17 Burst results for "Albert Gonzalez"
Lex Fridman Podcast
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Lex Fridman Podcast
"So I can't get in touch with them. They go down to pick up. So mariachi has got a Cadillac, old 70s Cadillac. He's got a Cadillac. Pulls in to the complex. Now, mariachi is driving. Kim Taylor's in the passenger seat. David Thomas's girlfriend's in the backstage. As they pull into the complex, going through the parking lot, mariachi just happens to glance over and he sees a van with a guy sitting sideways in the van. And he looks at Kim Taylor, he's like, that's an undercover. And Kim's like, ah, it's fine. So I pull up to the office complex. Kim's like, I'll go in and get the packages. So he walks in, looks at the guy behind the counter. I believe you have some packages for us. Guys like, one second. So he disappears around the wall out pops this quad PD, arrest Kim. David Thomas is in the car watching all this happen. He bugs out. Am I arrest him on the interstate? Where he has three fake drivers licenses in his wallet, along with his real driver's license, another no no, but they get him. David Thomas had outstanding warrants out of Nebraska. We couldn't Bond him out. Kim Taylor didn't have any warrants, so we bonded him out. My third in charge kid, Seth Sanders was his name. He bonds him out. Uses his girlfriend's account to bottom out. And I get married and I get Kim Taylor to go to Utah where he had another friend of mine agrees to housing, payment his wife. So I thought everything's fine and all that. About three weeks later, this guy in Utah gets me on the phone. Hey, he's got to go. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, well, the only thing he's doing is popping ecstasy tablets every day all day. And I'm like, seriously? He's like, yeah, I was like, okay, he's gotta go. So we kick him out of there. By this point, I've got another crew that's coming through. I mean, I had all these crews running. Had another crew that's coming through Denver. Sent Kim back to Denver to partner up with these guys. Kim gets these guys arrested. So by this point in time, I'm exasperated. I just want to throw my hands up in the air and walk away. So my retirement's coming up at the same time. So I'm like, fuck it. I'm done. So I tell everybody at the rest of the admins and the mods there. I'm like, this is what's going on. You guys need to watch out for this. We need to ban Kim, not let him back in, be careful what's going on. I walk away. At the same time, I walk away come to Johnny, Albert Gonzalez comes back into play. He sees everything that's going on. He uses that to his advantage. He starts banning everyone that's suspicious of him, sets up the VPN at the same time and says, hey, to make sure we're all secure, I need all transactions to go through this VPN. VPNs ran by the Secret Service. All right? Secret Service ends up. I think they ended up cataloging like $7 billion worth of transactions over the next four or 5 months. Shadow crew makes the front cover of Forbes. August 2004, headline who's.
Artificial Intelligence (AI Podcast) with Lex Fridman
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Artificial Intelligence (AI Podcast) with Lex Fridman
"So I can't get in touch with them. They go down to pick up. So mariachi has got a Cadillac, old 70s Cadillac. He's got a Cadillac. Pulls in to the complex. Now, mariachi is driving. Kim Taylor's in the passenger seat. David Thomas's girlfriend's in the backstage. As they pull into the complex, going through the parking lot, mariachi just happens to glance over and he sees a van with a guy sitting sideways in the van. And he looks at Kim Taylor, he's like, that's an undercover. And Kim's like, ah, it's fine. So I pull up to the office complex. Kim's like, I'll go in and get the packages. So he walks in, looks at the guy behind the counter. I believe you have some packages for us. Guys like, one second. So he disappears around the wall out pops this quad PD, arrest Kim. David Thomas is in the car watching all this happen. He bugs out. Am I arrest him on the interstate? Where he has three fake drivers licenses in his wallet, along with his real driver's license, another no no, but they get him. David Thomas had outstanding warrants out of Nebraska. We couldn't Bond him out. Kim Taylor didn't have any warrants, so we bonded him out. My third in charge kid, Seth Sanders was his name. He bonds him out. Uses his girlfriend's account to bottom out. And I get married and I get Kim Taylor to go to Utah where he had another friend of mine agrees to housing, payment his wife. So I thought everything's fine and all that. About three weeks later, this guy in Utah gets me on the phone. Hey, he's got to go. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, well, the only thing he's doing is popping ecstasy tablets every day all day. And I'm like, seriously? He's like, yeah, I was like, okay, he's gotta go. So we kick him out of there. By this point, I've got another crew that's coming through. I mean, I had all these crews running. Had another crew that's coming through Denver. Sent Kim back to Denver to partner up with these guys. Kim gets these guys arrested. So by this point in time, I'm exasperated. I just want to throw my hands up in the air and walk away. So my retirement's coming up at the same time. So I'm like, fuck it. I'm done. So I tell everybody at the rest of the admins and the mods there. I'm like, this is what's going on. You guys need to watch out for this. We need to ban Kim, not let him back in, be careful what's going on. I walk away. At the same time, I walk away come to Johnny, Albert Gonzalez comes back into play. He sees everything that's going on. He uses that to his advantage. He starts banning everyone that's suspicious of him, sets up the VPN at the same time and says, hey, to make sure we're all secure, I need all transactions to go through this VPN. VPNs ran by the Secret Service. All right? Secret Service ends up. I think they ended up cataloging like $7 billion worth of transactions over the next four or 5 months. Shadow crew makes the front cover of Forbes. August 2004, headline who's.
