Xbox Underground Hacker | The Hidden Third with Mariana van Zeller

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I'm going to be honest with you, something that I've never said on camera, I've broken into Microsoft more than 20 times. No. Is it okay for you to say this? I don't know. Okay, great. Hi. What's up? How's it going? Long time no see. So we actually know each other and we met this summer. We did. I'm going to start by introducing you by saying that I met you because I went to DEF CON. That is correct. If people don't know what that is, it's the large, it's not one of the largest hacker conventions in the entire world. Yes. And I went there looking for a hacker for a project that I'm working on. And I was on my way out. I'd gathered a lot of names and suddenly I saw you and your friend Dalton and we started talking and you told me the craziest story and we really got along and that was the moment that I realized okay this is the hacker that I need in my life you came to the right place looking for the right thing and you found it we've been working together and I've all I really wanted to have you on the podcast so thank you for coming thank you it's a pleasure to be here and I love working with you your whole team like all of it's just been amazing. It's super fun and I'm happy to be here. Good. You have the craziest stories and the craziest life so far and you're super young still. I don't know. You've interviewed some pretty crazy people. So, I mean, I can maybe just go up for bat, I think, at this point. Okay. Let's start from the beginning. Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Okay. So, you know, Seattle, Washington? Yep. So, you take a bridge across and you land in Bellevue and that's kind of like the- The suburbs? Partial suburbs. Like, we have a downtown Bellevue, you know, so we still have the city life, but it is more of like the tech upper class-ish kind of Seattle area. And what did your parents do? So my dad was a heart doctor, so he founded this company called Life Systems Corp, and super, super smart guy. Like, he founded a lot of stuff, had patents, and sadly, at some point, things didn't go too well. I mean, he lost his patent over war. I might be wrong on this because I actually haven't researched it, but I was always told this when I was growing up, that he actually created the first artificial heart that could work in a body more than 24 hours. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, so my dad's super smart, super, super smart. And with your dad's originally, he's Iranian, right? Iranian, yes. So he came from Iran. He got a scholarship. He really came from nothing and brought it back here to Washington. And your mom is Brazilian. Yes. My mom was born and raised in Brazil. OK, so they're here. Your dad loses his patent. And then what would happen? So like at that time, my dad had already met my mom. You know, they've been together, but they divorced when I was like five years old. So I was an early divorced single child kid. What was that like for you? Very, very interesting. I had like kind of the balance of between like a low income and a high income family. I would go to my dad's and it would definitely be, you know, more higher class, you know, bigger house and everything. And then on the other side, my mom was kind of like always struggling for a while. So, like, how did that affect you? Yeah. I mean, it opened my eyes. I mean, more than anything, like it made me really learn, like how valuable life is when you don't have resources, like how desperate people can get and like what can happen from that. It's interesting. That's a little bit like the experience that I had to growing up. So my parents divorced when I was three. And my dad definitely made a lot more money than my mom. With my mom, we lived in a small, like, three-bedroom apartment. Yeah. We were all sort of on top of each other. And my dad had, you know, this big house that he had just built with his new wife and the new kids. And there was a pool. And there was cable. First time I ever saw cable, you know. And it was really interesting because I'd spend the weeks at my dad's, at my mom's house. And then on the weekends, I'd go to this, yeah, this big, rich house. This big place. Yeah, right. It was very different. Yeah, very, very different. per se. And, you know, like it was always kind of interesting because like, you know, on the low income side, you have more freedom. So like you feel like you have more power, but, you know, you go to the other side, you're more restricted, but, you know, you can eat better. And, you know, it's just the balance of it was very, very interesting. At what point did you realize that you were really good with computers? I think pretty, pretty early. Like it was around eight or nine. It came around. What happened? How did you realize? It started with at my dad's lab. So my dad had a laboratory, obviously, with all his heart stuff and whatnot. And so he would bring me to work as a kid and I'd get lost in there. And I'd go and harass all the engineers that had computers. Because at that time, computers weren't really around. You didn't have a PC at home that much, you know. So being around those computers and kind of seeing them and what they were doing, like, kind of opened my eyes even more. So immediately you were interested. You were like, oh, I like that. Out the gate. Like, I wanted to know more. And I have this, like, very, very permanent memory in my head. and it's my dad dissecting a heart out of a rat. And I'm like looking at it and like, I'm like, that's a rat. That's the heart. And I remember him taking out and putting it in a machine and watching it pump. I'm like, that's a little too weird. I want to go to the computer and play on that. Like it like freaked me out for a minute. It was really, really interesting. That's understandable. Was your dad, do you think your dad wanted you to be a doctor as well? I don't know if he wanted me to be a doctor. I think he just wanted me to be successful. like whatever i wanted to do and then you got into gaming really i did yes so of course like fascination with computers it comes with gaming because when you're a kid you get on the computer the only thing you care about is pretty much games so i downloaded everything on my dad's computer at that time probably messed up like half of the company business like just downloading stuff and trying games that i probably was ever not supposed to access which one do you remember oh i mean this is like way way back i mean i'm talking about like when frogger was like a thing like when we still had games on floppy disks so i was like five or six you know right before the cd-rom i remember it was right before it which one was frogger what what frogger is like when you had to cross the street with the frog and then we had like pac-man like obviously like i was hoping you'd say yeah yeah that's what i remember and of course pong you know pong is like the default that carried on forever that you know was always withstanding and then doom came around which was like a big one for me tetris did you do tetris i did tetris but i like didn't really get into it i was always fascinated with people that could play it like competitively you're much younger than me when you were born 1995 yeah yeah exactly much younger not gonna say how much so i remember for me gaming the first thing i started with was uh i remember being the first thing i got addicted to in gaming was Tetris, for sure. I was obsessed with Tetris. And then really addicted was Pac-Man, actually. And you got to a point where there was an arcade, a gaming arcade, about five minutes from my high school. And me and my friends, and you'd have to put coins, right? Quarters in, right? Yeah, the Portuguese equivalent of quarters. And we actually, it was a point where we didn't have any more coins left, but we really wanted to finish these games, and we were missing class. And we'd go up to these guys that were in the arcade and ask them for money, which has like 15, 14-year-old girls. But it's addicting, right? It's not a great idea, but it's totally addicting. You got hooked into it, and you play it. And those games were cool to me, but then I remember when the Xbox came out. Yeah. And for me, that was the biggest thing ever. So I never went there. So my gaming career ended at Tetris and Tetris. But you continued. Yeah, tell me about Xbox. I continued, yeah. I continued. um you know i remember when xbox came out i was just i don't know how i even figured out about it but i was constantly asking my mom or dad and eventually my dad gave in and bought me an xbox and then to follow because i had divorced parents so i had to convince my mom to let me buy one you know so i was hodling xboxes back and forth between them divorced parents trying to play games were you carrying your xbox from one house to the other i had like a little luggage it was like it was kind of like my way that I would go back and forth between both parents that I'd carry my Xbox and a couple pair of clothes and never carried about never cared about homework it was always just about oh yeah so you weren't a good student no I was actually a terrible student really yeah I was surprising because you're obviously very smart were you just not interested at all distracted very very distracted do you have you been diagnosed with ADHD uh I was yeah as a kid I was diagnosed with ADD. Okay. And it was funny. I got into special education and then it was about sophomore year of high school. They did a reevaluation of me. And then for one reason, something or another, I was like, I'm going to try my heart out on this test. Like, I just want to see. And I scored insanely high. Like I was college level and they were like, we can't have you in this class. And I panicked because me as a kid, like those classes for me was how I could spend time on the computer. Because while the teacher was talking about whatever, I was actually worried about who I was chatting with, how I could get hacks more, you know, try to advance my business of what I was doing as a kid. What business? I was selling hacks. So I got into a lucrative market of selling cheats pretty much on Xbox at one point. You know, that's definitely far down the line you're going to i'm definitely skipping down the line so so wait so you were diagnosed with add when you were younger and then later on they basically realized actually he's not yes anymore and we want to advance him or and so i panicked and i pled to let me retake the test and then you did i purposely flunked it again and then you were i was back on to be on the yeah computer again yep wow so and that allowed me and honestly i would have not have passed high school if I didn't have changed my grades. Wow. So you were always distracted and just not a very good student. And your parents were sad that they have conversations with you about it. Yeah, it was it was a constant like problem. You know, like it was like parent teacher conference, you know, and then it got worse to a point because elementary school, like I start kind of learning how to hack. Right. But then first year of middle school, elementary school started hacking. OK, so tell me about that. I really love Trojans. You ever heard of a Trojan? No. It's a virus on a computer that lets you basically view and everything that somebody does. And you basically sneak it into a program because it's a Trojan, right? You know, like the Trojan horse, how they tell the story, they sneak it in. So basically you sneak this, what we call spyware, so you can watch what people do on the computer, right? So I mean, I learned all this at a really, really young age. And of course, I didn't learn the methodologies behind it, but I learned how to use it. Right. And people call it, they call this what's called a script kitty. Right. It's like somebody that gets access to a whole bunch of tools, doesn't really understand the tools, but can cause mayhem with the tools. Right. It can still have an effect at the end of the day. And that was me in elementary school. Who are you using this flywheel on? A lot of it was against my cousin. Like my cousin always liked to think highly of me that I was super smart, like the super hacker. And I love to play into it. So it kind of forced me to like want to hack and to do more hacking and to hack against him. And he was always kind of paranoid and funny. So it was always just funny. Like when his computer was laying around, it was like, I never really had a target as a kid. So having like a target kind of like led me to figure all this out. And he was also into Trojans, but he couldn't really figure it out as much. Yeah, exactly. So you, you were at this, in this point, It wasn't malicious. You were