh yeah it's just it's set up.

the same way a wireless network would be. set up and it has a web interface and. again on engagements and stuff if. you're testing the security of a company. and I'm I somehow I'm able to leave this. plugged in a computer or whatever and I. have have an employee that's using it to. charge our phone as long as that thing. is plugged into that computer it's. basically like having a USB keyboard. attached to to that uh that computer uh. but and you can extract whatever you. want as well correct that I mean these.

examples are very. low like low brow type things that. realistically what I would do is instead. of making the computer say something is. I would have it download I could I could. Echo into a script that basically so. even air gapped computers you know like. in a skiff or uh that or um if they're. not connected to a network in any way I. can still manipulate them until they get. um until they get on a network there's.

there's a a payload in the Elite series. that I I don't have on I don't have in. here but it can actually do a data. exfiltration once I run a payload on the. computer it can actually do key logging. and stuff and so I can go back and I can. exfiltrate it through this cable still. so even if it's an air gap machine it's. never been on the internet before I can. basically type in the commands that will. allow it to store that data for me and. then I can zip it back out when I need. to so it's a there's a.

huge just risk you know because again. these things look completely benign but. they this is now in the hands of regular. human beings you don't need to be in the. CIA to to get a OMG cable you can buy as. long as supplies last it's like similar. to The Flipper uh but just said it's. it's used more as in my line of work the. context is like red team engagements. where we're testing the physical. security of a business but I mean you.

can see that there's applications in. stocking if you were an enterprising uh. young lad who was trying to uh you know. figure something out you know it. basically has that utility but don't. recommend using it for those types of. activities what else you got does that. cover it I think that covers I think. that covers the toys I got right.

here man you. know I keep saying this you guys are. dangerous H. everybody I think that at a certain age. or point or whatever everyone kind of. grows out of. the the well most most people do they. grow out of the the bad aspects of it. because it's. like if. it if the more energy that you dump into.

negative things the more negative energy. that you kind of get out of it and so. you become a lot more like I was saying. back in the day there'd be. you know when there'll be fighting on. America online like we're talking about. and then turn around. and post their home address and stuff. that I can't even think of any situation. I mean you would have to go after my. daughter or something like that for me. to have that type of angst I mean I've.

seen everything and done everything by. this point but a lot of that sort of. that's what's dangerous with a lot of. hackers is when you have that type of. power your fingertips to be able to do. things that really are movie Worthy and. stuff and it's the same in in your line. of work that the moment that you can. reasonably do these things it's like. just the the threat of force is just as. important as like you know not not.

acting on like the the great power comes. great responsibility type thing and. because the field itself is so lucrative. uh you know in computer security there's. rather than having to look over my. shoulder and wondering if I'm going to. get arrested or anything it's not really. worth it to invest time and you know it. doesn't make dollars it doesn't make. sense type thing so makes sense makes. sense to me well let's move into some of.

your uh professional career uhhuh so I. know you're working for a big tech. company yeah one of the biggest in the. world and you are developing cyber. weapons that is a. very sexy way of putting it but. uh the the short answer is yes but not. the not what you would think I guess uh. the the purpose of these cyber weapons. are is actually a prophylactic like.

we're trying to develop cyber weapons or. weaponize these exploits and. vulnerabilities before somebody who's. actually bad gets a chance to do it uh. but I work. mainly in embedded security device. security uh so Internet of Things is. kind of goes your your cameras your home. IP cameras your uh thermostats Smart. Homes are you know everything is smart. nowadays you have toasters they can.

washing machines uh all that stuff. there's a underpinning they all share a. lot of similar components and so if you. find a bug in one thing there's a chance. that you're going to find a bug in a lot. of different things just how the. implementation is uh. so we we do vulnerability research uh. based on like what we find interesting. selfishly like look at products that our.

own company kind of uh is using but keep. our ear to the streets on anything else. that might be emergent uh but the. objective is to try to protect customers. from anybody weaponizing this. uh before we do type thing uh and so we. have a very our focus is mainly on. what's called zero day vulnerabilities. which is uh every day that a. vulnerability is known then it becomes.

like a one day two day three day an end. day but zero day vulnerabilities aren't. published no one knows about them. they're completely secret so it's it's. like. discovering a new element or whatever. when you have when you find one of these. things because it's you could you could. be the only person in the world that. knows that that vulnerability exists and. so we've found some pretty serious. vulnerabilities. in uh software that is used widely. throughout the iot ecosystem and we've.

developed patches for them so not only. do we figure out. the the weapon but we figure out how to. fix against the weapon as well and. that's a huge have you ever seen so I. get what you're saying you basically. develop the weapon that somebody could. utilize against whatever system and then. you develop the whatever you want to. call it the antidote yeah right and have. you ever seen somebody have you ever. developed a cyber weapon and then seen.

somebody else develop the same cyber. weapon but you already have the the. antidote for it uh hasn't. happened yet like in this case uh as I. said the the research and development it. takes to emerge some of these is a lot. of there's a lot of time and effort that. goes into it and my team is all Geniuses. and there's some ven diagram overlap in.

people's skill sets and understandings. but largely it's just a it's a superhero. it's like the Avengers type stuff that. you. just they surprise and impress me. constantly uh but the the goal like I. said the part of the the opportunity. that we have to work in so closely with. a lot of these products is we have maybe. some more some of the stuff is open. source so as I said anybody can look at. it and pick it apart and go for it but.

how it operates with the rest of the. pieces of the system is somewhat. important and so we you know we have. products that uh obviously share all of. these. uh components and so we're able to kind. of see how they interoperate and then. work on something Theory craft but we. know how they were built we know how. they were constructed uh so there's not. much of a need to reverse engineer some. pieces of this uh which shortcuts time.

you know considerably but the yeah to. date like there isn't anything that we. have found that we have noticed was. exploited in the wild prior to us uh. discovering it that's not to say that it. doesn't happen it's we don't have any. telemetry on it uh the the cool thing is. though is I I know a couple of the. findings that we have had were super. significant affecting like hundreds of. millions of devices type thing and uh to. be able to R front run that and you know.

get our customers safe and do that is. super super important I mean I I use. those products in my house uh I eat the. dog food I think most of my team does. too and I think that's something that is. sort of lost on the the public at large. is that the people that are actually. working on the security for these. devices especially I said just in my. wing of the Starship everyone cares like. tremendously about privacy about.

security you know CU we're users of this. stuff too so we want to see the best. product out there and so it's very very. important to all of us like we take it. our jobs very very seriously just cuz. you know I think about my grandma or. somebody you know get something. happening you know as a result of a. screw up that I probably had the ability. to fix at one point um so again the. accountability is there uh but it's also. just the most interesting stuff just. because it really is bleeding edge.

you're. finding vulnerabilities and these. technologies that are ubiquitous. throughout you know the consumer. space yesterday we talked about I mean. you've been recruited or maybe not. recruited maybe you apply I don't know. but you found yourself in. UAE oh yeah yeah yeah what were you. doing over there so uh the Dubai. government there's a convention called.

gisc that they uh they had. a it's kind of like their Defcon they. had a a CES like a Consumer Electronics. Show that they had a huge security. presence as part of that show and then. they spawn it off to its own show um but. the uh they have a security Focus. conference but as part of that. conference they run a bug bash uh the. government basically invites they.

partner with bug Bounty programs and. they invite a bunch of us hackers to go. over there and they give us scopes of. systems uh to that we allowed to attack. basically and then they pay us. bounties based on the severity of the. bugs that we find um but they had us. auditing defense contractors and uh. telecoms like things that are very. sensitive infrastructure uh but giving.

us permission to basically actively. penetration test these systems and see. if we can find bugs and they said they. pay us out based on uh the bugs that we. find but one of the coolest things about. you can tell like how. serious uh their cyber Securities are is. like as far as you know the the posture. the security posture that they want to. take it's it's more advanced I've seen. in a lot of other countries is that.

they're very forward thinking about they. know that this is the battleground of. the future they know like what they need. to be protecting against and so they're. the talent that they're flying out to do. these types of things is best of the. best of the best of the world I mean I'm. I said I'm like and you're one of them. well like I said it's like the NBA like. there's a lot of people some people that. warm the bench in the NBA they're still. better than anybody that played in. college but yeah I don't I don't really. consider myself like top top top Echelon.

uh just said just self evaluation I'll. let other people make whatever uh. conclusions they wanted to uh but yeah. that it's a lot of companies now you. know do these types of things uh and. governments UAE those is just it's very. Advanced um I would say just the the. Fanfare behind it and how much they are. really pushing for security over there. how many other countries have you been. involved in with the red cell.

operations. uh four or five I guess. uh ever here in the US oh yeah yeah yeah. here in the US how does. our how do we compare to. UAE uh in uh in what way in Forward. Thinking I so it's getting there I'll. say that there used to be a.

very I don't know how to like cautious. attitude I think towards this type of. work but that there was a few years ago. I did a a bug bash that was sponsored by. the US Air Force and then they had a ton. of their Assets in scope and they again. they said I would say the tide is. changing you know a lot a lot more it's. I think the US government starting to. kind of get the idea of how this stuff. works I don't know where they got the.

inspiration from exactly but the same. types of groups of people you know are. also uh doing again it's just mercenary. work practically so you're doing it for. uh for viously if they're on ofac uh or. some terrorist list then you know we're. not going to work for them but it's a. very a mercenary is the best way to put. it is it's just you're a hacker for. higher um well let me let me put it this. way how would you. grade as an overall.

grade uh oh like the the US cyber. security. space are we a. d not to disparage uh yeah but. C+ you know. it's there's a huge problem that the. United States has and we invented the. Internet uh that's why we have and we. have net and everyone other country has. like doco do UK or you know whatever.

we're telephone country number one like. you don't have to enter you any any. weird numbers we're number one on US and. Canada like uh when you're dialing our. phone numberb. so there's a huge sort concentration of. technology that you know the United. States has always been very very Tech. forward uh say you know in recent years. like I think South Korea per capita has. the best internet in the world um and. that's largely due to their uh gaming.

infrastructure they've taken Esports. seriously for a really really long time. but the the there's a lot more that you. can attack in the United States the if. that makes sense that there's the. systems and the way they're constructed. and and how they're constructed and you. know there's a website for every you. know division or something that you just. the attack surface is just very very. large uh and there's a lot.

more just exposure you know than like. again the UAE as an example you know has. a very small subset of problems compared. to what the United States would have. infrastructure wise gotcha uh and. I will say like that's something. that like there are things that. authoritarian governments which I mean. the UAE would be classified as one uh. are going to do exceedingly better just. because of the bureaucracy is not as um.

there so that's the trades off that the. trade-off that you have for de democracy. versus like Auto autocracy is you're. going to you know some things need to be. decided in committee here and there's. just things get lost in the red tape but. you know generally something's a problem. in an authoritarian government like. they're going to address it very paron. but that's that Church Hill saying about. democracy is the worst form of. government except all the others I think.

he said that that that's how I feel a. lot about this that we're victims of our. own success in some ways like uh and. Empires and how they they tend to. crumble after a little while MH. yeah I think we might be seeing a little. of that happening right now but um you. also did a lot of security in the. adult industry correct oh yeah yeah. there was a lot of crossover um I was a.