Lex Fridman Podcast
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Lex Fridman Podcast
"And so that I could see that argument being made and ultimately if you create an open market for drugs, how that could build a better society. It might break down the outdated the corrupt the bureaucratic institutions. I mean, you can make that argument. There's an argument. And let's be fair. I want to be fair with it. I mean, did he change the world? We do have this whole thing called cryptocurrency. Yeah, in the long arc of history, perhaps. Yeah. We do have that. So that's a biggie. And that might have been for it to take hold in society, maybe the darker parts of society at first, maybe that was necessary. Right. I mean, maybe. I will see how it pans out. Shadow crew, we had this guy. Albert Gonzalez, kids name. We had, we were growing so big that I had to start farming things out. So the first thing I started to form, I instituted this review system kind of establishing that trust mechanism even further for criminals to use. We needed somebody to take care of our tech aspects of the forum. So societal mind by the name of Kim Taylor, where we're looking for a forum techie. He comes to me when he's like a founder forum techie. I was like, who's that? And he's like, it's this kid. And I was like, is it any good? He's like, well, he knows the software. And I was like, okay. We just signed his ass on. He went by the screen name of cumber Johnny. Was his screen name. And he starts selling credit cards after a while under a screen name of Scarface. And that CV one breach where you're cashing out the track twos at ATMs. $40,000 a day. So Albert's in New Jersey, one day. Broad daylight. And stands at an ATM for 40 minutes. Just standing there, feeding in one ATM card after another. Point out cash. Take of the 20s out, stuff them in that backpack. Meanwhile, just across the street, a couple of cops just happened to be there. And they start noticing,.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Hi welcome back to saba reasons militias life. I'm ran living a few weeks ago after we released the second part of the albert gonzalez's series by came across this interesting tweet from one of our listeners. In clearly allman wrote quote. Greatest hacker in the world soup. Nazi was a lot of things calling him. That is ignorant. He wasn't even the brightest hacker in his own circle of friends in reply sherry davidoff. Our guest in the series wrote quote agreed that he wasn't super technical but as prosecutors said he was quote unparalleled in that he didn't just get heck done. He got a heck done. He got the exfiltration of the data done he got the laundering of the funds done. He was a five tool player and later replied with rebuttal of his own. But the reason why i mentioned the short conversation has nothing to do with. How good of a hacker gonzalez was. I mean there's no hecker rating system that we can use to figure out who was the best hacker ever peck in basketball. We have real bonafide statistics shots. Mrs whatever and my daughter and her friends still can't agree on who was the best. Nba player ever michael jordan or lebron james but almost tweet got me thinking about the relationship between a hacker and the technological environment. He or she operates. Take for example. Kevin mitnick who did most of his hacking in the early ninety s the technological landscape back then was very different from our current one. The internet for example was still pretty young if we could magically transport young mitnick to our current time would he still be as successful as he was back. Then by the way kevin. If you're listening to this. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this question..
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"I die free. That's it for this episode. Thank you for listening. Albert gonzalez was one of the few greatest cybercriminals ever and his story is one of the most remarkable you ever hear but while mini series is now come to a close. There's a caveat you see albert stories so deep so crazy that even in three episodes ninety minutes we head to leave major major plot points out on the cutting room floor. Like here's something you might not have expected. The biggest reach albert had ever pulled off. We haven't even mentioned it yet. Seriously that tj maxx hack. Stealing tens of millions of credit cards from a good chunk of the population of an entire continent was merely the second biggest which albert and his crew pulled off for that and more tune in next week for a b side. Bonus conversation with nate nelson and sherry davydov as always website is malicious dot life. Where you'll find. All of our past episodes and full transcripts follow us on twitter at at militias life for interesting discussions and the occasional update or. Follow me at at ran levy. That's r. a. n. l. e. v. I and i'm always happy to hear about new ideas. And great stories for our future episodes. We also have a youtube channel with extra stuff and bonus material so look for malicious life on youtube militias. Life is produced by pi media. Make nelson is our senior producer. Sound design by benoa body. Do you have someone in your family whose story you wish to preserve for. Future generations apparent with an amazing life story a grandparent who fought in the second world war. Maybe we'll turn their story into a podcasts. So good your children will pass it down to their children as a family treasure. In fact i'll do it really. I love doing these stories. They are so much fun. So i'm planning to do the next few stories. We get personally from start to finish head on to family. Sounds dot co for more details and samples from the one hundred or so family sound stories. We have produced so far family. Sounds dot co. thanks to you. Sabah resume funded writing the podcast. Len more saba.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"On march twenty fifth. Two thousand ten albert gonzalez stood for his sentencing from the new york times quote gonzalez. Who pleaded guilty to all. Charges set almost motionless as far as i saw. He didn't once look back at the gallery in the federal courtroom in boston where his mother said stoically while his father whipped into a handkerchief as gonzalez sister counseled him nor did he glance at his old colleagues from the secret service who also set in the gallery. Gonzalez just leaned forward and peered straight ahead at the judge is though the set of his head was unmistakable staring intensely at a computer he spoke just once a few sentences at the end. I blame nobody but myself. He said i'm guilty of not only exploiting computer networks but exploiting personal relationships particularly one that i had with certain government agency. Who believed in me. This agency not only believed in me but gave me second start in life and i completely threw that away so eventually albert was tried and convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Twenty us with good behavior. He's expected to get out. Twenty twenty-five christopher scott was sentenced to seven years in prison. Stephen watt who wasn't directly involved in the crimes also got two years in prison. Petric pulled his feminine from poverty by cashing out. credit cards. Got five years and then there was the final member of the crew jonathan jinx. The only one who'd seem that inside of a prison cell before he knew that with everyone else in custody it was only a matter of time before somebody ratted him out and the feds would come again.