just, it was sort of a game. It was for pranks. You know, it wasn't malicious. I don't think it really became malicious until like way, way later in my life. You know, everything was just discovery, fun and games, you know, nothing, nothing crazy. Okay. And then you started, when did it start becoming a little bit more troublesome? I'd say, well, coming around middle school, I took over my school systems network. Whoa. How old were you? I was, well, I got in trouble officially of it in seventh grade, but it happened during within sixth grade. It happened twice, actually. That is so crazy. Yeah, so it was a big deal. The police had to get involved. Wait, can you tell me? Wait, so you're at school and then you realize, actually, I can get into their system. Yeah, so at this time, like computers, Windows computers are kind of being rolled out to schools more publicly. Like this is kind of like a newer thing, right, where like these school systems are getting set up for kids to use computers at school. Right. And computer classes are really becoming a thing. So, of course, I'm interested in all of that. But I already know a lot of hacking. I know a lot of Trojan malware stuff. So this wasn't like even like a challenge for me. Like I saw this. I was like, this is my next target as a kid. I'm here every day. Why would I not try to own the place that I'm at? You know, it was pretty ridiculous. And then it was easy to do? It was, you know, it took a couple of months. And the funniest way is that there was a shared drive in the school network that everybody could access. So if you logged into the computer, anybody was a user, there was a user drive that anybody could access. So people were dropping photos. They were just dropping funny stuff in there all the time. You know, people would sometimes even drop computer games in there so other people could play. Of course, I was the one that dropped the Trojan malware in there. And so that allowed you to what? To get into the rest of the stuff that was. Anybody that ran it, I had access to and I could see. No way. So say your colleagues sitting next to you, if they got access to that, you got access to the person, to that person, to that colleague's computer. So past, you know, elementary school, I'm learning all this, right? Well, now middle school, I'm what's called a bot master. I'm, you know, we at that time, we called it a slave master. We don't really call it that anymore. but a slave master works. I control a botnet. So I have this system of computers, right? That whenever they run my program, they come to my net. So all I care about at the end of the day is how many numbers I have on that net, right? I don't care about if I make money, what I do with it. All I care about, can I get more hacked computers? Why? So I can sit at home and watch and see what happens. And that's what, that was a challenge. I loved that. I loved sitting and seeing stuff I wasn't supposed to. What are the consequences of getting on Europe's bad side? The rationale is more like, f*** those guys. How is stealth wealth changing retail? You can have taste and sell by jips. What does a $6.2 million banana have to do with any of us? People don't like the attribution of serious financial value to comedy. Join me, Felix Salmon, and my co-hosts Emily Peck and Elizabeth Spires as we talk about the most important and obscure stories in business and finance. Follow Slate Money wherever you like to listen. So basically, could you be at home and see what, say, Mrs. McGahan is doing on her computer? I actually had a teacher, McGahan, which is why I said her name. But sit down and see what she's doing on her computer at home or at school. And see her grading reports. Exactly. It actually got more than that. So by the eighth grade, right? Because keep in mind, by elementary school, I was just focused on learning this stuff, like working it. Can I use it? But by middle school, I'm actually learning, like, how do I program behind it? How do I make my own malware? How do I find stuff that actually, you know, innovates this game, right? So at that point, there was something called Bad USB. I found something called Bad USB Spreader. What's that? It was a plug-in that you could run on vb.net that would allow you every time you plugged in a USB drive, it would put the malware on that USB drive without you knowing. And when you take it out and plug it in a different computer, it would spread. And you were doing this around the school around. So but the problem was it didn't just start at the school. Kids were going with their homework. They're putting it in and now they're going home. So now I'm not just hacking the school. I'm knowing everybody around me, what they're doing at home and what they do and their secrets and everybody else and everything connected. So it was a lot to take in as a kid, you know, and you start to question, like, what do you do? you know do I really start to make money off of this and at the time I was so focused on Xbox and everything I told myself I don't need to make money off of this this is just my fun and games how would you have made money out of it there's a lot of ways actually so and I'll get into this this is kind of another funny part where I got so obsessed with the bots and everything and the whole community I didn't just start focusing on getting more bots I focus on more bot masters right if i could hack a bot master himself i gather all his bots and they come to my net so it i do remember at my peak it was about more than 200 000 computers at once no connected at once no and at that point i was getting really scared i was getting really scared because i did have people that knew i was running these nets like i was selling loads at the time was what we call it so what what you do is when you have this bot net right you're a bot master you have a virus let's say, you'll actually find me on a forum because you know I'm a bot master. I have a whole bunch. You'll say, I want to buy 1,000 bots, 500 bucks. Just run this program on your 500 bots. That's all I'm asking. And you'll pay me 500 bucks. So I could make money by selling installs and loads off of my botnet really, really easily. I wasn't doing that as much. Why would other people want to do that? What were they gaining from that? Because they didn't have a way to get access to those computers. So it's a little bit like you own the keys to all these houses, let's say. and you could make money by allowing other people to get into these houses and do whatever they wanted once they were inside that house and so this uh botnet scheme like where i was running it my bots were the most valuable because they're in the united states they're in a very very high income area you know attackers that were looking for these bots are willing to pay high money for these bots so i was like okay you know it doesn't hurt me if i shell an extra thousand here or two thousand here did you make money from it i did yeah i did and this is in seventh grade yeah how much money did you make off of botnets yeah probably around like 30 000 no way as a seventh grader yeah i was able to fund my whole computers everything i wanted all my like i do i do remember it was like by the end of fifth grade like i was not asking my parents for stuff already by the yeah i would like they knew things were coming in the mail like and what do they think it was Did they have conversations with you? Yeah, they had conversations. And honestly, I would educate them and be like, yo, I'm really smart. I figured this out in this game. I can sell this to people. I can do this. And, you know, my dad instantly knew, like, I'm worried you're going to get in trouble. I'm worried you're going to get in trouble. So I wouldn't really tell him anything. You know, my mom, I would say like, hey, I got this going on this. I'm doing that. She's like, OK, maybe you're working for something. But then she instantly like came aware, like, OK, you are definitely going to get in trouble. I'm going to try to help you as much as I can and position you to the legitimate cybersecurity field. So she actually, like, when I was like 13, took me to these conventions and was making me shake hands with these owners. Be like, oh, my son's a hacker. He actually can do all this. And I got several deals. I mean, I had even before my black hat career and everything, I had several white hat contracts. I mean, I worked consulting at 14, 15 years old still for companies helping. Did the kids at school know that you were doing this? Yeah. Everybody knew. Everybody knew. What do you think they thought of you? What was the image you had at school at the time? Don't mess with me. Really? People were sort of scared. I mean, I would mess up anything you had online if you came after me. Were you a nice kid? I tried to be. I mean, I got bullied a couple of times and that just kind of what set me off, to be honest. Okay, so tell me about the bullying. Just like, you know, kids picking on kids. Why would they pick on you? Easy target. I remember there was one year I transferred schools because my parents were divorced, right? So it was going back and forth. So I transferred out of my school that I grew up with, like all my friends were like, it was called Juanita High. So I did one year there. And that was like, the new kid could never break through. And like, for me, like, I was just like, I felt like I had all this knowledge and everything that I wanted to prove to people, like, yo, I know all this, befriend me. And it didn't work. You think you're smart, but you haven't seen what I can do. Exactly. Let me show you why you should be friends with me. Yep. So what ended up happening is that a kid ended up threatening me for money. He saw that I had like 60 bucks. He asked me for money. I didn't give it to him. So he forced me to show him my wallet. Like as a kid, like it just kind of like rattled me in a weird way. And so I went home and I caused mayhem on this kid. That was my first, I don't, I don't want to admit this because it's not something cool. It's, it's not, it's not something that should not be done, but it was my first swatting that I did on somebody. Swatting. Okay. Explain to people what's swatting. So you call, you call in a 911 service at this time. It was really, really easy for me to do it because I knew people that were already doing it. And the only way that I had to do it was typing on a chat room so on AOL you could add a it's like a deaf hearing service for like deaf people like how bad on me to take advantage of something like that it's like terrible but a whole bunch of people were doing this it was a really really bad problem but you could contact this deaf operator and basically relay a 911 message to them so basically just by doing this you could have cops storm in somebody's house. Swatting basically, yeah, it's calling cops. Swatting is a face, is a false call. You know what happened to me recently? Really? Yeah. It was my husband at home and two or three police cars, LAPD, showed up and we had been swatted. What was the call? It was horrible. Hostage? No, that there had been reports, anonymous reports that we were harming our son our son was at school and they ended up actually um two cops two police cops stayed with us and the other police cop went to my son's school to interrogate him it was horrible and it was somebody i don't know who or why but yeah did they say if it was a call-in or like they said it was anonymous we know right of where it came from not the person but where but yeah it was it was so i i haven't been a victim of this it is horrible yep and you were doing the and you did this to this kid i was also a victim i was a victim three times people did that to you yep three times i was swatted was it because you had done it to them was it a payback those no those was like people were after me type of thing like i just had name in the community go hack arm on go you know go go harass him go create whatever trouble you can wow it sounds like a very um unpleasant it's not nice to live it's not nice okay so you were you did this to a skid and then so you now you're a bot master and you i am a bot master so the cool thing about being a bot master back then and still today i mean i'm not i'm not a bot master anymore i'm gonna say that i do ethical hacking right this was my previous life as much as i like to blow it make make it seem like this stuff was cool it's really not it's actually really bad and i don't want to encourage people to do it no definitely but when i was this bot master if we were playing on a game, any game, or let's say you're at home, but I didn't want you to have internet. All I needed to do was have your IP address and I could take your internet away for as long as I wanted. And how do I do that? With your IP address, I can assign all my bots to basically send a hello message. They call it a ping and it sends it over and over again. So think of like a doorway, right? Where only so many people can fit in. I flood the doorway and your internet just goes off. And why were you doing that? What for? Control. And you would do this to lots of different people? If I didn want to turn in homework take down the website Oh the whole school If I didn like a player on the other team goodbye Like it a lot of power right Because I mean at the end of the day it somebody internet connection that you playing with. Right. And so you were doing this a lot. I was. And so I loved doing that. And because having that power, I wanted to grow my botnet as big as possible. And having that power to take down any website as powerful as I wanted, like, I thrived off of that power. And that kept me going. It was like playing online God, but in this case, it was actually, it was a it was a video game leaderboard of real life. Right. You know, yeah. And everything you collect is real. Shit. I'm very happy I didn't grow up with you. Happy we didn't go to the same school. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it was like as crazy as it sounds. I could have been a really, really bad person. I know you're not now. I'm not. Like, but even back then, like, even the bad stuff that I did, I don't think, like, I didn't even push it to the extent that if I wanted to, like, I could have. Like, I still had a line. Right. Like, I'll give you, like, a really personal one. So I'm watching people, right, on the network. Like, who goes home? Who does what? Of course. It's just fun. You know, people in your class, what secrets they have, who they hook up with, right? And, you know, I noticed this one girl's on Omegle. you ever heard of omegle no it's a website we get to chat with strangers so like you like randomly get to shuffle like through random people right and she's talking with the guy and she's like joking with him and she's like oh do you want to see my pussy ha ha ha and i'm like oh my god she's gonna show her pussy like what the hell right and so i'm i'm like freaking out and then she pulls out her cat and like starts petting her cat i'm like oh her pussy i knew it i like how dare me silly me i shouldn't even think about that like that i was seeing it right and you know of course like i'm playing an online game you know i have it on one screen i'm doing another thing i'm add i do a million things at once right so like i want everything going at once so playing my game i go check back she's showing her pussy oh my god what is going on right i don't run and tell anybody at school i don't take screenshots i don't screen record i don't blackmail her I let it be like I took in so much stuff and just didn't tell a single soul right so it could have been much worse so much at what point when were you caught at what point did people realize what you were doing uh and this is just the beginning yeah like the beginning of something that gets yeah deeper we'll get there but what point that first time the first time you ever caught what was that like that was at school it was at school it was at school uh they learned that I was running a Counter-Strike server on the school network. So being a confident little kid. What's a Counter-Strike? So Counter-Strike is a game, okay? Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter game. I was really fond of it as a kid. And, of course, I want to play it at school with my friends. So on the shared drive, I put in Counter-Strike. But I don't only just put in Counter-Strike. I launched the multiplayer server on the school's network. Stupidest thing to do as a kid. Like, smack me upside the head. the funniest like maybe funnest three months in class everybody playing counter-strike everybody knowing i was running the server like just having a whole bunch of fun and then eventually one day went down and i was panicking i was wondering why i go and look back i can't log in i'm panicking come to find out nobody can log in something went down when i had started that it affected something critically later down the road. I don't know if it was another hacker that maybe found it out that got in through that, but something critically went wrong. And so at that point, everybody was locked out of the computers. And so I got called out in the office. People snitched on me. They were like, Armand's been running this. It was really, really interesting because I remember that day in class where nobody could log in. And for some reason, everybody just looked at me. Everybody just looked at me. And the teacher's saying there, if you know who did it, come forward and say something. And I'm looking, and nobody's saying nothing, and everybody's just looking at me. It's so obvious. It's so, like, I don't think anybody didn't know at that point. But nobody wanted to say anything, thankfully. Eventually what happened is the principal walked in, said, Armand, come with us, took me to the principal's office, and another one of the kids that I was letting him moderate the server and run it pretty much. Like I gave him moderator access to the Counter-Strike server so he could kick people, ban people if we didn't want them, whatever. I hear him as I'm in the principal's office on the other side of the wall saying, it's all Armand. He installed it. No, it's all him. So I'm sitting there like this, waiting for the principal to come back around to talk to me. Eventually my mom shows up. Bellevue Police Department shows up. Wow, they called the police. They called the police and out the gate, I was like, it's really, really funny. I don't know why in my heart, but I put a back door to the fucking server. What is that? I had another back door that could access the server. Oh, my God. Like, just in case. Like, who knows? In my mind, when I had it, I put it in there in case they found out my original access, right? Not if like a catastrophic event happened or something. Like this one. Yeah, like this one. So what ended up happening is that police department came in. I'm like, hey, I'm sorry I did this. This is what happened. I don't know if they agreed with my parents or whatnot, but they got me as far as putting me in handcuffs, putting me in the back of the cop car. For running a game through their servers? Yeah. That's a little bit extreme, no? Well, you have to realize now everybody that has a job there can't use their computer. So my fun in games has caused a lot more than just fun. So there was a problem with the game that basically locked everybody's computers. It was because of your software. It was whether if the game auto-updated somehow, if it ran some type of cron job, or if another hacker – I never really figured out what the core issue was, but nobody could log in. It shut down the actual active directory of what was going on, and it crashed it. Right. And so for a whole day, full disruption on the school. Yeah. They put me in the back of the cop car. And then I'm like, I'm like bawling because I'm a kid. You know, I'm like, you know, I'm so sorry. Like, let me fix it. Eventually, the cop lets me out. They put me in the office. They're like, do you know any way to fix this? So now it became like, this is the only kid that might know how to fix this. And so it was probably like another four hours. I got access to another computer. I got in there. We were managed to restore it up to a backup date. It was, it was, it took, I remember it was because when it happened, they emergency suspended me is what they call it. It's not an expulsion. It's emergency suspension. So that means you can't go to class. You can't do anything. And you didn't. I couldn't, right? All that I could do is I could go to the office and use the computer and try to help fix it. To try to help fix it. Yes. So at that time, I'm working with the head of the IT there. I'm telling them what I did, what I found. this like what account I have and then my back door we get through my back door restore the server and then I'm I'm I'm like antsy I'm like I don't know if I should be excited happy like because I feel like I'm actually like helping something at this point like I'm doing something good you know it's a weird turn of events you know providing a service to these people right and eventually it does restore it takes about 24 hours and they allow me back into school Oh, that's nice of them. It took them a whole week, but I got back into class. Nothing was, like, permanently broken and everything. And then we did fix their vulnerability. I did do a write-up with them. You helped them fix it. I did help, and I helped fix their vulnerability, and that wasn't a problem anymore. But this was before you were a bot master? This is during. During being a bot master. They never found out about you being a bot master, or did they? No. So that bot master, they only found out. It's such a weird name. Right. So I escaped middle school with that. Like that was my scariest thing. But I did get the computer ban. So they still said, even though you did all that, you can't use computers. You can't use computers. So high school, I get reinstated, right? So I'm like, okay, now I can maybe have a little bit more fun. You know, I'm more smart. You know, I have more exploits. You know, I already have a big bot list. Everything's way easier for me in high school. And for me, I'm like, day one, I'm going to take this thing down. Like, I've been, they should have let me, they should have let me use the computer, gave me a job, done something. Like, I could easily do this. Like, why would I not? So, I mean, coming up, computer class, first day, I get in. I mean, I start spreading. I spread fast. But come to find out. Yeah. Are you spreading by you're gaining access to all these computers? I am. That's what you're doing again. Yep. Yep. So I'm connecting to one computer. I'm dropping shared drives. And I do get a little bit more and more malicious at high school. I start sending from a teacher's email to another teacher's email saying how great of a student I am. No way. Like I just start like really just having fun with it. Like just like nobody can stop me. Because you've got to remember at this time I'm in high school. I'm already hacked Microsoft. I've already hacked all these other top fortune companies. We need to get there. What's my school network? We need to get to Microsoft. What the heck? How did you go over this so fast? Sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, you hacked Microsoft. Tell me about this. This all started with the Xbox. You're obsessed with the Xbox. Yep. Go back to that. It does. Because this is the first story you ever told me about you. It was. And it was what my eyes, my eyes, what days of it got off my head. I was like, what? And then you told me that story, and that's when I realized you were my hacker. Yep, at that point. And I was your journalist. Yep, yep. It was a perfect bridge crossing. Exactly. God put us at that right timing and set us up, so it was awesome. Okay, so tell me that story. So, I mean, I told you I was obsessed with video games, right? And it goes back to the original Xbox, but one game that stuck with me the most was Halo. You've heard of Halo? Yes, I've heard of Halo. Everybody's heard of Halo. But it's an amazing game, right? It took me so much as a kid. Like it was – it made me mature as a kid. I'd say that. Like it was a mature game. I felt like I had to be a mature person to play it. What type of a game is it? It's a shooter. Oh, it's a shooter game. It's a shooter. It's an alien shooter. You know, aliens come to earth. Don't tell people I didn't know what that was. I won't. But so I was obsessed with Halo. I was really, really obsessed with Halo. And playing a lot of Halo, I happened to come across one of the best Halo hackers ever. And that is what set me to wanting to focus all my energy and attention on hacking Halo. I already understand a little bit of hacking computers. I understand a little bit about that. How can I put all my energy into hacking Halo? So hacking this game like people do so that you can get to the end or so that you can get some sort of – is that the idea? Yeah. Why do people hack games? Right. Like a lot of it is for gaining some type of advantage. Right. So people can cheat at a game. They can have abilities that other people can't do. I really fell in love with not cheating, but what's called modding, which is where like you take a game and you make like an addition to it. It's like adding artwork to something, you know, where somebody else can enjoy and play through it. That wasn't intentionally there that somebody else had to create. So I really, really fell in love with that. And so I got matched up with a character in that game named Anthony. And Anthony was the smartest hacker that I knew at that time. And he was the only person I wanted to impress. Is Anthony his ruling? Anthony's ruling. I'm Anthony Clark. Okay. What's he doing now? Is it okay to say his name? Yeah. Sadly, he passed away. Oh, no. Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. We'll get, was it something that you guys were doing together? No. It was, so we shared the same birthday, actually. So on our birthday, I think he just mixed too much alcohol and pain pills. Oh, no. And yeah, that was the concoction. And he was your friend at the time? He was, to me, he was like a mentor. He was like somebody I looked up to greatly. Of course, like during his passing, I wasn't in contact with him because we had all the legal issues that had happened. Yeah, because you got in trouble with him, right? Right. Anthony ends up one of the, I'm going to say like the godfathers of this Xbox underground hacking group. You know, it was like him and Dave were these two best friends that were extremely smart computer hackers. Okay, so you meet Anthony through Halo, playing Halo. And you realize this guy's really smart. I realize this guy can do things to games that I've never seen before, right? Like he picks me up in this car in the game, and usually where you would drive around, he flies it around. And as me as a kid, I'm freaking out. I'm screaming on the mic, and he loves hearing me freak out. It's just funny for him, you know? And so eventually he adds me. And then I can't get into Anthony's game. Like I try to join Anthony's game like every day. It's full because everybody wants to play with Anthony, right? Then I search up online. I find forums. Everybody's talking about Anthony. Everybody's, you know, Anthony knows this. Anthony knows that. To me, I'm like, man, how cool is it to be a person where you know something that other people can't figure out and people are just obsessed about it? Like, to me, that's what, like, thrived me. Like, I wanted that more than anything. So you wanted to build a car that would fly as well. 100%. 100%. So Anthony was kind enough, and he released a tool to the community that allowed people to do that. So this is how you make those mods. Yeah. So I start learning how to mod the game. I start learning how to mod Xboxes, you know, following this rabbit hole. But then what happens is Halo 2 comes out. That doesn't work anymore. Nobody else can figure it out. Who's the only person left that's doing it? Anthony. It's like watching history repeat itself. Like, man, there really is something special here. Like, I want to get ahead of this wave. and I'm going to do anything in my ability to try to gain this person's trust to show them that I'm worthy of that so that like kind of chase as a kid was like I'm not just going to focus on Xbox hacking I'm going to show Anthony I can do any type of hacking you know it's it's a community at that point and what were you doing hacking what was it that you were impressing him with like what kind of hacking was impressing him like a lot of it was like me figuring out like key loggers And like, you know, I would figure out other ways how to breach Microsoft that wasn't through video gaming. Right. These guys, I'd consider them developer hackers. They're so good at coding. They're so good at, you know, realizing this stuff. But where me as a kid where I was so good at, I was so good at finding people's mistakes. I was so good at finding somebody's flaw where they would click one link and I would have the same access. I didn't have to do the million lines of code review to figure out the same exploit. I just had to trick one person into doing it to have the same outcome. That's what they say about hacking, right? That it's – I can't remember what the – I'm sure you know what it is, but you only have to find – what's that? They say with the defense versus attack where like attacking – You only need to find one way versus defending. You need to defend a million different things that can happen, and it's so true. And I thrive on that attacker aspect. You know, I love that. So you were hacking away, as you said, and showing Anthony how good you were. Was he impressed? Was he like, wow, this kid's really good? Yeah, it took time. It took a lot of time. And, you know, and it wasn't just like a single race with me. You know, I had other hackers trying to prove themselves to him, you know. And so a big character in the story, you know, if you research it, his name is Austin Alcala. And what is this story called? Sorry, this story is called the Xbox Underground. The Xbox Underground. Yeah. That's great. Okay, so go ahead. So one of the characters in it, Austin Alcala, were very similar aged. And, you know, we became friends off of our obsession of Anthony, pretty much. It was how we, you know, we would always chat and try to do stuff. And all of these are online friends. All online friends. You don't actually see them face to face. Yep, never would meet face to face. I mean, we'd sit on Skype calls and throw on video chat, you know, to show our faces and whatnot. It's not like we were strangers to each other. You know, we'd actually tell all our personal lives with each other. You know, it was full long. You were friends' friends, even though you weren't face-to-face. Okay, so then you guys, you met Austin. You guys were trying to impress Anthony, and then what happened? Yep, trying to impress Anthony. Eventually what happens is that Anthony gives us the time of day. You know, more Austin than me, so I get more jealous. you know and i'm like i'm thinking of like extremes right at this point you know we're past halo 3 whatever we've already owned those games we've already made a bunch of money every single one of us more than others and how are you making money at this point by selling those tricks to other people yeah so get into it got pretty lucrative like to the point where i don't know if you know the game call of duty yeah you heard of that yeah so i could have somebody join my call of duty game and i could give them all the stuff they would lock in the game if they would just pay a certain amount to me like i could sit there and click on their name and give them everything and have a menu and say thank you and everything how much money were you making from this on the peak yeah more than five thousand dollars a day no fucking way yeah holy shit and you were in high school at this point or middle school i was in high school holy shit what were you spending i always like what are you spending your money on at this point with that much money for me i spent a lot of money on hacks just like that buying would rebuy if there was another hacker that had an exploit. If there was another hacker that had some type of information, that is the first place I'm spending my money. Like I'm not even thinking about stuff for me at home, right? I don't even want to worry about my parents worrying I got a big screen TV or whatever. All I'm worrying about, can I get the next best acts? And that is kind of actually what led me down to the path of fraud. Okay. Unintentionally. You know, I was buying a lot of stuff because I had all this excess of money. And one of the courses that I bought, I ended up buying a course from somebody. It looked really, really well. It broke down. It said advanced penetration testing. It said every single thing that I was like really, really intrigued about. I was like, this is going to make me the next best hacker. I need to work with this guy. Take my $2,000. Let's do it. And it was supposed to be a class of five people. And it was supposed to roll on for a month, about like a couple of hours a day come to find out I was the only one that paid. So with that being said, the guy took a big, big liking to me and we became pretty, pretty personal. Well, this guy was actually probably my first real black hat hacker that I became close with. And explain the difference of black hat hacker is somebody who hacks to steal or for malicious Right. Malicious intent. And a white hat hacker is somebody who hacks for good or who tries to find the vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities to fix them, to bring them to attention for good, not doing anything illegal, right, at the end of the day. Black is illegal. Right. And white is legal. And you have gray, of course, which is – I found myself in a lot of that coming up. So you wouldn't say that Anthony was a black hat hacker? No, I wouldn't. Trying to exploit the games or the vulnerabilities of the games to become a better gamer or whatever. Yeah. And, you know, some people would say that's definitely gray area, you know, because you're having effect on games that you're not supposed to. You're breaching stuff you're not really supposed to. But, you know, he never he wasn't focused on hacking like the core people behind it. He was actually focused on the code of the game and like where something went wrong on the code. Like it's a different methodology of attacking, you know. But the guy that you met, he was what we're kind of hacking? He was a black hat hacker. Like what? Fraud. That's what he was attempting? No, he was a professional. Fraudster. Fraudster. And I didn't even understand this really existed at that time. And so I'm just a kid kind of inquiring at him, like, yo, I want to learn more hacking techniques about this and that. He's like, yeah, you want to do that so you can get more credit cards, right? No. Like what? What do you mean? Why would I want credit cards? like you don't know i don't know what you don't know we can make credit cards what do you mean we can make credit cards i mean this is before anything that any tutorial online or anything this guy understood the magnetic stripe system understood how to defraud banks so what he would do he would even show me his schemes he was so crazy it still baffles me to this day he would sign up for a bank under a fake profile and everything as a job employee, get accepted, walk into there, transfer everything on the USB and leave and never show up again. No way. This guy was devilish. This guy was good. And he was causing damage in Germany, like major damage. He was a German guy? Yeah. So if he was able to make so much money through his fraud, why was he also doing these classes? Why was he making money? I think he wanted just to connect with people and see what was out there. because the guy never needed money. The guy ended up sending me money later down the line. Like it was a friendship that was established. Did he get in trouble? Eventually he went ghost and I suspect that was why. He went to prison, you think? Yeah. But this was after Xbox or before? This was during. Okay, so continue telling me about the Xbox. So you're friends with these guys and Halo 1 and 2 and 3. Yep. So Austin is really, really close with Anthony. kind of gets a better relationship, you know, and, you know, me, I'm like, I got to one up this. I want to be the next crown in the game. I want to be the next jewel that nobody can take out, you know, because at this point, it's probably six people that just know each other, right? Because of the level of what we're dealing with and the extent of what's going on. So I'm like, how can I be number one ahead of everybody? And this comes down to me breaking into Microsoft. Why did you need to break into Microsoft? I wanted to break into Microsoft to get the physical prototype so I could reverse engineer the prototype physically and be able to do any Xbox cheat for the next generation of cheats. Shit. Okay, so wait. So you guys knew, you all knew there was a new Xbox coming out. Yeah. And obviously you can't hack it unless you have the actual physical thing. Yeah, so I'll give you even more. So at this point we're looking into, there's a service. I feel like I can speak about this because I know it was such a big deal. They took it all down, and it's not a thing anymore. But at the time, it was called Gamer Development Portal, GDP. And if you were a company that was making video games, right, Microsoft would give you a login to this so you could update all your prototype software so you could help make your games. It was like a really, really controlled system for these guys to kind of submit things and go on. Well, we ended up attacking that and hacking that system. When they had that system, they had all – I mean, they were bragging to me about it, right? Because it's like they were going against me of trying to get all this before me pretty much. Because they knew that you had plans of going to get the physical life part. Yes. And they were like, why do you need the physical thing? We got in through this portal. We got this, right? We got to the portal. Well, I'm