#6: Jack Rhysider - Darknet Diaries, hackers, and cybercriminals

Welcome to another episode of BrainBust. Today we've got Jack Reesider, the pseudonymous host of Darknet Diaries, where he explores the world of hackers, cybercriminals, and spies. It's the number 4 tech podcast in the world and one of my favorite shows out there. I hope you enjoy our conversation about anonymity, crime, and the internet. All right, cool. So I've been listening to the show for quite a while, uh, I guess, right, maybe 4 or 5, 6 months now. Um, so big fan. It's gotten me through some nice dog walks. Hell yeah.

Oh cool, I'm glad you like it.

Yeah, for sure, man. So, um, I guess the first, first question, um, why go the pseudonymous route? Uh, you're the second pseudonymous person I have on the podcast.

Um, oh man, yeah, the internet's in a scary place. There's, uh, crooks, thieves, you know, stalkers, every kind of thing. You don't want to You don't want to put— I mean, there's already like enough companies out there trying to get as much information as you can, such as marketing companies. They want to know everything about you, and I don't want to like just leave that out there in the open. And so, you know, even beyond the surface of people just having ill intent and doing stuff, um, yeah, there's all kinds of extra stuff. So I— it's not just, you know, the public figure, but it's all the other things in between, right? It's keeping my name out of databases and my information secure and stuff like that. So I will shop with cash if I can at stores so that they don't connect my profile to a credit card, which then they start building information on what kind of things I'm buying and send me coupons in the mail of what I might want to buy next and stuff. So it's just a battle. And I think in the '90s, we We might have wrecked the environment a little with oil spills and all kinds of bad problems, and it's taking us decades to get that back under control. I think currently we're doing a similar thing with privacy where we're just wrecking everyone's privacy, and it'll be the next generation that has to say, "What did we do? Let's get that back under control." I'm trying to fight the battle.

Understood. Yeah. I think about that with my little brother and sister, seeing like photos of them on the internet since before they could like be okay with that, you know. It's, uh, I mean, I'm not a father yet, but I know that must be a confusing, uh, choice for some people.

Yeah, that's a, that's another pet peeve of mine.

Yeah. Um, so I, I write a newsletter called Wellness Tech biweekly where I talk about, you know, wearables and that kind of stuff. Um, have you thought or seen any stuff when it comes to keeping wearable data secure and, and what, uh how that works.

Yeah, I think, uh, it's, it's a really difficult balance because a lot of these require you to turn on all this extra stuff. Well, it doesn't work unless you have GPS enabled on your phone or Bluetooth enabled and all this stuff. And, and, and like, it's, it's just too much. And but you're like, but I like the features, so I'm all fine, I'm okay with doing that. And now you've got like GPS all the time on your phone when I don't like that kind of stuff. So yeah, I do have— I do— it's not like, oh, I can— let's just go look for the best wearable. I have to like do that secondary search of like which one collects the least amount of data, and it's very difficult to cut through.

Yeah. Yeah. How did you start getting into this or getting into, you know, security? Have you always— has that always been your view?

No, I think just tech in general has been my place in life. I've gone to university and got a bachelor's degree in computer science and stuff like that. But I was, you know, an engineer at a company and they said, hey, we— or I was a technician at a company, an IT technician. And they're like, well, we have an engineering position open. And I was like, oh, sign me up, I'm there. And they're like, but it's security engineering. And I was like, oh, I don't know anything about that. But yeah, sign me up. I want to be an engineer. It's been my lifelong goal. So they said, okay, we think you can figure it out. So they put me in the role and yeah, that's when I had to figure out like what security is, but it really fit perfectly because, you know, having a degree, you kind of learn one, you take one class on every bit of, of every bit of technology out there, right? There's one class on coding in C, one class on coding assembly, one class on coding Java, and it just goes on and on, right? And so when it came to like learning about security, I was like, you kind of have to know a little bit about everything. I was like, I do know a little bit about everything. I don't know a lot about one thing, but I know a little about everything. So it just fit everywhere. I, it was like, wow, all the things I've worked on in my life just are making sense now where I need this little piece of information that I learned 10, 15 years ago to, uh, it makes sense now on why this computer is acting this way or something, right? So yeah, once I got that security engineering position, um, it was just— I fell in love with the space.

