Kind: captions
Language: en
you could by literally whatever else you
wanted you could post things drugs you
could buy heroin write it from
Afghanistan the good stuff hacking tools
you could hack for hire you could buy
murders for hire
the following is a conversation with
Chris Tarbell a former FBI special agent
and cyber crime specialist who tracked
down and arrested Russ Albert the leader
of Silk Road the billion dollar drug
Marketplace and he tracked down and
arrested Hector massager AKA Sabu of
lolsek and Anonymous which is some of
the most influential hacker groups in
history he is co-founder of naxo a
complex cyber crime investigation firm
and is a co-host of a podcast called The
Hacker and the Fed
this conversation gives the perspective
of the FBI cybercrime investigator both
the technical and the human story I
would also like to interview people on
the other side the Cyber criminals who
have been caught and perhaps the Cyber
criminals who have not been caught and
are still out there
this is Alex Friedman podcast to support
it please check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Chris Tarbell
you are one of the most successful cyber
security law enforcement agents of all
time you tracked and brought down Russ
Albrecht AKA dread pirate robbers who
ran Silk Road and
Sabu of LOL SEC and Anonymous who was
one of the most influential hackers in
the world so first can you tell me the
story of jacking down Ross Albrecht and
Silk Road let's start from the very
beginning and maybe let's start by
explaining what is the Silk Road it was
really the first uh dark Market website
um you literally could buy anything
there well
to go back you could there's two things
you couldn't buy there you couldn't buy
guns because that was a different
website uh and you couldn't buy fake
degrees so no one could become a doctor
but you could buy literally whatever
else you wanted you could post things
drugs you could buy a heroin right from
Afghanistan the good stuff uh hacking
tools you could hack for hire you could
buy murders For Hire if you wanted
someone killed now so
when I was an FBI agent I had to kind of
sell some of these cases and this was a
big drug case you know that's the way
people saw Silk Road so internally to
the FBI how I had to sell it I had to
find the worst thing on there that I
could possibly find and I think one time
I saw a posting for uh baby parts
so let's say that you you know had a
young child and that needed a liver you
could literally go on there and ask for
a six month old liver uh if you wanted
to for like surgical operations versus
something darker yeah I never saw
anything that dark as far as people like
wanted to eat body parts yeah um I did
interview a cannibal once when I was in
the FBI that's another crazy story but
uh but that one actually weirded me out
so I just watched uh Jeffrey Dahmer uh
documentary on Netflix and it just
changed the way I see human beings
because it's a it's a portrayal of a
normal looking person
doing uh really dark things and doing so
not out of a place of insanity seemingly
but just because he has almost like a
fetish for that kind of thing he's
disturbing the people like that are out
there
so people like that would then be using
Silk Road not like that necessarily but
people of different walks of life
abusing Silk Road to primarily what was
the Prime primary thing drugs it was
primarily drugs and that's where it
started it started off with Ross
Albrecht growing mushrooms out in the
wilderness of California and selling
them but really his was more of a
Libertarian Viewpoint I mean it was like
you choose what you want to do for
yourself and do it and in the way Silk
Road kind of had the anonymity is it
used what's called Tor or the onion
router which is an anonymizing uh
function on uh on the Deep Web it was
actually invented by the U.S Navy back
in the mid 90s or so but it also used
cryptocurrency so it was the first time
like we saw this birth on the internet
uh mixing cryptocurrency uh and uh an IP
blocking software so you know in cyber
crime you go after one the IP address
and trace it through the network or two
you go after the cash and this one kind
of blocked both cash me meaning the flow
of money physical or digital and then IP
is the some kind of identifying thing of
the computer it's your telephone number
for on your computer so yeah all
computers have you know a unique uh for
octet uh numbers you know it's a one two
three dot one two three dot one two
three dot one two three and you know the
computer uses DNS or domain name
services to to render that name so if
you're looking for you know CNN.com your
computer then translates that to that IP
address or that telephone number where
it can find that information didn't sell
called used to have guns in the
beginning or was that considered to have
guns or was did it naturally emerge and
then Ross realized like this is not good
it went back and forth uh I think there
were guns on there and he tried to
police it
um you know he uh he told himself the
captain of the boat so he had to follow
his rules so you know I think you took
off those posts eventually and moved
guns elsewhere what was the system of
censorship that he used like selecting
what is okay and not okay I mean it's
alone he's the captain of the boat do
you know by chance if there was uh a lot
of debates and criticisms internally
amongst the criminals of what is and
isn't allowed I mean it's interesting to
see a totally different moral code
emerge that's outside the legal code of
society we did get the the server and
was able to read all of the chat logs
that what that happened I mean all the
records were there
um I don't remember big debates I mean
there was a clear leadership yeah and
that was the final decision that was the
the CEO of Silk Road and so primarily
was drugs and primarily out of an
ideology of Freedom which is uh if you
want to use drugs you should be able to
use drugs you should put in your body
what you want to put in your body and
when you are presenting a case of why
this should be investigated you're
trying to find as you mentioned the
worst possible things on there is that
what you were saying so we had arrested
a guy named Jeremy Hammond and he hit
