[Music]
hello I’m one of those scary internet
hacking people and with that in mind
please make sure if you use the free
open Wi-Fi here login to Facebook
Twitter do some online banking it’s
really I’ve checked it out it’s super
secure though I’m here hopefully to shed
some light on the hacking world and to
perhaps change perceptions of it a bit
and show that hackers can be a force for
good in the future cuz everything’s
connected to the internet everything’s
connected together from that screen
there and there’s like there’s like a
robot thing down there you’ll see in the
break that’s got Bluetooth in it through
everyone’s phones and here’s to the
Wi-Fi every time we walk around the o2
where we’re being tracked they can
probably get our home addresses just by
following our mobile signals so a little
bit about how I got into the hacking
world I grew up in the Shetland Islands
which are here as you can tell there’s
nothing to do in the Shetland Islands I
won a knitting contest in school we had
three knitting classes a week and I
thought that was that was quite fun a
simple life of knitting and herding
sheep and in farming peeps but instead I
joined a politically motivated global
hacking collective instead just kind of
the only other option in the Shetlands
so I I went under the alias topiary I
use the kind of ludicrous ascii horse as
an avatar and you can see below we
started to use this headless suit with
with the question mark the sort of
symbol of a we are legion we do not
forgive we do not forget we are we are
everyone and no when all of that all of
that kind of pretentious nonsense we
studied some of that and we started
putting that stuff up on government
websites during the Arab Spring in 2011
Egypt Tunisia Libya Zimbabwe in support
of protesters we would deface government
web pages we wouldn’t release any
information or anything like that or try
and harm individuals well you just put
messages of support up that say
we know your government’s trying to
suppress information to the outside
world we know that they don’t want you
to think you have support but know that
the Internet
mind the anonymous mask royal here for
you so he wrote a bunch of nonsense up
there
the thing that I’m as opposed most known
for which was also the one of the
biggest mistakes I made was hacking into
this terrible cult called the Westboro
Baptist Church racist homophobic cold
that pickets their funerals of dead
soldiers in the states and we decided
well they they declared war with
anonymous a very amusing statement and
they kind of thought to get media
attention or forbidden stuff on the back
of the the Arab Spring and so we went to
a live radio show with them and hacked
their website live which I thought would
be a very amusing way to do it and just
a way to get across we don’t really care
about you we’ve got we’ve got more
revolutionary stuff to get on with but
we’ll just do it anyway that went viral
online and I made this massive mistake
of just sort of being quite carefree at
the time and not very being a very good
hacker and just didn’t use any voice
modification software so just for how
you heard me now is how it sounded on
that radio show she’s a really really
bad idea and I’m most known for just
doing stuff like that in tweeting just
pretentious nonsense like you cannot
arrest an idea just something I tweeted
right before I was arrested the
following day we’ve started myself and
six others started this group called
LulzSec a bit more difficult to explain
we used a giant flying cap in space as a
logo and the giant boat made out of a
ski out and a little stick man with her
with a glass of wine in an effort to
sort of say yes we’ve done this hacking
under the anonymous banner under the big
scary mask etc etc and everyone kind of
sees those hacks and go yeah that’s it
that’s that’s impressive security is a
thing but that’s anonymous of course
they can do it they’ve got these big
bunkers everywhere there he’s super you
know super super horde of people around
the world what if we a bunch of idiots
with a stupid cat and a stick man could
do the same thing people started looking
at and going hang on what we need to
think about security now so we would do
things like news websites that ppps
disagreed with a WikiLeaks documentary
that was made so we just thought okay
we’ve got access to the PBS website
let’s not do anything we’ll just publish
a fake story from them saying 2pac and
biggie smalls are alive in you
and some people to this day think that
that’s real still and during the phone
hacking scandal not a big fan of the Sun
newspaper news of the world published an
article from the Sun staff writer saying
that Rupert Murdoch had died in his
garden instead of going to to give
evidence at the phone hacking scandal
that Leveson inquiry things got a little
bit out of hand in that we started
targeting government websites the CIA
website that went down for a while the
Department of Defense the Senate etc and
the thing at the time I think this is
true a lot of hackers you don’t really
see the difference between these sites
or these targets they look exactly the
same they’re all through this kind of
square let’s just screen into this other
world taking down the CIA’s website to
some teenage hacker feels the kind of
same as playing a game online or looking
at a video on YouTube it’ll kind of