Got you, got you. And how'd you start Darknet Diaries? How'd you go down that path?

Well, I've always wanted to make something online, a website, a video series, I don't know. I just want to have that, like, itch to create and build. And there's a lot of opportunity on the internet. So I'm like, this, I need to be doing something. So I've always been like throwing out websites or building tools or putting stuff out there. And I had been blogging for like 7 years before making a podcast. And then, but I was really into podcasts and I was trying to like get people to make this particular podcast, you know, where we get into the, it's like a true crime cybercrime podcast. A podcast where we're going to listen to the whole story of like who the hacker was, what they did, how they got caught, what their prison time was, and then where they are today or something, you know, like this, this whole story. And that just didn't exist. And I was like, I really want to hear that. And, uh, I made one episode and was like, crap, I've got to make this, somebody else is going to make it. So, uh, the one was liked and, um, Yeah, I guess I made it for myself just because I wanted to hear it and yeah, it just took off.

So got you. So after listening to your show, I talked to friends and tried going on the dark web and I found some cool books. If you've heard of the author Venkatesh Rao, he was like big. I don't know why, but his books were all over the place from some library. It was a long time ago, but Um, what, what advice do you have for people who want to like kind of explore that side of the internet, stay safe and, um, stay all, all good?

Yeah, I mean, if you, if you go in on the dark web, you're, you're sort of anonymizing yourself. Um, and so you don't want to go on there and then de-anonymize yourself by like logging into Facebook and Twitter and all this kind of stuff, because that might be enough to identify you, like, oh, we know who this connection is because they're logged into here, and something like that, right? So if you want an anonymous version of yourself, you can go through Tor, which is the dark web, to achieve that. And you can even come out of Tor and go back to the clear web as kind of like, you look like you're coming from Tor anonymously and stuff like that, right? So yeah, I mean, it's, It's a tool that's used to anonymize yourself. And what can that be used for, right? Well, criminals will obviously like the anonymity, and there's lots of criminal behavior on there, but I mean, there's whistleblowers that use it in order to get their information out there in the world in an anonymous manner. And yeah, just people who may feel threatened or they're in danger internet is not so safe where they are. And so they can go through that in order to get that extra level of security and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a tool that can be used for all kinds of different things.

Got you. Got you. And so I've heard you mention a few different apps to be able to communicate with people, like I think Signal is called. Are there any that, that you recommend? Is that one of them?

Yeah, I mean, if you're texting someone, those messages I think can be sniffed, you know, over the network pretty easily. And so it's not the most secure thing to do, especially if, you know, I think carriers can see all that stuff as well, right? And so you don't want secure messages to be picked up en route. So what you can do is use an end-to-end communication tool. Such as Signal, which acts just like a text message app. It looks exactly the same. You can make phone calls, everything, except it's end-to-end encrypted. So the people at Signal, the carriers in between, the routers in between cannot see what's going on in your encrypted messages because only the receiver can decrypt it and nothing in between. So yeah, Signal's a great one. Wire is something I use, and there's some others.