himself he was a hacker and he this
would be arrested him it's the second
time he had been arrested for for
hacking uh he used Tor
um and so that kind of brought us to a
point
um the FBI has a computer system where
you look up things uh you know you look
up anything I can look up your name or
whatever if you're associated with my
case
and we were finding at the time a lot of
things in you look it up the case would
end be like oh this is tor it just
stopped like we didn't get any further
yeah so you know we had just had this
big arrest of uh Sabu and took down
Anonymous and and sometimes in the FBI
um the way it used the old school FBI
when you had a big case and you're
working seven days a week and 14 hours
15 hours a day
you sort of take a break the boss kind
of said yeah I've seen a few months go
go get to know your family a little bit
you know and come back but
the group of guys I was with was like
let's find the next big Challenge and
that's when we were finding you know
case closed it was tour case closed it
was tour so said let's take a look at
touring let's see what we can do maybe
we'll take a different approach and Silk
Road was being looked at by other law
enforcement
um but it was taking like a drug
approach where I'm going to find a drug
buyer who got you know the drug sent to
them in the mail and let's arrest up
let's go up the chain but the buyers
didn't know their dealers they never met
them and so you were taking a cyber
security approach yeah we said let's try
to look at this from a cyber approach
and see if we can uh gleam anything out
of it so I'm actually
indirectly connected
to I'm I'm sure I'm not admitting
anything that's not already on my FBI
file oh I can already tell you what
you're going to tell me though what's
that the when you were at College you
wrote a paper and you're connected to
the person that started you said I'm a
bitch you clever son of a bitch I'm an
FBI Jenner a former FB agent how would I
not no but I could have told you other
stuff is what you were about to tell me
I was looking up his name because I
forgot it so one of my advisors for my
PhD was Rachel greenstat and she is
married to Roger Dingle dine which is
the co-founder of the tour project and
actually reached out to him last night
to do a hotel podcast together I don't
know these uh
no it was a good it was a good party
trick I mean it was just cool that you
know this and the timing of it it was
just like beautiful but
um just a link around the on the tour
project
so we understand it's a tour is this um
black box that people disappear in
uh in terms of like the when you were
tracking people
can you paint a picture of what tours
used in general other
it's like uh when you talk about Bitcoin
for example cryptocurrency especially
today much more people use it for legal
activity versus illegal activity what
about tour
was originally invented by the U.S Navy
so that like spies inside countries
could talk to spies and no one could
find them
um there was no way of tracing them and
then they released that information free
to the world so Tor has two different
versions of not versions two different
ways it can be utilized there's dot
onion sites which is like a normal
website a.com but it's only found within
the Tor Browser you can only get there
if you know the whole address and get
there the other way Tor is used is to go
through the internet and then come out
the other side if you want a different
IP address if you're trying to hide your
identity so if you were doing like say
cyber crime I would have the victim
computer and I would trace it back out
to a tour relay and then because you
don't have an active connection or
what's called a circuit at the time I
wouldn't be able to trace it back but
even if you had an active circuit I
would have to go to each machine
physically live and try to rebuild that
which is literally impossible so what do
you feel about Tor ethically
philosophically as a human being on this
world that uh spent quite a few years of
your life and still trying to protect
people
so part of my time in the FBI was
working on child exploitation Kitty porn
as they call it
um that really changed my life in a way
and so anything that helps facilitate
the exploitation of children
fucking pisses me off and I I I and that
sort of jaded my opinion towards towards
tour because that because it it helps
facilitate those sites so this ideal of
Freedom that Russell Albert for example
uh tried to embody is something that you
um don't connect with anymore because
of what you've seen that ideal being
used for
I mean the child exploitation is a
specific example for it you know and
it's I can it's easy for me to sit here
and say child expert child porn because
no one listening to this is ever going
to say that I'm wrong and that we should
allow child porn
um should because some people utilize it
in a bad way should it go away
um no I mean I'm a technologist I want
technology to move forward
um you know
people are going to do bad things and
they're going to use technology to help
them do bad things
well let me ask you then oh we'll jump
around a little bit but the things you
were able to do
in tracking down information and we'll
get to it there's some suspicion that
this was only possible with mass
surveillance like with NSA for example
first of all is there any truth to that
and second of all what do you feel are
the pros and cons of mass surveillance
there is no truth to that and then my
feelings on mass surveillance if there
was would you tell me probably not but
I love this conversation so much but
what do you feel about the given that
you said child porn
what are the pros and cons of
surveillance at a society level
I mean nobody wants to give up their
privacy I say that I say no one wants to
give up their privacy but I mean I used
to have to get a search warrant to look
inside your house yeah or I can just log
on to your Facebook and you've got
pictures of all inside your house and
what's going on I mean it's not you know
so people like the idea of not giving up
their privacy
um but they do it anyways they're giving
away their freedoms all the time they're
they're carrying watches that gives out
their heartbeat a weight of companies