blend psychologically into the same
space and I’ve come to terms now of sort
of what the ramifications of it all were
but at the time it just felt it felt
like a game which is a very very bizarre
and I think and I think a lot of hackers
suffer from that we’re only after only
after it’s all put in kind of a nut
shell or like an image like this that
they realized how hang on
no that is this that is the CIA things
but we only sort of hit home when the
cat there’s a stupid cat rather than the
stickman figure we all put together in
Microsoft Paint ended up on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal in the
full color print and people started
making all like stickers and notes and
selling them on red bubble and all of
this stuff then some people started
dressing up as us for Halloween that was
a strange Halloween I like the cat
though that’s pretty cool
then some people got on an actual boat
with logos like you can’t arrest an idea
in the anonymous flag we were very
briefly according to Google Trends more
popular than the boy band One Direction
about one day in many ways that was what
it was all about just beating them and
then we were all arrested
not one direction unfortunately sorry
sorry Zane so I was arrested in the
Shetlands and flown to London on a
private police a Learjet because it was
the only way to get my me off the island
held for four days and they said I’m a
threat to national security and you know
it shouldn’t be released to review a
threat to the public etc and I was just
like you know whatever I said that the
judge the judge looked at me and just
went no he’s blatantly some kid from the
middle of nowhere
let him go ban him from the internet and
put him on an electronic tag so I spent
the next two years banned from the
internet which is super annoying with a
home curfew of 10:00 p.m. which in
combination with being banned from the
Internet is especially annoying given
I’d moved from the middle of nowhere to
a big city like London where finding
your way around is hard without Google
Maps and then finding your way around
without Google Maps and legally having
to be home by 10:00 p.m. unless a van
van comes to your house and arrest you
so I was running about quite a bit and I
sprained my ankle running up the angel
escalator at 9:59 p.m. in order to get
back so I was I ended up standing trial
in Southwark Crown Court here in London
I was sentenced to two years in prison
although because of the time I spent on
electronic tag et cetera that was one
year of probation and mathematically
only seven or eight weeks in prison
and so I went to Feltham young offenders
which was apparently the most violent
prison in the UK it’s a very strange
place to send hacker but I’m told he
told them the way the prison system
works is you go to the prison that’s
closest to the court so that the van
doesn’t have to drive as far so that’s
why I was there and when I went in I was
I was I was scared but I think I think
the hacking thing worked okay in there
I think everyone’s got this natural
icebreaker in prison where you’ve gone
against the system in some way and
hacking sort of goes against the system
in this very definable way and so people
would come up to me and say yeah I’ve
smuggled a blackberry and can you hack
it for me or can you do my maths exam
and all of this one once mildly scary
incident and a new inmate came in and
when people come in they seem to have
this idea that they need to start a
fight to prove themselves which is the
worst thing you can do in prison so this
guy comes in and he sees me and goes I’m
gonna pick on that guy so he comes up to
me and it’s like oh you wanted you wanna
start something etc and I’m just
unnaturally kind
sarcastic and I’m like Ireland there’s
not much to start around here we’re not
gonna I don’t know we’re not gonna be
able to start it and this guy that I’ve
shared a cell with his name is mr. teeth
so all he would Ollie would call himself
massive guy he basically ran the way he
was he was just a teenager’s enormous he
goes to the gym every day and he just
went right up to this guy he went your
blood you do not mess with half gainer
you know why that he’ll be mortgage your
house blood urea mortgage your house you
won’t even know he did it so you don’t
mess with hacker and this guy was like
oh sorry hacker I did I didn’t know then
all the guards started calling me hacker
exception so I was released and I think
the thing that sticks me the most about
that experience and and young people
going through that kind of system was
upon release one of the guards said to
me oh you’ll be back next week because
there’s a 95% rear fender right and I
can see why you’re left with a bus fare
home and that’s it you go you go to
probation a horrible system for everyone
so nowadays this is five years later
hacking has changed quite a lot the
culture of hacking has changed quite a
lot back in when I was doing this stuff
in 2011 even if you epically broke into
a company or government and then emailed
them saying we found some flaws in your
website here’s how you fix it they will
prosecute you they’ll come for you
there’s there’s no way to ethically do
that just the other month this 15 year
old kid hacked into the Dutch government
and he emailed them just saying I hit
and found some flaws I’ve kind of got
access to everything and the Dutch