I was the head of security for a grinder. uh for a while um and that was a it's a. it's a gay dating site um but the the. there's a lot of weird. problems that so Grinder like one of the. things about it is it was designed so. that way if you're. uh if you walked into a bar a straight. bar traditionally then you could it. would tell you that there is.

another gay man in proximity to you. within a certain radius uh so the. utility of the program all exists in a. proximity uh sense and that as you can. imagine that comes with certain safety. risks as well because if I was targeting. you know homosexuals I could just do it. via that application you know no I say. like go within 20 ft there's a person. here so there's a huge trade off in.

usability because we would we developed. uh these Geo boxes basically baking you. know like old school maps how they had. like a squares and you'd be like oh it. Franklin is at three M five or whatever. uh or A5 the the same type of there's a. an algorithm to box the world out in the. same way and you can change the. resolution up to you know you can go. down very it's called a geohash but you. can go down to inches you know cenim.

whatever micro to macro yeah and so but. we found usability wise that whenever we. would make this bounding box a little. bit too big the customer would complain. about the usability like I can't even. use this app because it's not doing what. I told it to and so it's a very like. interesting case study. in what the users want and like what as. a security person you would actually. recommend in this case because Tinder. had a huge problem with this with uh.

stalkers and what's called trilateration. like programmatically like if I emulated. a phone I can make it so that way my. location is jumping around and so. if I am 20t from somebody at this point. and I'm 15t from them at this point and. I'm 10t from them at this point you're. kind of able to zero in on triangulated. yeah yeah uh I think trilateration is. the is the the term at uh the.

nomenclature for for that methodology. but uh there was a lot of countries that. grinder operated in where those features. were completely disabled because it's. just illegal to be gay it's there was. the death penalty you know just for uh. whoever you know just for just for being. gay it's like it's insane and so in in. those countries uh we had nonprofit. organizations that were boots on the. ground that were going and kind of. promoting different safety like you know. don't show your face you know meet in.

public places just a lot of meat space. type um. protections uh but you. had you had government agencies trying. to entrap. uh users of grinder by. emulating uh the other gay people on the. site and they were talking so they would. converse with you and then they'd meet. you and then they'd arrest you type. stuff and so it became this huge human. safety issue uh that was really intense.

like because their lives are at stake. and and I'm traditional libertarian guy. do what you want I don't care like have. fun you know just don't just if it. doesn't bother me they're you're not. infringing on me then I I don't give a. what people do with their lives uh. and so just with that ethos kind of. carrying that into that sphere it was. just nuts the the real world Stakes I.

think you know the lives were you know. in danger and so something that we. worked really really hard. to uh to prevent um but then uh it was. bought out by a chinesey company uh and. they uh released pretty much most of the. staff that that cared at one point and. what was nuts I think I was only kept. around for compliance reasons in some. senses but but all of that data.

technically belonged. to the company that bought them who you. know most agencies or organizations. within China are state-owned and so who. knows I don't know to what extent but I. mean they did buy the data but I mean. there's a chance that they were looking. for senators dickpics and whatever else. they could find in there and data mining. it uh which is high possibility but I. there was nothing I could really do. about it you know as far as um you know. from my position but I wound up uh yeah.

they wound up eventually getting rid of. me and then the US government stepped in. and actually forced them to sell to a US. company uh because of the National. Security risk it it was very strange uh. is it a little late it was a little late. we like to buy all that data back yeah. yeah yeah okay chat's out of the bag. yeah so maybe the data is a few years. old but that was it was one of the. weirdest exp what are we are we being.

serious here we're being serious here. they bought they sold the data and then. the and. then the US government bought the data. back thinking that they didn't make a. copy no the US government uh B basally. forced uh the company was called. they forced them to sell back to an. american-based company that it was a. force sale and I I forget there was some. act that they had uh here let me we can. edit this part out on uh the CFI us the.

committee on foreign investment in the. United. States in informed that its. ownership of grinder was a national. security risk and they didn't so konon. didn't submit its acquisition of grinder. for review and so then they they. basically Unwound the sale but I said by. that time they had access to everything. if they wanted to uh and you can imagine. the amount of comprom that's in I mean. there's a lot of people that are in the. closet you know till this day that don't. admit that they're gay and you know.

they're keeping on the down low and. stuff and so I I know that grinder was. frequented by you know politicians and. celebrities and stuff that probably. wouldn't want that information to be out. there but yeah that all that data. basically um yeah went went somewhere to. where we couldn't control it. interesting wow I mean you. know I'm really curious how do you get. recruited I mean you're you're a very.

prevalent top tech company you currently. you've been an adviser for four to. five foreign. governments uh including our own. you have worked for you know the adult. industry grinder app I mean these are. like. pretty high-profile extensive jobs I.

mean. how are you getting recruited do you. apply to them how does this work I'm. pretty much all inbound I mean you're a. high school dropout yeah no degree who's. been arrested for defacing n so yeah I. mean how like and these people are. going we want you to uh perform red sell. operations on our company on our. government on our applications on I mean. what's ex obviously extremely sensitive.

and or classified. data how does. this you're asking a black hat hacker to. do penetration penetration testing and. Red Cell operations on on governments on. super high-profile tech companies. and well as I said I think that the. maturity level has a lot to do with it.

that you know there's a lot of things I. did well I mean I wouldn't say said even. in my mid 20s or whatever I probably. wasn't you know washing my hands. completely clean and there was always. some threat of whatever but that my own. moral code and stuff like I've always. been people can always rely on me and. I've always been you know very matter of. fact and I never stabbed anybody in the. back like I have a very good reputation. and that that whole um like I have a I.

have a tattoo of a green hat on my wrist. that me and my buddy got in China this. means something completely different but. uh the what. what remember we were talking about. white hat black hat hacker that we've. always been green hats like we just do. it for the money I don't care who you. are be you know s been L I don't care. you got the money's right but in. realistic terms like we all have this. these codes of Honor you know that we. just don't violate and you know so for.

that. perspective the the challenge is what's. fun you know but it's like same thing as. Oppenheimer you know developing this. weapon that you know again cuses mass. destruction it's been something that's. huge in the uh obviously it wasn't just. him but you know the it's in the Zite. guys so I guess I'll mention it uh yeah. that you know on the one hand like here. you're using this weapon to end you know. suffering in a war but at what cost.

you're like. radiating you know two cities as a. result of it and so there's always kind. of these tradeoffs uh in a sense but. I've always been really really. trustworthy I think is like one of the. things that I mean I'm not I'm not. calling you a bad person you know by any. means but if I had your. background and I was applying. to CIA mhm I'm not getting in no way.

they're not going to give me the. clearance they're not going to give me. the access like they're just not going. to do it you know and so what I'm ask I. mean. you're you're at that level yeah but. this is the problem and I think this is. like. why there I mean there's was an article. I read a few years ago about how the FBI. was maybe thinking about lowering like. allowing people that smoked weed if they.

were hackers to to join and that what's. crazy is is you're going to find a lot. more people like me that are willing I. mean again I'm insanely patriotic I've. been around the world I love this. country like it's there's still for all. of its faults like I still haven't been. anywhere else that i' love more than. this place so you know if I was ever. called you know to cyber battle uh or.

whatever like I know what team I'm. associating with you know but would they. even take me you know that's a great. question and I think that that's a a. misconception that the you know some. people in power probably have is oh that. person can't be trusted or oh you know. they're they you know they because of. their past you know they're not going to. be good but it's it like it's very. shortsighted cuz you know if anything. the people that are behaving in that way. or know that way or they're thinking.

adversarially like at all times and so. your mind just works differently and I. mean obviously if I'm outsmart in. government employees at as a teenager. you know and then still doing it now. like there's uh there's said is say. something about the system yeah you know. I mean it's just it's it's I mean does. it so are they recruiting you or are you. applying oh I I get I've been recruited. for they said I did my own entrepreneur. thing for a really long time and then. said the the grinder thing kind of.

brought me out of uh semi- retirement. and it was just so much fun and then the. company I work for. now uh say it's just it's amazing. because it's the the tech I work with is. just bleeding edge the budgets are. insane and it's there's nothing I could. do in entrepreneurial space that would. even compare to like what the type of. the things I can do and have access to. and leverage for uh with the company I. work for now so it's uh did they recruit.

you they did uh because they were having. some issues uh with account takeovers. and stuff and that's that's something. that I happen to know pretty well and. how did they find you do you ask well I. mean I'm I'm I'm pretty well known in. the computer security space so but I. mean you know it's it's it's just I. don't know. just I don't think there's very many of. you guys out there that you know have a.

have a completely clean background but I. mean just going down the list I mean you. def face NASA the FFA the dcaa NATO. Colorado Springs Police Department Texas. Department carbon of Public Safety Honda. Nissan AT&T Paris Hilton Miley. Cyrus digital gangsters Forum I mean. you've got quite the P stabbed in the. neck at 17 for stealing you know what I. mean it's just it's just interesting to. me that they like you're the guy we want.

running our cyber security I I agree I. mean it's but at the same time you're. the guy would run run in my cyber. security so it's it's just it's it's. interesting I uh totally I don't really. get it at all uh. my I said my hero I told you before is. Ben Franklin like that it's the people. like that don't exist So Much Anymore. where you try to be an expert at a bunch. of different disciplines and study.

different uh different subjects and try. to be a student of the world in some. senses and you wind up having these. multiple lives and multiple careers and. so I you know I don't know what I'm. going to be doing in 10 years you know. if I'm going to give this type of stuff. up but everything that I've learned up. until now has made me really effective I. mean especially from a leadership. perspective I've just seen things um you. know that other people haven't in the. space and so the younger people that are.

coming up now I said it's a lot less. geared there's just too many. opportunities now to make money at this. that aren't criminally related that's. not to say that it's not happening. insanely especially in other countries. uh but that for the most part there's a. path to Green now that doesn't require. you. to hack the government whereas back in. the day I think there kind of was so for. me I couldn't have gotten a college. degree in cyber security it just didn't.

exist but now you can pretty much go to. a junior college any Community College. now they probably have some sort of. cyber security offering and so it's a. little bit different like the school you. know there wasn't anything before it and. now it exists and it's a profession and. stuff so I'm just thankful that yeah. that they look past all that stuff and. they notice that I'm I mean well I'm I'm. not a terrible person you know so I mean. they we talked about this last night but. when I wish we could just say the name.