that are storing that I mean what's more
personal than your heartbeat so I I
think people
and mass really want to protect their
privacy and I would say most people
don't really need to protect their
privacy but the case against Mass
surveillance is that if you want to
criticize the government
in a very difficult time you should be
able to do it
so when you need the freedom you should
have it so when you wake up one day and
realize there's something going wrong
wrong with the country I love I want to
be able to uh to help the the one of the
great things about
the United States of America is there's
that individual revolutionary Spirit
like so that the the government doesn't
become too powerful you can always
protest there's always the best of the
ideal of freedom of speech you can
always say fuck you to the man and I
think there's a concern of direct or
indirect suppression of that through
Mass surveillance you might not
is that that little subtle fear that
grows with time that uh why you know why
bother criticizing the government it's
going to be a headache I'm going to get
a ticket every time I say something bad
that kind of thing so it gets out you
can get out of hand the bureaucracy
grows and the freedom slip away because
that's the that's the criticism right I
completely see your point I agree with
it I mean but I mean on the other side
people criticize the government of these
freedoms but I mean tech companies are
talking about destroying your privacy
and controlling what you can say I
realize they're private platforms and
you they can decide what's on their
platform but you know they're taking
away your freedoms of what you can say
and we've heard certain some things
where maybe government officials were in
line with uh with tech companies to take
away some of that freedom and that's I
agree with you that gets scary yeah
there's something about government that
feels
maybe because of the history of human
civilization maybe because tech
companies are a new thing but just
knowing the history of abuses of
government
if there's something about government
that enables the corrupting nature of
power to take hold at scale more than
tech companies at least what we've seen
so far
yeah I agree I agree but I mean we
haven't had a voice like we've had until
recently I mean anyone that has a
Twitter account now can speak and become
a news article
um you know my parents didn't have that
didn't have that voice if they wanted to
speak out against the government or do
something they had to go to a protester
organize a protester you know do
something along those lines so you know
we have more of a place to put our voice
out now yeah it's incredible but that's
why it hurts and that's why you notice
it when certain voices get removed the
president of the United States of
America was removed from one such or all
such platforms
and that hurts yeah that's crazy to me
that's insane that's insane that we we
took that away but
let's return to uh to still growing so
how did your path with this very
difficult very fascinating case uh cross
we were looking to open a case against
Tor because it was a problem all the
cases were closing uh because Tori so we
went on tour and we we came up with 26
Web different onion dog onions that we
targeted we were looking for nexuses to
hacking because I was on a squad called
cy2 and we were like the premier
um Squad in New York that was working uh
uh criminal cyber intrusions
and so you know any website that was
offering hackers for hire or
um hacking tools for free you know or
paid Services uh you know like now we're
seeing ransomware for the paid service
and phishing as a paid service
um anything that offered that so we
opened this case on on I think we called
it we so you have to name cases one of
the fun things in the FBI is if you
start a case you get to name it you
would not believe how much time is spent
in coming up with the name yeah um you
know Casey goes by I think we called
this onion peeler because of the yeah so
a little bit of humor a little bit of
wit and some profundity to the language
yeah yeah yes you're gonna have to work
with this for quite a lot so yeah this
one had the potential of being a big one
you know because I think I think Silk
Road was like the sixth on the list uh
for that case but we all knew that was
sort of the golden ring if you could
make the splash that that onion site was
going down then it would probably get
some publicity and that's part of you
know law enforcement is getting some
publicity out of of it that you know
that makes others think not to do it I
always just say that tour is the name of
the project the browser what is the
onion technology behind Tor let's say
you want to go to a DOT onion site
you'll you'll put in the dot done you
want to go to and your computer will
build uh Communications with a tour
relay which are all publicly available
out there but you'll encrypt it you'll
put a package around your data and so
it's encrypted and so can't read it it
goes to that that first relay that first
relay knows about you and then knows
about the next relay down the chain and
so it takes your data and then encrypts
that on the outside and sends it to
relay number two now relay number two
only knows about relay number one it
doesn't know who you are asking for this
and it goes through there adding those
layers on top layers of encryption until
it gets where it is that and then even
the onion service doesn't know except
for the the relay it came from who it's
talking to and so it peels back that
gives you the information puts another
layer back on and so it's it's layers
like you're peeling an onion back of the
different relays and that encryption
protects uh who the sender is and what
information they're saying the more
layers there are the more exponentially
difficult it is to decrypt it
I mean you get to a place where you
don't have to have so many layers
because it doesn't matter anymore it's
mathematically impossible to decrypt it
but yeah um you know the more relays you
have the slower it is I mean that's one
of the big drawbacks on tour is is how
slow it operates
so how do you peel the onion
so what what are the different
methodologies for trying to get