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Few agents were sitting in an office looking at a computer screen and other agent was called in. She headed into the office and the shoulder. That email address they'd pull up for twenty sixteen seven nine nine nine six from the new york times quote and they looked at me. They've got pin agents looking at me three minutes past by i was sitting there like a dull person and then i was like oh my god it turned out it was connected to the email address. Dunton soup nazi at if net. Are you.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Militias life is sponsored. By cyber was there is nothing better than a live simulation. Especially when you're fighting sabir tech's that are becoming more and more complex. Defenders are always looking for the critical edge to reverse the attackers advantage. And it's only through live attack simulations that you can truly see what might provide you that winning edge joint. Cyber reasons global attack simulations to watch firsthand. How attackers used the latest infiltration methods and execute on sophisticated militias operations and more importantly how to end these operations before they reserve your spot. Today at saba reason dot com slash thaksin. It was just before christmas. Two thousand and six when tj x. Examined it service and finally notice what that completely missed for year and a half that they'd been fleeced. According to one accountant the amount of stolen data represented quote somewhere between approximately half to substantially all of the transactions at tj has us puerto rican and canadians tours and quote. It's hard to imagine what it must have felt like to find that out for the first time i figure most of your listeners out there haven't ever been in the position where you expose the personal and financial information of half the continent of north america. Probably after a good. Bit of freaking out tj x. lawyers phoned the massachusetts attorney general's office and the us justice department to report the worst data-breach ever recorded but despite a mountain of data. There were no clear answers to be found. The us government hadn't aclu who was behind these breaches. One investigator recall just how difficult it was to piece things together quote. What did we know from the forensics as to where it was going they did look like anybody else that we ever seen. All of these things were being carefully followed out. Holy i'm embarrassed to say unsuccessfully and quote one person on nobody's list of suspects was the secret service best informant soup so now it's around two thousand seven and he's bored at the secret service we've been emphasizing it all series but it's worth saying again albert is still working for the secret service even after tj x. The parties the cash deliveries but. He's no longer such a model. Employee is not showing up on time. They're talking about hr issues. They're finally thinking of letting albert go for now though he's aware of all the investigations that the secret service has he's helping them bust carter's and sometimes he would actually frame other hackers. He even knows about one of these services. Most food food leads happening mostly in secret hatha world away in early. Two thousand and seven Secret service agent operating out of san diego takes a flight halfway across the world. He's going to meet with europe's most prolific stolen card salesman. A secret service undercover agent had been buying payment card from maximize stransky for two years and he traveled to dubai to meet maximum stransky. Who trust him in dubai. The agent manages to sneakily. Copy the hard drive off yesterday. Skis computer they bring it back to the us for analysis so as a secret services analyzing trump skis laptop. They find. There's an anonymous person who is his number one biggest provider of credit card dust. But they can't figure out who that person is. There's no personally identifying information other than an. Id number twenty sixteen seven nine nine nine six in the chat logs though there are few interesting details to be found like at one point nine nine nine. Six cynthia strength ski a piece of software. They noted that it was something. They'd modified for quote use in tj ex and quote yastrzehmbsky and nine nine nine six were coordinating breach of dave and buster's the arc aging yastrzemski asks his partner to send over sniffer code to help capture the company's stolen card data. It's the same one. That was used against tj ex. Although the secret service didn't yet know it bites given name blah blah in july yastrzemski is arrested in a turkish nightclub and when he's arrested nine nine nine six had just asked him for a fake passport for one of his cashiers. Who had been arrested. But he hadn't indicated in the chat where the arrest actually occurred so the secret service rushes to figure out. Who is this casher. that's been arrested and they. It's hard for them to find out. They end up combing arrest records throughout the united states after weeks of calling police precincts and us offices around the country looking for any case similar to the one described they find what they're looking for in a north carolina. Prison a man named jonathan williams. And they find that he has two hundred thousand dollars of cash eighty blank cards and stop drive on him not to mention a glock nine handgun with silence but the some drive is the real weapon. It had albert's photo albums credit report and the address of his sister and reportedly the reason that he was carrying that around was encased. Albert tried to rat him out. He had that information with him. In their chat logs with yastrzembsky nine nine nine six was careful to disclose no personal information but after months and months of waiting secret service technicians managed to obtain the registration information behind the count. One of the agents told the times what happened next. It was an afternoon in december. Two thousand seven a.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Here while he was standing trial. A judge ordered that albert receive a psychological evaluation report that followed the psychologist wrote quote. He identified with his computer. It is hard if not impossible. Even at the present for mr gonzalez to conceptualize human growth development and evolution other than in the language of building. A machine and albert's entire world was filtered through his computer. He was capable of doing really bad things because the consequences were out in the real world for real people betrayal of friends and family. The threat of identity fraud for middle class family did not occur in machine language. It was much different. For albert's right-hand men. patrick. Patrick wasn't obsessive like albert and john james for him there were arguably even better reasons to do bad things do. We spent most of his childhood in limbo raised by a single mother but mostly unsupervised. He began experimenting with computers and drugs as early as age eleven. He wasn't a genius businessman. Albert or prolific. Coder like jonathan. James computers were just a way of escaping and otherwise pretty unenviable situation at home. His mother remarried and had two kids but h fifteen. Patrick dropped out of high school and his mother divorced leaving him and his half siblings. In poverty family bounced from place to place eviction to eviction the ended up staying with family friends where according to wired quote his mother spent much of her time partying drinking and smoking pot and quote. It's not surprising. Then