WEBVTT - the hack that broke myspace 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.600 So yeah, do logistics. Could I have you introduce yourself. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:17.079 My name's Jack ree Sider. I'm the host of the 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:18.360 podcast Darknet Diaries. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.480 If you haven't heard of the Darknet Diaries podcast, let 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.079 me explain the background a little bit here. So every 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.720 episode they get into some real wild story that's usually 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.680 about hackers, and that might be why Jack is so 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.400 cautious about revealing his identity, because he knows what's out there. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.360 So maybe we should address the elephant on the screen here. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:41.640 For those of you watching. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.839 I'm an anonymous podcaster. I don't like showing myself my 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.720 face or anything like that, so I'm using a filter 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.040 to keep my privacy when I cover enough of these hacks. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.760 When I hear about breach after breach after breach, I 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.680 think to myself, well, I guess all my data is 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.240 out there. There's nothing I can do, and I become 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.000 black pelt, I suppose, where I just feel completely hopeless 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.280 about privacy. But then I realized, no, who's the ding 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:05.839 dong who gave them my data? 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:06.360 It was me. 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.760 So in order to protect myself from being in breach 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.080 after breach, I just stopped giving my data to anyone 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.399 who asked for it. And so that's why, after you know, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.840 seven ten years of doing a podcast about hacking, this 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.840 is where I've landed on being an extreme privacy advocate. 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.440 And that's why I don't like to show my face anywhere. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.360 If you think about, like what your ex lover knew 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.560 about you when you were in the height of your relationship, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.679 they do everything. They knew your password, they knew your photo, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.160 but they do everywhere you wet every day. But that 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.920 was years ago. You've broken up with them, and now 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:38.880 they don't know anything about what you're up to, right, 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.120 and so there's still hope on recovering your privacy and 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.880 getting it back. So I'm totally white piled now. I 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.280 have a lot of optimism about my privacy. 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.120 I love how we're starting this out like that because 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.800 I feel like we're going to go there right because 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:54.880 the time period that we're going to talk about very 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.200 much was either a a lot of people didn't really 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.640 care too much about their information being out there, or 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.200 they didn't really think about it or very much were 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.880 thinking in the sense that, uh, you know, everything's out there, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.960 what can I possibly do about this? You know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.120 On this week's episode, Jack is going to share one 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.720 of the most bizarre, the most frustrating, but also honestly 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.480 one of the most hopeful hacking stories that I've ever heard. 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:24.840 It takes us back to a time when even the 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.560 phrase hacker freaked everyone out. And if you were around 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.440 in the MySpace days and you've been wondering why social 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.840 media today looks so boring, maybe this week's story has 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:35.640 some answers for you. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:43.200 I'm afraid. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:54.359 Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is kill Switch. I'm Dexah Thomas. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:03:34.720 I'm all right, goodbye. 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.720 Yeah. So take us back to two thousand and five. 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:41.800 What was the Internet like back then? 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.920 So we're going from Internet one point oh to Internet 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.520 two point oho. In those days, and one point oh 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.600 was basically read only. Everything was just posted there and 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:53.920 you could read it, but you couldn't really interact with it. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.520 There's no upfolts, there's no likes, there's no shares, there's 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.080 no oh let me create an account and comment on this. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.360 It's just read it and that's all you get. And 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.600 then as Internet two point zero came around, we started 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.880 getting sites like dig and read It and MySpace, where 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.240 now you are creating content on this site. Now you 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.840 have this little personal space on this website. This is 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.680 the music I like, and this is the bands I follow, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:18.560 and this is the stuff I've been doing every day, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.240 and this is my comments about these things. And so 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.920 it became this read write kind of era, where now 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:25.839 I can read it and I can comment on it, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.280 and I can write about it now. I think everyone's 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.839 favorite subject then and now is ourselves, and so we 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.760 love talking about ourselves on the Internet. And so when 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:36.520 my Space showed up, it's like, we want to know 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.440 all about you, and you're like, yeah, let me jump 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.680 on here and tell you what my interests are and 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:42.920 show you pictures of what I've been doing and all 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.760 the fun activities I've been up to. And so it 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.359 was the first big social media to hit our Internet, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:50.760 and it was really fascinating. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.400 My Space started in two thousand and three, and the 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.359 whole point of the site was to let you connect 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.880 with your friends and maybe even make new ones. But 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.480 probably the most the famous or infamous feature of MySpace 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.120 was the top eight. So this was a feature that 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.200 would allow you to publicly rank your top eight friends, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.840 and everyone who used it back then you probably remember 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.600 agonizing over who you should put in that top eight 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.520 and then accidentally having somebody get mad because they weren't 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.800 included or didn't like where they were placed, and then 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.520 it causing all sorts of weird beef and drama at school. 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.160 Another thing that people probably remember is that when you 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.000 first started your account, you were automatically friends with Tom, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.440 the co founder of the site. And then there was 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.719 the options that you could use to categorize yourself. 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.800 You could tell us what mood you were in or 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.680 what relationship you were in, and you could connect your 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.480 boyfriend or girlfriend to you to say, oh, I'm in 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:42.400 a relationship with them, and then they could show that 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.599 they're in a relationship with you. And then every now 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.719 and then you'd see something where you'd go to your 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.160 girlfriend's MySpace and she's no longer set to a relationship 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.440 with you, and you're like, what's going on here? Is 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.360 there something I don't know about? And you'd learned about things. 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:55.960 It's a hard way. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.240 One of the big things about MySpace for people who 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.479 might not remember is my space was customizable. 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.919 Yeah, you could change the background and I think maybe 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:08.920 the fonts, and when you land on it, you could 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.159 even have music playing you could kind of theme it out. Yeah. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.240 I remember when Facebook came out. One of the reasons 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.239 that some people initially did not like Facebook was because 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.799 it wasn't customizable. And that was kind of a weird 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:25.400 divibe because I actually felt like, good, I'm sick of 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.120 going to somebody's MySpace page and I just want to 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.839 message you, and you got like a Britney Spears MIDI 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.919 playing like nah man like disable that. I don't want 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.120 any of that. But there were some people who really 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.080 really missed that personalization, and that personalization was pretty broad. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.159 You could change the background of your page, you could 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.760 change the font, you could add music, you could have 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.839 a custom flashing cursor if you wanted to. Most people 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.240 just did this by copy pasting bits of code into 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.440 a form on the site, but if you knew a 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.479 little bit of HTML and CSS, you could really start 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.880 making that page look like your own. It was a 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:01.960 fun way for people who were even a little bit 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.840 interested in computers to get to play around with code. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.719 And for nineteen year old Sammy Kumcar, who was already 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.560 very familiar with coding, this was like being a kid 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:15.400 in a candy store. October fourth, two thousand and five 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:16.760 what happens. 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:22.400 So MySpace has all this customizability, and Sammy was playing 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.520 around with some of this because you can set on 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.960 my Space that you're in a relationship. There's a drop 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:28.800 down and where there are the options I'm in a 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.960 solid relationship, a shaky relationship, whatever. There's like a few options, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.120 and you only get those options. Well, he's like, well, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.040 what if I just tell it that I'm in a 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.280 hot relationship? And he was able to modify the code 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.880 on his own computer and submit that to the server, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.160 and the server accepted it. So suddenly he's in a 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.880 relationship that no one else is in a relationship with 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.840 and it's like, well, how did he set that? And 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.120 there was some other stuff like how many photos you 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.640 could upload. I think there was a photo limit of twelve, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.680 but he had uploaded an extra one or thirteen. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.160 Growing up, Sammy loved computers and he loved messing around 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.120 with him. When he was a kid, he'd figured out 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.360 how to hack the computer game counter Strike so that 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.800 he was essentially a god in the game. When he 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.040 flipped that switch, nobody could beat him. And for some 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.920 people that's all they want. They just want to win. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.720 But Sammy got bored after that. He didn't want to 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:18.760 play counter Strike anymore. 