some information from a cyber security
perspective on these operations like the
Silk Road it's very difficult people
have come up with different techniques
they're um there's been techniques to
put out in the in the news media about
how they do it um running like massive
amounts of relays and you're controlling
those relays I think I believe someone
tried that once so there's a technical
solution and and what about social
engineering what about trying to
infiltrate
the actual humans they're using
Nah The Silk Road and trying to get in
that way
yeah I mean I I definitely could see the
way of doing that and then in this case
uh in our takedown we use that
um there was one of my partners uh Jared
Dairy again he was an HSI investigator
and he had worked his way up to be a
system admin on the site
um so that did glean quite a bit of
information because he was he was inside
and talking to uh you know at that time
we only know it is DPR or dread pirate
Roberts uh we didn't know who who that
was yet but but we had that open
communication
um you know and one of the things you
know the technical aspects on that is
there was a jabber server that was uh
that's a communication type of
communication server
um that was being used and we knew that
Ross had his jabber set to Pacific time
so we had a pretty good idea what what
part of the we what part of the country
was in
I mean isn't that from From dpr's
perspective from Russ's perspective
isn't that clumsy he wasn't a uh he
wasn't a big computer guy do you notice
that aspect of like the technical Savvy
of some of these guys doesn't seem to be
quite
why weren't they good at this well the
real techy Savvy ones we don't arrest we
don't get to them we don't find them
shout out to the techie uh criminals
they're probably watching this I mean
yeah I mean you were getting a
low-hanging fruit I mean we're getting
the ones that can be caught I mean they
you know I'm sure we'll talk about it
but the anonymous case there was a guy
named AV unit he still I lose sleep over
him because I we didn't catch him we
caught everybody else we didn't catch
him
he's good though
he pops up too once in a while on the
internet and it pisses me off yeah
what's his name again AV unit that's all
I know is his AV unit AV unit yeah I got
a funny story about about him and what
who people think he is can I actually
can we go on that brief tangent sure I
love tangents
[Laughter]
well let me ask you uh
since he's probably he or she who knows
that he we have no idea okay I mean
that's another funny story about hackers
the he she issue what's the funny story
there well one of the guys in lulsec was
a was a she was a 17 year old girl yeah
uh and uh my source in the case the the
guy Sabu that I arrested and part of it
and you know we sat side by side for
nine months and then took down you know
the case and all that he was convinced
she was a girl and we said you know and
he was in love with her almost as at one
point it turns out to be a 35 year old
guy living in England oh so he was
convinced there's a uh yes he was
absolutely based on what exactly by
linguistic like human-based linguistic
analysis or what she she he uh whatever
you know Kayla which ended up being like
a modification of his sister's name the
real guy's sister's name was so good at
building the backstory all these guys
and it's funny like these guys are part
of a hacking crew they social engineer
the shit out of each other yeah just to
build if one of them ever gets caught
they'll convince the everybody else that
you know they're a Brazilian uh you know
ISP owner or something like that and
that's how I'm so powerful well yeah
that social engineering aspect is part
of living a life of cyber crime or cyber
security and the offensive or defensive
so AV unit
casca also just uh attention of
attention first that's my favorite
tangent okay
um is it possible for me to have a
podcast conversation
was somebody who hasn't been caught yet
and because they have the conversation
they still won't be caught
and is that a good idea meaning is there
a safe way for a criminal to talk to me
at a podcast
I would think so
I would think they that someone could I
mean someone who has been living a
double life for for long enough where
you think they're not a criminal
um no no no they would have to admit
that they would say I am AV unit oh you
would want to have a conversation with
AV unit yes
um is there a way I'm just speaking from
an FBI perspective technically speaking
because I I so let me explain my
motivation or I think
I would like to be able to talk to
people from all walks of life and
understanding criminals
understanding their mind I think is very
important
and I think there's fundamentally
something different between a criminal
who's still active versus one that's
been caught the mind just from observing
it changes
completely once you're caught you you
have a big shift in your understanding
of the world
um I mean that I do have a question
about the ethics of having such
conversations but first technically uh
is is that is it possible
if I was technically advising you I
would say first off don't advertise it
don't the fewer people that you're gonna
tell that you're having this
conversation with the better
um and yeah you could if you do it in
person are you doing it in person would
be amazing yeah but they their face
would not be shown face would not be
yeah I mean you couldn't publish a show
for a while they'd have to put a lot of
trust in you that you are not going to
you're going to have to alter those
tapes uh I say tapes because it's old
school you know exactly I'm sure a lot
of people just said that like oh shit
this old guy just said tape I heard of
VHS was in the 1800s I think
um but yeah yeah you could do it they'd
have to have complete faith and trust in
you that you destroy the originals after
you've altered it what about if they
don't have faith is there a way for them
to attain security
um so uh like for me to go through some
kind of process where I meet them
somewhere where I mean you're not going
to do it without a bag over your head I
don't know if that's the life you want
to live I'm fine with a bag over my head
that's gonna take get taken out of
context but I just I think it's a worthy