that patrick ended up with hashtag feed the goats the script kiddie irc channel. Were guys like albert john chris. Scott and steven. What would hang out and coordinate attacks against websites. But it was different with patrick. He liked the other guys in the fun of hacking shore but he ended up there for fundamentally different reasons. He wasn't like albert with the self-made enterpreneurial father or john. Who grew up money by age eighteen but rick's family was living at a residential hotel. But the didn't have enough rent money. They were facing yet another addiction so one day in two thousand and three. He told his mom what he was going to do. She gave him her blessing. So he took the bus into new york city and again cashing out cards for the cyber criminal albert gonzalez. The money he earned. Albert's mule was enough to pay for the rent and more soon the family was able to afford their own apartment. Albert seved patrick. On top of that was also the father figure. Patrick never had a bit older wiser taking him under his wing. They began spending all kinds of time together as albert escalated to more and more serious crimes. He brought patrick along the right. He rented a condo. And let petric live there free of charge more so than anyone else in the crew. Patrick really loved albert. It makes you think if you were in his position if you were facing yet another eviction from your home if you looked into your family's eyes and saw that there were struggling. What would it take for you to do really bad things curry clay katie draymond zaza corinne magic james worthy. Ac green byron scott. If you watch basketball you knew that we've an elite starting five you can do just about anything. Nobody could stop the nineties. Both or the sixties celtics by two thousand and six albert gonzalez had pulled off the greatest financial data breach in history to that point. But he didn't do it on his own. He had jonathan. James chris scott but we do and steven what behind the nineteen ninety. Seven chicago bulls of sabah. Crime also had a bench full of rule players at this time. Albert gonzales has built essentially an international syndicate sherry davidoff. Ceo of ellen g security numbers from these retailer networks and those are uploaded to servers that he hosts in lafayette and the ukraine and then he gives those card numbers to his business partners in order to convert those to actual money. The partners receive the car. Data copy them onto blanks and sell them at shady nightclubs around europe for three hundred dollars. A pop half the prophets go back to albert even with only half the prophets. It starts to add up. It gets to be so much in fact that even just getting the money to albert becomes logistical nightmare. This is before. Bitcoin member jonathan james for example. Set up a mail drop for him and that way his partners around the world could nail him cash to that male drives that other people could pick up. We're talking about boxes full of straight up cash. Exactly how much money. Albert me during this period is unknown. But if you want a sense of it consider this on one occasion. Albert's money counting machine actually broke from overuse. He complained to stephen to count three hundred. Forty thousand dollars by hand at this time. He also bought a bmw. He threw himself a birthday party for seventy five thousand dollars. People's stepped up with drugs booze curls. He's staying luxury hotels on one occasion. Five thousand dollar penthouse suite in a beachside resort south beach florida. According to nbc's american dream on top of their normal drugs albert and his friends made special concoctions. Called magic milkshakes cookies and cream. Ice cream smoke shrooms. Lsd and ecstasy all thrown in a blender. There were too many drugs and not enough mouths and noses to inhale them. There was nobody around. Stop them and too much money to spend even if they tried. They were living the dream. Cleanest their version of it. But you've seen crime movies before what always happens right after the bad guys think they've won when they pull off the job they're rich and they think they've finally done. The movie never ends there. What's the next scene on one afternoon. In the spring of two thousand eight albert and petrich to were driving back from an ordinary recon mission scouting the point of sale machines at toys r. Us from the new york times quote a sports car with.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Sabah. Reasons militias life. i'm rambling. This is the third and final part of our mini series on albert gonzalez. The hacker who while working as an informant and double agent for the secret service was hacking into the networks of some of the largest tweet till chains in the us literally hundreds of millions of credit and debit cards. What would it take for you to do. Really bad things to steal from others. Cheat on your spouse lie and deceive people who trust you in two thousand ten a reporter for the new york. Times visited the wyatt. Detention center in central falls rhode island. He sat down across from him was twenty eight year old a bit pale bloodshot eyes behind wire frame glasses. His baggy khaki jumpsuit hid. Just how thin. He'd gotten since his days as secret service informant. The reporter started his recorder and albert gonzalez began to reflect on. Why time and again. He chose to do such bad things the things that lended him where he was today quote. I've been asking myself. Why did i do it. I i did it for monetary reasons. The services salary wasn't enough. And i needed the money but then i'd already creative the snowball and head to keep doing it. I wanted to quit but couldn't in the opening episode in this series. We wondered what could have moderated albert to make such bad decisions saying for jonathan james. It must have been pathological some kind of obsession quote. I remember so many times having arguments with my mother when she tried to take he computer power cord.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"That's it for this episode. Thank you for listening following part one of the albert gonzalez series. We asked you over on twitter. The following question album gonzalez was arrested for the first time a age fourteen. Do you think possible to help keys. That get caught up in cybercrime and stop them from eventually ruining their lives. Three hundred thirty eight votes later the polls results where very decisive ninety two percent of you think that yes it is possible to help teams that get caught up in cybercrime. A few listeners even gave their own personal stories as joe. Taurus from georgia wrote quote ahead to explain the few computer related incident things on my security forms when i was joining the military. My dad policemen convinced me that computers were fed and they would go away but the world would always need cops became a cop for ten years before getting back into it. I was way out of the black hat. Mindset by then and quote at cubit bandit wrote quote definitely. I started out as cyber criminal was arrested multiple times and these days. I'm working in the industry and doing lots of ethical freelance work. I can think of both pros and cons regarding being criminal in the past. It's benefited means some weird ways and quote. One of the most interesting comments was the from. Tommy devos wrote quote. I was arrested multiple times as a kid and young adult for being a black hat spent five years in. Us federal prison as a result. I'm now a security engineer. And one of the highest payed