but when the when the tech company the. current one that you're running Red Cell. operations for the and developing cyber. weapons uh I mean they they gave you it. sounds like a a hell of a deal oh yeah. yeah you we haven't even gotten into. your music career yet but you're still. going to other countries you're going to. all these conventions you're still have. your music your music career and they. allowed you to build your own team.

correct I I build two teams there and. how how many team members do you. have 15 I think 15 so what are you. looking for what am I when they when. they asked you to build a team who are. you looking for a eclectic mix because I. if you get a bunch of people that think. exactly like you then you're you're not. going to get a. sycophantic Yes Men yes women that don't.

offer anything so but the biggest thing. that I look for when identifying Talent. is that what I was discussing with Ryan. there's a certain shining like a passion. that you tell when people really really. care about something as opposed to. they're just showing up for a paycheck. not that there's anything wrong with. people showing up for a paycheck but. that this. work and maybe I said it's somewhat. subjective but it's very easy to be.

passionate about this type of stuff I. don't know like how your what your. feelings on the military are but I'm. sure you felt a bit of a calling you. know in some senses and then you know. found it you're good at it and then. you're passionate about it uh there's. always some parts of jobs that we don't. like but you know again I think you're. just called to do something in a sense. and that shows in your work and so a lot. of the reason that I'm allowed to do all. those things and move around and you. know do the music and evangelize across.

you know travel to different countries. and do this stuff is because as a. recruitment tool like if there's one. thing that I've proven consistently it's. the ability to ident identify and. develop talent and that's something that. I think a lot of companies are really. interested in and you know as far as my. team goes they all super brilliant super. dedicated super amazing just awesome. awesome people and you know when you're. able to construct a group like that from. the ground up I've had no attrition you.

know on my teams either which is really. awesome uh so yeah that it's. just it's important to me to find people. I don't care their background is if it's. academic or if it's self-taught but you. have to just show a bit of a love for. the game and are these all are a lot of. these former colleagues of yours or. former friends from digit digital. gangster days or there's a couple that.

yeah from that just there's a few of. them that yeah were friends prior to. this but even the ones that uh some of. them were fans of my music. uh and so knew of me but I didn't know. of them um others were just cold you. know coming in and you know cuz I'm all. about opportunity and you know in that. sense like I don't think that it should. be complete nepotism all around nepotism. is fun but not all the time uh but yeah.

it's it's a it's a wide mix but that. just being able to identify and it's a. very diverse group of people too you. know um races genders like whatever it's. it's so we've been good on checking. those boxes but yeah it's the it's just. there's a certain passion I just can. sniff out in people and if it's not. there I find out kind of how there's. something everybody's interested in. something and there's a way to kind of. always peel and turn computer security. in a way that interesting to people and.

if there was one superpower or something. like that that I would say that I have. that's probably it it's just the ability. to identify and cultivate Talent. well thanks for sharing that thanks. Let's uh let's take a quick break and. when we come back we'll get into some. current events what you think we need to. be concerned about and um then we'll get. into your music career and that'll be a. wrap let's do.

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you're what makes this show actually. happen if you're not on vigilance lead. patreon I want to tell you a little bit. about what's going on in there so we do. a little bit of everything there's. plenty of behind the scenes content from. the actual Shawn Ryan Show on top of. that basically what I do is I take a lot. of the questions that I get from you. guys or the patrons and then I turn them. into videos so we get right now there's. a lot of concern about self-defense Home.

Defense crimes on the rise all. throughout the country actually all. throughout the world and so we talk. about everything from how to prep your. home how to clear your home how to get. familiar with a firearm both Rifle and. Pistol for beginners and advanced we. talk about mindset we talk about. Defensive Driving we have an end of the. month live chat that I'm on at the end. of every month where we can talk about. whatever topics you guys have it's.

actually done on Zoom you might enjoy it. check it out and if zoom's not your. thing or you don't like live chats like. I said there's a library of well over a. hundred videos on where to start with. prepping all the firearm stuff pretty. much anything you can think of it's on. there so anyways go to. www.patreon.com. vigilance Elite or just go in the link. in the description it'll take you right.

there and if you don't want to and you. just want to continue to watch the show. that's fine too I appreciate it either. way love you all let's get back to the. show thank you. all right Bryce we're back from another. break another break I think we're going. to go to 7 hours that would be insane 7. hours right but um I wanted to talk to. you about some current events some stuff. that we should. be have some stuff that we should have.

our attention on some stuff we should be. concerned about hopefully some positive. stuff too but um first thing I've got is. US Government vulnerabilities when it. comes to cyber security what are some of. the top. things that you think we need to be. concerned about uh I think that a lot of. the what's called fud fear uncertainty. and doubt I don't know if you've ever. heard that term before it just.

percolates in the media about our. infrastructure like power grid and. utilities uh water purification like. those types things not necessarily have. to do with the government themselves but. many of the systems that. run our infrastructure are very custom. um there's a gentleman that works for me. now uh that uh he formerly worked for.

this company and their. entire mission statement was securing uh. all of this kind of these these types of. systems the skate of systems and it's. insane just the amount. of the horror stories you know that you. hear again everyone's trying their best. but it's just there's so much the attack.

surface is just so large and then some. of these systems that are employed to to. do this there's a concept called. security through obscurity and it's. something that is always considered not. a best practice but just by making. something hard to decipher or hard to. work on it technically makes it secure. because not as many people know about it. but on the flip side of that coin not. enough people know how to fix it and. remediate those problems either so you.

wind up in this sort of nebulous area. that it's very very hard to nail down. like how exactly you improve these these. types of uh the systems but. uh that those that that's kind of where. I. see you know the potential collapse of. society in some sense is if uh you know. you were i i a lot of people don't know. how I mean I was a Cub Scout like I. still know how to make a fire with. sticks and I know how to hunt food and.

feel dress uh you know how to skin a. deer you know those types of SK thank. thanks Dad but a a lot of times you know. I think that. a lot of people would just not know what. to do with themselves if you know there. was a power outage that lasted it's very. funny you mention this because I had an. entire interview on the subject on the. power grid and that I mean I'd always. heard you know in in in I mean from my.

previous career as a seal and CIA you. know we've I mean we're it's. contingencies contingencies what if this. happens what if this happens what if. this happens I I didn't realize how. vulnerable the US power grid actually is. oh it's nuts. and you know I learned a ton from that. interview but I didn't know that a lot. of our Transformers a lot of our power. grid equipment is made is made in China.

M which I guess I just assume that. because pretty much everything's made in. China yeah but there is no. law that forces the power company. companies I I can't remember I think. there's seven major power companies in. the US I could I don't quote me on that. um but there's no law forcing these. companies to do some type of an. inspection on the equipment that they're. importing from China to put into our.

power grid looking for malware Trojan. horses or whatever and I mean the way. that I understood it is basically all. they need to do is push a button. then yeah I don't want to be alarmist. but there. is so I CU I think about people you know. that go vegan and then you know that. seems to be somewhat easy but as a. thought. exercise I've asked my friends like do.

you think you could go China free like. is there a way that you could live your. life and not ingest any China you know. and if you just look around there's so. much stuff that's manufactured over. there. uh and it's part of I think the chips. act that I think Biden's just recently. signed in bipartisan you know to get a. lot more of that manufacturing of the. Silicon back here in the states is super. super important because from a supply. chain. aspect uh that if you don't have that.

whole control from seed to sale uh there. are you could introduce hardware-based. vulnerabilities that you can't patch. with software like because it's EXA just. exists within the chip itself and with a. deliberate attack part of it you have to. look at it from a consumer Market. standpoint like is it worth it it has to. the juice has to be worth the squeeze in. that sense uh lot of juice lot of.

squeezing but you know. is if there's one manufacturing plant or. something like that that went rogue uh. you know you might have some impact. there but if there was a concerted. effort. to make you know devices that were. absolutely nefarious the moment you blow. that is the moment that trust gets. eroded but you know all you need maybe. is that that one burst of of this. manufacturing uh these things and and so.

part of it I think is just kept in check. because of capitalism and economics you. know but who knows how long that you. know if you're making some sort of. longitudinal effort. to undermine a nation then obviously the. stakes you know do become worth it but. uh that's the the brittleness of a lot. of our Utility Systems uh and again I. have very little experience myself.

there's some systems I've played with. and some protocols I've messed around. with reversing uh so I'm just again. paring what other experts and stuff have. told told me on it but it it is pretty. scary you know like and again sometimes. in reverse engineering these systems you. become the expert on them you know just. because even the people that have. designed it are so disperate or you know. and how it's cobbled together maybe. people don't understand the gastal you.

know they have all their little. constituent pieces sort of figured out. but then how they work as a as a whole. is a completely different animal uh so. just knowing that. that is a little it's it's obviously. scary but do I think you could take down. like the entire us power grid you know. in one Fell Swoop uh without an EMP like. level event I don't think that that. there is cuz even things like solar. flares impact how uh you know we.

adjust uh power usage because we have to. be concerned about solar flares and. stuff there's all sorts of things from. space that that uh you know make um. you've really researched this oh yeah. yeah yeah like I mean but I again I. wouldn't consider. myself a field expert I have no. doctorate in this and I I haven't I've. never hacked a power grid myself but I. kind of I just know the pieces of the.

puzzle in a sense of like how these. control systems work and operate and you. know some of them are you know a whole. of a lot more than most people so I. would hope. so on a scale 1 to 10 how how concerned. are. you of the vulnerability of our power. grid from being hacked probably seven. eight I mean it's up there. the just recently I there was those. Maniacs I think it was in the Pacific.

