Gadgetory

in the will of computer security in hacking there are many controversial figures hector Montsegur is among the most controversial as a member of anonymous and LulzSec he participated in some of the world's most infamous hacks however when he was identified by the FBI they threatened to send his adopted daughters to Child Protective Services he turned informant ultimately helped to prevent some 300 hacks against American targets however he still participated in some hacks against international ones his actions on both sides of the law have earned in plenty of enemies but also given him quite a story to tell he's remained silent since the sentencing in May of this year but came out to speak with Charlie Rose in an interview now we're gonna take the opportunity to speak with him a little bit more detail about some of those hacking exploits Hector thank you for joining me this morning oh thank you can you tell me a little bit how you got started what was your what was your first computer what kind of system buzzing well the first computer I ever touched was like an old Apple forgot exactly what version was a little square box we're talking about like early 90s Mac classic maybe yeah like something like that and you know I would have just sit on in to play games and all and all of that I wish I have access to the internet yet but it was like my foray into computers and you know going to school and playing uh you know Carmen Sandiego or whatever you know yeah eventually in the mid 90s I had whole different lifestyle alright I was in the streets family world got a whole different situation going on and it was a point where my family specifically my aunt could afford to buy me a coke ruining a nice computer at the time it was a 195 so it was a machine with windows a 5 on it a Sony Vaio with like 133 megahertz 60 megabytes of RAM and like you know wind modem which was horrible I find out later because I couldn't use Linux for some things so basically after that that's where I really started to get into getting online and finding like easy ins and all that by accident I actually started by getting like online on a well like AOL came pre-installed with all those computers that came out the time so yeah every computer had like a wall pre-installed so it was like eh whoa 2.5 which some people might argue is one of the best versions of a well ever so you know I get online and I'm just whatever my family or what's a prison and I was like isolated by myself and like I felt alone you know everybody had access no nobody in my family were able to you know afford some internet for a while in that timeframe that I was online I was able to learn a couple of things you know there was like these wearer's channels these rooms we could just go and download stuff and you know what are the downloading spray right it's a maneuver like wow this is so cool I could download all this stuff on I don't even know what most of this most of this stuff is there like a download a copy of you know the Anarchist Cookbook right and inside there were some scenes some freaking and UNIX articles alongside the original Anarchist Cookbook one of the articles which was inside the file the zip file was um excuse me um they had a copy of the hackers manifesto by the mentor and you could say that's what really changed my life you know I've read this man's words you know and on top of the top of it it says like the hackers manifesto conscious of a hacker 1988 like you know today's firing arrested you know like it was or two days after that arrested and he goes into the story right of what a hacker is this is my world it's my worlds the beauty of the ball you know and it was really cool I want aspects of event really attracted you at that time well I mean looks I'm in New York City I'm in the Lower East Side we're talking about like I had to live near in the Lower East Side New York City in the 80s early to mid 90s I dealt with a lot of racism from cops I have some people but from cops so what I really liked about this manifesto was that he said well you know I don't judge you but what you you know like what you say what you look like right I don't just what you like and that right there won me over I'm like alright so I've pretty sure this guy's like a white dude in Texas or something and you know he's basically saying you know if your hacker doesn't matter if you're you know you're black you're you know Puerto Rican or whatever it is that you are you know we're all alike and there was one line that I loved in that and as always it always extolled me and that was uh yes I'm a criminal my crime is that of curiosity that was awesome and then you know he ended it with my crime is that of outsmarting you something you never forgive me for that boom that's it so now I'm here I am I'm 12 years old and I'm like wow what did I just read yes you know I saved it on my little desktop and I went back to the a wall and there was a time where I started hanging around and certain private rooms one of the rooms was like PR elites I'm talking about PR leap back in the nineties mid 90s and there was a guy in there that was like you know for you news and one learn how to hack here's going to this other private room then he asked one question that's still relevant to this day how do you bypass the firewall and that's that got me thinking so now here I am I'm totally new there 12 almost 13 I'm like how do i bypass the firewall and as I learned later on in life one of the best techniques of bypassing firewalls in reverse shell why try to infiltrate the the system directly and this is relevant this what I'm telling this little story why are you gonna try to attack a system directly when you have a system call you innocent had a similar to wargames you know when Joshua calls this guy back you know so and so what was your first hack then based on that my first hack was a kind of Ronnie a German where insight I don't know why this is in German where his site down I just got access to the FTP and I just did something stupid like hey I did like the whole you know I remember at that time what's a lot the mid-90s with a lot like hackers for girlies was out when they hack near of times and so when you go to New York Times comm you see like you know this entire message but written in meat speak right so it's pretty awesome so obviously did the same thing I didn't lead speak defacement and you know the German is like fixed it and pretty quickly