Got you. And, um, I saw your tweet the other day, um, you know, what if I told you the metaverse is a time, not a place? I've been thinking about that kind of thing a lot lately. I feel like we're already in a metaverse. You and I are in one right now. There's multiple, there's billions, you know, of options. The Zoom metaverse, the Twitter metaverse, whatever. Um, but I, you know, I hadn't thought much about the time. Um, could you, could you elaborate on that a bit?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people seem to think that Facebook is making the metaverse and they're marketing it in a certain way and it's some sort of VR world, and I don't agree with that. I think the metaverse is like— the VR plays a minor role in the metaverse, similar to how websites play a minor role on the internet, right? There's all these protocols that are going on, um, such as text messaging, right? Like through Signal. That's not even a website, that's just sending messages between you and someone else, that's going over the internet, right? So there's tons of stuff that is happening online that's not a website. And so there's tons of stuff in the metaverse that's happening that's not VR. So what, um, what I was tweeting was like, you know, I think the metaverse is a, is a place where we can— where our most, uh, endeared and mem— you know, most important memories come from like digital experiences. Um, I fell in love with someone over a dating app. I spend a lot of entertainment, uh, I get a lot of entertainment through online video games and streaming shows. And I, um, go to work entirely online, right? Like all my work is done online. And so if I'm spending like all this time online, that's like in some digital world. and it's already like, I'm already plugged in and tuned into this digital world. So that, that's kind of what my tweet was trying to say is like, look, you're already doing the most important things of your life online. Uh, and I think that's what I would call the metaverse is just something that is just so meaningful to us and feels so real and it's so important to us yet it's still in this digital world. Um, yeah, so that's kind of what I was trying to get across.

Yeah, definitely understood. Um, I was listening to the Lex Fridman podcast with Mark Zuckerberg the other day.

Yeah, I'm kind of— I think that's where I got some of these thoughts from.

Yeah, exactly. I was, uh, I was having such weird thoughts after that. Um, yeah, Lex asked him, when do you think the majority of our important experiences will be in the metaverse? And Zuck kind of danced around the question. Um, and it's just interesting to think about, like, you know, I, I already I spend so much time online and all my writing, like that's meaningful time to me. You know, all these conversations, podcasts, that's meaningful time. And I think about friends that I've only met on Twitter or phone calls the same way I think about friends that are in my town. You know, it's wild. Like I don't know, it's kind of crazy.

Yeah. And I mean, what I'm trying to say here is like, if we step back and look at where we are digitally, we're already in some sort of metaverse kind of world. And you know, when we say metaverse, The term was coined from Neil— the book Snow Crash, I think it was Neal Stephenson that wrote that. It's similar to Ready Player One, where you can go into this digital world and do jobs, rob people, all these kind of things, have these adventures, go on these video games. That's kind of what the metaverse is in science fiction. I mean, if we just— that was 20, 30 years ago that he wrote that book. No, it was 40 years, more maybe, right? It was '70s, I think. So yeah, I mean, if we just look at what we're doing today with our computers, we're practically in the metaverse. It's practically here, and it's not some marketing term or something that's coming in the future. It's already here. Now, what is Web3 and how are things— changing into the crypto landscape and NFTs and VR, well, that's, I think, a totally different topic than people saying that the metaverse is some evil dystopian future. Like, dude, we're already in this.

Yeah, 100%. What are your thoughts on crypto in general? I guess that's a very broad question.

Sorry.

Yeah.

It's a broad question, but I mean, like, we can start with, I think our banks and stocks are pretty much all digital now, right? When you buy a stock, you don't really pay with cash and get a stock certificate in your hand. You use some sort of digital money to go to a website, click a few buttons, and then it says, "Okay, you have this many stocks in this company." And you just kind of really all— your name is just in a database somewhere. Now, it's regulated by the SEC and oversight and all this kind of stuff, but not much difference is in your bank. When you open a bank account and you're You work somewhere, a check gets deposited. It's all digital. It's not anything you really see anymore. If we're in such a deep digital world that all this stuff is happening digitally, then it makes sense to have a digital money that's more digital-friendly, that's not owned by some central authority. Yeah, it's just more open. I think that's where I am with crypto. I think it's exciting to see the— I mean, I think that's the hardest part of Web3, is to be able to wrestle the money, you know, control out of the corporate elite's hands and shady government's hands and say, yeah, it's now owned by the people. We own the money. And if we can get that done, which has been done, yeah, then I think sky's the limit on what the potentials are there.

Got you. Have you participated in any DAOs or any NFT projects of the sort?