Northwest uh like. were wining with guns to yeah and I. believe that was in North Carolina oh it. was in North Carolina then was could be. I could be wrong you could be right I. said maybe it's happening everywhere and. we have we're just kidding so but yeah. that I know that like there have been. you know even just attacks you know they. they don't know uh I don't even know if. the the nature of what they are if. they're just kind of domestic terrorist. cells or whatever but uh that from a a.

lot of these systems like part of it we. had this. um legendary attack against uh Iranians. nuclear weapons program called stuck I. don't know if you're familiar with with. that uh but that we it was a joint. Israeli us operation and we were able to. get malware on their in their enrichment. plants that uh it set their nuclear. program back a number of years because.

it it basically made the centrifuge spin. faster so I don't remember the. particulars of it but it was a very. benign small change and these systems. they weren't connected to the internet. in any way they're air gapped and so. like they had to infiltrate get somebody. to actually install this stuff on but in. order to build something like that you. need to kind of have a be able to. emulate that environment or build a. replica so the way that that attack. could be orchestrated like it's not.

something that a teenager could probably. do in their basement uh because they. just wouldn't have access to the parts. of that system in order to figure out. how to how to how to break it and so I. think that is somewhat I said the. advantage of the security through. obscurity type thing is that that these. systems themselves it's not like you can. buy uh a cheap you know that some just. kid can go off the shelf and buy a. system that is going to be employed or.

would be employed in the power grid or. the water treatment or anything like. that but it's not above a state level. actor you know to afford these things I. mean that's just a it's a rounding error. in a budget somewhere uh so that's. where it becomes this arms race where. obviously we are trying to secure our. devices and we need to get these things. patched but there's just a engineering. backlog that tends to balloon out it. happens in every organization and so.

depending on how they're prioritizing. those patches I just I know that there's. things that have been found that do. exist that just haven't been patched. because they haven't been uh there. hasn't been a priority for them to to be. uh and but again this happens all. throughout the software ecosystem and. Hardware ecosystem it's just in these. critical systems uh you know there's a. whole likelihood of risk you know how. plausible is it that somebody is going. to be able to infiltrate and you know.

implant this type of stuff but again it. could be this quiet logic bomb that lays. dormant you know and just pops out one. day and completely cripples us and uh I. don't mean to be conspiratorial it's. just that the nature of you how a lot of. this stuff works there's I said there's. very few people that know how to work on. these systems and there's very few. people that know how to hack them but. there's a cross-section there that. leaves a lot of room for state level. actors if one was so inclined you know.

to to basically yeah I mean you know a. lot of companies and China are owned by. the state M oh yeah and if they're. manufacturing our Transformers putting. them into our power grid we don't even. have a law that makes these companies. check to make sure they're safe I mean I. think it's a valid concern I and that's. no matter what yeah that's insane to me. CU I even you know the devices if we. have you know obviously we have. manufacturing um you know in Taiwan I.

mainly in China for sure that there's. but we're still doing pretty. comprehensive audits on you know the. internals of these things making sure. that nothing got swapped out and you. know if the firmware that's on it is. usually cryptographically signed so we. know that it it is what it purports to. be the hashes match so there's no there. can't be anything any funny business. nothing added uh in into the system that. we don't know about uh but I I did not.

know about the if there was there's no. scrutiny on on the Transformers and. stuff it's just a very seems like very. odd you know that we would treat it that. way cuz in most Industries are really. highly regulated and you would think. that would be one Avenue where they. would do that. so again though it's just finding like. being able to audit these Transformers. comprehensively um you know you may need. a Transformer to kind of practice on or.

something and that could be something. that me and the homies could look at and. see if it's uh if it's what it purports. to be as I said my only. real Comfort or Security in the. situation is you know China is not. necessarily. A adversary like in a lot of ways like I. said I don't we're not at war with them. like there maybe some Shadow proxy war. and obviously there's a lot of designs. that they will you know we've we've.

discovered that time and time again I. think statecraft in general like you're. going to have this these copycats that. come out and you know the cheap Chinese. version is a little bit of a trope uh. but you know we are giant trade partners. with them so the moment that that. balance shifts is the moment I see like. maybe there's going to be a lot more. that we need to worry about as far as. that you know the build time supply. chain stuff comes in uh but it does. surprise me that there's no scrutiny. over whether or not a Transformer.

surpris me too yeah you're you're. concerned about our water treatment. plants as well oh yeah like anything. that you could. any I'm just trying to think of like. what is you know the Creature Comforts. of the average American and I think. running clean water is something that a. lot of us take for granted uh if you. know the Flint Michigan thing I uh you. know just kind of showed even the where.

you know human error or something can. botch I think it was year I I think it's. been fixed since 20 was it 2013 2015 I. don't want to miss but I know that I. think they're still having issues but. for the most part like the the lead. problem was was solved uh but if you. look at that at a grand scale you know. and again if it's just make these minute. tweaks you know in in filtration. software any of the analysis that's. going I mean you could basically make.

you could ensure the particulate is. getting through or added or some more of. this chemical less of this chemical and. uh you know in the within the treatment. process and. uh if you're controlling most of the. stuff is all computerized it's not like. there's a guy going out there with an. eye dropper every five minutes and you. know checking it as at least as far as I. know you know a lot of those things we. are just trusting computer systems to do. that stuff and so by trusting computers. with the ability to make these sort of. decisions then I think it becomes a.

little bit scary CU you know from my. perspective computers are fallible if uh. if you're the right persons are hacking. on them you know there's also recent. news about China hacking into a lot of. government sites I think they just. hacked into the state. department yeah uh China's been it's. it's something. that Open Secret type thing that China.

and Russia I don't believe their. citizens are. prosecuted that they can kind of look at. the us as a playground and. act individually and they don't really. have much to worry about um domestically. uh whereas even in America I think if if. you get caught hacking even our what we. would consider adversaries like it's. still grounds or prosecution um from one.

end you know that when you're looking at. it they could they could be building an. active case against you know whoever. they're investigating or they might they. like the government might already have a. foothold in a system and then you come. in and then screw it up so you're. basically ruining you know however many. years of investigation that they've. invested in it so from that perspective. I see why it's a little bit different. but that as I said before the. infrastructure of the United States is a. lot more robust and we've been using I.

mean there's countries I'm sure that. you've been to where running water and. power are you know super luxury and. stuff so I mean they wouldn't miss it. but yeah that it's just so much here you. know that that we again take for granted. uh being the you know first world and. just kind of as advanced as we are uh. that. we've installed computers in all of our. processes you know to a point where it's.

just fused into a place where you know. we're not carrying around water tablets. you know and boiling water to to purify. it or anything it's it's all just done. Upstream somewhere and then you know. through threw some pipes to your house. uh type stuff but China and. Russia um like one of the biggest things. that's prevalent now has been ransomware. campaigns um and I don't know if you're. familiar with what that is uh.

but it's really crazy cuz these they. actually operate much like a regular. business does um they're honest but what. they'll do is they will install malare. on your computer well the one of two. things uh they'll install malware on. your computer that basically encrypts. your entire drive with a key that only. they know and then you have to pay a. ransom for them to give you that key to. unlock it uh so if you have let's say.

you don't do cloud storage for your show. it's all stored on some hard drive and. then you run this malware or it's. delivered to you through some Vector uh. then it'll encrypt all of your videos. all the Shan Ryan Show videos and you. only have one copy of it let's say so. you're going to want to pay that Ransom. to get that key to unlock it and usually. they have an expiration date like they. give you like a week or two weeks or.

three days or something to pay this. Ransom or they don't give you the key. and if they don't if they destroy that. key then there's no way that you're. going to get that data back and so. pictures of your kids whatever but this. is leveraged towards Health Care you. know Hospital Systems this is leveraged. towards uh you know financial. institutions you know again where these. records or they're able to Pivot the. network people have on-site backups. instead of Cold Storage like where it's.

sitting in a tape drive you know in some. shelf somewhere they're able to. penetrate the whole network and then. even the backups become useless uh but. the interesting thing about the. ransomware gangs is again they mainly. run out of China and Russia uh but they. do they will un encrypt your data if you. pay them the ransom so they uh some of. them even set up customer support lines. and it's it's nuts uh the other uh.

ransomware type thing that they'll do is. they'll break in and they'll exfiltrate. a ton of the data and then they'll. threaten to sell it if you don't pay a. ransom um if you don't pay then what. they wind up doing is selling it to the. highest bidder and some of these groups. what they'll do is they'll promise that. they'll delete the data so they'll only. sell one copy of it they won't hoard it. out and give everybody a copy but you. know there's these organized crime and. you know again state sponsored gangs.

that are making millions of dollars just. doing this uh this type of work uh and. it's generally unheard of here in the. United States like it's not something. you can really engage in uh it's a great. lucrative business opportunity but uh. yeah we don't uh we just we we're seem. to be falling behind in that. department you know we had a a really. interesting conversation at dinner last. night about kind of the imbalance. between hacking in the US versus hacking.

in China Russia I've been saying that I. think. that Warfare is changing mhm it's. changing very rapidly I think we're. seeing a a without getting into all the. woke BS uh that's happening I I think. we're seeing a shift uh in the military. uhuh and I think that. the I'm going to get a lot of flack for. saying this but I think that guys like.

myself former seals uh green. just on the ground. Special Operations operators I I think. that we are becoming obsolete and that. Tech is taking over the battlefield I. think cyber security or cyber. warfare is going to be I mean it's it's. we're we're already seeing it I mean. just the. progression.

from uh the wars that we just that we've. been in a you. know over in Afghanistan Syria Yemen. Pakistan Iraq you know all these places. I mean you've saw ac130 Spectre gunships. turn into drones you know to turn into. unmanned drones and and the just the. tech that I. saw at the beginning when I first. started you know I think I went to I.

think my first time in a war zone was a. 2005 and to watch it how it developed in. to 2015 when I left I. mean I didn't even recogn it wasn't even. the same thing you know and um anyways. what I'm getting at is the cyber warfare. stuff is becoming more and more and more. real and the way you were describing how. China and Russia does it versus the US I.

mean that's that's pretty alarming and. then and then the the military. conference that you just sat through. where they were recruiting hackers for. the US Army. talking about numers I mean just go into. all of that. so it the the cool thing is is I would. really like it if Warfare was just. conducted by robots I mean because then. none of your friends would die in battle. like you basically just have a ton of.

junk that's just firing stuff at each. other uh and that the the stakes. obviously in cyber War you know when. you're. attacking nuclear power plants or any of. that type of stuff if you're not making. them melt down you know and irradiating. human population there's probably. somewhat of an advantage to have having. uavs you. know and counter measures against uavs. and fighting each other uh because you.

know then again it's just people. probably just handling joysticks or. artificial intelligence doing the. fighting so it may be another mature. form of warfare in a sense but uh where. the human cost is is lessened uh it's. probably not the way it's going to go. you know there there's always like these. civilian civilian casualties that happen. and I don't think that soldiers are. going to go away in that sense but let. me rephrase this what I was what I was. really getting at was.

how. hacking is becoming so relevant in. today's Warfare yeah so getting what I. was getting into is that a lot of the. equipment even that you operators are. taking in like uh with smart Huds and um. you know like how helicopters they can. fly like pretty much where you're. looking and the Gunner you know the. Gunner can just kind of you know look. and the gun points to where they're.

looking and there's this that everything. is so Warfare is so Technology based now. that inherently you know the ability to. control and you know if you're able to. Haack those systems like I said even in. the supply chain or you know sabure or. remotely because all this stuff you know. the drones and everything have to be. controlled somewhere and Wireless. Communications that's what's nuts is. wide spectrum jamming will always work. like you can do things like frequency.

shift keying and Spectrum hopping and. stuff but realistically like that if. it's have if you don't have a wire you. know like the toe missile you know. attached to the actual thing itself. that's feeding it any type of telemetry. or instructions then it's going to be. subject to some sort of electronic. warfare and part of the problem is that. in America like the the way that we'. traditionally treated you know our. hackers hasn't been favorable whereas.

you know I just the trend I noticed like. we said with China and Russia they're. basically able to use the United States. as a playing Ground and they don't they. don't suffer any consequences for it and. so they're learning against the best. systems they're sharpening you know. they're against the wetstone of America. you know and the systems that we have. and meanwhile I don't think we are. practicing the you know in the same way.