bug bounty hunters in the world and quote. I told tommy. I'd love to hear his story. And he asked me to. Google million dollar hacker so i did and he got me to a bloomberg piece about tommy tens out. Tommy wasn't kidding. He is one of the highest payed bug bounty hunters in the world and that after five years in jail respect amazing a lot of people wrote about the need to mentor young and bright teenagers and help them put their skills to good use. Neuro split wrote for example quote. We've all done stupid things when we were younger. Mentoring them off the cybercrime path and offering them an opportunity is worth and quote and at ethical caps added quote. Yes definitely it's possible. We all know as teenager child can be molded into any direction so it also depends on us as adult hackers. Who are hacking for good to guide them in the best way possible and make them understand the difference between ethical and non ethical stuff and quote casts van kootenai from utrecht in the netherlands gave a fantastic example of how such mentoring can be done. He shared the link to a story about dutch. Cybercrime prevention program called hack underscore right apparently still in its initial pilot stage. That takes young people who are arrested for cyber related fences and helps them get on the right track personally. I must say that. I'm a little less optimistic. As most of our listeners seemed to be. I have no doubt that we should do all. We can to help teenagers in risk. But i also think that some people are born with personality traits that pulled them into these kinds of bad situations as this scenario at six is designs wrote quote or though i think they can be taught early on. Cybercrime is unethical. That temptation will always be there. Even now i feel the temptation many decades later. I know it's wrong. But it's like dropping catnip in front of a cat and saying no and quote but ultimately i agree with what certified hen holder seven wrote quote. The say no would imply that people are redeemable. Once a mistake is made and quote. And i do think that people can't change. It might take a long time but we all change eventually. Thanks to all the many listeners who took the time to comment on the pole. I'm sorry. I couldn't quote all of your tweets here. There were just too many also. Thanks to meek help in from ireland. Jason dance from new york and lane smith from massachusetts for reaching out to me on lincoln to say how much they enjoy the show and suggest topics for future episodes. You're awesome guys. Thank you very very much. There's always a website is malicious dot life. We can find all of our past episodes and full transcripts and you can find us on twitter at at militias. Life or at ran levy r. a. n. l. e. v. i. militias life is produced by media make nelson is a senior producer. Minoa body is our sound designer. Are you looking for someone to produce your podcast for you. Well we love technology and we love podcasts. Talk to me ran ran. Levy dot com thanks to suburbs in front of writing the podcast learn more siberian.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Stephen. What albert's best friend and one of the most confounding people you'll ever come across the first thing anybody notices about steven what is that. He's taller than almost every nba player. Coming in at seven feet tall and more jacked than most nfl players. His face is chiseled. His forehead is more like an eight head. He wears earrings. And he's long blonde. Ponytail falls well below his shoulders in a defcon presentation. You can find online. The mc aptly refers to him as four. But chris hemsworth would absolutely cower in fear if he had to face up against stephen. What and if that weren't enough. The guy's certifiable genius after graduating high school at age. Sixteen with a four point thirty seven. Gpa and graduating college at age. Nineteen stephen landed. A job at morgan stanley. Twenty years old on wall street. He was earning one hundred thirty thousand dollars a year when his best friend albert came calling asking for the kind of program that could get him fresh cod numbers in later court hearings. Stephen claimed to not have known what his code was being used for. He told wired magazine quote. I assumed it would have something to do with web traffic or instant messaging conversations or log ins of some other protocol not related to the credit card information and quote later court. Documents would refute that claim so he reportedly didn't know exactly what albert was up to but when albert asked him for a little program that could sniff card numbers often network. Stephen watt was all too happy to oblige this quote unquote sniffer. That albert wanted from stephen was in essence. The difference between the data breach and data waterfall albert already had access to millions of cards but he wanted fresh ones at packet sniffer. Software could be installed on tj xs point of sale networks to scrap credit cards in real time. While they were being swiped for. Stephen watt the genius wall street bodybuilder. That kind of thing was a breeze. He did it free of charge. So he's been about ten hours creating this this little script called blah blah and he emailed it to our blah blah named after how little effort it took. Its creator could pull car. Data from point of service machines. Once it reached a certain threshold a program grouped all the numbers together encrypted and compressed package then forwarded straight to albert's computer automatically albert. Dan installed that on. Tj access network and use that to steal millions and of card numbers. Fresh off the network as they were being processed estimates vary according to the new york times he managed to steal forty million credit cards according to wired magazine over one hundred million. The problem here is that there's no reliable way count. There were way too many to keep track and does it even matter. Even ten million is difficult to picture. A hundred million almost impossible to fathom. Perhaps it would be more helpful to think about it. Like this alabama. Gonzales had stolen credit cards from somewhere between twenty to fifty percent of the entire american adult population while he was only twenty five years old and still on the payroll of united states. secret service. it's probably stating the obvious at this point. But let's just say it's to go down in the.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