effort it's a word it's worthy to go
through the hardship of that to
understand the mind of somebody I think
fundamentally conversations are a
different thing than the operation of
law enforcement understanding the mind
of a criminal I think is really
important I don't know if you're going
to have the honest conversation that
you're looking for I mean it may sound
honest but it may not be the truth I
found most times when I was talking to
criminals it's lies mixed with half
truce uh and you you kind of it's if
they're good they can keep that story
going for long enough uh if they're not
you know you kind of see the relief in
them when you finally break that wall
down
that's the job of an interviewer if the
interviewer is good then perhaps not
directly but through the gaps seeps out
the truth of the human being so not
necessarily the details of how they do
the operations and so on but just who
they are as a human being what their
motivations are what their ethics are
how they see the world what is good what
is evil do they see themselves as good
what do they see their motivation as do
they have a resentment what do they
think about love for the people within
their small community do they have for
example for the government or for other
nations or for other people to the
childhood issues that led to to a
different view of the world than others
perhaps have do they have certain
fetishes like sexual and otherwise that
led to their construction of the world
they might be able to reveal some deep
flaws to the cyber security
infrastructure of our world not in
detail but like philosophically speaking
they might have
I I know you might say it's just a
narrative but they might have a kind of
ethical concern for the well-being of
the world that they're essentially
attacking the weakness of the cyber
security infrastructure because they
believe ultimately that would lead to a
safer world
so the attacks will reveal the
weaknesses
and if they're stealing a bunch of money
that's okay because that's going to
enforce you to invest a lot more money
in defending
um yeah defending things that actually
matter you know nuclear warheads and all
those kinds of things I mean I could I
could see if you know it's fascinating
to explore the mind of a human being
like that because
um I think it will help people
understand now of course
uh
it's still a person that's creating a
lot of suffering in the world which is a
problem so do you think ethically it's a
good thing to do
I don't I mean I I feel like I have a
fairly High
ethical bar that I have to put myself on
and I don't think I have a problem with
it I would love to listen to it okay
great I mean not that I'm your ethical
culture here yeah but uh well that's
interesting I mean so because I thought
you would have become jaded and
exhausted by the criminal
um mind
it's funny
um you know I I'm I'm you know fast
forwarding our story I'm very good
friends with with Hector monster or the
Cebu the guy arrested
um and he tells stories of what he did
in his past and I'm like um that actor
you know
you know but then I listened to your
episode with Brett Johnson and I was
like ah this guy's stealing money from
from the US government and Welfare fraud
and all that sort of things it just
pissed me off and I don't know why I
have that
differentiation in my head I don't know
why I think one's just oh Hector will be
Hector and then this guy just pissed me
off well you didn't feel that way about
Hector until you probably met him well I
didn't know Hector I knew Sabu so I
hunted down Sabu and I learned about
Hector over those nine months we'll
we'll talk about this let's finish with
yeah let's return tangent to back to
attention oh
one tangent up who's AV unit I don't
know interesting so he's at the core of
anonymous he's one of the critical
people Anonymous what is known about him
there's what's known in public and what
was known because uh side with Hector
and um he was sort of like the the set
things up guy
um so if
littlesec had like their hackers which
was Sabu and Kayla and they had their uh
their their media guy this guy topiary
uh he lived up in the northern end of
England and uh they had a few other guys
but but AV unit was the guy that set up
infrastructure so if you need a VPN in
Brazil or something like that to pop
through
um
one of the first things Hector told me
after we arrested him is that heavy unit
was the secret service agent
and I was like oh shit
um just because he kind of lived that
lifestyle he'd be around for a bunch of
days and then all of a sudden gone for
three weeks
um and I tried to get more out of Hector
but that early on in that relationship
um you know I'm sure he was a little bit
guarded uh and maybe trying to social
engineer Me Maybe he wanted that uh that
oh shit there's law enforcement involved
in this
um and and not to say I mean I I was in
over my head with that case just the
amount of work that was going on
um so to track them all down
um plus the 350 hacks that we came in
about just military institutions
um you know it was swimming in the deep
end
um so it was just at the end of the case
I looked back and I was like oh fuck
heavy unit I could have had them all uh
you know maybe that's the perfectionist
in me oh man well reach out somehow I
can't I won't say how right we'll have
to figure would you have them on yeah oh
my God if you just let me know just just
talk this shit about you the whole time
that's perfect he probably doesn't even
care about me but well now he will oh
yeah because there's a certain pleasure
of a guy who's extremely good at his job
not catching another guy who's extremely
good at his job obviously better he got
away better there you go he's still
eating at you I love it you or she if I
could meet that guy one day that he or
she that'd be great I mean I have no
power
so yes Silk Road can you speak to the
scale of this thing what what just for
people who are not familiar uh how big
was it
um and any other interesting things you
understand about its operation when it
was active so it was uh when we finally
got looking through the books and you
know the the numbers came out it's about
1.2 billion dollars in sales it's kind
of hard with the fluctuation value of