you know against them it's not like it's. asymmetric as far as like how these. things are getting handled uh when it. comes down to it though um that's one. what's really strange is that hackers. themselves like we don't really exist. without with borders you know we don't I. don't a lot of us don't really think of. ourselves as part of a country you know. again if it's kind of. like soccer or you know football or. something like that like we're part of a.

team like we are but in a sense we all. are in the same league there's these. rivalries that maybe you know they don't. bubble up so much uh as within the. hacker Community there's Russian friends. of mine you know I have Chinese friends. of mine you know type things and I don't. think we really see it. as there's animosity but you know in the. event of if a fullscale war broke out. like we all kind of know you know said. like the Olympics you know you kind of. know which country you're going to be. fighting for type thing um but I can.

just again the the development of the. skill set. and like we have very very good hackers. here domestically but internationally I. said amongst our allies I also see. strong hackers but that there's a. there's just more of a I. think would you say predisposition or.

encouragement I would say over there uh. for adversar mindset and thinking and. doing these scams and stuff that's Pres. in Russia and China that we don't have. that in our DNA the same way and so. there's a certain way that they're doing. things that I just don't think we can. replicate without a complete paradigm. shift in how we treat computer security. how we educate on computer security uh. because they just have even I said even.

their hobbyists are of. a they're they're employing way more uh. Personnel in their military than we are. we we have contractors and stuff to back. it up but as you mentioned I said if I. don't know if my finger figures are. correct but we had this said there was. an Army recruiter that had come to talk. at this hacker convention and was just. basically begging like please come to. the military if you think you can hack. or want to hack for the.

military and just looking at the numbers. I said I think it was around. 1,500 I think they had like a th000. enlisted in 500 officer Corps in the. Army cyber group and if you that's. abysmally low if you think about the. amount of coverage that we would have to. have I mean you were saying your the the. tech company that employs you currently. has way over way more and that's a. private compy yeah yeah hackers so I. mean again across space force air force.

uh Navy you know Marines Army like. branches I don't know what. the total tally of cyber operators is. but the other thing that is crazy is. that the private sector is insanely more. lucrative than you know government work. and so you as a I mean even I mean I. make insane amounts of money where where. I work and the the the financial.

incentive you know in the military I'm. sure you know is not super great uh so. that's the other kind of um barrier to. entry a little bit is that the talent. isn't necessarily going to be drawn. naturally to unless you have a you know. super sense of Duty or something to go. into uh the military to do this type of. work uh but as I said if if the gauntlet.

was thrown down and you know I it was. called the up you know I'm fighting for. America like I'm going to do my part I. mean it just seems seems very imbalanced. I mean. you to get to your level in this country. you have to do it illegally it seems. like means you have to be looking over. your shoulder you know you're doing. something wrong whereas. in Russia and China it's encouraged true.

it's encourage to hack into our. government yeah and so you know when you. have. an imbalance like that I mean how far. behind are. we it's significant. uh what's I said the one of the things. that's changed the landscape is that. because of bug Bounty programs that. exist now which is companies and. governments it's what we uh like I was.

talking about for the US Air Force and. Dubai these types of things where you'll. get paid for these vulnerability that. you find and based on the criticality of. the bug uh you get a certain a bounty. and award that with the emergence of the. bug Bounty programs uh you see a lot. more that's that's that's real world. hacking that's actually happening that. people are getting compensated for and. so there's now more of a financial. incentive to go the right path and.

you're also subject to Safe Harbor laws. so they agree not to prosecute you you. know what whatever you're hacking you. know you and you find as long as you're. doing in good faith they'll they you. know they won't prosecute you so back in. the day like there was none of that like. if you wanted to figure out how system. worked you basically just had to break. the law but now we've gotten to a point. where it's uh that a hacker can actually. hack Real World Systems and then get. paid for it uh and the Americans that I.

know that are engaged in this are among. the best of the best so uh I know. individually we definitely if there was. a hacker Olympics we could probably. we'll be taking silver at worst you know. like that there still we still have. enough uh skills in our thing but that. it's just more I said the attitude and. the the way that they the trajectory of. the way that they've architected their. programs they. have legitimized and formed businesses.

they're we call them AP groups advanced. persistent threat groups and they have. they're enumerated but they're actually. they'll have Office Buildings people. show up to work and they're actually. just criminal organizations that do. nothing but hack us and some are state. sponsored some are private in a sense. but probably have some kind of uh. attachment to some State apparatus and. it's it's fascinating to me because I I. don't think we have an analog here in.

America uh so much where you know you. can't just set up some sort of cottage. hacker industry and then you know get. like the you just get a blank check to. hack the foreign governments at least if. it exists I've never heard of it. so what what are you most concerned. about when it comes to China Russia. versus US is it is it the number of. hackers that they have on their roster. or is it the skills that the hackers.

have on their. roster it's a little bit of both uh that. it's more the. culture and how it like they're just. ahead of us a lot of it in how. they manifested their their SEC computer. Security Programs their aggression yeah. their. aggression how they they carry these. things out they're just they're Sops.

they they they've they've. codified uh this industry a lot better. than I think we we have so when it comes. to actually fighting a cyber war or. something I don't know how equipped we. are just because we haven't like our. side hasn't been cutting our teeth the. same way that theirs has it's like we're. playing the same game but by different. different rule sets or something uh. which is unfortunate but saying that you.

know again I I think that when push. comes to. shove the elite hackers that I do know. that are Elite at least our our Alli. countries or or that we we have that the. talent pool is still really really. impressive on our side so I'm not really. too concerned um that we're going to get. it's it's more. outgunned I think just overwhelming you. know overwhelmed by just the the amount.

of attack surface we have and the types. of things that they can attack versus. the types of stuff that we could attack. you know it's very it's very interesting. just to hear you say that. uh about the rules because it's you know. I will say one thing this country one. thing I've learned about from being at. war is this the United States. is I don't know why we do it but we put. we handicap ourselves we put these. stipulations on ourselves and I mean you.

see it and hand to hand combat you know. or or just no I Rules of Engagement you. know what I mean and it's you can't. shoot them unless they're shooting at. you if they drop their weapon you can't. shoot at them you know and it's it's. it's just it's and and then they're. literally decapitating us right if we. get captured cutting our heads off on. camera and and we put we put these.

stipulations on ourselves in war and now. here we are you know cyber warfare same. exact thing we're handicapping ourselves. we're putting these. ridiculous. stipulations on our own people when our. adversaries have zero and we're we're. just handicapping us it's like it's like. Geneva Convention you know type stuff. that I mean that works in civilized. Warfare I guess with you know countries. that are respecting some amount of rules. but uh yeah it's.

not I I think people think there's. nobility in it or something we're Our. Own Worst Enemy but yeah we're not it's. you're not keeping up with the time and. I don't Advocate obviously like you know. the wholesale murder of civilians or any. of that stuff I mean that's something I. think that you know I don't either yeah. right but you know what I mean when if. you're going to. handicap your people when we're. literally being dismembered having our.

heads cut off I. mean got to Fight Fire with Fire have. got to go yeah and you have un uniformed. combatants and stuff I mean you're. fighting these are types of like that's. gorilla Warfare you know in a nutshell. and all I'm saying though is it's it's. bleeding over it's bleeding over into. this stuff now too and it's oh we play. we're we play by a different set of. rules we we like to handicap ourselves. we're going to make it tougher on. ourselves here these people are getting. ready to take us over oh yeah yeah and.

we're playing by this ridiculous set of. rules and I don't think and what's odd. is I said in the cyber world the stakes. are a little bit different. like depending on the crimes and. everything like that but it doesn't have. the doesn't carry the same interpersonal. risk you know that Warfare even does so. I would think maybe maybe not but if. they hit our power grid you're going to. see a hell a lot more people die of that. than than the amount of people we killed. in more for sure no. 100% uh yeah hopefully that's one thing.

I would like to see just shifted they. they do need. to like I think the as you were talking. about earlier the kind of restrictions. on you know becoming an operative or. whatever I understand you know if you're. deeply in debt and you know you're a. drug addict or something they don't want. you having a clearance they don't know. if you're going to sell nuclear secrets. for a bag of Coke or whatever but at the. same time you know in this in the side. world or whatever a lot of the. characters that have these crazy.

personality flaws are exactly the types. of people that you would want on your. side you know uh fighting in the Cyber. trenches type things so they're a lot of. that stuff I think should be looked at. you know through a lens of sure there's. a cool calm composure that you. definitely want to have somebody having. battle but you know behind the keyboard. you might be able to relax those. restrictions a little bit you know just. to make sure sure that. happens let's move into deep fakes mhm.

AI. stuff let's say uh crazy. topic I there's an album that I finished. uh that I just didn't release there was. it was a prequel to another album that I. had done but it's all. about uh the proliferation of deep fakes. and I said I I'd finished it a few years. ago and it's really weird because a lot. of the things that have come out since. then were stuff I was talking about uh.

but what's crazy is there's so. much media over even just regular people. now just everyone's Tik Tok reels and or. Instagram reels and Tik toks and uh. YouTube videos and just even your normal. average person is going to have a ton of. material out there about themselves and. that. the maturity of these models and the.

ability. to uh you know on your own home computer. basically create this these pretty. convincing deep fakes I mean some are. better than others obviously but the the. technology is only going to get better. and it's going to get to the point you. know listen you and I are similar age so. when you know you're going to get picked. up by a stranger at school and then your. parents have a password you know that. they have to tell you know the school or.

you to know that you're supposed to get. in this car and you know leave with them. that it's going to get to the point. where we're going to have to start. having meet meet space. passwords uh cuz it's already started. where scammers are doing FaceTime calls. with people like I could call you as. your wife and just say like hey I need. you to send $200 PayPal to this address. or I need you to wire me this money or. uh just completely nonchalant but in her.

voice with her face and you and if. there's no kind of. secondary authen ation of who that. person is then it' be totally convincing. to you and this technology I said is. it's in the consumer space now to a. point where people with a decent enough. graphics card can train these models uh. so we're just getting to a point where. you know what you see isn't what you. seeing isn't believing anymore so. much there's a lot of things that have.

been memeified. like with Joe Rogan and the presidents. and stuff I don't know if you've seen. those uh kind of jokey Tik toks and. stuff floating around but they'll be. like it'll be like Trump and Elon Musk. and Joe Rogan playing a video game but. they've just made up fake dialogue with. all their voices and stuff and and these. are things that are being joked about. now but that it's real it's real yeah. and the moment it becomes weaponized. against you know Common People which I. said it already started started to be uh.

it's going to be nuts but the thing that. I. find with how deep does this go like how. convincing could a deep fake be run me. run me. through a scenario well where it would. just be perfectly. done. the just if I had enough like you think. about all the interviews that you've. done and shots of angles of of you uh.

that I could train a model based on you. and then have you map to my face. um and then I can always I can emulate a. camera um programmatically and then just. kind of I'm intercepting the image it's. the same way that Instagram and Snapchat. filters work like where they can just. overlay stars on your eyes or make you. look younger or whatever uh but again.

like if I had said if I had to call. somebody you know one of your relatives. or if I had to uh call your bank or. anything and just pretend to be you. depending on the information that's. available about you it's like this. combination of social engineering plus. technology that I mean I just basically. become you and I mean so the. implications of that are endless I mean. said if I wanted to said say that you. know I'm I'm being held for ransom like.