Yeah, I mean, the first NFT I bought was a friend's project, right? Somebody who's benefited me so many times in my life that they're like, well, I've got this NFT, and I'm like, sign me up. I will be happy to support you in whatever project you're working on because you've greatly improved my life. And so that's happened a few times where different friends have launched projects, and of course I'm going to be there for them. So I mean, that's the first, like, easiest way to get into NFTs is when you're supporting a creator or a friend you like. And you want to, you know, be there for them. So yeah, I mean, that's how I got going in there. And then, you know, a couple other reasons to get into NFTs is to try to make some money and stuff. And so that's happened a few times where I bought something and tried to resell it for higher and it worked. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. I mean, I think the precursor to this is you could ask me, did you ever get involved in the WallStreetBets subreddit, you know, and get some stocks to the moon? Yes, I have. So far, I've made no money off that. So I've bought all these different crazy things that this subreddit's going crazy about. They're like, "Oh, you got to buy this one share." I'm like, "Okay, I'll give it a try." Yeah, it goes down. I have not had any success at all out of WallStreetBets. However, I've had great success in NFTs. So it's one of those weird, risky only, only put in what you can afford to lose kind of investment strategies. It's not something that I would recommend anyone until you've got some, some money to burn, I suppose.

Yeah, 100%.

It's more of a gamble. Both, both WallStreetBets and NFTs, I would say, is more of a gamble than an investment.

Yeah, I guess, uh, a question: does Jack Recider have a pseudonym as well?

Definitely. I've got lots of different Twitter accounts, Reddit accounts, you name it.

Yeah, I kind of had a feeling.

Nice.

Um, yeah, uh, I guess another question, uh, Russia. Um, you know, uh, you tweeted earlier, or was it yesterday? Oh, that— yeah, that's today. Um, yeah, most of the time when Russia, uh, goes for a cyber attack, they'll try to deny it, and now they just might not. Like, what is What are your thoughts on that? And is there anything to worry about, or is it not for the average person?

I mean, nations have hacked nations for many years, right? Decades. And they've never admitted to it. Like, OK, yeah, we're the ones that hacked you. They always hide. They never come out. And I always imagine, if there is such a thing as a cyber war, like a regular war, You would have a country saying, "Look, we're going to attack you digitally. If you don't do this thing, then we're going to fire our missile, our cyber missile at you," or whatever the case may be, and destroy your thing. Then whatever the terms aren't met, and then, "Okay, we warned you, we're going to bring down your internet." Another country doing that. I always just imagined if there was a cyber war, it would be, "Yes, we're the ones who did this, and this is the reason why we you know, bombed you digitally. And I, I just don't, I, I don't know if that's going to happen in this. I mean, we really haven't had a good war that has waged both, you know, kinetically and in the cyberspace, um, kind of in the last few decades where you would see that kind of thing. Um, and so here's a case where we do know that Russia is invading Ukraine, and, and I, I'm assuming they're coming out in the open and saying, yeah, those are our helicopters, those are our tanks, and we are attacking you for these reasons. Um, and so if they're, you know, gonna say that, that, yeah, we're— this is all of our stuff, Russia's— Russia's the one doing this and that's us, or whatever, you know, then I assume that if they're going to be doing some cyber attacks, why wouldn't they want to also take credit for that? You know what, that, that's a weird thing. Now, in the past, Russia's done things like knocked a Ukrainian airplane out of the sky and then took like no— like they didn't even like— and, and, you know, that was— I, I don't remember exactly how it was knocked out of the sky. I think it might have been attacked with kinetic weapons, but, uh, you know, they, they denied it. They're like, no, it must have been, you know, bad weather or something like that. We never even saw that plane in our, in our skies or whatever. Like, they, they just absolutely denied it. And so this is a case where I don't think they're denying that they're going to war here. So it's just something that I was thinking about, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. Back to love. Not to sound like Lex Fridman for a minute, but you said you fell in love on the internet. I've used dating apps myself, but I've never had to— I don't know, how did you start telling people, or people you were dating, about your work, breaking the anonymity? Is that, is that a difficult thing?

Yeah. Yeah. It is a weird thing, you know, to, to kind of let people in on your, on your world. I haven't really like been able to navigate that nicely yet. Cause even, even when I meet, you know, new people and stuff, I don't like to tell them what I do. It's weird.