government responded I think the best
way possible they they said all right
that’s that’s very good tell us how to
fix that we’re gonna acknowledge you on
official government websites media
coverage etc and they sent him some swag
they sent him a t-shirt that literally
said I hacked the Dutch government and
all I got was this lousy t-shirt
that is I think that is the best
possible government response to website
because they could have you know it
would have been game over for him five
years ago they would have come down here
without choppers smashing this door
ruined his life forever and I thinks
nowadays so many governments and
companies and individuals are getting on
board with this we have these things
called bug bounty programs where sites
like Facebook Twitter and whomever else
can basically sign up to a service and
say or you know we have we have a
critical infrastructure we have valuable
systems if you’re a hacker email us with
with a bug that you found we’ll fix it
and we’ll pay you I’m so Facebook for
example if you hack Facebook they’ll
give you $500 minimum every single time
if they accept it as a security risk and
I think this kind of system is fantastic
because what you get well you have to
look at is hacker motivations why do
they do what they do a lot of it is
kudos from other hackers
and the challenge of doing it the last
thing often on hackers Minds even the
blackhat hackers that release customer
information to the open web ironically
the last thing on their mind is
releasing customer information to the
open web they’re thinking oh I’ve broken
into the web site I’ve got the challenge
of doing that I want to prove myself
what’s the easiest thing to do the
easiest thing to do 10-15 years ago was
just to cause havoc cause mayhem
nowadays you tell the company even if
you’ve fact the more mayhem you caused
the better because the more you can
prove to their security team what a
threat it is and you can get paid for it
you can get put on a leaderboard of with
other hackers you get a point system
where you get like 50 points for hacking
Twitter 75 points for hacking Facebook
and I don’t I don’t do this stuff very
often anymore but I’ve got bug bounties
in with Apple Facebook Google they’re
all great you emailed them and Apple the
other month got back within a day just
saying okay we’ve acknowledged you in
the next ayah a SUP date so I think
there’s this this gap that’s being
bridged which er it’s fantastic and I
think that’s definitely the way forward
and to illustrate that I’d like to talk
a little bit about this guy his name is
Aaron Barr and he was one of the targets
of of our hacking in 2011 he owned a
cyber security company and he said to
the Financial Times that he had
discovered the leaders of anonymous it’s
a very very funny statement and we
thought okay well we’ll go hack him and
have a look at who he thinks the leaders
of Anonymous are and so we got we hacked
him got his entire company got this
document that was all just nonsense so
we just published a document ourselves
instead of letting him publish it and
give it to the FBI and in the meantime
we saw his email inbox 50,000 company
emails the reason that we’ve managed to
get into that was because he used the
same password for his World of Warcraft
account and his company’s entire email
account it’s not great it also wasn’t a
very strong password I want a recite it
letter by letter I mean it wasn’t mostly
just letters and we found out through
their emails that they were the kind of
developing kind of sketchy malware and
you know you’re trying to discredit
journalists like Glenn Greenwald who are
in support of WikiLeaks at the time and
they almost had a congressional hearing
into the company he claimed there was 10
million in damages the company dissolved
he got fired and then from his next job
etc and so and then I then I went to
trial three including this and so in
many ways both of our lives were kind of
melted down and reformed and shattered
in many different ways and emotionally
and otherwise because of this stuff and
we both made my probably made slightly
more mistakes than he did but we I
messaged him on Twitter just last year
saying this this is weird is it
I mean it I thought I saw him previously
on the Stephen Colbert show not in
person but just this picture of him and
Colbert was just looking at him mocking
him he was kind of the face of bad
security alleged to have entered the
hornet’s nest of anonymous and gotten
stung so I messaged him on Twitter just
saying this is this is this has been a
strange time let’s meet up and it was a
while and we did we met in a in a pub in
London I just did the only thing I knew
how to do which was buy him a whiskey
and I got him another whiskey and we
started playing Pokemon go it just come
out at the time and he he has much
better Pokemon than I do
and so I think I think he wins in that
regard it was a strange chat we started
chatting about security and you know it
was weird to see someone in real life
that I’d only have these kind of vague
notions of online my only perception of
him was this kind of online chats in
these emails and we’d be kind of at war
together but at war in the same way that
anything is a war through the internet
whether we had Twitter flame war I’m
taking down the CIA said it was very
hard to combine the two images in my