I you know Sean I need you to send you. know said send money or I need you to. come to this place and you know come and. get me or I mean your imagine ination is. the limit of this uh so it's going to be. very very important for us as people to. have like I said secondary passwords or. things that you know only like you'd. have to ask them like you know what. what's something that only this person. would know about that I've never told. anybody else uh but the the DNA thing is.

weird CU their services like 23 and me. uh you know that do the genetic testing. to see what your lineage is uh but I. remember reading an article not too long. ago about being able to. reconstruct like I that it's not going. to be we're not going to be far off. being able to reconstruct de deep fakes. from DNA so like being able to model. what a human being looks like just based. off of some skin cell they left. somewhere or some lip print uh that I.

can see that. being uh like a a future where you know. people don't even have to have video of. you as long as they have just one of. your cells they're able to just recreate. you in the aggregate over uh over. technology super super scary so it's you. know you're not going to be able to. believe newscasts anymore you're not. going to be able to know like did Trump. really say that or did Biden really say. that or anything because if it seems. plausible you know Biden mumbling is.

something that happens every day so like. how are you going to know you know if. it's real him mumbling or some you know. some fake you think we're there. already we are very very very close like. it's there's some analysis that you can. do on videos it's the same way you can. do noise level analysis on Photoshop. pictures and stuff there's certain. artifacts that deep fakes are still kind. of wrapping that there's they're still. perceptible even in the human eye.

there's ways that you can tell like some. of these but uh the really good ones are. getting really good like and there's VFX. artist out there that have. done just fan edits of movies uh or the. place another actor in a role or. something and just looking at it with. the naked eye you can't tell the. difference you would think that uh you. know that actor had played that role um. you know in that in those clips it's. mindboggling so it won't be long.

before everything we see is fake seeing. is not believing anymore it won't be. you'll have to have some sort. of consensus on you know whether or not. something is is real or not uh it's. it's it's sad but you know hopefully. this is where men's reach exceeds his. grasp a little bit I think the the. ramifications of his technology one of. the things it was used for when it was.

first coming up is remember as I said. porn is the. Thematic thread through all innovation. in this stuff and so this deep fake. technology was employed a lot of times. like if there was a a person you wanted. to see naked you'd find someone with. similar body type and then you could map. their face onto their body and so people. were using this to basically make. fictional porn of people that didn't. exist and that was going on even in the.

Photoshop era like when I was growing up. you know people would put Britney. Spears's face on you know some nude. model or whatever and say that that was. Britney but yeah that now it's like even. you know some girl that you met at a bar. at the gym or something and you're like. I want to see what she looks like naked. and then train a model you know with uh. I said similar with similar body type. and then put their face on it and then. boom fantasy achieved uh and but. obviously while that.

is questionable you know in as far as is. that ethical or not probably not uh I. mean it's not really doing any harm to. that person. but if it leaked out you know how would. they defend that that that wasn't them. or you know whatever and then said the. flip side of that coin though is that. you can totally use that same technology. to make people say and do things uh like. one of the problems so that. we uh you know where I work is like if. people are faking video.

footage uh if people do somehow transmit. fake video footage to our back end you. know how do we know if it's gen genuine. or not how do we tell cuz law. enforcement you know may use that as. evidence and so you know I could invent. a domestic violence situation that. didn't really happen and then you know. that's the evidence that's against me so. it's just the rabbit hole goes deep and. it's only as uh I didn't even think.

about that oh dear these are the things. I have to think about all the time so. it's a it's it's. scary let's move in into uh machine. learning how does this work how do. machines learn learn uh well that's. artificial intelligence or what we kind. of consider artificial intelligence is. this is uh is machine learning um when. people think of artificial intelligence.

and like deep fakes are a product of. this uh. and I think the the goal of mankind in. some senses is to Trend. towards uh generalized intelligence. which is having a computer think exactly. like a human. does uh so being able to learn abstract. Concepts uh not necessarily a lot of. what AI is now is regurgitation of.

training data um computers are just very. good at certain. tasks uh like image recognition is is. huge uh it's something that machine. learning has been employed on for a long. time how captas work. actually is uh you know when they're. saying like pick the pictures of fire. hydrants um you know in this uh this. block what they'll do. is Google basically um for recapture.

they'll add adversarial noise to those. pictures until their own image. recognition doesn't recognize it as a. fire hydrant that's why the images. sometimes look really grainy or stupid. depending on the level of security on. the capture and then you as a human are. basically making that model better by. you know it knows which ones are fire. hydrants when it first places the them. up for you to see but it adds a ton of. noise to those images that way until its. image recognition software doesn't.

recognize them as fire hydrant anymore. and then when you go in there and then. you click the fire hydrants then that. trains the that's reinforcement learning. for the computer to basically know. that now if I see something that's a. little boggly it probably still is is. fire hydrants um so that's just a kind. of a rundown of how we've employed. humans basically to make these models uh. better but one of the fascinating things. about ml is that we don't mechanically.

how it works is you have intermediary. nodes that are all assigned mathematical. values so there's something that goes in. and then you have a desired output and. then these. layers uh just it's like a brain it's a. neural network it looks like the same. way our brains probably process things. uh electrochemically but we. don't we don't really fully we. understand how this all works but we.

don't really understand if you were to. take a snapshot at any one point in the. computer's thought process it's just a. bunch of. values uh so it's somewhat it's. meaningless really to us but to a. computer. like that's that's how it interpret it's. interpreting the data so if I have a. picture of a dog and then through all. this. convolution uh it and it outputs dog. like however the parameters are set up.

in the model itself to you know. determine that this is a dog all of the. thought that goes on in the middle there. if you were to take a slight of that you. like we wouldn't be able to interpret it. as human beings it's a very esoteric. concept so. even hardcore Engineers you know in this. stuff again how it works as a whole. totally understandable but like the real. machinations of machine learning are. still kind of a mystery to everybody. because it's just mathematical values.

that somehow the computer outputs you. know Fakes fakes it that or whatever you. want to call it and then it it's able to. reach these conclusions the same way. that a human would uh which is. fascinating obviously uh but there's. things that computers are really good at. doing and there's things that they're. not very good at doing I'm sure you've. heard of Chad. GPT uh yeah like those for Content. generation and stuff you know the these. large language. Models Super efficient and they're very.

convincing uh that's part of what Allen. touring had this posited this thing. called the touring test which in a. nutshell is if you were talking to a. faceless something like just a machine. like would you be able to determine if. the person on the other side was a. computer or a human or not and we're. starting to reach that point where you. even the chat Bots and stuff that I was. making as a spammer were obviously. fooling people you know and that was.

lowlevel stuff this is much more. comprehensive and involved uh but these. llms now that the capabilities that they. have are just astronomical because. they're basically you know they can. write you College papers there's lawyers. that have been using it and getting. caught because it was citing fake cases. and stuff so you're seeing it being try. to trying to be weaponized in the. mainstream a lot more uh but it still is. really impressive to see you know the. types of things that these llms are.

outputting uh but they're they're again. they're they're only as good as the data. that they're trained on um. which. is said that what what that what that. comes from is the Corpus of you know. whatever we've generated in human. history it's it's a so that's why it has. biases towards certain things because we. have biases towards certain things and. see that's where they're tweaking the.

knobs and you know what people say is. like woke aying you know the AIS and. stuff because it's going to spit out. racist statistics it's going to spit out. things that just don't make sense but. that's just how the data that's been fed. into it so it doesn't really know any. better it can make decisions um you know. based on feeling the same way that human. beings Can it can make it can make. decisions based off feeling oh it can't. no it can't that's what I'm saying. thought you said it can like it lacks.

that yeah the comprehension is different. uh but I said it it just fakes it well. enough you know now who knows where this. is going to go obviously but ml has a. lot of where do you think this is going. to go I mean you read you read about it. and it seems like just about every. profession is going to be replaced they. talk about it replacing attorneys they. talk about it replacing financial. advisors they uh I read something the. other day that said that.

um I don't even know what you call it a. program. is they they fed it I don't know. thousands of mammograms and this thing. can diagnose cancer. like yeah 99% success rate that's where. a lot of the medical field there's so. many applications where ml is like super. super useful uh you know in site. optimization you know uh.

there's projects like GitHub co-pilot. and uh Amazon has one too that grab some. water yeah like there's products like. GitHub co-pilot and AWS has one too uh. that I should remember uh that help kind. of scaffold code so they it's been. trained on lots of different code chat. GPT even can output you know certain.

programs like boilerplate type stuff the. way I see it kind of going in the short. term is uh it's definitely going to be a. skill to be able to do what's called. prompt engineering like leveraging AI to. augment your workflow I don't know how. much it's going to replace workers yet. but being able to those that can use it. as a force multiplier and whatever. they're doing are going to have a lot. higher Advantage than than those who. aren't so it's just you know the the.

hammer to the Jackhammer type thing like. where it's the evolution of just another. tool that we're using. um but when again when it comes down to. it I I don't know I would love to see. computers you know reach a state of. Terminator in Skynet like it would be. just awesome because hopefully I've. treated them nicely enough that they'll. see me as a a friend and maybe they'll. Elevate me to Emperor the universe or. something but uh the uh yeah the the.

realistic. like I there's a lot of jobs that are. going to completely disappear just. because you're going to wind up. having uh I think there's a there's a. lawyer site uh called I think it's do. not. pay.com uh not affiliated with them at. all or anything but they they've they're. just it's a llm driven lawyer service. and it'll write like uh so it'll fight.

traffic tickets for you it'll do it has. this La it'll write divorce paperwork. it'll it has this huge laundry list of. things that like it will it will do so. it's kind of a lawyer in a box but that. you know if you're trying to get. something removed from your credit you. have to send letters in snail mail to. the company and da well. taking uh like a llm GPT chat GPT or. something and then front ending it and. then giving it access to be able to. print letters and mail them you know now.

you've got this entire work stream where. you can have a an AI fighting your. credit card uh credit report you know. for you completely automated and so. what's going to happen is on the other. end of that they're going to have an AI. That's reading what's incoming and so I. just see these you're basically going to. have these AIS that are fighting with. each other that AI is talking to each. other sending each other like you know. legal documents resumés like whatever.