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Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Quadruple agent for now. Let's just call it playing both sides and he continued playing both sides even years after this point in the story. It's almost unbelievable. By the end of this episode albert will have pulled off one of the biggest data breaches of the decade while on government payroll his best friend in the service and agent named mica later reflected on how an actual government intelligence agency missed the signs. Quote looking back. We knew what he wanted us to know. He was leading a double life within a double life and quote. Nobody felt quite so betrayed as michael. Who taken albert under his wing like brother. The work side by sides for years michael was the one who gave albert his nickname soup. He watched over him mentored him. When albert moved to miami. Michael was also transferred there more than anything else hearing how michael tells it really drives home. How albert wasn't some devious criminal who they were utterly oblivious to. He was a genuinely beloved guy which made his decisions. All the more disappointing quote. I put a lot of time and effort into trying to keep him on the straight and narrow and show him when he's worth could be outside of that world kick him part of the team and he knows that and he knew what good it could have done with his talent. We work with million informants but for me it was really tough with him and quote working at the service was the kind of insight and experience. Money couldn't buy with all his experience. Both with the cops and the robbers. You could make a good case that at this time. The mid to thousands albert gonzalez was the single most powerful hecker on the planet and now he was going to use his power against corporate networks as albert researched new ways of breaking into the most lucrative targets in the country. He decided to reconnect which some old buddies one of those buddies was. Christopher scott not exactly mastermind of albert's caliber a journalist wants described christopher as quote Depressed overweight geek and quote. He'd met albert over. Internet relay chat years back and he made a decent hecker but the most useful thing about him was probably who he happened to be good friends with a handsome skinny twenty two years old with short brown hair and glasses. Somebody we actually mentioned in our last episode at the time one of the most famous hackers in the world far more so than albert gonzalez while they're completely unlike in personality one reserved and emotional the other outgoing and charismatic. Jonathan james was in many ways like albert's mirror image. He grew up an eight minute drive from albert in pretty similar house in a somewhat more affluent but largely similar neighborhood. His parents were pre ordinary folks and religious jewish in this case also like albert. Jonathan picked up computers at a young age. really young. In fact at only six years old he began spending entire days on his father's be seat by middle school. He was good enough that he decided to switch its operating system from windows to lennox to allow for finer control similar to albert's parents the james's head conflicting feelings about their son's behavior on one hand. He was already as talented as professional computer experts by high school. But it was also clear that this wasn't a hobby. It was an obsession. Jonathan rarely had time for anything else and he acted out at the slightest provocation. For example at age thirteen he ran away from home because his mother confiscated his computer when he called to see that she needed to return it or he wouldn't come back she had to have the police trace his location. In another instance. Mr james went so far as to physically cut his sons connection to the incident in response. Jonathan rated these severed wire by hand though he may have only known albert as soup. Nazi at the time. Jonathan james was also a member of keebler elves and where albert had hacked nessa with the group at age fourteen. Jonathan independently hack nasa along with the us department of defense at age fifteen. Jonathan and albert had a ton in common up until very crucial inflection. Point recall what happened to albert after he hacked nessa not much. The fbi went to school then talked with him a while. Then the went away and albert quietly returned to hacking after. Jonathan hacked the us government. He made a severe error. He bragged about it to fellow. Hackers according to the miami new times. That's what turned prosecutors against him. Aside from the sheer embarrassment he caused the bragging earned him fame and prevented them from effectively using him to catch anyone else and so at age. Sixteen jonathan james became the first ever minor to be incarcerated for a cybercrime between two thousand and two thousand and three his spent half a year under house arrest half a year in juvie and the rest on the probation then when his sentence was through he and his friend chris scott linked up with their old keebler elf. Buddy albert albert. You'll recall was researching corporate breaches at the same time. Jonathan and chris were starting to explore another way of breaching retail stores. Strategy called war. Driving this license for you. The three friends start. Were driving along route one in miami. So you're sitting in the car in a parking lot or maybe you're literally just walking around nearby and you have a really good antenna with you. So that you can pick up wireless networks maybe further than a normal person's computers so they sold really nice.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Monitoring everything that they do the us government now has an unobstructed view into almost all the activity happening on the biggest sabah crime website in the world right down to the most granular levels. The book kingpin describes what they found quote. There were deals every day and every night with a weekly surge. In trading sunday evenings the transactions ranged from petty two gargantuan on may nineteenth agents watched one user transfer one hundred fifteen thousand credit card numbers to another number in july. Another user moved counterfeit. Uk passport in august. Someone sold fake new york driver's license and empire bluecross health insurance card and city university of new york student. Id card to a member in need of full identification portfolio. And it's like this but a hundred times over the agents record everything. They can't after a few months when they've gathered enough evidence. It's time for phase. Three albert is sent to the secret service. Hq in washington dc just before nine pm eastern time he gets on a keyboard albert halls and meeting online and when he does that people listen he gets the shadow her leaders and key members into a chat forum meanwhile in twenty eight locations across eight us states and six countries law enforcement agents are quietly gathering around houses weapons drawn. The investigators really need to link the person at the keyboard to the stuff that they're to the to their online personas so it's important to catch them in the act as it were. Albert keeps the shadow crew members talking until nine pm strikes then. All at once twenty-eight fron doors bust open. They put out an indictment with sixty two counts at a public press release and this is like the biggest cybercriminals bust in history. Nineteen individuals would end up being indicted many served years long prison sentences so this is not only a bust and something where the leaders and some buyers and sellers can be held accountable. It's also serving as a warning for others which is very frightening to hackers and cybercriminals underground by october twenty seventh the homepage of shit. Oh crude dot com looked a lot different than usual in a move. Reminiscent of the keebler elves. The secret service defaced. The page posting their logo at the top and stock photo of a man behind bars. Then in all caps quote contact your local united states secret field office before we contact you and quote fittingly shadow cruise slogan for those who wished to play in. The shadows was crossed out. There were no more shadows to plane. If you're a defender fighting to protect your organization from cyber attackers you must be successful ending attacks every single time. They only need to be successful once. Cyber reason rivers is the attackers advantage. Our future ready attack platform gives defenders the wisdom to uncover understand and piece together multiple threats and the precision focused to insider attacks instantly cyberrays and cyberattacks from end points to