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.160 Yeah, because it became so easy for him. He could 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.520 just beat anybody. But there was an anti cheat maker 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.840 that came out that started detecting things that he was 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.680 doing and saying, okay, well that's no longer doable in 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.840 the game. And he's like, wow, well that gives me 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.480 a whole new challenge here now, how to figure out 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.920 how big cheats to not be detected by anti cheat 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.760 And so he got back into it just to try 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.920 to bypass the anti cheats there, and that became a 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.080 whole new thing for him. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.679 Right, so it's not even playing counter Strike anymore, it's 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:48.719 like playing the game off top of Counterstrike. It's like 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.600 playing cat and mouse with the company. So you can 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.040 kind of see that Sammy just likes taking stuff apart 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.080 and putting it back together again. He likes challenges. And 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.840 on MySpace, Sammy realized that he could just write some 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.040 JavaScript code on the client side and get MySpace to 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.560 display stuff that the creators had not intended, like he 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.120 wrote a funny comment in the relationship status section. For him, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.120 this stuff was all pretty rudimentary, so he kept poking around. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.800 So he was playing around with all these different things 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.160 that you could do on MySpace, and he found a 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.920 way to make it so that if somebody visited his page, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.640 it would make them follow him. I think it was 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.480 JavaScript code that he was able to embed into his 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.160 page that would force the person the visitor to follow him. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.480 But you'd still have to have someone come to your 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.080 page in order to get someone to follow you. 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:37.760 But then he. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.880 Figured out how to replicate this, how to make it 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.000 so that anybody who visited his page would then get 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.920 this code on their MySpace page, which would mean that 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.320 everyone who visited someone else who had this code wouldn't 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.839 follow Sammy, and not only would they follow him, but 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.160 they would comment on their MySpace page Sabby is my Hero. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.360 Basically, Sammy embedded code on his page that spread to 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.040 any page that looked at his and any page that 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.480 looked at that page would also get infected with the 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.559 code as well. Maybe you're starting to see where this 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.199 is going, But the important part here is that on 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.760 each page that had been infected, it would go after 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.360 the person's bio and insert the text at the bottom. 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.640 But most of all, Sammy is my hero. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.840 And so people would visit someone else's page, suddenly follow Sammy, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.560 and then have it say Sammy's my hero on their page, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.240 and they're like, wait, who's this guy Sammy? And why 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:31.600 does it say he's my hero. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.920 At first, it's not really a big deal. It's spreading 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.640 to his friends and maybe friends of friends. So Sammy 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:40.640 goes to bed that night thinking that he's just played 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.680 a silly prank on his friends on the internet. 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.760 But then the next morning, when he woke up, he 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:52.480 had ten thousand followers on MySpace, and that really blew 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.080 his mind. He knew something had gone terribly wrong to 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:56.559 get ten thousand followers. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.840 So remember this is two thousand and five, and back then, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.880 ten thousand friends was a really monumental number. I'm not 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.200 even sure he knew that there were ten thousand people 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:07.000 on MySpace. 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.560 At that point, I just freak out. I have no 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.520 idea what to do. I'm sitting in my apartment and 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.120 I'm kind of baffled. So I realized, like, oops, I 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.280 just wrote a virus and what should I do. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.720 That's the voice of Sammy on Jack's podcast, The Darknet Diaries. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.120 And because the spread was exponential, the numbers just kept 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.439 going up. Another hour later, it was at fifty thousand. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.760 When fifty one hundred thousand, I couldn't think about anything. 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.520 It was just refreshing. Went home, five hundred thousand, six 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.440 hundred thousand. It hits a million. I just take a 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.000 screenshot because I'm just like that. That's a lot of people. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.000 I had the idea that many people were even on 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:45.439 my spence. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.920 Sammy now realizes that he's created a virus. Actually, it's worse. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.640 He's created a worm, a piece of code that is 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.679 self replicating, and this worm is spreading through all of 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.720 my space. But what happens next even Sammy couldn't predict. 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:21.840 That's after break. Sammy's a little bit of code has started 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.000 as a joke. He figured that maybe in a couple 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.040 of weeks or so it reached a couple hundred people max. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.600 But in less than twenty hours, Sammy knkard had a 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.679 million friends. This had gotten completely out of his control. 