you can think of and so The Gatekeepers. of both of these sides are going to be. artificial intelligence and human beings. aren't going to be reading this stuff. anymore CU it's just considered mundane. uh so I can see that kind of in the near. future where you just have AIS that are. talking to each other that are resolving. disputes in a sense because you know. human beings become too lazy to you know. fill out a form to do. something would be fun but what are some.

professions that you think are just. going. away uh guaranteed it's. over I think that the driving. self-driving is going to be a huge uh. the transportation industry is gigantic. if you think about just Logistics from. you truck drivers and uh you know just. regular delivery. drivers taxi cab I mean you name it that.

this the transportation industry just. has a ton of people that are working. there and probably little by little. you're going to see a lot a lot of that. stuff automated um so. Pilots drivers yeah Pilots maybe yeah. yeah for sure um definitely I said Road. operated um probably Choo cho too the. old trains they going to see similar. thing uh I don't know what the timeline. is for that I'm not that much of a. futurist but that's where I see the most.

economic impact just because of how many. people are employed and kind of propped. up in this industry we've been scared. about robots for I mean as long as I've. been alive you know robots taking over. you know automated Factory processes and. stuff but the other thing is to know. content. writers uh you know reporting you know I. think it's going to get to a point where. you just type in a few bullet points. about an article and then it'll just. crap out something that's totally.

readable so you know you might need a. lot less writers on staff that's part of. I think what the strike the Hollywood. strike is about is you know but in my. estimation if an AI is writing better. content than a human being then maybe. maybe you're not that good to begin with. so. uh I don't know uh I'm always you can't. ever fight technology you always have to. embrace it and you see this just happen. you know throughout human history you.

know there's professions I think that we. had considered sort of bulletproof like. you you could at any other time in. history if you were a blacksmith you. were probably the man but you know I. don't know too many blacksmiths in 2023. uh it's just the rapid nature I mean. we discovered out a fly and went to the. moon within 70 years type thing and. never I mean dinosaurs ruled the Earth. for millions of years and they didn't. have any internet so I mean it's just.

this this crazy like jumps forward that. we're making that it's very hard to tell. like where things are going to be. science fiction auor science fiction. authors refer to it as the singularity. that there's just going to be a point. that we reach where everything you. wouldn't be able to. explain what was happening to anybody. before you like even with a phone you. know now I can show it to you but it's. kind of like smoke signals if you were a. caveman I'd be like yeah this is sort of. like that you smoke signal thing that. you guys do like oh okay I get that but.

supposedly The Singularity becomes this. point where it's just completely. unrecognizable there's no. language I could use to explain you know. where we're at or what's going on. interesting not heard of that. Singularity Singularity yeah I got to. look into that that sounds. interesting let's move. into. cryptocurrency okay.

uh as far as crypto goes like I'm not I. was just an early adopter the technology. and I just like how it operates um I. wrote a. song about Bitcoin in 2012 that became. somewhat popular uh and it's probably my. most played song uh but when I was when. I had gotten into Bitcoin it was very.

like 2009 is kind of when it started and. 2011 12 13 is sort of when I was it was. on my radar uh and at that time it was. just coffee shop meetings type stuff it. wasn't very it was like 20 people would. come to these meetups it wasn't this. huge phenomenon that it is now and I. just. really appreciated the technology aspect. of it it solved this intractable problem.

in computer science called the Byzantine. generals problem uh but it's basically. just you know how do you solve the. ability to double spend. currency and uh you know how do you how. do you trust like how can you assign. authority to somebody sort of verifying. these transactions and I spoke about. earlier that the hashing thing where you. try to find the most zeros in this.

arbitrary hash that you're pumping. values into and so that's pretty much. how it's done. uh but it's just the cool thing about. cryptocurrency or where it came from I. don't really I'm not a big fan of banks. uh you know I that there's been times. I've gone to the bank and I've asked. them for the money that's mine and. they're like I got to wait we got to get. it for you or you know that I tried to. send a wire the other day and they were. like why are you sending this wire and I.

said I don't why do I have to tell you. that like it's not you know it's my. money I should be a do what I want with. it so. Bitcoin eliminates all that stuff like. the but it also you're in charge of your. destiny there so if you lose your keys. or you give somebody your passphrase or. whatever and you get wiped out there's. no phone number that you can call to beg. for it back so you have this. responsibility that also kind of comes. with that uh but the problems that.

people try to for a while there there's. a lot of pitch decks floating around. Silicon Valley that were trying to solve. every problem with blockchain and that's. just not the case uh there's certain. things that it does really well and said. the fact that it's distributed. decentralized you know the purest kind. of crypto world that you know becomes a. great alternative currency alternative. Value store you know if you want to if I. want to send money to a foreign country. without going to Western Union without. dealing with a bank like it's nice. because it's practically immediate you.

know within 5 minutes and you can do it. very cheaply relatively I mean I can. send a billion dollars. you know. for less than a dollar you know in less. than five minutes type thing so it's. it's a great concept uh but I don't buy. into a lot of the hype around. cryptocurrency now the way that it is. it's just it's become kind of taken over. by a lot of Finance pros and you know. quants and Wall Street types that are. just kind of in it to make a buck uh but.

I was always just I'm just a purist I'm. just in it for the technology and in it. for the think this is the future I do um. and even America uh like our I think our. treasury Reserve n National Reserve uh. has been discussing making a. cryptocurrency uh for to represent our. dollars like there is there's a couple. uh like tether and usdc there's a few.

coins they're called stable coins that. are basically pegged to they have a. dollar amount associated with them just. one coin is $1 type thing uh but even. the US government now has gotten to a. point where they've been kicking around. the starting their own stable coin you. know just government backed what do you. think of that I Central Bank digital. currency it's a big topic right now it. is huge. and so one of the advantages to cash.

obviously usually the only time I've. ever gone to the ATM was to buy drugs or. gamble like that even regular money. these days isn't used for uh you know. maybe you're tipping a valet or. something but for the most part it's. it's not uh it's not something. that we every other cash purchase that. you're doing is usually with a card or. um like a debit or credit so there's a.

transaction there if people were always. talking about you know the government. being able to see what you're spending. your money on and everything and that's. one of. those like in China they have a social. credit system I don't know if you're. aware of it I am aware but I I could see. them instituting something like that. over here uh in the US you know where if. you spend money on these vices then you. know your demerit or you know minus.

three points and that's where I see the. more kind of digitized that we make. currency in general like the easier it. is to track in that sense and so it. becomes just another way. for. authoritarian Minds to you know data. mine or or do whatever with the one. thing is though is even in the existence. of. that there's a lot of things that are. illegal these days like you shouldn't be. able to download movies and music.

illegally but people will do it anyway. you shouldn't be able. to um. uh you you shouldn't be able like you P. yeah pirate satellite signals people do. it anyway you should be able to jwalk. people do it anyway that there's no way. you can Outlaw Bitcoin at this point it. doesn't it's just the network is too. robust and so you can always use that as. an alternative or there's currencies. like Monero that are privacy focused. they're designed CU with Bitcoin it's.

suit Anonymous that you can be as public. or as private as you want to be. uh with that but the entire purpose of. the blockchain is it's a ledger from end. to end of every transaction that's ever. happened uh over the history of the. blockchain and so it provides that you. know I think for nonprofits for instance. it's a really brilliant thing to use. because I would have total. accountability and anyone could audit me.

because they could all see which. transactions are coming to my address. when withdrawals are made I would have. to have some sort of. uh tie in to like what did I spend this. money on you know because everybody will. see it go out everybody sees the money. come in so I think for nonprofits and. stuff it's a super super useful tool for. accountability I don't know if people. want to adopt it because do really. people really want accountability in. that sense uh for those things it's good. but privacy coins like Monero obfuscate.

the transactions the blockchain so you. can't really I can't they can't really. see if you and me are sending money to. each other and that's how it's designed. uh uh that's the kind of the point of. the Privacy coins but depending on you. know what you're looking to get out of. it uh that's the thing it's good that we. have Alternatives but even if the US. government was trying to outlaw Bitcoin. you couldn't really I don't think you. really could so uh you can try the. biggest thing you'd be able to do is cut. off Central exchanges but that's why. there's just decentralized exchanges. that exist now where the liquidity pool.

is decided by uh members of the. decentralized community so if I have. some Bitcoin I want to sell and you have. some ethereum you want to sell then you. know we'll meet in the middle somewhere. in this decentralized exchange and then. swap it uh but it's all said just. currency is only as good as people that. adopt it like you can walk into the. corner store right now with five and the. guy's going to laugh you out of out of. the store but it's that's real money you. know it's just the fact that they don't.

accept it there and so once. cryptocurrency gets to a point where. it's in place that everybody kind of. accepts that it's real or not then uh. we'll see a turning point I. think let's get into we talked about it. quite a bit but um we talked about it. with your phone but secure. Communications. signal. WhatsApp regular text I mean what is the. most secure method of communication.

nowadays everybody's worried about. government overreach and big Tech. tracking everything we do and what do. what do you use I use signal primarily. uh I have Telegram and WhatsApp uh which. both have the end to end encryption. features uh proport to iMessage uh on. iPhone actually is also endend encrypted. uh what that means is. that no one like you and I have the keys.

to unlock the contents of that. conversation so it's end like there's no. intermedi there's no intermediary server. that can uh take that traffic and. decrypt it because we've the key. exchange is like between the two of us. uh usually what compromises devices uh. security the text messaging and stuff is. that the actual phone itself is. compromised so it's not necessarily the.

apps themselves uh signal us that by. default is and end encrypted perfect. forward secrecy. and it's. designed to be really lightweight like. it doesn't have a lot of the features. that Telegram and and WhatsApp and stuff. have I think you can do Emojis it has. link previews it's blow it up a little. bit over the years it's not as Spartan. as it used to be but that that for my. money that's the it's all open source. you know so the code is auditable um and.

I just said I've been a fan of signal. ever since it came out uh largely said. in less mathematics is broken or Quantum. cryptography or Quantum Computing takes. a huge uh step forward we don't really. have to worry about um you don't have to. worry about signal like as far as that. but where where you're going to have a. lot of problems is more in the fact that. the device that the software is sitting. on is actually compromised so somebody's. hacked your phone and then. uh then they can read anything.

anyway but signal will be the most. secure for this this is what I use I. mean said like uh I said I don't I'm not. sponsored by them or anything like that. but yeah just Endor just how it works. and it under goes pretty regular Audits. and it said the code is anybody can look. at it anybody can see just how how it. works and uh said signal is just it's. been kind of my secure messenger of. choice for a long time but said iMessage.

offers the same protection the clear. text SMS is really bad because that's. what I'm saying any body in in between. can view the contents of those messages. uh so the phone company that's why you. know in when the court subpoena records. or whatever if they don't have access to. the phone they don't have access to the. text records uh but if they're SMS you. know Green on um on iPhone then they can. just get that stuff from the phone.

company no kidding I didn't know that so. so they have to have the actual device. for with an i phone message or with. imessage with imessage yeah there hasn't. been uh yeah as far as I know I don't. think the encryption's been broken uh. but yeah it's that they would have You'. have to have the uh You' have to have. the device to yeah peel anything off of. it or or control the. device what are your views on. Snowden uh.