everywhere. The bust dubbed operation. Fire was a resounding success. The biggest in cyber history to that point albert gonzalez transformed from most wanted to most loud. But it didn't take long for his fellow. Comrades from shero crew to realize that just one person inconspicuously avoided being arrested. Albert's co workers at the secret service urged him to move back home to miami for his own safety. He did but continued to work as a paid informant in series of new investigations again. He was outstanding. He was such a good secret service employees in fact that the head him do seminars and speak at government conferences. At one point he met personally with the then director of the secret service. Albert gave a presentation and gotta shake the man's hand. It's a remarkable redemption story. You'd have to say there was just one caveat you see albert gonzalez went from stealing millions of credit cards to quarterbacking the largest cybercrime bust in. Us history and then he went back even before he got to. Miami albert was researching how to reach corporate networks. Why would he think to go back there. I think albert was addicted to hacking. I think it was a lifestyle for him at that point and remember all his friends are doing it. It's it's his community. In some sense it's debatable whether albert quote unquote went back to hacking or simply never stopped. I'm not sure there was ever a clean break. That albert really stopped working with quote the dark side. I think that this was a continuous process for him. You need to try and get out of your own head and place yourself in his for a moment think back on everything you heard earlier in this story but was albert actually doing for the secret service. Was he helping bust shero crew and other cybercrime operations. Yes was he performing the ultimate data-breach by convincing the us government to grant him access to their internal systems and communications in order to better understand their capabilities and weaknesses. Crazy as it sounds that to exactly what his motivations were at any given point in time art to this day only known to him. Maybe there was a time when as his secret. Service co workers believed. He genuinely turned to the good side. Maybe he liked working with them but never quite gave up the idea of going back. Or it's entirely possible likely. Even that albert gonzalez was a triple agent. The entire time actually not even triple. We're going to have to come up with a new term entirely a triple agent. Is somebody pretending to be a double agent for one side while actually acting as a double agent for the other side albert wasn't pretending though he was doing good work for the us government and enjoying it while also infiltrating them and gathering information. He could use later for malicious purposes. What do you call that a.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Early. Two thousand and four and one of the two or three greatest cybercriminals to ever walked the planet. Albert gonzalez is on the payroll of the united states. Secret service and not just working for them thriving with them for months sometimes. All day and night he works alongside bonafide agents out of a satellite office in army repair garage in jersey city and those agents actually like him one prosecutor later told the new york times quote. It was kind of a bonding experience. He and the agents developed over time a very close bond the worked well together and quote they even gave him a nickname soup playoff his online persona soup. Nazi and albert is teaching them all kinds of new things. It's like when he was fourteen and the fbi b. i. Visited to figure out how kid who only just reach puberty managed to hack into ness. Remember what happened an agent to albert into a room the set there for an entire afternoon and by the time they came out. It was the agent not the child who has left these. This kid is amazing. Albert's lawyer recalled the man saying he's running circles around me now at twenty. Three albert is winning circles around the secret service. The prosecutor how quote spending this much time. We've an informant this deeply into cybercrime conspiracy. It was a totally new experience for all of us. And by springtime the service trusted albert enough to make him the fulcrum for the biggest ever cyber operation. It's ironic actually that there were about to use one of history's greatest cybercriminals to attempt the most ambitious sting in the history of cybercrime today. Albert is an administrator on the on the shadow crusade and he actually begins to climb even further within their ranks as he at the same time that he's working with the secret service that's sherry davidoff. Ceo of ellen be security and author of the book data breaches. You might have assumed that once he went clean. Albert left the cyber underground for good but the service had him do the exact opposite stay active become more embedded in the community. It was all part of the plan. The other thing to understand about this time. Is that the dark web doesn't exist. And that means that as all these hackers are visiting shattered crew and buying and selling credit card numbers. This is all on the normal internet. The web domain for show crew is www dot schiro crewe dot com as simple to type into your browser as google dot com. That means all this. Cyber crime is hiding in plain sight shadow. Crew users are in real need of more reliable ways to cover up what they're doing one way you can hide yourself on the open. Web is via virtual private network or vpn if he began is basically a remote computer that functions as a proxy for all your data transfers as an analogy say. I wanted to send a letter to been all our sound designer to tell him. I really love music. He adds two episodes. But i don't want him to know that i wrote a letter since he might ask for a raise. So i write deal been all. I really love your music and i played the note in an envelope but i don't send a letter to been all i send it to nate our producer. Instead mate then takes the letter removes the original envelope that had my name and address on it and replaces it with new envelope with his name and address is then sends it over to. Oh who gets the note. Wow gee thanks and sends. The note came from nate. And not me. He has no idea that. I'm the true originator of the letter. I recognize rans handwriting everywhere. He probably doesn't want me to ask for a raise. Such a cheapskate. Jeez vpn's work in a similar fashion. You establish a secure encrypted connection to a remote server and tunnel all your browsing activity through that remote server so that your true identity is hidden there are ways to supersede. Vpn connections to figure out. Who's behind seddon internet activity but it is difficult so you can imagine how useful vpn would be for members of shadow crew. The secret service knew it so albert says to everybody. Hey i've set up a vpn service soup. Nazi starts promoting his own vpn. You i this quietly behind the scenes and he gets the shadow leadership onboard and then after a few months he starts offering it to the whole shadow crew community. Albert is a well respected member of the community. He's got crin eventually. The whole shadow crusade. It was moved onto servers. That the secret service could monitor. It's not like the members didn't realize the risk there were certainly times that members said hade jokingly there are certainly times that numbers jokingly said things like hey the secret service had a back door they could listen to everything.
