Ep. 265 - Mr. X: I Interview An Anonymous Guest on Hacking, Government, Bitcoin and Terrorism

The FBI went to his high school when the 15-year-old Mr. X hacked into the largest Internet company in the world and stole 90 million credit card numbers.  "You are going to jail for a long time," they told him.  The day after he stole them he sent them back to the company and explained what their cybersecurity flaws were.  He thought they would thank him.  The FBI came to arrest him. "I was scared to death," he told me when we first met.  The head of the school, a three-star general, told them, "You guys better get out of here if you aren't writing this boy a check and saying thank you."  They left.  Then.  Two years later when Mr. X graduated he got "the call". The call that meant he wouldn't go to college.  The call that meant he would parachute into enemy fire, hack foreign governments, hack our own computers. "I've done so many things," he once told me. "You can't imagine."  The call from a three initial agency. More than one.  We met at a dinner. We were both obsessed with hacking and the latest flaws in computer security. We ignored every else and spoke for three hours.  And we haven't stopped talking since.  I don't mean this to be a conspiracy theory. There's already been rumors about "fake news", election hacking, etc.  There are bot armies. There are hackers taking down electric grids every day. Every company in the Fortune 500 is completely hacked. Your computer is hacked.  I've spent many years talking to people in the security space.  The reality is: the war is on.  And it's being fought with data. And it's being fought all over the world. And it's being fought every day.  Not just on election systems. Or at big companies. But on your computer. And the war is not always being fought by the people you expect. The enemies we were always trained to believe.  Mr. X spent time in special forces. Was in every overseas battle. Has been involved in more news stories than he likes to admit.  He's also built and sold two companies using his hacking abilities. He lives a good life now and doesn't want his voice e or identity to be revealed. So we distorted it for the podcast.  I asked him, "Do you still work for 'them' ".  He turned away and said, "You never stop working for them."  The goal of this isn't to scare people. Information is power.  And this is some of what I've learned from Mr. X.  1. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A VOICE, YOU HAVE TO SPEAK "In the past, to go up against an institution, you need to be an institution." Mr. X said. "Now more than ever, we need to stand up for what we believe in. We have these powerful, engaging tools to influence others, but we still leave it up to the powers that control us to influence us. If you believe something, share it. In other words, don't let the media "program" what you believe in. Don't let the online word "hack" into your brain. They already know more about you than you know about yourself. And they use that knowledge against you 24 hours a day.  If you want to have a voice, YOU HAVE TO SPEAK. 2. POLICE YOURSELF We were talking about computer security. He told me all the ways you could be hacked... that you would never think of.  "Let me ask yo, when's the last time you updated your firmware on your router?"  I had no idea. "If I'm going in, I'm going through the router," he said. "The majority of the fortune 500 use the same router... So you either trust the government to police data OR you need to be that person." And that was just one weakness. Next time you are on your phone check out how many apps on your phone have permission to turn on your video camera and start recording and transmitting what they record without you being aware.  Don't think they aren't doing it.  3. HOW DID OSAMA BIN LADEN REALLY DIE? Was Osama Bin Laden really casually sleeping on the third floor of a building with no access out? Or was he a prisoner and we had lost... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.