I. I that's a tough. one I respect what he did for sure like. I love whistleblowers I think that. that's a good thing but the the nature. in which it was done I think is. something I find somewhat problematic I. don't I don't. know again being a former member of the. intelligence community and stuff like. that there's a lot. of information that you you know why it.

should be secret you know in a sense or. especially if there's lives at stake or. you know. anything not too long ago I forgot was. it remember if it was Trump or what was. that uh when all those assets got leaked. uh the foreign assets it was like the. the knock list Mission Impossible but. they a ton of Deep Cover operatives were.

uh. exposed I don't remember who that was. yeah uh just that there there is things. I don't live in a you know I of course I. have this hacker ethos of all. information should be free and we should. be you know we should have access and. transparency is important and stuff but. there. are there is a certain who decides this. again it's imperfect like but should. Snowden be the Arbiter of that type of. uh type of information I mean yes or no.

like that's is a very personal. subjective thing uh you know he did it. through the channels releasing it to the. guardian uh I don't think that he should. be. prosecuted uh but at the same time I. think if everybody behaved in that way. it would be somewhat Reckless uh you. would you can't just have everybody. doing that that type of stuff uh so. personally do I think he belongs in jail. no do I think he should get a pardon.

yeah uh. but were there are there questions. around you know how what he did and how. he did it I I think so I think but again. that's that's for him and this is just. my judgment you know as far as. uh I'm looking I'm the outside looking. in I don't. know let's get into let's get into some. fun stuff. okay nerdcore. music what is it I've not heard of this.

until you came. along uh so nerdcore hipop is a term. that applies to a wide range. of music but all of it. is it's considered nerd culture geeky. stuff so Dungeons and Dragons Star Wars. you Marvel before there was you know all. these movies about it like just being. comic book nerd or anything and it was. music just about these nerdy.

Pursuits and. uh right around the AOL days is when I. started making music in it wasn't called. nerdcore then uh but the same way that. you listen to Reg like regular hip-hop. music or mainstream hip-hop music and. you know the subject matter that it's. rapping about then I was just trying to. one of the core tenants of hip-hop being. to keep it real I just thought it was. fun to rap about the types of things.

that we were doing on the computer you. know cuz there's a lot. of Cor ation. between making money on the streets and. making money on the internet you know. it's I think it's very there's a lot of. the similar qualities that that both of. those things have you know I. was pimping on the internet you know. they're pimping in the streets like that. you know I'm I'm robbing banks and. they're robbing banks but I'm doing it. in my underwear and they're doing it you. know with a ski mask on so it's uh it.

just seemed like the natural progression. but most most of my contemporaries are. doing it in. uh like one of my friends MC Lars like. he has a degree from Stanford in uh 19th. century literature and so he a lot of. the contents of his rap. is about poets and the poetry and pros. of that era and he does I mean does.

songs about a lot of stuff but that's. kind of his focus and then uh MC front a. lot is like uh he's considered the. Godfather of nerdcore he's the one who. named it uh but he was a graphics. designer he's an artist web guy and he. just makes geeky songs about geeky. things but he's not much of a hacker so. has no real insight into computer. security a megaan is another one who uh.

he' started out kind of doing uh video. game raps the same way that I didn't uh. we took like old video game beats and. then made music to them um but about. nerdy subjects Mega Ran's probably the. he's been doing a lot of stuff with the. WWE and you know he's a huge fan of. wrestling and so he's got songs about. wrestling he's got songs that are in. video games and uh like in the credits. and theme songs and stuff but everybody.

sort of has these little even sub genre. Pockets nerdcore that they occupy p and. mine has always just been computer. security uh that I rap about hacking and. spamming and all those things that you. know we've talked about today but just. put it in a song form what I. mean so you're a forefather of this does. that mean did you start this. genre. chronologically. I was probably before everybody uh like.

considering this in 1998 19 99 that the. genre really started. to. become like embody something I say in. the mid 2000s is like where the wav. started to catch uh but I'm sure that it. was being done like I don't really know. how I'm considered yeah one of the. forefathers of the genre uh but I think.

it would be I don't know if I could have. said I created it again I think it was. more of a team effort and you know built. by a bunch of us kind of around the same. time independent Discovery like like. calculus with Newton and liin. but lies yes don't know if well I mean. it sounds like you've had a hell of a. career you've performed alongside Buster. rymes Nelly 36 mafia George Clinton two. shorts Snoop Dog Ice Cube and You.

released a collaborative single with. dead. mouse yeah this year yeah that was. earlier this year uh yeah a lot of does. that mean are you on tour with all these. guys. uh not really like I do like a lot of. one-off shows uh and stuff with most of. the people on that list uh yeah we just. see each other when we see each other. and do shows with each other I I DJ too.

and so it's I just I love music I've. been playing guitar for a really long. time and. I. love it's a lot of fun but more or less. my mission like with the music is I've. had a lot of people that have listened. to it and then they've decided to take. up a profession in coding or in computer. security or whatever uh and that's. something I think is very unique to the. music that I make is it there are howto.

music out there how to make crack. cocaine and you know whatnot of course. that exist but that the subject matter. that I try to attack and things that I. say you know it's all fairly real world. application it's either something that's. happened to me or something that's. happened to somebody I know very so that. keep it real thread is really really. important in in the music that I make uh. but my fan base is very. very intelligent and highly technical.

like cuz there's a little bit of a. barrier to entry to kind of getting in. and understanding the music cuz it uses. a lot of technical jargon and uh the. analogies and stuff are just a little. more heady and that have to do with. hacking and spamming and stuff so people. that kind of do the Deep dive and get in. there and figure out uh what the lyrics. are really saying then they tend to walk. away with little nuggets of knowledge. and it's cool to get that feedback from.

people that have done sort of deep Dives. on the the song uh lyrics or the content. how's it working with dead mouse dead. mouse is amazing he's a great person uh. said the the way it all came to be um. was is like right around when Co was. kicking off and there's a guy his name. is Steve Duda and he uh good musician in. his own right but he's a he's a plug-in.

developer now just a software developer. uh that he worked in the music industry. for a really long time and was was a. one-time cooworker with dead mouse but. they had a group project called bsod. together blue screen of death. is uh what that name comes from and so. they were a lot of the kind of seminal. electronic work that the two of them. were collaborating and working together. uh and so they were in Toronto working. on new music and dead mouse just had.

this. instrumental uh that needed lyrics on it. and so Steve had dm'd me on Twitter and. he was just like hey uh I'm up here in. Toronto working with Joel and we. downloaded one of the AC capellas off. your website and slapped it on the song. because we needed vocals for it and Joel. really likes it so you know what are we. going to do about it and that song is. about this group lolc that did a ton of. they were Anonymous adjacent did a ton.

of hacks like kind of at the turn of the. decade it was really really highly. publicized um and that's song was the. theme song for that group and then here. you know whatever it is 12 years later. you know to have it like this re. emergence and re-release is just funny. because Joel's into internet culture and. stuff he was there for a lot of this but. never in a million years would I think. that song Would resurface as a. single on his on his album but yeah the.

last couple years I just you know we. find ourselves in the same places or I. would just go out and you know perform. it with them so it's been a blast um. I've I said been in the music scene. pretty much my whole life and so I've. made a lot of friends and kind. of rub shoulders with everybody for a. while but I don't I said I don't really. take music as seriously as I think I. should probably uh but I think if I took. it more seriously I probably wouldn't.

find it as. fun uh but yeah Joel is just a trip bro. I love him he's a great guy yeah my wife. and I are huge fans of dead mouse so. yeah that that's I think that's cool. it's super cool yeah he's a great guy I. said you see I'll see if I can get him. on here and just twist his arm I said on. here yeah yeah on your podcast so we. talk to them yeah that would be the. let's do it all right let's do it that. would be awesome but.

um man we covered a lot of ground we did. of all the things that you've been. involved in music. hacking black hat. hacking the stuff you're doing with the. big tech companies I mean what what's. your favorite thing to work. on what gives you the. [Applause]. most this is going to be cheesy but. being a good dad it's like I don't think.

that's cheesy at all yeah it's probably. the stupidest answer like just easy. platitude but that I mean my daughter. she's you know grown now such but we. talk constantly like just being that. close you know and just watching her. kind of grow up and you know now she's. in college and you know going to make. her own mark on the world type thing. it's. just just most proud of of her and just. the fact that she's out there like still.

alive she didn't starve to death so I I. did okay but yeah just being a dad is my. favorite thing I think well man in my. humble opinion that's the best answer. you could have given good right so uh. that's awesome congratulations thank you. on a successful uh fathership yeah but. um all right Bryce we're wrapping up the. interview last question three people.

that you want to see on this. show uh we mentioned one let's see if we. can get uh dead mouse on here uh I think. Connor Daly would be amazing he's a race. car driver uh you two would just love. each other uh and probably Sam Curry. who's a he's one of the younger. generation hackers is really really big. uh in the bug Bounty. scene but he's one of those guys I was.

talking about that's a young gun that's. just done so much impressive stuff and. he's been with me a lot. on more of the recent Journeys like to. the UAE and uh just highly highly. skilled insane amazing just yeah. brilliant so I I think you would really. really like him too I'll look him up. okay I appreciate it well Bryce man it. was what a fascinating conversation I. think we're we got to be close to 7. hours but uh yeah jeez and I'm not going.

to lie I could go longer but I I think. you're getting tired oh I'm just I'm. just amazed somebody wants to talk to me. this long it's just crazy so yeah I'm. having a great time too you are a wealth. of knowledge and um you know we covered. it all childhood at least I think is. there anything we need to cover that we. haven't. yet did we do the mathematician thing. did I qualify that oh cuz it's that it's.

funny you say that say because it's not. real but yeah I have two published. sequences with my Tony in the online. integer in online encyclopedia of. integer. sequences. uh yeah I know I remember you mentioned. that up top and I was like I know that. is real though that it's real yeah yeah. it's real it's it's not like rigorous. scientific like I proved for Mo Last. Theorem or anything like that or the. Brean hypothesis but at the same time. yeah it's it's funny how much nerd cred.

that actually gets you like when you. figure out a new sequence of numbers. that they really seem to enjoy. that but yeah other than that you could. write my biography now I think you got. got it everything fascinating stuff well. Bryce I just want to say thank you for. coming the pleasure is mine completely I. really really enjoyed myself thank you. me too cheers best of luck thank you. [Music].

[Applause]. [Music]. hey everybody I'm Shawn Ryan click here. to subscribe to the Shawn Ryan Show. YouTube channel for the hottest and most. compelling interviews that you will not. see anywhere else I've also made a. playlist of all the previous SRS. episodes so they're easy to find you can. find that right here.