Malicious Life
"albert gonzalez" Discussed on Malicious Life
"Have you ever been obsessed. I'm not talking about being really into something not o. G. i'm obsessed with capa- i mean really obsessed something that took over your life. You couldn't stop thinking about it. He had control over you. It was as a teenager. That albert gonzalez one of the few greatest cybercriminals in history developed the obsession. That would go on to ruin his life but before that he was just an ordinary kit really. His dead was the interesting one in the family in the early seventies. Alberto gonzales senior built handmaid's raft with two friends and used it to try and cross the caribbean. He was two days on the water when an american submarine spotted him in the florida strait and the coast guard cutter came to the rescue. It was a classic immigrants story coming over with nothing heading to work from the bottom. He moved to miami started landscaping company and married fellow. Cuban maria in nineteen seventy seven. Alberto and maria lived at thirty second street and sixty fourth avenue in working class neighborhood. South of downtown miami. Their house was small. But pretty with palm trees flowers a spanish tiled roof and away that awkwardly overlaps with what looks like a half finished sidewalk. Like many other cuban emigres. There were politically conservative churchgoing people and their son. Albert junior was a fine kit close with his parents and his sister outgoing which friends helpful with his father's landscaping company. He was handsome. Tan skinny with black hair cut short. His grades were good and then when he was twelve he bought his first computer. A lot of us. Computer geeks have the same origin story. You're first computer. Being totally enamored by it spending all day in your room. Coding or playing games albert liked his computer yes but he only became obsessive over it after something unfortunate happened something that knocked him onto a different trajectory than you and i. His new computer contracted the virus alberto senior and maria called in the the commission that sold them the machine. But the boy was hardly sad or scared as you'd expect him to be in that situation. He was frustrated annoyed. And maybe a little curious later recalled quote. I had all these questions for him. How do i defend myself from this. Why would someone do this. Albert decided to get to the bottom of the virus thing and just kept going further and further into the rabbit hole. At first. it didn't seem too bad. He family figured he could turn computers into a career if he really liked them. This much and as family spend recalled quote. His dad said it's better than him getting high or running around with gangs and quote but then alberta junior schoolwork fell away. He had less time for chores and landscaping his relationships deteriorated and he became more troublesome in the house his sister later described how quote he would sit at the computer for hours. At a time he went from being extroverted and talkative kid. Too quiet introverted. And obsessed and quote. It was becoming clear that this computer thing wasn't just a hobby. It was unhealthy. His mother begged him to see a psychologist but he wouldn't. His father even convinced some of his friends in the local police to stage arrest. It didn't work by nineteen ninety-five h fourteen. Albert was using stolen credit cards from the dark web to buy video games albums and choose. Oh and he was part of a group that hacked into nasa now if this were anything other than the militias life podcast. That would seem like the crazy part of the story. But you've heard this one before right. There were the stralia kids that distrupted a space shuttle launch using the quarter in nineteen eighty nine. In fact albert isn't even the only teenager from miami to have heck nasa in the ninety s a few years after albert. Did it a fifteen year. Old named jonathan james. Who lived an eight minute. Drive from albert's. According to google maps would steal safety critical source code running the international space station. So perhaps what's most surprising isn't what albert did but how he handled himself next because it was shortly thereafter about halfway into his freshman year when a couple of nice folks visited the principal's office at south miami asking for him. They were employees of the federal bureau of investigation. They invited albert junior albert senior and their lawyer assembly. Friend to the fbi's office in miami an agent set with the boy and the spoke for over four hours. The fbi wanted to know how he'd put it off. The lawyer recalled quote hours in the guy pulls us into the hallway and says this kid is amazing. His running circles around me and quote. The agents agreed not to prosecute. If mr and mrs gonzalez took away their son's computer for six months albert went back to school and you think that be the end of it album. Gonzales was now in the crosshairs of the fbi. Any reasonable person would quit after that and get a new hobby. But do you know what albert instead not much different. When he got his computer back he picked right back where he'd left off and by the time he graduated high school. He was far more prolific spending more time devoted to more serious cybercrimes. It's a patent. you'll notice about him. It's pathological at sin points in his story albert will face more of these inflection points. These exit doors alternate paths. He could take to make his life. Vastly better choices. That you and i would take in a second. That really only have one reasonable answer but he just keeps committing cybercrimes. And that's the big thing about obsession. Even when a big fat warning signs slaps you in the face even when there's better choice available it's just not enough because obsession is not logical albert zealous and some of his friends would go on to pull off some of the most remarkable crimes.