like, well, that's not good enough because we need the actual hardware. And so then we kind of come to an agreement. Well, if you're going to get the hardware, I'll give you this. And if you give me this, I'll give you that. So we kind of become on the same team again, right? Like we kind of start aligning. But then what happens is that one of the kids on the group figures out within that software how to make the next generation of Xbox at home. Oh, my God. Like make the Xbox. Wow. Even before the Xbox release, which can mean millions and millions of dollars of lost for Microsoft. Because if anybody can just make an Xbox and, you know, it's it's toast. Right. So that that's what we were able to do. We're able to counterfeit the Xbox successfully before it was out. I mean, I didn't do that. Somebody else on the team did and then was showing it. And then at some point on that, an Xbox gets listed on eBay. When it's one of these fake ones. I mean, one of these counterfeit ones. Yep. And this was before you actually went. Into Microsoft? This is like right after. But, okay. This is like, sorry, crazy, I know. Backtrack to which part? To the part where you decided you were going to go into Microsoft Yeah that was a I going to be honest with you Something that I never said on camera I've broken into Microsoft more than 20 times. No. Is it okay for you to say this? I don't know. I mean, this has been over a decade, right, that I'm hoping everything, you know. And you got in trouble for at least months, right? I got in trouble, right. But I had successfully done this more than 20 times. I was comfortable with this because I've already been in there and done this. Okay. So tell me how you did it and how did the idea come about? So this is shame on me at home. You know, my mom is really, really close with somebody. She's dating another man that works at Microsoft and he has a Microsoft badge. So in my mind, I'm going to reverse engineer this badge. I'm going to figure out how this badge works. So I use his credentials, his badge while he's not looking at night to figure out how does it work? How does it read? How can I actually replicate this and go in there and get in there? And so I did that successfully. I figured it out. And I'll never forget the first day when I tried it and tested it. I was so nervous. I went to the door and I waved it and it didn't make a sound. I was like, I failed. I just did all this work. I just exposed myself. I came all the way here. I can't believe this. I flipped it around, I pressed it, and it beeped. I do work. Oh, my God. And that moment when that door unlocked, it was like my dreams had just came true, right? This place that I had been dreaming about, even working, I wanted to work there, right? Like I had dreams of being a game developer even, not even just a crazy computer hacker, right? Like I really wanted to live in this place per se, and I had access. And then what happened when you got in? And once I got in, I browsed around. I didn't take anything at first. Was it at night or during the day? There were several attempts. So I did some during the day to see how well I could do it. I did it successfully. I did it at night successfully. And then when I was so comfortable, I was like, okay, I'm going to execute and take something. And what was it that you were trying to get the Xbox? I took three prototypes. The brand new ones that they were working on that they hadn't done? They were not out. They were not even announced yet. People didn't know the name of it. like this is and that's what it's so crazy because even if you can get into the physical building you'd assume that if they're working on something that hasn't come out yet that is sort of behind locked doors right how did you get into the space where those prototypes were yeah so we've already one we've breached this company so we already know where everything's stored so at this point i'm asking austin to give me a pdf file of what is the fire escape of this building because i'm going to be able to know where to enter and come in from. So I'm creating these blueprints at home. And I actually, before I executed on the idea, it was just a fantasy. I just drew it out in my head. I told myself I wouldn't do it. It was just a fun idea. It was always something there. But then one day I got into an argument with my stepfather and that argument triggered me. It triggered me to do it. And what were you trying to, why did you want these prototypes? I wanted them to have the upper hand over my friends. That was the real reason, right? Because if I had that, that shows that I'm the biggest and baddest hacker out of everybody, right? I blow everybody out the water because I have the confidential information of that machine that I can reproduce it. I can also use that code to help me develop on the Xbox when it releases for my hack to come out. But didn't they already have the ability of making a counterfeit Xbox at the time? So it was excessive. At this point, it's me proving the point, right? Because it's like, okay, well, if you're not going to give me the access, I'm going to do it the hard way and the way that I know I can do it. And either you're going to join me or not. So you go in and there's these three prototypes. And explain to me what they look like. How big are they? What are they? So they were in a stash. I mean, it wasn't easily found. I actually had to lockpick a door to get into the stash. So, I mean, I had been training for this. I mean, when I say training for this, I mean, I thought about every single step that could go wrong. How old were you? 18. Okay. So then you go in. I go in dressed up fully as Microsoft gear. I wore full Microsoft attire, was ready, and just went in with a backpack. And Microsoft attire meaning like you look like you were a worker? Yeah, exactly. Like I look like I belong there. I remember that day I was greeted by two workers and talked through it. No. Yeah. You said, hi, what's up? How's it going? How's your night? So that time you went at night. Yeah. Okay. And then what? And then you got it. You had to open up a door that was locked. I did. And then they were in these, we call them coffins. They're like these cardboard boxes pretty much. But like only if you knew like that was in it, like you'd have to know type of thing. So I think like that was the biggest thing for them when they found out like after the fact, they were like, all right, guys, we have something bigger here. because not only they knew to come here, they had all this time. Like, I'm pretty sure they were certain that it was some type of, like, external government or, you know, something crazy more than just some kids. Some real sophisticated shit instead of an 18-year-old with a fake badge. Yeah. Okay, you go in, you put these, and where do you put them? Do you have a backpack? I put them in a backpack, store them in a backpack, and I leave through the stairwell, and I successfully. And you started jumping up and down at this point? Are you excited? I'm excited. um you know i go back i don't even know if i'm gonna give them to anybody like it's just all me right now i'm starting to reverse engineer it i'm i'm getting it to run games now now i'm running games that i've never played before you know it's a rush right because now at this point i'm inviting my friends over yo check out what i have now my real life friends are like come on i don't know what to tell you man watching you from a kid elementary school doing this and out of this It's like, what the fuck is happening? What is happening? You know, it's. And did you tell Anthony and Anthony in the office that you were doing? Were they impressed? Were they. So I offered Anthony. He declined, actually. Wow. He was smart. Because he said no, because you stole this. He knew. He knew I stole it. But Dave said yes. And I think that's what started the big disagreement between those two. So Dave was one of the other hackers. Dave was Anthony's best friend. Amazing smart hacker. uh still hacks today like doing good doing good today and you sold him did you sell it to him or did you give it to him it was an agreement um i think i might have asked for some cash but definitely like at this point like if we're talking to each other we're always asking for each other for money because it's like i don't know when like we were throwing money around so often it wasn't uncommon for us to say like send me two thousand my limits hit like we always had when so much money was in excess like that, especially over the game cheats, you know, it didn't matter. So, yeah, I think I think I did ask for some cash, you know, just like, yo, just give me some cash and and I'll give you this. But most importantly, I need that software. Oh, you wanted the software that they had. So you give the prototype the actual physical hardware and you can get the software. So now you have the full X block. There's nothing there's nothing I don't have. Right. Like as as a hacker to needing what I needed to do to make a million dollars a year for the next five years I had. And just so people understand, this could cost one of the biggest corporations in the world, Microsoft, millions. Yes. Yes. It's a huge breach. Right. This is a huge problem for them. I think it came out to at the end of the day, it was more than one hundred and twenty one million dollars of intellectual property that we had stolen. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's crazy. Okay. So then at what point were you caught? Where does it all come crumbling down? This is the kicker, honestly. I don't think you could say like naiveness. Naiveness, is that a word? Naivete? Yeah. Everything goes so well, I apply for a job at Microsoft. I get accepted. This is how long after you actually went in? This is two months after. And then what? I'm working this job. And it's your dream job? It's my dream job, right? I'm testing video games. So I came in as a QA tester is what they call it, quality assurance tester. All you do, you play the games, and if the game crashes or if it has a bug, you just report it. It's like the easiest job in the world, and they pay, like, minimum wage. So you don't make nothing, but it's something for people, and it's cool. It's a way up, right? Yeah. It's a sub-latter, yeah. And it's work that's got to get done, right, at the end of the day. So, you know, for me, this was my dream. like I wanted this loved it got it so I got on which is really really I don't know this is like I questioned this today because of just how funny it was like I don't know if Microsoft fully set me up because it's a little too coincidental because I get in and I get assigned a game is called Watch Dogs. The game is all about hacking. The game is... It's too good to be true. That's so crazy. The game is a character that has mainframe access to the city and can hack anybody around the city with his phone. He can change streetlights. He can hack ATMs. He can do whatever he wants. And his ultimate goal at the end of the day is spreading his botnet. It's taking over the city. Oh, my God. This is me. This game resonates with me. And so, of course, I'm ecstatic. Like, I play through this game completely. Like, I – so the character in the game is named Aiden Pierce. And I related to this character like no other video game character before. Like, it felt like the game was made for me or somebody saw a part of the game and it just, like, reached out to me. So I play through that game. It goes amazingly well. And then probably about one month in, I get escorted into a room. And I see this big conference room, right, with a glass. It's like a fog glass door. As soon as they unravel it, 18 people deep. Like 18 suits. 