Bitcoin at the time to come up with a
real number so you kind of pick a daily
average you know and go across so most
of the operation was done in Bitcoin
it's all done Bitcoin you you couldn't
you had escrow accounts on you know you
came in and you put money in an escrow
account and you know it the transaction
wasn't done until the client got the the
drugs or whatever they had bought
um and then the drug dealers had sent it
in there was some talk at the time that
that the cartel was starting to sell on
there
um so that started getting a little
hairy there at the end what was the
understanding of the relationship
between organized crime like the cartels
and this kind of more ad hoc
new age
uh Market that is the Silk Road I mean
it was all just chatter it was just you
know because like I said Jared was the
inside so we saw some of it from for the
admin sides and Ross had a lot of
private conversations with the different
people that he had advised him
um but no one knew each other I mean the
only thing the only thing that they knew
with the admins had to send an ID to
Ross had to send a picture of their
driver's license or passport which I
always found very strange because if you
are an admin on a site that sells fake
IDs why would you send your real ID and
then why would the guy running the site
who profits from selling fake IDs
believed that it was
but fast forward tangent they were all
real IDs all the IDS that we found on
Ross's computer as the admins were the
real people's IDs what do you make of
that because I have other clumsiness
yeah low hanging fruit I guess I guess
that's what it is I mean I mean I would
have bought I mean even Ross bought
fake IDs off the site he had federal
agents knock on his door
um you know and then he got a little
cocky about it the landscape the
Dynamics of trust is fascinating here so
you trusts certain ideas or like who do
you trust in that kind of Market what
was your understanding of the network of
trust
I have nothing anyone trust anybody you
know I mean I think Ross had his
advisors of trust but outside of that I
mean he required people to send their ID
for their trust he you know people stole
from him uh there was there's open cases
of that
um
it's a criminal world you can't trust
anybody
what was his life like you think
lonely
can you imagine being trapped in
something like that where you the your
whole world focus on that and you can't
tell people what you do all day
could he have walked away
like someone else take over the site
just shut down either one just you
putting yourself in his shoes the
loneliness the the anxiety the just the
growing immensity of it so walk away
with some kind of financial stability I
couldn't have made it past two days I
don't know I don't like loneliness yeah
I mean my my wife's away I probably call
her 10 12 times a day we just talk about
things you know I just you know
something crossed my mind I want to talk
about it and I'm sure she and you like
to talk to her like honestly about
everything so if you were running Silk
Road you would you wouldn't be able to
like uh hopefully I'd have a little
protection I'd only mention to her when
we were in bed
um to have that marital uh connection
but but who knows I mean she's gonna
question why the Ferrari is outside and
things like that yeah
well I'm sure you can come up with
something why didn't he walk away it's
another question why don't criminals
walk away in these situations well I
mean I don't know every Criminal Mind
and some do I mean AV unit walked away I
mean not to go back to that son of a
bitch but there's a theme to this but
you know uh Ross started counting his
dollars I mean he really kept track of
how much money he was making and it
started you know getting exponentially
growth I mean he I mean if he would have
stayed at it he would have probably been
one of the richest people in the world
and do you think he liked the actual
money or the fact of the number growing
I mean have you ever held a Bitcoin yeah
oh you have well he never really held
the Bitcoin can't hold it it's not real
it's not like I can give you a briefcase
of Bitcoin right like you know or
something like that like he liked the
idea of it growing he liked the idea I
mean I think it started off as sharing
this idea but then he really did turn to
like I am the captain of the ship and
that's what goes and he was making a lot
of money and again
my interactions with Ross was about
maybe five or six hours over uh over a
two day period
um I knew DPR because I read his words
and all that I didn't really know Ross
um there was a journal found on his
computer and so it sort of kind of gave
me a little insight
um so I don't like to do a playbook for
criminals but I'll tell you right now
don't write things down
um there was a big fad about people like
remember kids going around shooting
people with paintballs and filming it I
don't know why you would do that why
would you videotape yourself committing
crime and then publish it like if
there's one thing I've taught my
children don't record yourself doing bad
things it never goes but goes well so
you actually give advice in the other
end of logs being very useful for the
defense perspective uh for
you know if information is useful for
being able to figure out what the
attacks were all about Vlogs are the
only reason I found Hector monstergar I
mean the the one time his uh VPN dropped
during a fox act and he says he did it
wasn't even hacking he just was sent a
link and he clicked on it and then 10
million lines of uh of logs there was
one IP address that stuck out
this is fascinating we'll explore
several angles of that so
um
uh what was the process of bringing down
Ross and uh the Silk Road all right so
that's a long story you want the whole
thing you want to break it up let's
start at the beginning
once we had the information of the chat
logs and all that from the server
we found the server what's a chat log so
the dot onion was uh running the the
website the Silk Road was running on a
server in Iceland
how did you figure that out that was one
of the uh claims that the NSA yeah
that's that's the one that we said that
yeah I wouldn't tell you if it was the
it's on the internet I mean the internet