head and so we just ended up getting
really drunk and we were talking about
Edward Snowden I massively agree with
Edward Snowden he doesn’t so that was
good debate conversation caught the
attention of someone at the bar
you just came up to us and said look
sorry to ask but how do you guys even
know each other
and Aaron said the best thing he just
looked down at his whiskey and just ship
it around and said well we met online I
just took a long long
that’s not actually what he sounds like
I don’t know why I gave him that voice
just now Aaron bar I cyber security
expert know so I ended up falling asleep
just in his hotel room I needed a place
to crash and when I woke up in the
morning he was gone he’d flown he was
vanished all this stuff was gone he’d
flown to America to consult or go to a
conference I just was woken up by there
by the room service coming in very
strange experience I was first the first
thing that went through my head was I’ve
read this guy’s email six years ago I
know he’s an expert on bugging software
and planting bugs in people so then I
was in the shower that day just checking
making sure he has it he wasn’t
formulating some like six year long
revenge but it turned out he wasn’t we
continued playing Pokemon go we
continued to chat I think really
excellent game what what I think I some
what I’m trying to say about that is
this is someone that was on the other
end the target of anonymous the target
of LulzSec someone that we just we’ve
seen this image of and that is the face
of the corporation sort of greedy cyber
school corporation we were against and
there’s so many similarities between us
creatively and I think hackers security
experts the musicians theater goers
creatives all have the same kind of
feeling or wanting to deconstruct
something put it back together
understand it understand the ins and
outs of it and that’s one of my best
collaborations have come from those
people and so I think we shouldn’t be
afraid to engage hackers I think we
should look through the hyperbole of of
of the media the word cyberattack which
is applied to literally everything from
a country’s website going down to that
someone’s DDoS is their friends
minecraft server and that’s considered a
cyberattack it’s all put into this one
thing in it it’s horrible doesn’t make
any sense and it vilifies it adds a
stigma to it so I think we shouldn’t be
afraid to engage hackers if you work for
a company just hire them make a bug
bounty program go to these hacker
conferences they’re absolutely amazing I
think hackers can be a force for good in
the future and we definitely need them
so thank you
to hack the planet
you
hello I’m one of those scary internet
hacking people and with that in mind
please make sure if you use the free
open Wi-Fi here login to Facebook
Twitter do some online banking it’s
really I’ve checked it out it’s super
secure though I’m here hopefully to shed
some light on the hacking world and to
perhaps change perceptions of it a bit
and show that hackers can be a force for
good in the future cuz everything’s
connected to the internet everything’s
connected together from that screen
there and there’s like there’s like a
robot thing down there you’ll see in the
break that’s got Bluetooth in it through
everyone’s phones and here’s to the
Wi-Fi every time we walk around the o2
where we’re being tracked they can
probably get our home addresses just by
following our mobile signals so a little
bit about how I got into the hacking
world I grew up in the Shetland Islands
which are here as you can tell there’s
nothing to do in the Shetland Islands I
won a knitting contest in school we had
three knitting classes a week and I
thought that was that was quite fun a
simple life of knitting and herding
sheep and in farming peeps but instead I
joined a politically motivated global
hacking collective instead just kind of
the only other option in the Shetlands
so I I went under the alias topiary I
use the kind of ludicrous ascii horse as
an avatar and you can see below we
started to use this headless suit with
with the question mark the sort of
symbol of a we are legion we do not
forgive we do not forget we are we are
everyone and no when all of that all of
that kind of pretentious nonsense we
studied some of that and we started
putting that stuff up on government
websites during the Arab Spring in 2011
Egypt Tunisia Libya Zimbabwe in support
of protesters we would deface government
web pages we wouldn’t release any
information or anything like that or try
and harm individuals well you just put
messages of support up that say
we know your government’s trying to
suppress information to the outside
world we know that they don’t want you
to think you have support but know that
the Internet
mind the anonymous mask royal here for
you so he wrote a bunch of nonsense up
there
the thing that I’m as opposed most known
for which was also the one of the
biggest mistakes I made was hacking into
this terrible cult called the Westboro
Baptist Church racist homophobic cold
that pickets their funerals of dead
soldiers in the states and we decided
well they they declared war with
anonymous a very amusing statement and
they kind of thought to get media
attention or forbidden stuff on the back
of the the Arab Spring and so we went to
a live radio show with them and hacked