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.720 He knows something has gone terribly awry. He thought maybe 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:39.920 he'd get a few hundred followers or something out of 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:41.840 this and then be able to turn it off. But 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.600 at this point, it feels like the momentum is going 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.320 so fast that he's having a hard time controlling it. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.240 And even if you go to Sammy's page and you 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.440 unfollow him, what happens is it says, okay, you're no 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.520 longer following them, and then it goes back to your page, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.680 and your page has the code to follow him, so 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.840 people can't even unfollow him, and if they wanted to, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.720 they're like, why why am I permanently following you? This 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:04.560 is ridiculous. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.240 So are people messaging Sammy at this point? 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.960 Yeah, they're confused, like who are you? How do I 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.520 unfollow you? And he's not sure because he can't pull 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.280 this back. He can't go to everyone else's MySpace page 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.480 and remove their code, so he's like, oh man, I 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.840 don't know how to turn this off. It almost seems 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.440 like everyone on my space is going to eventually follow 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.240 him because there's no other logical end to this. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.880 This was all an accident. Sammy had no idea that 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.160 what he'd created would spread this far, so he removes 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.560 the code from his page, but that doesn't help because 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.880 it's already spreading too fast. So he wants to help 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.800 stop it, and he gets an idea he could go 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.600 straight to my space like irol. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.640 He actually lived in the same town as them, both 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.319 in Los Angeles, and he's like, should I just go 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.920 over there and tell him I did this and to 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:54.839 give him some suggestions on what to do. 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.800 So at first, and I wish I was making this up. 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.240 He thinks, Okay, maybe I could just like buy some 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.160 coffee and donuts and show up at MySpace office and 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:05.360 help them fix it, like give them the donuts, give 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.880 the coffee, sit down, crack on knuckles, write some code, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.920 patch things up, all good. But then he thinks about 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.800 it and he realizes, Okay, maybe that's not the best idea. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.200 Maybe I should just send them an anonymous message. So 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.480 he emails them and says, here's some tips on how 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.360 to handle this. It was vague but specific at the 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.280 same time, like you didn't want to say who he was. 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.280 But he was like, you might want to go in 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.920 here and disable this or do this. Here's some SQL 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.080 queries to look for these strings and you'll find the 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.520 code and you can delete it off everyone's page. He 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:37.080 wanted to be. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.320 Helpful, he did not because he realized, oh no, I've 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.320 caused a big problem here. Fox had actually bought my 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.040 Space just before this. He's thinking about this, like, Fox 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.240 might be really mad. What do I do if they're 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.360 coming after me? This is a big problem. He's trying 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.240 to help what he can, but he also doesn't want 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.720 to get himself in trouble. But it's really hard because 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.840 everything is pointing to his page and it's got his 0:14:58.960 --> 0:14:59.960 name on it and everything. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:01.480 He's got his literal name on it. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.080 Yeah, so he's just refreshing it and looking at the 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.240 numbers going up and up, and he's like, oh my gosh, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.000 what do I do? And then eventually one of the 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.240 refreshes his page just says this page doesn't exist. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:12.720 It's gone. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.800 His page was deleted or at least disabled for a while, 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.560 and he's like, okay, that's fine. So then he looks at, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.200 you know, some of his friend's pages and they're all deleted, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.240 they're all disabled. And he's looking at everybody who's trying 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.880 to follow him and they're all disabled, and they're all deleted. 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.760 And then he refreshes the page again and it says, sorry, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.960 my space is down. We are taking it all offline. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.760 We're doing some maintenance. We'll be back shortly. 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.920 Sammy's a little bit of code ended up bringing MySpace 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.280 to its knees. It shut the whole site down. So 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.200 I kind of remember this happening. This was back when 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.240 I was in college and there was this Bobo shop 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.040 next to campus, and I think they had these three 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.480 Windows computers installed on the wall so that you could 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.080 use your computer while you waited for your order, and 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.920 people who were a MySpace would go there and log 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.480 in and check their messages. And yes, logging into your 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:10.000 social media on an unsecured public machine is absolutely terrible 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.360 security practice, but I don't know, people just didn't know 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.040 any better, I guess. So Yeah, Anyway, one day, I 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.800 think people were probably at home and their MySpace wasn't 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.680 working on their home computer, so they came to the 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.320 cafe to log in, and it didn't work there either, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.440 but they'd already bought their boba, so people just had 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.960 to wait there awkwardly like normal human beings for the 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.240 drink order. Kind of inconvenient, but for Sammy that day 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:37.040 wasn't just inconvenient. Dude was sweating bullets. So after a while, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.280 MySpace fixes the problem and it comes back all nine. 