18, 18, not even just suits. You got half suits. You got half people, half like. Half people. Yeah. I don't know how else to describe, like half casual, half regular, half investigator. And I know something's up because the first thing I see is a tape recorder on the table. I see a packet about this big. And at this point, my heart sank and I knew the gig was up. I don't know what was there, but I knew everything finally had come crumbling down. What did they say? They said, do you know a person named AA Monkey? Do you know a person named Zenon? Do you know a person named – they knew everybody I was talking to. So all your hacker groups? All my hacker friends. Everybody. They had already knew. They connected everything else that had gone along with all those times to me as well. But what coming up, what I found out later in life was that it was one snitch in the group that actually told them everything. No way. And told them that you were actually, you had stolen a prototype. Working at Microsoft. You were working there. They didn't know until he called in and told them all. And so he gave a full-on blanket of everything. He's actually the kid. if you look in the story he's the one that like ran away and got like the worst time it's like super probably because they were on him onto him and he needed no it was actually out of pure jealousy out of pure pure hate and jealousy and then so they said okay we do and did you say what did you say when they were at that point i knew the gig was up and i was like you know what i'm sorry i took your stuff yes you confess i confess i confess did they know at the time i mean there's pictures of me you know they showed you show me photos of me and i'm looking at the photos i'm wearing the same shoes so it's like like who am i joking you know like you got me okay you know so it's like whatever and did you realize you were in deep trouble i realized immediately my life was upside down that day that day my life was completely no i was in complete shock it's like it's like having everything in your life like ripped from you at once pretty much and what happen after that um so i get thrown out of the building told never to come back don't know what's going to happen i'm panicking they want the development stuff back but i already shipped it to austin and dave so i don't have it i only have one so now i gotta go and convince them to try to ship it back to me so at first i try to play it off like hey guys i figured out the hack send me send me your consoles i can install the hack you know you know i try to pitch it anyway Nah, not going to do it. Nah, I'm working on this. Nah. Man, that doesn't work. Okay. Boom, they need something. Okay, yeah, I can do it. Just ship me the console. Just ship me the console. I can do it. Nah, not going to happen. Nah, just send it to me. Okay, they're not going to budge. I have no choice. I have to come clean. I came clean. So you told them, hey, guys, they're on to me. Microsoft knows. The police knows. Guys, I got entrapped at my job. they put me in a room. Why didn't you tell them immediately? What were your thoughts? Why not tell them immediately? I didn't want them to be scared to not send the console. Oh, and you needed that console. I needed that console. Because did Microsoft tell you that if you got them the console back? No. I was never promised immunity. I would, you know. But you just thought that by getting them the console. I knew it was the right thing to do. Right. I knew that if I could get it back, that was going to be less. I just knew that. You have trouble for you. Yeah. It doesn't matter if I could get whatever was taken back to them, it'd be less and so when you came clean to your friends what did they say uh austin thankfully understanding austin was really cool he felt bad for me it wasn't your fault wasn't my fault you know and and you know of course i was apologizing and i and i admitted to trying to manipulate them to send it to me you know like did they find out that microsoft found out that there was some problems not because the prototypes went missing but it was because that other xbox that counterfeit Xbox had shown up for sale. Yes. Which wasn't even your... That was like another big red flag. Easy connect the dots, right? Because at the end of the day, when you talk about cybercrime and stuff like that, we're talking about connecting the dots. How easy do we make it connect the dots? This was just easy map. You could draw this. This guy knows this guy. This guy's done this. This guy knows this guy. Right. So, but they also found out that the prototypes were missing and they were trying to figure out who it was. Yeah. So what I understood is after I did that, that the building went on lockdown, apparently, for over a month to see if I would come back. And I never did, thankfully. Thank God you only got your job like two months left. Yeah. Like the week later. Right? Could you imagine? Yeah. And, okay, so then you came clean. And did you do time in prison because of this? This was like a long, long, long, long case. This case lasted years. Lasted a long, long time. And originally it was picked up by the FBI. The FBI wanted it. They didn't see the means to pursue me because believe it or not, like, yeah, the crimes that I committed were computer trespass. Right. But I actually thank goodness I didn't actually hack across the United States. I just hacked something in my backyard, which was actually beneficial for me. Right. Because if I would have hacked something in California and done all this, it could FBI federal. Right. But because I did it all in my state, it was just a state case. So I was like, OK, a little bit more easier to digest. Right. But the problem was that that over my head is what caused me like not knowing the answers of that. I thought my end of day was coming anytime soon. So I didn't know what to do. And as a kid, when you think all your hacking abilities are going to come to an end, you want to use it all at once. You want to hack everything you can because you might not have the chance again in the future. and so like that for me like took me by storm because as a kid where i was only focused on hacking video games right and and changing my ability in games what can i do in the real world now and at this point you had already met the guy the fraud master i already met the fraud black hat germany hacker that coached me through doing black hat hacking you know how to make fraud money everything you know and so what was your first it's a good question i remember my first times it's really crazy there was a forum carter planet and it funny enough it was actually the fbi sting but i love that website like it got me you know what i mean like i was an active user on it completely, but I could find people posting credit cards every day for free that were valid. And like as a kid, like that's like crazy information. You know, all you have to do is load a website. I don't have to pay anything. All I have to do is sit refresh and wait for somebody to post something. And there was just hackers every day that would just post, you know, 10 credit cards, 20 credit cards. And usually what it would be is that they would post it to be like, hey, sample, if you liked it, if it worked for you, contact me for sale for more. So it was kind of like their way of advertising, per se. But as a kid, like I kind of just picked up on it. I was like, OK, could I order pizza? Can I order food? So you started using stolen credit cards to order food and pizza? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it started really, really light, like really, really light, you know, dominoes, you know, just small little things, stuff that was easy and then it just kind of grew right then then it's like okay can i buy things on games oh i can okay can i gift other people things on games with this stuff okay i can maybe this is a way better way of lucrative hacking and making money because it's so easy so accessible and i'm surrounded with a whole community now that will give me everything and I need to do it. So for me, that was like probably like a two-year wait. I decided that I wasn't going to do any. We call it carding. Some call it swizz, swipe. There's so many different terms for it. It just goes on and on. But I started to think, I don't like just virtual carding. What does real life carding feel like? Like actually having a stolen credit card with you? What is having a stolen credit card, going in a store? What does that look like? What does that feel like? And that's where I started to go deeper down into. And that rabbit hole was not a good one. That one at the end of it led me addicted to fraud. I was addicted to fraud. Really? I was committing fraud every day, multiple times a day. Couldn't go a day without it. So you were using all with the stolen credit cards you mean all with stolen credit cards i mean this was this was a probably like a four year span of my life four years every day you were what were you buying with these stolen credit cards everything but i i mean ultimately like you know stuff that you could sell fast you know i don't i don't want to say too much because i don't want to encourage people to do what i did but like a lot of it you know thankfully a lot of the systems today have you know migrated a lot of the stuff that i was doing before right i actually did a episode of trafficked about cyber fraud and i remember one of the scenes we shot with this woman in miami where she'd buy these credit cards on a website called uh vice vice city vice city.com yep and she'd buy so she'd buy stolen credit cards and then she had these gift cards from best buy amazon whatever and she would yeah re-encode right But there were no numbers in it. She was only able to like swipe it in certain places. It wasn't. But that's not what you would. No. So like doing that is like an obvious way of detecting fraud. Because like if I'm a cashier and if I see you swipe a gift card, I'm already one, a little suspicious. And then two, if I take the receipt and if I look at the receipt and I look at the last four and if it doesn't match that number, I know it's fraud. Right. So, I mean, of course, that's like measures you'd have to know if you're looking for it kind of ordeal. But like even Best Buy, like when you would buy something at Best Buy, you would swipe your card. But then you actually have to hand your card over to them because they would type in the last four numbers to confirm it's the same ones on the magnetic stripe. So you were making cards that looked exactly like a real credit card. Well, actually, it went a little bit crazier than that because, one, I've always been cusp of technology, right? Like I love newest tech, doesn't matter, like always on the edge of it. And so with a lot of these credit card stuff, I was on the edge of it. And there was a wave where, you know, credit card writers, you had to plug them into the wall, right? And they're the big, chunky things I'm sure you've seen, right? But then there was a change there that happened where it went Bluetooth. And I was on the early, early, early side of having portable mobile stuff where you could be on the go and doing it. And so I was really, really fascinated and spent a lot of time on this product called Loop Pay. And loop pay allowed me to open up the credit card fraud world because I could load a million credit cards on my phone and use them and not have to pull out a card and not have to do anything or swipe a card and show that it was the right number. And the way that it would work is actually so, you know, Android phone, they have Android pay. Have you heard of Android pay? So Android Pay, the way that it works is that it actually emulates this magnetic field, and it emulates like it's swiping a card, not like Apple Pay, where it's actually a different frequency where you tap and it goes through a different reader. It actually goes through the magnetic stripe reader. So this company figured that out, but I figured that out, reverse engineered that product, made it so I could load unlimited credit cards in that product. So I had a portable credit card factory on me. Right? Because it's not like I have to go and make a credit card. And, you know, because fraudsters, what they do is they make 10. They go out for the day. They're done. They don't know where they landed on those 10. They're still working those three. I'm like, this one, this one, this one, this one. That is so great. You're like, it's mass scale of credit card fraud. Because I think people think, yeah, credit card fraud, probably like a small crime. No, we're talking like mass scale. We're talking mass scale. I actually wonder how much money is lost to credit card fraud in America. Actually, that's a quick question. Matt, can you look on Perplexity and see what it says? Daily, I'm so curious. Yeah, like what's the number? Because I know that it's probably high. I don't think people know how big this is. So Perplexity says that in the United States, daily losses due to credit card fraud can be estimated from annual figures. In 2024, reported consumer losses from credit card fraud exceeded $12.5 billion. Dividing this by 365 is $34.25 million a day. $34 million a day is insane. This loss primarily arises from unauthorized transactions and fraud schemes targeting credit card users across the country. Wow, around 62 million Americans experience fraudulent charges on the credit. I mean, I have. It's a problem. Everybody has, I think. That is crazy. It's a problem. I'm happy that at least Chip and Pin has addressed a lot of it. But of course, there's still ways fraudsters can defeat these systems. I don't want to reveal those to encourage them. Let's not reveal it. But I had a lot of schemes of like I had 1,000 credit cards. What happens if I – 1,000 credit cards? Well, hear