their website live which I thought would
be a very amusing way to do it and just
a way to get across we don’t really care
about you we’ve got we’ve got more
revolutionary stuff to get on with but
we’ll just do it anyway that went viral
online and I made this massive mistake
of just sort of being quite carefree at
the time and not very being a very good
hacker and just didn’t use any voice
modification software so just for how
you heard me now is how it sounded on
that radio show she’s a really really
bad idea and I’m most known for just
doing stuff like that in tweeting just
pretentious nonsense like you cannot
arrest an idea just something I tweeted
right before I was arrested the
following day we’ve started myself and
six others started this group called
LulzSec a bit more difficult to explain
we used a giant flying cap in space as a
logo and the giant boat made out of a
ski out and a little stick man with her
with a glass of wine in an effort to
sort of say yes we’ve done this hacking
under the anonymous banner under the big
scary mask etc etc and everyone kind of
sees those hacks and go yeah that’s it
that’s that’s impressive security is a
thing but that’s anonymous of course
they can do it they’ve got these big
bunkers everywhere there he’s super you
know super super horde of people around
the world what if we a bunch of idiots
with a stupid cat and a stick man could
do the same thing people started looking
at and going hang on what we need to
think about security now so we would do
things like news websites that ppps
disagreed with a WikiLeaks documentary
that was made so we just thought okay
we’ve got access to the PBS website
let’s not do anything we’ll just publish
a fake story from them saying 2pac and
biggie smalls are alive in you
and some people to this day think that
that’s real still and during the phone
hacking scandal not a big fan of the Sun
newspaper news of the world published an
article from the Sun staff writer saying
that Rupert Murdoch had died in his
garden instead of going to to give
evidence at the phone hacking scandal
that Leveson inquiry things got a little
bit out of hand in that we started
targeting government websites the CIA
website that went down for a while the
Department of Defense the Senate etc and
the thing at the time I think this is
true a lot of hackers you don’t really
see the difference between these sites
or these targets they look exactly the
same they’re all through this kind of
square let’s just screen into this other
world taking down the CIA’s website to
some teenage hacker feels the kind of
same as playing a game online or looking
at a video on YouTube it’ll kind of
blend psychologically into the same
space and I’ve come to terms now of sort
of what the ramifications of it all were
but at the time it just felt it felt
like a game which is a very very bizarre
and I think and I think a lot of hackers
suffer from that we’re only after only
after it’s all put in kind of a nut
shell or like an image like this that
they realized how hang on
no that is this that is the CIA things
but we only sort of hit home when the
cat there’s a stupid cat rather than the
stickman figure we all put together in
Microsoft Paint ended up on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal in the
full color print and people started
making all like stickers and notes and
selling them on red bubble and all of
this stuff then some people started
dressing up as us for Halloween that was
a strange Halloween I like the cat
though that’s pretty cool
then some people got on an actual boat
with logos like you can’t arrest an idea
in the anonymous flag we were very
briefly according to Google Trends more
popular than the boy band One Direction
about one day in many ways that was what
it was all about just beating them and
then we were all arrested
not one direction unfortunately sorry
sorry Zane so I was arrested in the
Shetlands and flown to London on a
private police a Learjet because it was
the only way to get my me off the island
held for four days and they said I’m a
threat to national security and you know
it shouldn’t be released to review a
threat to the public etc and I was just
like you know whatever I said that the
judge the judge looked at me and just
went no he’s blatantly some kid from the
middle of nowhere
let him go ban him from the internet and
put him on an electronic tag so I spent
the next two years banned from the
internet which is super annoying with a
home curfew of 10:00 p.m. which in
combination with being banned from the
Internet is especially annoying given
I’d moved from the middle of nowhere to
a big city like London where finding
your way around is hard without Google
Maps and then finding your way around
without Google Maps and legally having
to be home by 10:00 p.m. unless a van
van comes to your house and arrest you
so I was running about quite a bit and I
sprained my ankle running up the angel
escalator at 9:59 p.m. in order to get
back so I was I ended up standing trial
in Southwark Crown Court here in London
I was sentenced to two years in prison
although because of the time I spent on
electronic tag et cetera that was one
year of probation and mathematically
only seven or eight weeks in prison
and so I went to Feltham young offenders
which was apparently the most violent
prison in the UK it’s a very strange