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.160 It's slow for a few days, but eventually it's back 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:48.080 to normal and that's it. It's back, And for a while, 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.400 Sammy thought that, Okay, maybe this is just a blip 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.360 and everyone would just move on and forget it all happened. 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.160 The days after that, nothing happened, and the weeks after that, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.440 nothing happened. She's like, Okay, I think I'll stay away 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.600 from his space for a while. I'll just lay low 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.840 because whatever happened there, I don't want to make it worse. 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.359 So let's just hope this is in the past. So 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.159 he went back to doing his work, and at that 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:12.960 point he had started a business. 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.879 During that time period, Sammy had co founded a company 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.760 called Finality that used the Internet to make phone calls 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.560 instead of relying on traditional phone lines, and at the time, 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.119 this was pretty cool technology. So we just focused on that. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.480 That message he'd sent to MySpace never got answered, and 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.320 my Space itself didn't really seem to be looking for him. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.760 Maybe they had just let it go. So Sammy got 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:35.399 back to work. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.960 At some point, You're just like, Okay, everybody's just gone 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.439 their way. They fixed it, and that's just it. You know, 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.479 you fix incidents all the time at work, and I 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.520 think he thought that everything was going to be fine. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.280 So it was a big surprise to him to find 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.200 the Secret Service we're after him. The business was doing 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.959 really well, so he actually bought himself a Porsche and 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.520 was driving that thing around town and so he was 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.000 having a good time. And one day he went out 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.840 out to the parking lot to kit in his car 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.000 and there was some guys standing around his car and 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:06.920 he's like, oh, man, are these guys gonna rob me? 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.800 Or what's going on? And one of them shouted, hey, 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.920 are you Sammy. He's like, oh gosh, usually people who 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.040 robbed me and they don't know your name. So let's 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.840 see what's going on here, and it was the Secret Service. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.160 They took him to his house and they confiscated all 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.520 his computers and I said, you're being investigated for taking 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:25.280 down my Space. 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.679 It had been six months since that worom took down MySpace, 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.120 and now out of the blue, here's the Electronic Crimes 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.320 Task Force of the LAPD and the Secret Service coming 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.840 around asking questions. They had him under surveillance for months, 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.159 and they had a search warrant for his house and 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.000 his office. They took his laptop, they took his hard drives, 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:47.320 even took his iPod. The DA ended up hitting Sammy 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.720 with a felony hacking charge, and prosecutors wanted him to 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.239 spend some time in prison and not be able to 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.520 touch computers for the rest of his life. Sammy freaked 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.359 out and he ended up taking a plea deal exchange 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.280 for not having to go to prison. He paid a 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.560 twenty thousand dollars fine, he had to complete seven hundred 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.399 and twenty hours of community service and three years of probation. Oh, 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.680 and he couldn't use computers. Well, he could use one computer, 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.040 but that computer had to be registered with authorities and 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.720 it couldn't access the Internet. Now keep in mind here, 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.560 Sammy's whole life and work had revolved around technology to 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.520 this point, so not being able to use an Internet 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.280 enabled computer was kind of like telling them, Okay, yeah, 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.000 here kid, have a typewriter, go do your job. At 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.119 this point in his life, the Internet was his livelihood 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.040 and it's how he was able to support his mom. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.000 He was paying her rent and helping her out and 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.679 all that. And so his startup that he had started, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.120 he had a very difficult time doing any work there 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.320 because that was all computer based work that he was doing. 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.200 So I don't know if he was making a salary 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.840 during that time to help her anymore anything, And it was. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.440 Tough for Sammy. It meant that he could do a 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.439 lot of the stuff that he used to, but he 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.119 tried to look at the bright side. Sammy told Vice 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:07.639 his motherboard how it forced him to go outside and 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:08.480 touch grass. 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.160 I kind of started a new chapter of life because 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.320