Yeah. No, I mean, I must imagine, like, I already kind of feel weird sometimes saying like I create a podcast or I, you know, whatever. But, um, there's definitely another layer to it, uh, when, when it's pseudonymous. You gotta, you gotta be careful who you trust, I guess.

Yeah, it's tricky. I haven't— I'm not getting used to it yet.

Yeah, yeah. Your podcast has kind of blown up in the last few years, right?

Yeah, it's about, uh, 400,000 downloads per episode.

Wow. And, um, I feel like I've seen you post about this. What's the best way to tell the downloads?

I just go to the, um, hosting provider and they'll show you.

Got you.

Nice.

Um, yeah, yeah. Have you, have you ever, have you gone down like the survivalism or survivalist rabbit hole?

Yeah, like prepping and stuff? Yeah, yeah, sure, absolutely. It's important to, uh, have a plan and to be prepared for certain situations. I mean, right now we're in a pandemic situation, and at least in my town, the hospital's filled up. And if you get sick or hurt, chances are you— they might not be able to accept you. And whenever you're in a situation where the, um, uh, you know, help is not available, whether it's the police, the firefighters, or the medics, they just cannot help you when you're in a, you know, serious situation, then that I think is the definition of we're in a disaster. And so it's weird that we're becoming kind of complacent, and it doesn't feel like a disaster at times. It just feels like normal life. But, um, yeah, this is a disaster scenario. And so what do you do in that situation where you can't, um, rely on help? You gotta figure it out for yourself. And I like to be prepared for that.

Got you, got you. Um, do you have— what is it, a, um, What's the bag called? Like a pro bag? Yeah.

Oh yeah, I've got, I've got a few. I've got a few at different parts of the, uh, you know, one in the car, one in one at one side of the house, one that— once the other side depends on, you know, what happens, I'll be able to, uh, grab that and go and stuff.

Nice, nice.

All right, yeah, what if like the house collapses on one side and you're stuck in a room or something? You know, I've got like water stashed in every room.

Oh, that's fair. I have water stash in my car. Um, I feel like I have a dog, as you could probably see him jumping up. Um, uh, I feel like, uh, gotta figure out how to keep him safe too. That's a, that's a big one. I, um, yeah, from where it looks, or from how I imagine it, you would be in like a bat cave right now. Some cool—

I want to build a bunker. Yeah, I think that would be really the best, but Got you, got you. I'm not going to do it anytime soon, that's for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Are there any journalists or news stories that you— or news outlets rather— that you think are trustworthy right now? Or what do you like to read for facts?

Man, that's a hard question. This is really difficult. Even the ones who are the most trustworthy are falling on their face sometimes. And they're doing things or saying things that have links to articles that are just absolute garbage. And, you know, some of it is like, well, we need to make— we need to pay the bills. And so we've got ads on the side of our site. And yeah, those ads go to really bad places. And it's like, yeah, it's, it's, it's the This is, I think, the biggest problem probably that we're going to face, is cutting through the, uh, the false stuff and finding the truth. Um, if we can't agree on the truth, then we can't agree on the solution. And if we can't agree on the solution, we're not going to have things fixed. Our problems are just going to fester. So this is a big problem. This is something I can't figure out. Um, yeah, even if I say do your own research, you're gonna— you're still gonna come up with a different conclusion than I am on because of the way algorithms are presenting data to you, what terms you're looking for, all this kind of stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. So how do you, when you're talking to sources and people about hacks for the podcast, how do you make sure what you know is real?