me out. I have 1,000 credit cards. Okay. Rather than me charge $500 on each one, hurt everyone so bad, if I just charge $2 on everyone every week, put it on subscription, see if they notice. I just started coming up with small ways. How can I take a lot from just like – or how can I take a little from a lot, I should say? So instead of – yeah, because the moment you take $500 or $1,000, they're going to notice that they're going to call their bank. But if you take small amounts from a thousand cards, they're not going to notice, but you're still making, you know, a thousand times, a thousand, $2,000, whatever. Exactly. In goods. And were you also going to, say, like Apple and buying a bunch of iPhones and then selling those, like electronics? I can tell you. Were you doing that stuff? I can tell you, sadly, I don't think there's one retailer that I haven't, like, successfully carded at. And were you never caught for this? I was caught for carding. That's what you were caught for. I was caught for carding. That was my big, big, big sentence. And you were in Vegas. Is that right? I got busted on my way to Vegas Okay so tell me about that So big carder right Big Carter And it Carter with a D Yeah exactly Was planning a trip with the friends. You know, at the time there was an electronic music festival in Vegas called EDC. And so we planned a trip to go down with some buddies. And usually I fly to Vegas, you know. But this was the one time my buddies wanted to drive. You know, I was so dumb and naive. I wasn't thinking through with it, like, properly. But what ultimately was happening, and I was turning a blind eye to it, was, like, they were going to take these drugs down to this festival to sell them. But I was just going to go to the festival, have fun, fraud, you know, whatever. Would you do that a lot in Vegas? Would you go to Vegas and use? I do it everywhere. Why would you limit yourself? You know, it was trips anywhere because you can, you know, because you would. It got lucrative to, like, you know, I'd even fly to places where I know the data was good there because, like, I know that's breached there, so I need to be around there to use it. Like, it got pretty, pretty crazy at some points. Okay, so you're driving down to Vegas. Driving down to Vegas. In a car with drugs. In a car with drugs, sadly. and we reach Ely, Nevada, a population of 1,200 people. And the jail is the foundation of this town. And that's where we get speed trapped at. And within a second, K-9 unit comes, goes around the car, detects for drugs. Drugs detection, okay. They find the drugs. Both my friends don't want to admit the drugs. Whatever. I'm not a snitch. I'm not going to say this is your drugs or whatever. I'm in here too. So eventually they find a wallet. And the problem was that the officer had already gotten our IDs, right? But I had a fraud wallet stashed away in my backpack with a fake ID and 16 credit cards under that name. Oh, my God. And just so you know, the name under that ID and credit card was Aiden Pierce. No way. way i took on the character of watchdogs officially and lived the life of aiden pierce didn't stop hacking at whatever it took oh it was always aiden pierce every new girl aiden pierce and i remember so funnily so funnily in the fbi interrogation room when they finally got me they're like knew it was aiden pierce they're appointing i told you it was aiden pierce they're like laughing. They're like, you really love watchdogs, don't you? Because they knew it was. They knew the whole time. I mean, I had done historic amounts of fraud throughout my town, through other pieces of town under that name. Aiden Pierce was notorious in your town at this point for doing this. The cops catch a wallet with 16 credit cards, stolen credit cards with the name Aiden Pierce. They know it's yours. Yeah, so now not only do they have credit cards and all that, Fake driver's license. But now you got all this drugs, too. Oh, my God. Best case down to take me down, right? So I got hit with more than 25 felonies. 25? Yep. I was looking at a guaranteed life sentence. No. Yep. My bail. So they put me on a bail at $2 million cash only. Yeah, I thought I was never going to say lie today. I didn't think I'd be here to sit here and tell you that story here. Yeah, it was crazy. It was really crazy. And then what happened? um i'm so sorry what when when did this happen this was 2016 2017 yeah so wait so you're arrested you're taken to the jail i was taken to a jail right so crazy story right because i'm caught with a fake id and fake thing right so out the gate the cops aren't even buying who i'm telling them i am i'm telling them i'm armand sadri they're looking at me like this is not an armand sadri like this guy stole another identity so that so they they booked me in the jail as john doe and and i'm yelling at him please change my name nobody can find me because i'm arrested right now now people are trying to find me i'm supposed to be somewhere nobody can they're looking me up i'm under john doe in this jail system and this cop is telling me i'm gonna make sure i do everything in my power that nobody can find you again that is so mean i'm like what the fuck did i do right like what like i get it like i was on the road like you know like bad time but like i didn't go and defraud this person or you know that particular person right right i was i was you know and then what happened well my parents kept calling my parents kept calling the jail and as soon as my parents were calling the jail they're like okay rebook them in as our mom's audrey so they rebooked me in they got it all established and i had to sit there for a long time sat there for four months for four months in the jail yeah well and without knowing what was going to be your future at this point or anything no no without knowing my outcome on the microsoft case without knowing all of that still was was that the worst time for you yeah or did it get worse after when you got to prison i so i was lucky i never went to prison i did jail time all of my sentences were under a year so okay so you were there for four months and then there's a sentencing there's a trial did you go to trial and then there's a sentencing and what was i did not go to trial i you pled guilty so this is very very interesting because like i need you to like imagine this right a very very very rugged rugged jail cell right and throw 12 other people there in it and it's the same people every day like you can't escape these people there's no way so my case was a big case in this town right everybody kind of knew it but everybody felt bad for me because they're like what the hell is this scrawny little computer guy like what Like, what's he what did he do so bad? You know, and so I'm going to jail or I'm going to court. Right. But the way this jail is laid out, you can't come back without them reviewing your papers. But they forced to review your papers so they can decide if you're snitching or whatever's going on. So what ends up happening is the plea that's given to me is go home. we're going to personal release you which is basically we release you with no bond but you have to show up at the FBI office and headquarters in Seattle this is after four months this is this is my this is what they offered to me this is the offer so they gave me the offer and they shoot me back into the jail and of course it's 20 dudes tearing up my paperwork Armand's going to snitch he's got to snitch Armand's got a snitch. Shit. I'm like, fuck. Even if I wanted to agree to this, these guys would kill me. Right. Like, I can't even do it. It was so crazy. It was all the guys into one cell. And eventually, after, like, so much, like, doing this, going back and forth to everybody, everybody was like, you're good, Armand. Take the deal. Oh, really? Yeah. You should take it. They all agreed that I could get out of there. And then you took the deal. I took the deal. And then? And then there was. I took on my next chapter of life as working with the FBI. Wait, what? I don't know this part. Okay, explain. So wait, you're there for four months. They give you a deal. You take the deal, which involves what? It takes the deal and it involves me showing up to the FBI and saying, where did all this fraudulent data? What have you done? And, you know, I don't I want to just say this again. I don't want to encourage anybody to done what I did. It's not worth it. Don't do it. I got. Yeah, don't do it. Right. I mean, I got the Hail Mary of Hail Mary opportunities where they promised me immunity of whatever I would tell them. So at that point in my life, I have the ability to say everything I've done for the whole entire of my life that I was worried about being charged for. if I would just say it I would be fine I couldn't get in trouble for it and for me that was like a full reset like I could just say all the crazy hacks that I'd done all the breaches that I caused that people never figured out give them the closure they wanted and I did that and I and it was a lot it was a lot a lot a lot of damage that I'd done and at the end of the day I mean we were looking at the numbers and like I can't believe we agreed to this basically but why did they agree with to it that's what i don't i don't know i don't know did you guys hire a great lawyer did your dad like get a good lawyer for you it was like i was very very lucky my mom as soon as i got in trouble she flew down to that town started understanding every single bit of that town and she took on the prosecuting attorney of that town that knew everybody really really well richard sears is his name and richard sears did me justice you know he he helped talk to the prosecuting attorney and everything but i mean it was it was grilling i mean you have my mom there and the prosecuting attorney telling my mom you've raised a cyber terrorist we can't let this guy go because we do he's gonna hit and run out of the country and cause a million more damages immediately They called you a cyber terror? Yeah. Is your mom devastated at this point? I mean, I feel so bad putting my mom through all that, yeah. But somehow, I mean, she worked her ass off, you got lucky, and you got immunity for all of this. I did. Is that why in many ways you can talk about even the stuff that you didn't get caught for? Yes, it is. It is. And then you started working with the FBI? What does that mean? Yeah. So, you know, I started working as like an informant, started getting information. Like at that time, a lot of it was focused on dark neck markets, you know, but I think this was not just to be clear. This was not as an informant with the groups that you had. No, no, no, no. I was never an informant for that. Never had I'd never informed anybody that I had done crime with, if that makes sense. Right. Yeah. That's what I wanted to make. Yeah. Because I knew that I'm not a snitch. I haven't snitched, but I took on for a time. Yeah. They paid you to get into these dark nets. Yes. Into these forums. And I, you know, I'd help leverage somebody else to get in. Or what would happen is a lot of times I would give big samples of credit card numbers where we would figure out where they got breached from, you know, by corresponding the numbers to the breaches. So like there was a lot of cool stuff. And the good part about that was like during that time, like I knew the eyes were on me so hard, like I couldn't really commit credit card fraud. So I wasn't tempted to like charge the numbers I was working with or anything because I knew I was working with the wrath that would take me down at any point. Like I don't want to ever hurt the FBI at all. So like. How much were they paying you to work with them? Not enough. Not enough. But you were actually helping them? Yeah. Did that feel good after so many years of doing bad things? Did it feel good to get on? Bittersweet because I felt like I was screwing over other people still. Right. I was setting them up still. You know, like I felt like I was causing pain for more people. But, you know, like sadly I wasn't getting paid enough, so I got greedy. And you got – you went to the dark side again? I did what we call an Albert Gonzalez. You ever heard that? No. Albert Gonzalez was a black hat hacker, very, very famous, breached TGI Max, Dave & Buster's, many, many, many more companies. I mean, it was one of the biggest at the time credit card thefts, but he worked with the Secret Service and was doing both. So I call it Albert Gonzalez. So you were working with the FBI? I was. I was working with the FBI and I was still doing fraud. And I figured out a way of, I won't say the name of forsake for them, but there was a payment processor, which I'm sure you're very, very well. If I said the name, you would know it. But