has their conspiracy theories and all
that so but you figure out that's the
part of the thing you do you it's puzzle
pieces you have to put them together
yeah and look for different pieces of
information and figure out okay so you
figure out the servers in Iceland we get
a copy of it and so we start getting
clues off of that with the physical copy
of the server yeah we flew you fly over
there so you you go if you've been
Iceland if you've never been you should
definitely go to Iceland uh is it
beautiful or I love it I love it it was
what so I'll tell you this so sorry
tangents I love this yeah so I went to
Iceland for the anonymous case then I
went to Iceland for the Silk Road case
and I was like oh shit all cyber crime
goes through Iceland
um it was just my sort of thing and I
was over there for like the third time
and I said if I ever can bring my family
here like so there's a place called
thingovar and I'm sure I'm fucking up
the name the icelandics are pissed right
now but it's where the the North
American continent play in the European
Continental plane are pulling apart and
it's being filled in with the volcanic
uh material in the in the middle and
it's so cool like it's like one day I'll
be able to afford to bring my family
here
um and once I left just like The
Humbling and the beauty of nature just
everything man it was a different world
it was it was it was insane how great
Iceland is and so we went back and we we
rented a van and we took friends and
um we drove around the entire country
uh absolutely like a beautiful place
like reykjavik's nice but get out of
Reykjavik as quick as you can and see
the countryside how is this place even
real well it's so new I mean that's so
you know our Rivers have been going
through here for millions of years and
flattened everything out and all that
these are these are new this is new land
being carved by these Rivers you can
walk behind a waterfall in one place
um it's it's the most beautiful place
I've ever been you understand why this
is a place where a lot of hacking is
being done because the energy is free
and it's it's cool so you have a lot of
servers going on there server Farms you
know they're they're the energy has come
up out everybody out of the ground
geothermal
um and so and then it keeps all the
servers nice and cool so why not keep
your computers there at a cheap rate uh
I'll definitely visit for several
reasons including to uh talk to AV unit
yeah
well the servers are there but they
don't probably live there I mean that's
the interesting I mean the Pacific uh
the PST the time zones there's so many
fascinating things to explore here but
so you I mean the European internet
cable goes through there so you know
across the Greenland then down through
Canada and all that so they have
backbone access with cheap energy and uh
free cold weather you know and beautiful
oh and beautiful yes
so chat logs on that server what what
are the
what what was in the chat logs
everything he kept them all that's
another issue if you're writing a
criminal Enterprise please don't keep up
again I'm not making a guidebook of how
to commit the perfect crime uh but you
know we every chat he ever had and
everyone's chat it was it was like going
into Facebook of criminal activity yeah
I'm just looking at texts with Elon Musk
being part of the conversations uh I
don't know if you're familiar but
they've been made public
for the court cases going through what's
going through is going through what's
going through with Twitter I don't know
where it is
um but it made me realize that oh okay
I'm generally that's my philosophy on
life is like anything I text or email or
say publicly or privately I should be
proud of
so I tried to kind of do that because
you basically you say don't keep chat
logs but it's very difficult
to erase chat logs from this world like
I guess if you're a criminal that should
be um
like you have to be exceptionally
competent at that kind of thing to erase
your Footprints is very very difficult
can't make one mistake all it takes is
one mistake of keeping it but but yeah I
mean not only do you have to
be whatever you put in chat log or
whatever put an email it has to hold up
and you have to be stand behind it
publicly when it comes out but it has if
it comes out 10 years from now you have
to stand behind it I mean we're seeing
that now in today's society yeah but
that's a responsibility you have to take
really really seriously if like if I was
a parent an advising teens like you kind
of have to teach them that I I know
there's a sense like no we'll become
more accustomed to that kind of thing
but in reality nope I think in the
future we'll still be held responsible
for the weird shit we do yeah a friend
of mine his daughter got kicked out of
college because of something she posted
in high school and the shittiest thing
for him but great for my kids great
lesson look over there and you don't
want that to happen to you yeah okay so
in the chat logs was uh useful
information like uh uh breadcrumbs of
what of information that you can then
pull out yeah great evidence and stuff
you know I mean obviously yeah a lot of
evidence
here's a sale of this much air win
because you know Ross ended up getting
charged with Czar status on certain
things and that's there's it's a certain
weight in each type of drug that you had
like I think it was it's four or five
employees of your Empire and that you
made more than 10 million dollars and so
it's it's it's you know it's just like
the Narco track feeders get charged with
their you know uh anybody out of
Colombia you know and so and that was
primarily what he was charged with doing
when he was arrested is the drug yeah
and he got charged with some of the
hacking tools too okay because he's in
prison what for two life sentences plus
40 years and no possibility of parole in
the federal system there's no
possibility of parole when you have life
the only way you get out is if the
president pardons you
there's always a chance there is I think
it was close uh I heard I heard rumors
there was close uh well right so it
depends given it's fascinating but given
the political the ideological ideas that
he represented and espoused it's it's
not out of the realm of possibility