Yeah. I mean, I try to adhere to like journalistic standards and stuff. Um, so I will, you know, I will ask about stories that I'm already familiar with, right? So I, I have a degree in computer, you know, engineering and stuff like this. So if they start telling me that they're doing this one thing and I'm like, well, that's not possible, then, you know, that's my first red flag. Um, so is this first of all in the realm of possibilities of, of where I understand the world? Second, because I mean, when you're, when you're covering a hacker story, if there's a news outlet that doesn't understand hacking at all, they're just going to be like, oh my gosh, you're like the smartest guy in the world, really? And when, and I can see right through that and say, you, you just downloaded a tool and hit go. Like, you're not even a hacker. Yeah, like, you're like, this is the most pathetic hack I've ever heard. And I'll say that to people. They're like, yeah, you're right, it was pretty easy and stupid that this was, you know, doable. And it's kind of fun to just, you know, make sure that that's how I understand it, is, is this stupid easy. Um, yeah, so I mean, that's kind of the first thing. And the next thing is I'm going to research any other articles, you know, news-related. Um, my favorite is like court cases, right? Because that's where the truth can try to come out the most, is, you know, because if they go to court and sort it out Um, you know, so any, any backing up evidence or corresponding evidence is good. But it's, it's not unheard of that I call up their family, friends, you know, mom, another person who knew them, uh, connecting with other co-workers and stuff like that and saying, uh, you know, this is a story I'm trying to corroborate. Do you think it happened this way, or can you tell me how it happened? And they give me some extra information. So yeah, I mean, I do what I can to really get to the truth of it. And the other thing is I'll listen to someone for 4 hours and say, no, I need you to tell me again because I just don't quite understand this part and stuff like that. And so, you know, when you really listen to someone for that long, you can get a lot more out of what the story is and what really happened versus their canned response of like, this is what I want you to hear kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I got scared out of hacking because I guess 10th grade, I was in a French class editing my teacher, editing on the teacher's laptop, working on a project. And I saw the gradebook, changed the grade, told two— it totally went unnoticed, got the A, but told two friends. And then, you know, a few weeks later, down to the principal's office and there were no major consequences, but it definitely scared me straight. Going down that path.

Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't get a major consequence. That's, um, uh, you know, some kids in college have been arrested for that thing.

Yeah, yeah. So maybe we might want to beep that out of the podcast, but yeah. Um, is there— I've been talking about this with another guy, Jack Reins, earlier. Um, just the idea of a fuck you money. Is that something you think about, or, or, uh, do you have a number, or Or does that— or fuck you, uh, followers or anything of the sort?

Yeah, I think, I think there is something about that where I think at the be— at the beginning is like having enough money to just kind of fix all the problems in your life, right? So enough money to make you not go hungry and have a roof over your head, get you health insurance, and you know, it solves all the money problems. I think it's kind of first stage, and that's That's sort of low. That's just like, I mean, it's not really low, but it's like $100,000 maybe. I mean, the number that I think Daniel Kahneman said, like 10 years ago was $70,000. Once you get to $70,000 in income a year, then getting anything more than that is just not that significant to you. It's, it doesn't change your quality of life as much because you've got everything solved that you need solved, like all your needs are are solved. So now it's just kind of fun after that. And it's kind of difficult to find fun sometimes. But anyway, I think that number has grown, you know, that was a 10-year-old quote. So it's got to be in the $100,000 now, $100,000, $120,000, maybe a year. At that point, all your money problems are solved. And so going from there to, well, now I have enough money to just do like I can spend on some stupid idea. And if it doesn't like pan out, then I don't really care at all. I don't know what that number is, but yeah, there is, there is, there is something there that you can have enough that it doesn't, it doesn't feel like adding more to it is significant.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I got to feed my dog. He is jumping all over, but yeah, I really appreciate your time, Jack. I appreciate your show. Uh, it's like I said, uh, yeah, it's, it's been great entertainment for me. Uh, a friend of mine, um, he, he's like, you know, hacker kind of, you know, full tattoo, dark kind of type. Um, uh, and he showed it to me, um, a little while ago, and, and he, uh, recently, um, relapsed on, on drugs and shit. And, um, you know, it's just, uh, I don't know, I don't have him in my life right now as much, but, uh It's always a nice reminder. So I appreciate, appreciate what you do, man.

That's tough. Yeah, I'm— well, I'm glad you like the show.

Yeah, for sure. All right, thanks again.

All right, take care. Bye.