there's a payment processor. I think I know which one it is. Yeah. It's the payment process that most of you use when you're trying to send money to family and friends, right? Yeah, so I figured out a way how to send notifications through their app without actually having to send the money through. Right. And so just so people understand. So let's say I sold you a pair of really expensive Nikes or I put them online. You say I'm going to buy them from you. They receive a notification saying, you know, $800 you just received. So they will give you, right? Yep. They would give you the goods. Yep. They'd give me the money. I'd go to my hacked iPad and send the fake notification to them and they'd be like, oh, great. It's there. Walk away. They wouldn't notice till they're home, but their money's not there and I'd have the goods. And in my mind, you know, I was thinking like, hey, I'm not using any financial information. You know, I was really trying to think like slick about it. Like, of course, I'm defrauding somebody like it's so stupid to think now. Like, how could you even try to justify something like that? Credit cards are online and they're sort of you don't see the face. Right. But in this case, you're actually meeting people to get the goods face to face. So you're knowing and you're seeing the person that you're. It did hurt a little bit more. And, you know, like the biggest thing about this game is like people tell themselves things to keep them going. Like a big thing is like, oh, it's not their money. It's the bank's money. Right. Where they call and their money. Right. That's not the case. Right. But in this case, it was people's goods, right, that they were selling to you. Even worse, they had nobody to call and get the money back. Right. It was like they're actually ripped. Like they're actually ripped. And the last imagined thing that they have is just me with it. You know, of course that sucks. How did you get caught? So I ripped off a policeman's kid, sadly. Like it, I mean, I was, I don't want to say successful at what I was doing, but I did it a lot and made a lot of money for a while while doing this other stuff too without alerting anybody until finally the kid found me on Instagram. was able to point me to his dad and say, this is the guy. And then I'm sure at that point. The police was like, no doubt this is the guy. This is definitely the guy. And luckily for them, I'm still checking into probation. So what they do is they waited for me when I checked into probation, swooped in, arrested me. I did another six months. In jail. In jail. But this time in Seattle. This time in Seattle and met Dalton, hacked the tablets. in jail so that's another funny story because you went into jail you know a new kid yeah and immediately you became very popular because you were able to hack the tablets yeah that they use in jail to do what what were you i was able to browse the internet i was able to watch videos i was able to do anything i wanted i could and you were allowing other prisoners to do that too right i was yeah there was a fee and then like at one point like it started to leak and somebody found out like my shoulder surfing me like how i did it and then everybody found out and then they patched it and then we found another way and then people were threatening to beat me up if i didn't tell them it got so crazy like i'm just so happy i'm here today to tell the stories because it's just ridiculous was it the six months in prison in seattle and i'm sorry in jail was that worse that was worse for me because i told myself like there was no more you that this would never happen this would never happen again and i was back and then like when i was back at that time I was like I'm losing years off of my life doing this if I keep this up like where am I going to land what's going to happen you know like full questioning like what is my future you know at this point but all I knew is I wanted to keep hacking that's all I knew didn't care what it was how it was that was the only thing and I think the thing that like permanently scared me out of doing crime like the last last draw was on the final microsoft case after everything everything else had already closed the microsoft case is the last thing that's supposed to close out i did 500 hours of community service by starting an app with other hackers at the time shout out to bryce case known as yt cracker he's an amazing hacker love the guy saved my life like eight times Shout out to him. But he started an app that allowed people to donate leftover food and deliver it to homeless people. Oh, wow. And so he brought me into that app. And I was like, I'm going to run this app. I'm going to do it all around Seattle. And we delivered more than, like, 2,000 meals to homeless people. And, like, had such an effect, even outside the courthouse, that the judge recognized me from giving out food to homeless people. When I was there in court. So like I showed the app at court and everything when it came down to sentencing. And the judge was just like, honestly, if anybody deserves a last shot, it's you. Oh, wow. And left me on scot-free. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. And did that change your life? That changed my life because on that sentencing, there was one stipulation that almost got through. They almost banned me for computers for life. Oh, my God. Which, for me, commit suicide. Like, what's life without computers for me? So, like, knowing that that was at risk, I was like, I have to do good. I have to do as much good as I can within, like, such a short amount of time. You know what I mean? To pay it forward. And you're getting emotional. And, I mean, and that's why you do what you do now, right? I do, yep. And this is why when we met at DEF CON and you haven't been doing any fraud and you haven't been hacking for malicious intent. Hacking for good. You've been hacking for good. Yeah. And this is why when we met and when I told you the project that I was working on and what I was trying to do, I could see that this was like, wow, I can't believe it. We align so perfectly. Yeah. In so many ways, you know, we can't talk a lot about the project. Yeah. But essentially it's using your skills for good, right? Yes. 100% it is. It's giving back. It's proving that what we can do is for good, not for bad. Yeah. Tell me why is that important for you? I think it's important for me because of all the people that I hurt without noticing during the way. Because there was a lot of damage done. Whether it be family, friends, even people I didn't know. Like, people had bad days because of me, and that sucks. I don't want to give that to people. If that makes sense. Yeah. And so how can you use your skills now to help people? So I do penetration testing. So that's like finding the holes for the company to help them break into them. And then showing the company how to fix those holes is a big thing. So I love doing red team engagements is what we call them. So like I even get to go to like a physical building and see like how I would physically break into it. I get to see what wireless points are accessible from outside. But even a step further, I worked really, really closely with my attorney who was helping me through all this at the time, whose name is Robert Rhodes. Working closely with his law firm, I was able to do forensic work for their computer crime cases that they had come in. So I was able to provide forensic research that was used in court documents and stuff that was helping move the ball forward and not backwards. And even in my case where I've reached out to you because I get approached a lot by people who are victims of scams and they need help. And sometimes they just want to figure out if they're being victimized, victims of scams or not. And I reach out to you and you always within seconds answer back and you're always available and willing to try to figure out how to help people. Even without, you know, without any financial contributions or anything, you just are very willing to help. and that's pretty special because you do have this incredible skill and I've seen it and I've been happy to be working with you and using some of your skills and being close to your skills and it's pretty amazing and I know, I knew from the moment we met that you were a good person. Thank you. Whatever that means, it can be very cliched and very simplified but I could see that there was a great heart in there and when we started talking and you told me I was part of a group that hacked into Xbox and I'm a crazy head and all this stuff that you started sharing in the story I was like, but now I really want to use my skills for good. I was like, yeah, this is basically the person I've been looking for. Perfect. Perfect timing. Thanks for showing up at DEF CON. I've asked for a better person. Yeah, it's great. Awesome. So you're happy with what you're doing right now? I'm so happy. You're hoping you can grow. You have your own white hat hacker group as well, right? I have my own consulting firm that I do stuff through, so people that need help. What is it called? It's the good hackers. The good hackers. Thegoodhackers.com. So if people need, yeah, like, I mean, there's so many victims of scams and hacking. If they need to go, if they need help, they can go to your website. If you're worried about being a victim or if you are a victim. Right. They can handle it. You are in the right hands if you contact us if you're looking for cybersecurity services. Right. And it's you and a group of people. It is, yes. It is me and the top best hackers in Washington. Have you been, has there a moment, I'm sure there have been moments where, even though you're doing using your skills for good where there have been um uh what do you call it um temptation temptation thank you 100 yeah yeah yeah i mean still i just be really careful of what i focus my time into because i know i can do anything it's like if my goal is to figure out how to break into every car i can do that very easily yeah it's tricky because it's like it's having a superpower and making sure that you're using your superpower for good i mean there's been lots of cartoons written about this. So much responsibility with that. Like you have to take on that responsibility and use it right. Right. Well, I'm so happy you're using it for good. Thank you. I hope you keep doing it. I'm sure you will. I will. And mainly I'm happy that we met and that we're working together and that we're friends. Me too. And that you came on the podcast. Yes. And I would love to keep helping you. I remember when I met you at DEF CON, you were like, oh, I can't be hacked. You were like, you're like, there's no, there's no information. there's no information about me you can't figure out what it is remember you were like there's no way you'd know I'm not going to show the camera here what I told you what I told you was that I subscribe to all these programs and services that protect my identity because I am a public figure and I said I challenged you and I said, I bet you can't get information about me online that is compromising. So I'm not going to show the camera because this is actually very sensitive information. We should have started. But if you just want to confirm if any of this is sensitive, you can let me know. What the fuck? What the fuck? Okay, so you got my address, but you also got one of my passwords. The other one I don't recognize. Good. That's a good thing. The second one is not. But the first one. But I'm worried of why that worked on one of your accounts. Shit, dude. You need to help me figure this out. Yeah, I got you. I got you. Don't worry. Well, after this, we'll do a full assessment. Did it work on a account? It did. Yeah, it did let me log into an account with that. Okay. It was not one of my main accounts because I've changed. I don't think so. It was like one of your alternate ones. But just to show you. Oh, my God, shit. That you're good. Like, it's out there, right? So, like, you know, you can pay for all these services. But at the end of the day, if a hacker wants you, a hacker's got you. By the way, I just realized I never said your name at the top because I know you. I mean, we know each other. But also Armand the Cyber, which is what I have saved on my computer or my phone. That is my hacker name. That is what I've gone by. So on the podcast, you want your name to be Armand the Cyber? Armand the Cyber, yes. I love it. And so that is like a funny way. Like I started off as Armand the Cyber Criminal, but now I'm just Armand the Cyber. The Cyber good guy. Yeah. Let's recall it. Armand the cyber superhero exactly thank you so much Armand the cyber for coming on the podcast and let's figure out this password situation we'll get right to it