yeah I mean I've been asked before who
you know who does he get out of prison
first or does Snowden come back into
America and I I don't know I have no
idea it just became a Russian citizen I
saw that and I said yeah I've heard a
lot of good weird theories about that
one well actually uh on another tangent
let me ask you do you think Snowden
is um
a good or a bad person a bad person
can you make the case that he's a bad
person there's ways of being a
whistleblower and and there's there's
rules set up on how to do that
um
he didn't follow those rules I mean they
you know I'm red white and blue so I'm
pretty you know so you think his actions
were anti-American I think the results
of his actions were anti-American I
don't know if his actions or anything do
you think he could have anticipated the
the negative consequences of his action
should we judge him by the consequences
or the ideals
of the intent of his actions I think we
all get to judge him by base our own
beliefs but I believe what he did was
wrong can you still man the case that
he's actually
a good person and good for this country
for the United States of America
as a flag bearer for the the
whistleblowers the the check on the
power of government
yeah I mean I'm not a big government
type guy uh you know so uh you know even
that sounds weird coming from a
government guy for so many years
um but there's rules in place for a
reason I mean he put you know some of
our best capabilities
um he made them publicly available
um they really kind of set us back in
the and this isn't my world at all but
the offensive side of cyber security
right so he revealed stuff that he
didn't need to reveal in order to make
the point correct the so so you if you
can imagine a world where he leaked
stuff that revealed the mass
surveillance efforts
and not reveal other stuff
is the mass surveillance I mean that's
the thing that uh of course there's in
the interpretation of that there's
fear-mongering but at the core that was
a real shock to people that
um it's possible for government to
collect data at scale
it's surprising to me that people are
that shocked by it
well there's conspiracies and then
there's like actual uh evidence that
that is happening I mean it's it's a
real there's a lot of reality that
people ignore but when it hits you in
the face you realize holy shit we're
living in a new world this is this is
the new reality and we have to deal with
that reality just like you work in cyber
security I think it really hasn't hit
most people
how fucked we all are in terms of cyber
security okay let me rephrase that how
many dangers there are in the digital
world how much under attack we all are
and how more uh intensity attacks are
getting and how difficult the defense is
and how important it is and how much we
should value it and all the different
things we should do at the small and
large scale to defend like most people
really haven't woken up they think about
privacy from tech companies they don't
think about attacks cyber attacks people
don't think they're a Target and it's it
that message definitely have to get out
there I mean you know if you have a
voice you're a Target if of the place
you work you might be a Target you know
your husband might work at some place
you know and because now people are
working from home so they're going to
Target you know Target you to get access
to to his Network in order to get in
when that same way the idea that the US
government or any government could be
doing Mass surveillance on its citizens
is um is one that was a wake-up call
because you could imagine the ways in
which that could um
be a uh like you could abuse the power
of that to control a citizenry for
political reasons and purposes
absolutely you know you could abuse it I
I think during in the part of the
Snowden League saw the two NSA guys were
uh moderating like their girlfriends and
there's rules in place for that those
people should be punished and for
abusing that but how else are we going
to hear about you know terrorists that
are in the country talking about
birthday cakes
uh and you know that was a case where
that that was the trip word that that
you know we're gonna go and bomb New
York City's Subway yeah it's complicated
but it just feels like there should be
some balance of transparency there
should be a check in that power
because like you you know in the name of
the war on terror
you can sort of uh sacrifice it there is
a trade-off between security and freedom
uh but it just feels like there's a
giant slippery slope on the sacrificing
of freedom in the name of security it's
I hear you and and you know we we live
in a world where well I live in a world
where I had to tell you exactly how when
I arrested someone I had to write a
50-page document of how I arrested you
uh and all the probable cause I have
against you and all that well you know
bad guys are reading that they're
reading how I caught you and they're
changing the way they're doing things
they're changing their MO
um you know they're doing it to be more
secure if you know we tell people how
we're monitoring you know how what we're
surveilling we're going to lose that I
mean the the terrorists are just going
to go a different way and I'm not trying
to again I'm not big government I'm not
trying to say that you know it's cool
that that we're monitoring the US
government's monitoring everything um
you know big text Monitor and everything
they're just monetizing it versus uh
possibly using it against you but there
is a balance and those 50 pages just
they have a lot of value
if they make your job harder
but they prevent you from abusing the
power of the job yeah there's a balance
yeah that's a tricky balance
so the chat logs in Iceland
give you evidence of the heroin and all
the the large-scale Czar level drug
trading what else did it give you in
terms of the how to catch I gave us
infrastructure so the onion name was
actually running on a server in France
so if you like and it only commuted
through a back Channel a VPN to connect
to the Iceland server
um there was a
Bitcoin like kind of Vault server there
was also in Iceland and I think that was
so that the admins couldn't get into the
Bitcoins the other admins that were
hired