place to send hacker but I’m told he
told them the way the prison system
works is you go to the prison that’s
closest to the court so that the van
doesn’t have to drive as far so that’s
why I was there and when I went in I was
I was I was scared but I think I think
the hacking thing worked okay in there
I think everyone’s got this natural
icebreaker in prison where you’ve gone
against the system in some way and
hacking sort of goes against the system
in this very definable way and so people
would come up to me and say yeah I’ve
smuggled a blackberry and can you hack
it for me or can you do my maths exam
and all of this one once mildly scary
incident and a new inmate came in and
when people come in they seem to have
this idea that they need to start a
fight to prove themselves which is the
worst thing you can do in prison so this
guy comes in and he sees me and goes I’m
gonna pick on that guy so he comes up to
me and it’s like oh you wanted you wanna
start something etc and I’m just
unnaturally kind
sarcastic and I’m like Ireland there’s
not much to start around here we’re not
gonna I don’t know we’re not gonna be
able to start it and this guy that I’ve
shared a cell with his name is mr. teeth
so all he would Ollie would call himself
massive guy he basically ran the way he
was he was just a teenager’s enormous he
goes to the gym every day and he just
went right up to this guy he went your
blood you do not mess with half gainer
you know why that he’ll be mortgage your
house blood urea mortgage your house you
won’t even know he did it so you don’t
mess with hacker and this guy was like
oh sorry hacker I did I didn’t know then
all the guards started calling me hacker
exception so I was released and I think
the thing that sticks me the most about
that experience and and young people
going through that kind of system was
upon release one of the guards said to
me oh you’ll be back next week because
there’s a 95% rear fender right and I
can see why you’re left with a bus fare
home and that’s it you go you go to
probation a horrible system for everyone
so nowadays this is five years later
hacking has changed quite a lot the
culture of hacking has changed quite a
lot back in when I was doing this stuff
in 2011 even if you epically broke into
a company or government and then emailed
them saying we found some flaws in your
website here’s how you fix it they will
prosecute you they’ll come for you
there’s there’s no way to ethically do
that just the other month this 15 year
old kid hacked into the Dutch government
and he emailed them just saying I hit
and found some flaws I’ve kind of got
access to everything and the Dutch
government responded I think the best
way possible they they said all right
that’s that’s very good tell us how to
fix that we’re gonna acknowledge you on
official government websites media
coverage etc and they sent him some swag
they sent him a t-shirt that literally
said I hacked the Dutch government and
all I got was this lousy t-shirt
that is I think that is the best
possible government response to website
because they could have you know it
would have been game over for him five
years ago they would have come down here
without choppers smashing this door
ruined his life forever and I thinks
nowadays so many governments and
companies and individuals are getting on
board with this we have these things
called bug bounty programs where sites
like Facebook Twitter and whomever else
can basically sign up to a service and
say or you know we have we have a
critical infrastructure we have valuable
systems if you’re a hacker email us with
with a bug that you found we’ll fix it
and we’ll pay you I’m so Facebook for
example if you hack Facebook they’ll
give you $500 minimum every single time
if they accept it as a security risk and
I think this kind of system is fantastic
because what you get well you have to
look at is hacker motivations why do
they do what they do a lot of it is
kudos from other hackers
and the challenge of doing it the last
thing often on hackers Minds even the
blackhat hackers that release customer
information to the open web ironically
the last thing on their mind is
releasing customer information to the
open web they’re thinking oh I’ve broken
into the web site I’ve got the challenge
of doing that I want to prove myself
what’s the easiest thing to do the
easiest thing to do 10-15 years ago was
just to cause havoc cause mayhem
nowadays you tell the company even if
you’ve fact the more mayhem you caused
the better because the more you can
prove to their security team what a
threat it is and you can get paid for it
you can get put on a leaderboard of with
other hackers you get a point system
where you get like 50 points for hacking
Twitter 75 points for hacking Facebook
and I don’t I don’t do this stuff very
often anymore but I’ve got bug bounties
in with Apple Facebook Google they’re
all great you emailed them and Apple the
other month got back within a day just
saying okay we’ve acknowledged you in
the next ayah a SUP date so I think
there’s this this gap that’s being
bridged which er it’s fantastic and I
think that’s definitely the way forward
and to illustrate that I’d like to talk
a little bit about this guy his name is
Aaron Barr and he was one of the targets
of of our hacking in 2011 he owned a
cyber security company and he said to
the Financial Times that he had
discovered the leaders of anonymous it’s
a very very funny statement and we
thought okay well we’ll go hack him and
have a look at who he thinks the leaders
of Anonymous are and so we got we hacked
him got his entire company got this
document that was all just nonsense so
we just published a document ourselves
instead of letting him publish it and
give it to the FBI and in the meantime
we saw his email inbox 50,000 company
emails the reason that we’ve managed to
get into that was because he used the
same password for his World of Warcraft
account and his company’s entire email
account it’s not great it also wasn’t a
very strong password I want a recite it
letter by letter I mean it wasn’t mostly
just letters and we found out through
their emails that they were the kind of
developing kind of sketchy malware and
you know you’re trying to discredit
journalists like Glenn Greenwald who are
in support of WikiLeaks at the time and
they almost had a congressional hearing
into the company he claimed there was 10
million in damages the company dissolved
he got fired and then from his next job
etc and so and then I then I went to
trial three including this and so in
many ways both of our lives were kind of
melted down and reformed and shattered
in many different ways and emotionally
and otherwise because of this stuff and
we both made my probably made slightly
more mistakes than he did but we I
messaged him on Twitter just last year
saying this this is weird is it
I mean it I thought I saw him previously
on the Stephen Colbert show not in
person but just this picture of him and
Colbert was just looking at him mocking
him he was kind of the face of bad
security alleged to have entered the
hornet’s nest of anonymous and gotten
stung so I messaged him on Twitter just
saying this is this is this has been a
strange time let’s meet up and it was a
while and we did we met in a in a pub in
London I just did the only thing I knew
how to do which was buy him a whiskey
and I got him another whiskey and we
started playing Pokemon go it just come
out at the time and he he has much
better Pokemon than I do
and so I think I think he wins in that
regard it was a strange chat we started
chatting about security and you know it
was weird to see someone in real life
that I’d only have these kind of vague
notions of online my only perception of
him was this kind of online chats in
these emails and we’d be kind of at war
together but at war in the same way that
anything is a war through the internet
whether we had Twitter flame war I’m
taking down the CIA said it was very
hard to combine the two images in my
head and so we just ended up getting
really drunk and we were talking about
Edward Snowden I massively agree with
Edward Snowden he doesn’t so that was
good debate conversation caught the
attention of someone at the bar
you just came up to us and said look
sorry to ask but how do you guys even
know each other
and Aaron said the best thing he just
looked down at his whiskey and just ship
it around and said well we met online I
just took a long long
that’s not actually what he sounds like
I don’t know why I gave him that voice
just now Aaron bar I cyber security
expert know so I ended up falling asleep
just in his hotel room I needed a place
to crash and when I woke up in the
morning he was gone he’d flown he was
vanished all this stuff was gone he’d
flown to America to consult or go to a
conference I just was woken up by there
by the room service coming in very
strange experience I was first the first
thing that went through my head was I’ve
read this guy’s email six years ago I
know he’s an expert on bugging software
and planting bugs in people so then I
was in the shower that day just checking
making sure he has it he wasn’t
formulating some like six year long
revenge but it turned out he wasn’t we
continued playing Pokemon go we
continued to chat I think really
excellent game what what I think I some
what I’m trying to say about that is
this is someone that was on the other
end the target of anonymous the target
of LulzSec someone that we just we’ve
seen this image of and that is the face
of the corporation sort of greedy cyber
school corporation we were against and
there’s so many similarities between us
creatively and I think hackers security
experts the musicians theater goers
creatives all have the same kind of
feeling or wanting to deconstruct
something put it back together
understand it understand the ins and
outs of it and that’s one of my best
collaborations have come from those
people and so I think we shouldn’t be
afraid to engage hackers I think we
should look through the hyperbole of of
of the media the word cyberattack which
is applied to literally everything from
a country’s website going down to that
someone’s DDoS is their friends
minecraft server and that’s considered a
cyberattack it’s all put into this one
thing in it it’s horrible doesn’t make
any sense and it vilifies it adds a
stigma to it so I think we shouldn’t be
afraid to engage hackers if you work for
a company just hire them make a bug
bounty program go to these hacker
conferences they’re absolutely amazing I
think hackers can be a force for good in
the future and we definitely need them
so thank you
to hack the planet
you
Please follow and like us: