[00:00.000 --> 00:17.960]  The situation legally for us, because I was on federal supervised release, people not familiar with the federal prison system is back in 87 I think the federal government did away with it, at the behest of Congress, did away completely with parole.
[00:18.340 --> 00:19.780]  There is no parole in the federal system.
[00:19.920 --> 00:26.600]  You serve your entire time or all but a little bit less for good time behavior or whatever.
[00:26.840 --> 00:27.680]  What is it, like 10%?
[00:28.440 --> 00:29.300]  Something like that.
[00:29.300 --> 00:44.080]  They have some formula and rewards and whatever, but basically you serve your whole sentence and then on top of that you get a whole second parallel sentence or serial sentence on top of that of several years under federal supervised release, which is exactly the same as parole,
[00:44.680 --> 00:47.540]  but it's not parole.
[00:47.800 --> 00:49.140]  So it's basically like getting two sentences.
[00:50.180 --> 00:51.140]  It's a weird thing.
[00:51.260 --> 00:52.760]  They like to throw this extra stuff in there.
[00:52.860 --> 00:56.820]  So I had three years of federal supervised release after my release and how about you?
[00:56.820 --> 00:57.760]  I did as well.
[00:57.980 --> 01:14.600]  And the thing that was funny at Beyond HOPE is that while we were scheduled to be on the same panel, technically and legally, we're not allowed to associate with each other because one of the conditions of being on supervised release is that you're not supposed to associate with a known felon.
[01:14.600 --> 01:20.020]  And since we both were, we are actually on stage with a divider, a partition between us.
[01:20.880 --> 01:25.020]  We literally had a big piece of poster board between us so we couldn't see each other.
[01:25.200 --> 01:25.520]  Right.
[01:25.520 --> 01:46.780]  And what gave me the idea of doing that, I was talking with Emmanuel, I remember the, I forget who the head of Sinn Fein was in the UK, where they had this crazy law, UK broadcasting law that you can't air the words of anyone who was in the British terrorist organization Sinn Fein.
[01:46.780 --> 01:48.480]  So, so they said.
[01:48.700 --> 02:01.720]  So, they would have these lip-sinkers read the words that, they would have this head of Sinn Fein on TV in a news interview or something, but not his voice and have somebody just lip-sync the words.
[02:01.920 --> 02:04.540]  And I just thought it was so ludicrous, we'd have to do something similar to that.
[02:04.660 --> 02:08.860]  So we put this board up between us so we couldn't see each other and we couldn't talk to each other on the panel.
[02:09.160 --> 02:12.980]  But if I wanted to ask a question of Mark, like, oh, what about that?
[02:13.040 --> 02:13.660]  Did it happen to you, Mark?
[02:13.740 --> 02:19.520]  I would ask Emmanuel, like, well, I wonder if this ever happened to Mark, Emmanuel, has he told you?
[02:19.760 --> 02:20.380]  And then he would respond.
[02:20.380 --> 02:21.380]  You had to go through a moderator.
[02:21.520 --> 02:28.920]  It was like this ludicrous jumping-through-hoops kind of thing we had to go through just for rules that we couldn't talk to each other.
[02:30.480 --> 02:32.420]  So, it's a good thing we didn't talk to each other that day.
[02:32.660 --> 02:33.660]  Yeah, we would have been in big trouble.
[02:34.940 --> 02:42.160]  But this panel today is basically coming full circle nearly ten years later now.
[02:42.440 --> 02:44.460]  And, I mean, that's ancient history.
[02:45.020 --> 02:51.820]  And we thought it would be really cool to revisit the original panel now that we are allowed to associate with each other.
[02:53.600 --> 02:58.040]  Why don't we give a little summary about how we got into that predicament in the first place?
[02:58.260 --> 02:59.520]  Well, your case was first.
[02:59.720 --> 03:01.880]  Yeah, okay, so I guess I'll begin in the beginning.
[03:01.880 --> 03:09.700]  And I should say, ironically, I basically helped take Mark to prison.
[03:10.040 --> 03:10.520]  Yeah.
[03:10.740 --> 03:11.860]  In a bizarre way.
[03:11.940 --> 03:13.060]  We'll get into that part of it.
[03:13.380 --> 03:13.900]  Yes.
[03:14.160 --> 03:15.200]  How did you get into your jam?
[03:16.440 --> 03:22.620]  Well, I was involved with a couple of hacker groups back in the 80s.
[03:23.420 --> 03:25.900]  Legion of Doom and Masters of Deception.
[03:27.440 --> 03:33.320]  To make a long story short, we were extremely proficient at getting access to just about anything.
[03:34.080 --> 03:42.180]  We got into a lot of phone companies throughout the country, telephone switches and so on.
[03:42.460 --> 03:45.860]  We were in a lot of packet data networks, a lot of X.25 stuff.
[03:45.860 --> 03:49.620]  This is before, really before anyone was even bothering with Internet.
[03:49.940 --> 03:51.300]  There was no World Wide Web.
[03:51.500 --> 03:52.140]  There was none of that.
[03:53.220 --> 03:54.960]  It was a much more simpler time.
[03:55.160 --> 03:56.540]  Everything was pretty much on dial-up.
[03:59.660 --> 04:16.280]  And to make a long story short again, we ultimately got into enough trouble with the government that we had become very high profile up until the late 80s, early 90s.
[04:17.020 --> 04:20.300]  A number of us, myself included, were doing a lot of interviews.
[04:21.520 --> 04:24.160]  Our personal identity was pretty much known at that point.
[04:25.060 --> 04:31.080]  So, I mean, really, if the government wanted to catch us in the act of doing something, it was certainly possible for them to do so.
[04:31.660 --> 04:34.280]  And I guess they really seized upon the opportunity.
[04:34.280 --> 04:51.820]  In 1990 and 91, several of us had been raided by both the Secret Service and the FBI for charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, computer trespass, and things of that nature.
[04:52.600 --> 05:05.200]  While I myself personally was not implicated in any major way in the indictment itself, I only had maybe two or three counts against me while there were others in the indictment that maybe had 20 or more counts.
[05:05.940 --> 05:11.720]  I was really one of the more higher profile people that was indicted by the government.
[05:12.140 --> 05:26.680]  And so the government seized upon the opportunity to use that to their own advantage to get a lot of publicity as far as what they considered to be proficiency in tracking down and prosecuting hackers.
[05:27.420 --> 05:37.240]  Unfortunately for them, I think it really backfired because the media really didn't identify with their point of view.
[05:37.520 --> 05:46.540]  In fact, I had found out from a number of media people that I was very friendly with at the time, because I had done so many interviews on a regular basis.
[05:47.340 --> 05:54.220]  And in fact, media people called me from my own indictment and told me it was going on.
[05:54.380 --> 05:57.280]  And the federal government didn't bother telling me that it had happened.
[05:57.280 --> 06:03.380]  So I actually showed up at my own indictment at Center Street here in the city where the federal buildings are.
[06:03.540 --> 06:04.640]  And that's really unusual.
[06:04.760 --> 06:05.380]  That doesn't happen.
[06:05.600 --> 06:06.440]  It usually doesn't happen.
[06:06.580 --> 06:13.660]  I was tipped off by my own media friends to go to my own indictment and was not allowed to go in because I didn't have a press credential.
[06:16.460 --> 06:19.400]  That was the first funny thing of that day.
[06:19.520 --> 06:23.180]  The second funny thing of that day was I figured, well, hey, you know what?
[06:23.480 --> 06:24.840]  I just got indicted.
[06:24.840 --> 06:26.940]  I'm not allowed to go into my own indictment.
[06:27.200 --> 06:30.020]  I better get a jump start on things and get an attorney.
[06:30.020 --> 06:41.040]  So I called Legal Aid and I told them that I'm being indicted and I'm going to need a legal representation.
[06:41.620 --> 06:44.380]  And they told me, how do you know you're being indicted, sir?
[06:44.760 --> 06:50.500]  And I said, well, right across the street right now at 40 Center Street, there's a big show going on.
[06:51.020 --> 06:53.120]  And I'm being indicted, trust me.
[06:53.180 --> 06:54.780]  You can go over there and check for yourselves.
[06:55.700 --> 07:00.860]  So that was a really funny demonstration of the bureaucracy at work at that time.
[07:01.580 --> 07:03.400]  A foreshadow of things to come.
[07:03.500 --> 07:04.440]  Definitely, yeah.
[07:06.680 --> 07:20.940]  But the thing that was really scary at that time, prior to the indictment, actually, as far as the search and seizures, which oftentimes happen a year or more before you can actually ever be charged.
[07:20.940 --> 07:39.620]  I mean, to me, it's very backwards to get a warrant, go into someone's home expecting to find something, basically confiscate all their personal property, then review it after the fact, and then craft an indictment and indict you a year later after you've had a year's time to look over all the evidence.
[07:40.220 --> 07:58.160]  I would tend to think that most people have something that the government would find unpleasant in their apartment right now if the government was allowed to break in, take all their things, look over it with a fine-tooth comb for a year's time, and then come back a year later and decide what they can indict you with.
[07:58.640 --> 08:02.900]  I would tend to think a lot of people would probably fall under the auspices of the law.
[08:03.440 --> 08:06.260]  And it may seem like, oh, that's a phishing expedition.
[08:06.660 --> 08:07.940]  They can't do that.
[08:08.320 --> 08:13.060]  Well, it depends how the wording is crafted on the search warrant.
[08:13.380 --> 08:19.520]  And anything they happen to see pursuant to a legitimate search, they can also use.
[08:19.700 --> 08:30.880]  So the legal, I think, standard is if you're looking for a stolen automobile and you just put that...
[08:30.880 --> 08:33.680]  Yeah, the search warrant has to say specifically what you're looking for.
[08:34.360 --> 08:40.760]  But if they're looking for a stolen car, for instance, they can't look in your refrigerator or look in your filing cabinet because the car couldn't be in there.
[08:40.880 --> 08:48.060]  So they always try to, always, without exception, I think, in a search warrant, say that they're all looking for things that are really small.
[08:48.240 --> 08:49.540]  Like it could be a document or something.
[08:49.700 --> 08:54.020]  So that way they can peer into every nook and cranny and then they'll find stuff and they'll use that.
[08:54.160 --> 09:02.300]  And they would tend to use a lot of wording in the warrants that would allow them to be rather generic.
[09:02.920 --> 09:08.400]  Like including but not limited to is a terminology that they love to use.
[09:08.720 --> 09:17.320]  It's like we're expecting to find computer equipment including but not limited to CDs, tapes, and so on and so forth.
[09:17.980 --> 09:26.960]  There is also a general paranoia amongst the Secret Service and FBI in the late 80s and early 90s that a lot of you may not have been familiar with.
[09:28.000 --> 09:46.820]  And I think it really stems from the fact that a lot of the agents that were assigned to these technology cases really didn't have any technology training or background and were sort of just thrust into it because people were, you know, calling for a crackdown on computer crime.
[09:46.820 --> 09:52.120]  And it was really being done by agents with a more traditional law enforcement training.
[09:52.420 --> 09:57.060]  So they would really arrive on the scene not really understanding even what a computer was.
[09:57.540 --> 10:00.800]  And, you know, being really paranoid and asking you questions.
[10:00.800 --> 10:01.340]  What's this?
[10:01.440 --> 10:01.820]  What's that?
[10:01.900 --> 10:02.240]  What's this?
[10:02.320 --> 10:02.780]  What's that?
[10:03.160 --> 10:06.320]  And, you know, not believing the answer that you would give.
[10:06.460 --> 10:07.160]  Like, what's that?
[10:07.200 --> 10:09.000]  Oh, it's my telephone answering machine.
[10:09.180 --> 10:09.980]  What does it do?
[10:10.260 --> 10:13.100]  You know, they were extremely paranoid that way.
[10:14.200 --> 10:18.640]  And I think you have some interesting, funny anecdotes about that.
[10:18.960 --> 10:21.260]  About them accusing you of things that were in your house.
[10:21.420 --> 10:21.720]  Oh, yeah.
[10:22.480 --> 10:24.600]  Well, I'll get into that a little bit more of my case.
[10:24.740 --> 10:29.280]  But they would not only... it's not that they... there is a lot of paranoia.
[10:29.880 --> 10:40.060]  But it's not that they would just maybe out of ignorance describe things that were found in your apartment as something that wasn't.
[10:40.060 --> 10:44.700]  Like, the answer machine could have been some... you know, they could say it was some illegal thing.
[10:44.800 --> 10:45.300]  That would be hard to do.
[10:45.420 --> 10:48.600]  But if it's something they don't know what it is, they're more likely to describe it.
[10:48.800 --> 10:55.880]  If it's due to their own technical ignorance, they might not describe it as what it is and describe it as something that would be particularly damaging.
[10:56.080 --> 10:57.340]  For instance, I had an EEPROM burner.
[10:58.360 --> 11:01.660]  Because I did electronics experimenting, building projects and so forth.
[11:01.660 --> 11:10.000]  And I also had some clients where I'd burn custom EEPROMs in their BIOS chips.
[11:10.200 --> 11:13.000]  So, in their motherboard's BIOS chips, it would boot up with their company's name on it.
[11:13.220 --> 11:15.240]  Which couldn't be erased off the hard drive.
[11:15.700 --> 11:20.780]  And they described this as a cellular clone chip adapter thingy.
[11:22.420 --> 11:31.020]  Which, it wasn't electrically or mechanically capable of programming the type of chips that were used in cell phones to store electronic serial numbers.
[11:31.340 --> 11:32.840]  But that's an example of...
[11:32.840 --> 11:41.820]  You know, a lot of times, I think, I wasn't sure whether it was just out of technical ignorance or they just intentionally described something as damaging when it wasn't.
[11:42.040 --> 11:47.100]  Well, it could also be the type of rushed training that a lot of these guys were getting.
[11:47.600 --> 11:55.720]  It's like, a lot of them were aware that cell phone cloning is, you know, a really big crime and costs millions of dollars every year.
[11:55.860 --> 11:58.920]  And it's been going on since, you know, since the very early 80s.
[11:58.920 --> 12:03.720]  So, in their training, they're going to be thinking, okay, how do people clone cell phones?
[12:03.900 --> 12:05.200]  With an EEPROM programmer.
[12:05.360 --> 12:06.420]  What did they find in Ed's house?
[12:06.600 --> 12:07.700]  An EEPROM programmer.
[12:07.820 --> 12:09.040]  He must have been cloning phones.
[12:09.520 --> 12:11.820]  Logically, this is how the law enforcement line works.
[12:12.320 --> 12:18.120]  So, it doesn't matter that the particular object in question might have a more wider purpose.
[12:18.120 --> 12:20.460]  And it's not only used to clone cell phones.
[12:20.700 --> 12:23.540]  This was the type of mentality that a lot of us encountered.
[12:24.340 --> 12:29.160]  And not only us as, you know, hackers, computer professionals, and so on.
[12:29.300 --> 12:36.040]  There are a number of people who got caught up in a lot of these searches and seizures that people may not remember.
[12:36.040 --> 12:42.280]  There was a famous case of Steve Jackson in Texas who was an adventure game writer.
[12:42.580 --> 12:44.500]  Guy basically wrote adventure games.
[12:45.700 --> 12:48.300]  Both on the computer and board games as well.
[12:48.300 --> 12:56.120]  And he had an employee who knew someone who was involved with computer hackers.
[12:56.420 --> 12:59.880]  And Steve Jackson games got raided by the secret service.
[13:00.180 --> 13:03.220]  And they basically trampled all over his rights.
[13:03.240 --> 13:07.660]  They seized all his office computers and office equipment.
[13:07.900 --> 13:10.440]  And really threatened the livelihood of his business.
[13:10.700 --> 13:12.620]  Which, last I checked, was illegal.
[13:13.160 --> 13:16.160]  So, there was actually... he actually won that case.
[13:16.160 --> 13:22.880]  It was one of the few cases from that time period that was actually won.
[13:23.160 --> 13:26.820]  And EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, had a lot to do with that.
[13:31.860 --> 13:46.500]  And if I recall, the federal judge that heard that case just really ripped into the secret service for their gross mishandling, gross illegal mishandling of that case.
[13:46.500 --> 13:51.260]  It was a rare moment, but we'll take it as a victory.
[13:51.920 --> 13:53.340]  We'll take it where we can find them.
[13:56.580 --> 14:04.860]  And there was something I was going to say about the finding of evidence that's not necessarily what it is.
[14:05.280 --> 14:11.100]  There are examples in your case, maybe things were described as something they really aren't.
[14:11.100 --> 14:12.900]  But what do you do about that?
[14:13.060 --> 14:16.580]  I mean, the only thing you can do is say, no, it's not that.
[14:18.020 --> 14:19.620]  And they'll say, yes, it is.
[14:19.620 --> 14:24.560]  And you have to basically prove all this stuff as false.
[14:24.560 --> 14:26.320]  And it's really hard to do.
[14:26.460 --> 14:29.960]  Because they come up with this stuff sometimes at the last minute or whatever.
[14:30.260 --> 14:48.120]  And what are you supposed to be prepared with a room full of expert witnesses on every particular topic that you could use to combat the credibility of their witnesses who would say, yes, it was something that could be used for this, when it couldn't.
[14:48.480 --> 15:01.840]  It's a bizarre world where it's kind of like Alice in Wonderland, where you have these false statements made that the general public and the judge and jury aren't going to understand that this is not something that they say it is.
[15:01.840 --> 15:03.760]  And all you can say is, no, it isn't.
[15:03.840 --> 15:04.860]  And who are they going to believe?
[15:05.140 --> 15:08.640]  Well, it's sort of like the queen in Through the Looking Glass.
[15:09.280 --> 15:13.300]  The queen basically has the final say, and there's no arguing with the queen.
[15:14.460 --> 15:21.520]  But the problem is that they tend to simply take anything and everything that looks electronic.
[15:21.840 --> 15:27.540]  Because they don't want to risk leaving anything behind and find out that they lost their case because they didn't take something.
[15:27.540 --> 15:32.120]  So anything that's battery powered or plugged into the wall, at least in my case, was taken.
[15:33.420 --> 15:49.900]  Ironically, the funny thing was probably about maybe, I'd say about a year after I was released from prison, within a year's time, I was contacted to come and pick up any and all property that they still had, that they had seized.
[15:50.140 --> 15:52.100]  And they said it was in the evidence warehouse.
[15:52.260 --> 15:55.120]  And if I didn't come and pick it up, they were going to throw it away.
[15:55.680 --> 16:03.340]  And so I'm thinking, wow, all my property was so threatening to national security that they're going to throw it in the garbage, if I don't come and pick it up within the next day.
[16:04.160 --> 16:09.880]  So that was kind of, that was a real reality check for me, as far as like, you know, what a farce the whole thing was.
[16:10.540 --> 16:16.360]  It's like, you know, things are relevant in the moment, as long as, you know, the paranoia factor is running high.
[16:16.360 --> 16:24.500]  As soon as they realized that what they took really didn't amount to anything, and it was really just, you know, they were preparing themselves for a show trial, really.
[16:24.760 --> 16:29.540]  It was just going to be a whole big song and dance for them to drum up a lot of publicity.
[16:30.100 --> 16:45.820]  As some people may be familiar, what ended up ultimately happening is even after I prepared for trial for about a year, one by one, everyone that I was involved with decided to plea bargain.
[16:47.220 --> 16:54.800]  The problem with that is that at the point where you're the only one left, there's not too many ways to maneuver legally.
[16:55.380 --> 17:05.440]  And, you know, despite the fact that I had three extremely competent attorneys, I have no complaints about that, who actually, the EFF helped me to get.
[17:05.640 --> 17:12.560]  The EFF provided a lot of assistance all throughout my legal problems, which I'm grateful for to this day.
[17:13.800 --> 17:17.840]  Ultimately, though, I did throw in the towel and plea bargain.
[17:17.840 --> 17:30.960]  And the only detrimental thing in that is that it's actually held against you that you decided to try to go to trial, instead of admitting guilt right at the onset.
[17:32.660 --> 17:36.800]  And there's like a serious problem with that, at least, you know, in my book.
[17:37.360 --> 17:46.160]  It's like if you want to be given the chance to prove that, you know, you didn't do what they're saying you did, you should have that chance, and it shouldn't be counted against you in any way.
[17:46.400 --> 17:47.940]  But, unfortunately, it was.
[17:48.240 --> 17:57.980]  So I did receive one of the harsher sentences of a year and a day, 600 hours community service, and three years supervised release.
[17:58.540 --> 18:12.400]  And it's not a sour grapes kind of thing, but it's ironic that a lot of people in these kinds of cases were there several co-defendants where some co-defendants may be more culpable than others.
[18:13.160 --> 18:21.600]  They happen to snitch or call whatever you want, roll over on their friends, former friends, whatever.
[18:22.120 --> 18:30.980]  Their sentences may end up being significantly less than their friends, even though they were more culpable in any actions.
[18:31.040 --> 18:32.160]  Did you run into that situation?
[18:33.360 --> 18:34.620]  Yeah, actually, yeah.
[18:34.860 --> 18:40.540]  As I said before, a lot of the other people that were in the indictment had a lot more charges against them than I did.
[18:42.220 --> 18:48.420]  Really, the feds focused on me more because I was much more of a high-profile character.
[18:49.880 --> 18:52.920]  People really knew me from doing interviews.
[18:52.920 --> 19:01.160]  I had appeared in lots of newspapers and magazines and television and radio and every single form of media you can imagine.
[19:01.160 --> 19:03.900]  And bearing in mind, this is all before the web.
[19:04.120 --> 19:06.400]  So we're talking like very traditional media.
[19:07.200 --> 19:16.400]  So, you know, Mom and Pop was familiar with seeing me on TV from time to time or, you know, in the New York Times or the Washington Post.
[19:16.700 --> 19:24.480]  So it was a really high-profile opportunity for the federal government to pursue and convict me.
[19:25.580 --> 19:34.720]  Fortunately for me, it worked against them because, as I was saying, the media really sided with me because they didn't really see where the threat was.
[19:35.020 --> 19:42.640]  They were aware, obviously, as everyone was, that, yes, I was breaking into computers, which by the letter of the law was, in fact, illegal.
[19:42.640 --> 19:54.120]  I mean, anyone can argue, when we were kids and we first started doing this, which might be before a lot of you in the audience can know about, it was not always illegal.
[19:54.160 --> 20:00.420]  It was not always illegal to get access to computers and networks back in the early to mid-'80s.
[20:00.420 --> 20:07.320]  At some point, I think it was around 1986, it became illegal, but it was never really tested, it wasn't really enforced.
[20:07.780 --> 20:13.240]  So we were teenagers, we just kind of, like, kept doing what we were doing, and there was really no ramifications for it.
[20:13.900 --> 20:29.540]  By the time the 90s came and there were a lot of slip-ups, there were a lot of more malicious people doing things that started getting notoriety, I think this is really where there was the turn by the government wanting law enforcement to take action.
[20:29.540 --> 20:32.140]  And that's when things really started becoming ugly.
[20:33.640 --> 20:38.320]  But fortunately, I was able to use the publicity in my favor.
[20:38.920 --> 20:42.820]  It's always helped me in obtaining gainful employment.
[20:43.260 --> 20:49.100]  I've been doing work in the computer security sector for many years now.
[20:50.200 --> 20:55.400]  I've been doing system administration, security consulting, lots of things of that nature.
[20:55.600 --> 20:56.480]  A lot of traveling.
[20:58.300 --> 21:06.640]  I've been earning a very decent and honest living using, ironically, the same skills that I used to use to break into computers when I was a kid.
[21:07.420 --> 21:09.340]  These skills are in high demand.
[21:09.960 --> 21:21.000]  If you do possess these skills, and you do have a business mentality, and you know how to approach like-minded people, you can turn it into an honest living.
[21:22.420 --> 21:32.960]  So, you know, if you're a young hacker type in the audience, and you're thinking, you know, one day you are going to want to do something professional.
[21:33.140 --> 21:34.460]  You might not be considering it now.
[21:34.840 --> 21:39.440]  But there's no better thing to do than to earn money legally for the things that you're good at.
[21:39.440 --> 21:51.540]  And so, I mean, I would personally recommend that if you really are good in getting access to systems, don't be stupid and, you know, don't do things out of hand.
[21:51.540 --> 21:55.500]  Don't do things like denial of service attacks and things like that.
[21:55.600 --> 22:00.200]  Just because you can, or just because you want to, or just because you want to be vengeful.
[22:00.520 --> 22:02.960]  Because, ultimately, it doesn't really amount to anything.
[22:03.280 --> 22:07.020]  If you want to prove something to somebody, don't prove that you can take down their network.
[22:07.480 --> 22:10.660]  But rather, prove that you can do something constructive with it.
[22:10.660 --> 22:14.500]  If you're concerned with breaking into someone's network, fine.
[22:14.660 --> 22:16.600]  I mean, all of us did that when we were kids.
[22:16.780 --> 22:19.120]  But we always did something constructive with it.
[22:19.300 --> 22:22.140]  It wasn't just necessarily that we could break in.
[22:22.360 --> 22:25.460]  The thing that was most important is what we did once we were inside.
[22:31.740 --> 22:34.860]  Which, in many cases, wasn't even malicious.
[22:35.140 --> 22:42.500]  It was, it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter whether the intent to, there's intent to damage data or whatever.
[22:42.500 --> 22:49.580]  And, in fact, it was, it was alleged in your indictment, I believe, that you destroyed a computer or destroyed a file.
[22:49.920 --> 22:56.860]  Yeah, it was actually, one of the, one of the things was Southwestern Bell alleged that it caused, I forgot, $40,000 worth of damage.
[22:57.080 --> 23:01.440]  And it was really the amount of money that they paid security consultants to come in and look over everything.
[23:01.980 --> 23:07.360]  Which is oftentimes what they do when they tally the dollar figure for what they consider to be damage.
[23:07.860 --> 23:09.580]  It's not really damage to anything.
[23:09.580 --> 23:14.200]  It's what it cost them to try to get you out of their system.
[23:14.700 --> 23:18.740]  So, I mean, that's the most arguable thing that your attorney can do.
[23:19.320 --> 23:25.260]  Or, I'm sorry, it's the biggest argument that your attorney can make, should you get into legal trouble.
[23:26.980 --> 23:31.860]  There was actually a very famous case that happened back in the early 90s.
[23:31.860 --> 23:38.200]  Craig Neidorf, who was a publisher of Phrack, an online hacker magazine.
[23:38.500 --> 23:43.060]  He was passed a document that somebody downloaded off an internal phone company system.
[23:43.080 --> 23:49.020]  A very boring and bureaucratic document that involved the enhanced 911 service.
[23:49.540 --> 23:53.540]  It didn't really have any technical value to it at all.
[23:53.540 --> 24:05.860]  But since it had to do with the emergency phone system, the government seized upon this and tried to prosecute Craig and allege that he had caused $80,000 worth of damage.
[24:05.860 --> 24:28.820]  Which was, I think, if I remember correctly, was BellSouth's tally on the amount of money it took to write the document, hire the people to write the document, the documentation system that was used to write the document, and all these things that had absolutely nothing to do with Craig or anything else.
[24:28.820 --> 24:37.280]  And it dragged on for a long time, this particular case, but ultimately it was dismissed because it was just completely stupid.
[24:37.800 --> 24:43.500]  And because it turned out that that document was readily available for sale by BellSouth for a nominal fee.
[24:44.580 --> 24:46.580]  Yeah, well, for like, I think, $12.
[24:46.860 --> 24:47.420]  Yeah, like...
[24:47.420 --> 24:48.800]  Something crazy like that.
[24:49.120 --> 24:51.780]  For about what it would cost to have it FedExed to, you know, it just...
[24:51.780 --> 24:52.220]  Yeah.
[24:52.380 --> 24:57.960]  So, you know, it just goes to show that this stuff can be wildly blown out of proportion and often is...
[24:58.620 --> 24:59.860]  Sometimes out of ignorance.
[25:00.640 --> 25:01.900]  Sometimes out of malice.
[25:02.240 --> 25:03.320]  Sometimes out of just...
[25:03.320 --> 25:04.400]  They just want to win a case.
[25:04.720 --> 25:08.400]  It's not so much about the justice aspect.
[25:09.580 --> 25:10.060]  I've...
[25:10.060 --> 25:13.060]  One of the hardest things for me to learn going through this...
[25:13.060 --> 25:15.120]  My experience was that...
[25:15.920 --> 25:20.180]  Accepting the fact that, you know, the judicial system isn't necessarily about justice.
[25:20.320 --> 25:21.260]  It's about winning the case.
[25:22.720 --> 25:23.160]  Um...
[25:23.640 --> 25:24.080]  And...
[25:24.080 --> 25:24.420]  A lot...
[25:24.420 --> 25:24.960]  The things...
[25:24.960 --> 25:26.080]  The ways we used to...
[25:26.080 --> 25:27.140]  We are used to thinking.
[25:27.360 --> 25:28.740]  Where logic...
[25:28.740 --> 25:29.840]  Common sense...
[25:30.740 --> 25:31.180]  Fairness...
[25:31.180 --> 25:31.400]  Um...
[25:32.060 --> 25:32.500]  Justice...
[25:32.500 --> 25:35.560]  What are these things that are ideals that we tend to think along those lines?
[25:36.940 --> 25:38.520]  Not only don't they really apply...
[25:38.520 --> 25:42.360]  They're not even part of the equation in many cases when it comes to these cases.
[25:42.520 --> 25:43.100]  Because it's...
[25:43.100 --> 25:44.720]  The government wants to win the case.
[25:44.720 --> 25:48.760]  And they often will just say or do what they must to do that to win.
[25:49.040 --> 25:49.940]  And, uh...
[25:49.940 --> 25:51.220]  It's an adversarial system.
[25:51.380 --> 25:53.440]  And it's probably one of the better legal systems in the world.
[25:53.600 --> 25:55.880]  But, you know, it's an adversarial system.
[25:56.040 --> 25:57.800]  And each side will do what it has to to win.
[25:58.280 --> 26:04.400]  And at that time, also, your damages, if they were driven up, correlated directly to the federal sentencing guidelines.
[26:04.540 --> 26:04.640]  Yeah.
[26:04.640 --> 26:06.060]  How much time you served.
[26:06.220 --> 26:08.040]  Kevin had the same thing happen to him.
[26:08.600 --> 26:09.080]  Um...
[26:09.080 --> 26:15.800]  Even though he never distributed the source code that he obtained once he had got access to Motorola Sun and all these other companies.
[26:16.820 --> 26:17.300]  Um...
[26:17.300 --> 26:25.200]  When they came to assess damages, they determined that the damages were all of the R&D costs that were involved in creating this source code.
[26:25.260 --> 26:27.220]  We're talking millions and millions of dollars.
[26:27.760 --> 26:29.800]  And that is why he served such a long time.
[26:29.960 --> 26:33.560]  Because with the federal sentencing guidelines at that time, it was based on the damage amount.
[26:33.720 --> 26:34.460]  They have a chart.
[26:34.860 --> 26:35.120]  Uh...
[26:35.120 --> 26:36.440]  It's really worth reading sometime.
[26:36.440 --> 26:37.720]  The, uh...
[26:37.720 --> 26:37.960]  Uh...
[26:37.960 --> 26:39.380]  United States Sentencing Commission.
[26:39.960 --> 26:40.440]  Uh...
[26:40.440 --> 26:41.840]  Has a chart of guidelines.
[26:42.040 --> 26:42.900]  And they're not really guidelines.
[26:43.160 --> 26:44.640]  They're basically the rules.
[26:44.820 --> 26:48.800]  Judges were basically, uh...
[26:50.340 --> 26:50.400]  Uh...
[26:50.400 --> 26:52.140]  Emasculated from, you know...
[26:52.140 --> 26:55.080]  Their power was taken away from them in...
[26:55.080 --> 26:55.740]  Uh...
[26:55.740 --> 26:59.240]  In making any kind of decisions about the length of sentences.
[26:59.440 --> 27:00.140]  They're basically...
[27:00.140 --> 27:01.160]  You're scored...
[27:01.160 --> 27:05.100]  Your offense is scored by a base offense level, depending on the statute.
[27:05.960 --> 27:06.320]  Uh...
[27:06.320 --> 27:07.580]  And there's sometimes enhancements.
[27:07.740 --> 27:10.060]  If there's prior criminal history, that's enhanced a certain amount.
[27:10.300 --> 27:11.680]  On the other axis of the grid.
[27:12.120 --> 27:13.100]  And then there's these, uh...
[27:13.900 --> 27:15.260]  There's all these other enhancements.
[27:15.380 --> 27:16.900]  Like if there was more than minimal planning.
[27:17.180 --> 27:18.840]  Or if it used a specific skill.
[27:19.240 --> 27:21.060]  That was not commonly possessed.
[27:21.720 --> 27:21.980]  You know...
[27:21.980 --> 27:24.600]  All kinds of things they can throw in on top of that to enhance the score.
[27:24.600 --> 27:25.560]  But in...
[27:25.560 --> 27:26.300]  In fraud...
[27:26.300 --> 27:26.960]  In cases...
[27:26.960 --> 27:28.860]  Like all of ours, where...
[27:28.860 --> 27:30.640]  They can say that it was fraudulent.
[27:31.480 --> 27:33.600]  Even though it might be alleged that there was no...
[27:34.180 --> 27:34.760]  You could...
[27:34.760 --> 27:35.560]  Because it's really...
[27:35.560 --> 27:38.040]  Probably accurately argued in all of our cases that...
[27:38.040 --> 27:38.380]  Uh...
[27:38.380 --> 27:40.120]  None of us actually had committed fraud.
[27:41.080 --> 27:41.560]  Um...
[27:41.560 --> 27:42.160]  It doesn't matter.
[27:42.360 --> 27:45.220]  The statute is still considered to be fraud-related.
[27:45.460 --> 27:47.860]  So there's this other chart they have, which...
[27:54.100 --> 27:54.580]  Uh...
[27:54.580 --> 27:55.460]  By so many more months.
[27:55.820 --> 27:56.900]  And if you look at this grid...
[27:56.900 --> 27:57.800]  I don't have it here.
[27:58.000 --> 27:58.460]  But...
[27:58.460 --> 27:59.320]  There's this grid chart.
[27:59.580 --> 27:59.840]  And if...
[27:59.840 --> 28:01.260]  If it's millions of dollars...
[28:01.260 --> 28:03.200]  Your sentence is like off the charts.
[28:03.600 --> 28:05.340]  And they use this...
[28:05.340 --> 28:06.140]  They can't anymore.
[28:06.240 --> 28:07.720]  But they did use this...
[28:07.720 --> 28:09.900]  And I think probably all of our cases...
[28:09.900 --> 28:10.160]  Uh...
[28:10.160 --> 28:12.580]  Being able to throw these wild figures out...
[28:13.200 --> 28:13.680]  Um...
[28:13.680 --> 28:15.320]  To sort of compel you...
[28:15.320 --> 28:16.580]  To plead out...
[28:16.580 --> 28:16.980]  Um...
[28:16.980 --> 28:17.900]  Because the...
[28:17.900 --> 28:20.360]  Potential sentence you could get is just...
[28:20.360 --> 28:21.140]  Life ending.
[28:21.620 --> 28:22.980]  I mean, not literally, but...
[28:22.980 --> 28:23.680]  You know, figuratively.
[28:23.680 --> 28:25.280]  So, um...
[28:25.280 --> 28:27.460]  There was a really important case that came down...
[28:27.460 --> 28:28.860]  Before the Supreme Court...
[28:28.860 --> 28:29.800]  A couple of years ago.
[28:31.380 --> 28:31.900]  Um...
[28:31.900 --> 28:33.000]  Where, uh...
[28:33.000 --> 28:34.680]  It was ruled unconstitutional...
[28:35.580 --> 28:36.040]  Uh...
[28:36.040 --> 28:37.340]  Tactics that were used in...
[28:37.340 --> 28:38.440]  In Kevin's case.
[28:38.600 --> 28:39.180]  In Mark's case.
[28:39.260 --> 28:39.840]  In my case.
[28:40.720 --> 28:41.240]  Um...
[28:41.240 --> 28:43.500]  And what it merely amounts to is, uh...
[28:43.500 --> 28:44.680]  In the sentencing phase...
[28:45.320 --> 28:46.580]  Well, first of all, in...
[28:46.580 --> 28:47.000]  In...
[28:47.000 --> 28:47.400]  In the...
[28:47.400 --> 28:49.340]  In the litigation phase...
[28:49.340 --> 28:50.840]  The government can say...
[28:50.840 --> 28:51.460]  To your...
[28:52.540 --> 28:53.060]  Your...
[28:53.060 --> 28:53.640]  All right.
[28:53.740 --> 28:54.820]  We're gonna use this...
[28:54.820 --> 28:55.080]  This...
[28:55.080 --> 28:55.340]  This...
[28:55.340 --> 28:55.860]  And this...
[28:56.200 --> 28:57.980]  And if we win...
[28:57.980 --> 28:59.640]  You know, we can tell the judge...
[28:59.960 --> 29:01.520]  That we also think he did this...
[29:01.520 --> 29:01.720]  This...
[29:01.720 --> 29:01.920]  This...
[29:01.920 --> 29:02.780]  And this...
[29:03.380 --> 29:04.020]  And those...
[29:04.580 --> 29:04.900]  Those...
[29:04.900 --> 29:06.060]  Also, we think he did this...
[29:06.060 --> 29:06.240]  This...
[29:06.240 --> 29:06.380]  This...
[29:06.380 --> 29:06.660]  And this...
[29:07.060 --> 29:08.380]  Don't have to be proven...
[29:08.380 --> 29:09.860]  Or didn't have to be proven...
[29:09.860 --> 29:11.200]  Didn't, uh...
[29:11.200 --> 29:12.800]  Didn't have to be any kind of investigation...
[29:12.800 --> 29:14.140]  Go on how much...
[29:14.140 --> 29:14.520]  Fraud...
[29:14.520 --> 29:17.180]  Or how much dollar loss was actually involved.
[29:17.920 --> 29:35.120]  And at the sentencing stage, the judge can... or almost has to, by law, follow these guidelines to accept verbatim what the prosecution says, the government says, because there's no standard of evidence, there's no standard of proof at the sentencing phase like there is in a trial.
[29:35.120 --> 29:45.920]  So you have this weird, again, Alice in Wonderland situation where you either plead out or you take your chances in trial.
[29:46.340 --> 29:56.600]  And if they win just one count of anything, if it's a multiple count indictment, then at the sentencing phase, they can throw in all this other stuff you might not have even been charged with.
[29:57.140 --> 30:04.040]  And that stuff, without any real burden of proof in the government, can be used to enhance your sentence to many years.
[30:04.040 --> 30:10.920]  And that's used as a legal sledgehammer, I think, up until this was ruled unconstitutional a couple years ago by the Supreme Court.
[30:11.060 --> 30:12.480]  There's a case called Blakely v. Washington.
[30:15.840 --> 30:23.800]  And now it's really turned the system upside down, because now it's really changed how U.S.
[30:23.880 --> 30:26.940]  Attorneys can present this stuff to a judge.
[30:26.940 --> 30:45.360]  Basically, the law decided that the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial prohibits judges from enhancing criminal sentences based on facts other than those decided by the jury or confessed to by the defendant.
[30:45.640 --> 30:55.680]  That's a real important thing, because that was used as such a fictitious sledgehammer in so many cases, including ours, that they can't quite get away with that.
[30:55.680 --> 31:00.920]  There's still some things they can wiggle room they have on this, but it's the main reason that the federal government, I think, has a...
[31:00.920 --> 31:09.280]  I think it's a 97% conviction rate, because you either plead guilty or your life could be over effectively.
[31:09.700 --> 31:18.760]  And people make a deal just because, you know, a year or five years or 10 years or 20 years may sound better than the rest of your life in prison, which could happen.
[31:29.750 --> 31:33.190]  So did you find in either of your cases that that sort of scenario played out?
[31:33.830 --> 31:37.910]  Well, not your case, Darcy, but you're familiar with Kevin's case intimately.
[31:38.130 --> 31:46.090]  So, I mean, I'm sure you ran into that, or he told you, I'm sure, that that was part of the decision-making process.
[31:46.090 --> 31:57.370]  For him, he did plea out as well, and they threatened to put him on the bus and basically put him into years of revolving trials where he, you know, each count...
[31:57.910 --> 32:02.570]  For Kevin, there was a wire fraud, so for each phone call he made, there was going to be a charge.
[32:02.930 --> 32:13.550]  And so they basically came to him and, like, either you take this deal or we're just going to ship you from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and try you on all of these, and he would have ended up with all these consecutive sentences.
[32:13.550 --> 32:14.630]  He'd still be on the bus.
[32:14.790 --> 32:15.370]  Oh, absolutely.
[32:15.610 --> 32:16.070]  Absolutely.
[32:18.290 --> 32:23.910]  So, after a long time, he did finally plea out, and he did the same thing.
[32:24.050 --> 32:25.910]  He did five years in prison.
[32:27.230 --> 32:29.410]  He had three years of supervised release.
[32:29.470 --> 32:38.670]  That ended in January of 2003, and he is only held by one condition of his plea agreement, which expires in January of 2007.
[32:38.670 --> 32:39.190]  Yeah.
[32:39.930 --> 32:46.070]  We did these in chronological order, because I believe you were charged first?
[32:46.390 --> 32:47.510]  Yeah, I believe so, yeah.
[32:47.510 --> 32:52.030]  And then Kevin, although he had a prior conviction, the big case came after...
[32:52.030 --> 32:52.890]  The Raleigh case.
[32:53.050 --> 32:53.190]  Yeah.
[32:53.230 --> 32:54.450]  The one in North Carolina.
[32:54.530 --> 32:55.570]  Yeah, that was after me, yeah.
[32:55.930 --> 32:59.050]  And then shortly after Kevin's case, mine came down the road.
[32:59.050 --> 33:11.950]  And mine was kind of weird in a way that what I was charged with doing wasn't really illegal when I had started doing it.
[33:12.610 --> 33:20.910]  There was a new federal statute that was enacted in late 94, some of you may be familiar with, called CALEA, the Communications Act for Law Enforcement Assistance.
[33:20.910 --> 33:30.810]  And the big part of that piece of legislation was to basically fund a nationwide wiretapping infrastructure out of your tax dollars.
[33:32.790 --> 33:36.090]  And as we know, it has grown even more since.
[33:37.890 --> 34:01.090]  But one of the little tiny things that was added to this big body of legislation called CALEA was a little modification to a law, Title 18, Section 1029, which was primarily related to use of access devices.
[34:01.090 --> 34:07.890]  And access devices by statute meant like any card, code, plate, or account number.
[34:08.090 --> 34:09.450]  That's the legal definition.
[34:09.730 --> 34:14.310]  Just anything that would allow you to use a telecommunication service without authorizations.
[34:14.730 --> 34:22.670]  You know, spoofing some kind of authentication or just, you know, using a credit card, calling card number that wasn't yours, something like that.
[34:22.810 --> 34:25.090]  So they added a few lines in that.
[34:25.230 --> 34:26.050]  It was very obscure.
[34:26.410 --> 34:27.670]  Nobody really knew about it.
[34:27.670 --> 34:30.410]  This thing was passed at night.
[34:31.150 --> 34:50.850]  You know, and nobody really noticed this tiny little thing that was added in there that basically made it a felony to possess, now made it a felony to possess, and I'm going to quote that, to possess hardware or software for the modification of telecommunications instruments for the unauthorized access to telecommunication services.
[34:50.850 --> 34:54.390]  Now, I know that's a mouthful, but if you think about it, what does that mean?
[34:54.730 --> 35:14.870]  It means basically it became a felony to possess any hardware or any software that could be used to program something that, or to physically modify something, that then could be used to access some sort of telecommunication system without authorization.
[35:15.710 --> 35:24.110]  And I thought to myself, well, when I was first charged with this, the first attorney I had, who turned out to be a real loser, he said, this law doesn't exist.
[35:24.410 --> 35:25.830]  There's just no such law.
[35:26.550 --> 35:30.010]  And it turns out that it had just been enacted a few weeks before I was charged with it.
[35:30.070 --> 35:31.430]  It wasn't printed in any law books yet.
[35:32.190 --> 35:33.010]  But it was law.
[35:33.150 --> 35:35.090]  And I tried to keep up on this stuff.
[35:35.110 --> 35:36.270]  And I didn't know about it.
[35:36.410 --> 35:37.570]  My attorney didn't know about it.
[35:37.850 --> 35:42.630]  And I didn't have access to any current law books in the prison that had any record of this new law.
[35:43.130 --> 35:48.930]  So it was a really weird situation to be in for a few weeks, about being charged with a crime that I didn't think existed.
[35:51.090 --> 35:53.110]  So, anyway, we found out it did exist.
[35:53.310 --> 36:15.090]  And what I was... I won't go into too much about the case, but basically I was charged with possession of a red box, a modified Touch-Tone dialer, and possession of software, which I gave away right here at this very spot back in 94, the first HOPE conference.
[36:15.550 --> 36:22.330]  In fact, about 10 feet away from... 10 feet behind me is where I gave away the software that allows you to create an extension of your cell phone.
[36:22.930 --> 36:28.910]  It did not give you the ability to obtain other people's electronic serial numbers and clone their phones.
[36:29.110 --> 36:36.350]  You would have to know what their electronic serial number was and program that with the min, the cellular phone number, into a phone.
[36:36.450 --> 36:39.250]  So, basically, I made software available for free to people.
[36:39.790 --> 36:44.670]  And if they wanted to buy a manual or a cable, I'd sell that to them for a nominal fee.
[36:44.790 --> 36:47.130]  And they could basically roll an extension of their cell phone.
[36:48.490 --> 36:54.510]  And, you know, I did that for a while until a lot of people had a copy of it and it got around and I didn't have to, you know, distribute it then.
[36:54.830 --> 36:58.490]  And a lot of people weren't downloading files over the Internet that well.
[36:58.670 --> 37:00.950]  So, it ended up on bulletin board systems and things like that.
[37:01.070 --> 37:02.690]  And then I thought, you know, it had been accomplished.
[37:03.150 --> 37:05.370]  What I wanted to do was make this available to people.
[37:05.470 --> 37:14.870]  Because I just thought it was unfair for the cell phone companies to say, well, you can't have a second cell phone without paying another monthly fee for use of their network, another 30 bucks a month.
[37:14.910 --> 37:21.750]  When you're in your own home, you can plug in as many phones as you want and make all the calls you want on as many phones as you want.
[37:21.930 --> 37:23.150]  And it's all going to end up on your account.
[37:23.550 --> 37:26.510]  To not be able to do that with your cell phone account just didn't make sense to me.
[37:27.550 --> 37:29.910]  But, you know, it was a revenue source for them, I guess, to have that.
[37:30.110 --> 37:33.810]  The other thing I was charged with, again, was the...
[37:33.810 --> 37:51.130]  Well, I was selling crystals for $5 in an ad in 2600 magazine because someone, not me, had figured out that you could modify a radio check Touch-Tone dialer to simulate the sounds of coins going into a pay phone by just replacing the timing crystal.
[37:51.310 --> 37:54.570]  So it shifted the frequency of the Touch-Tones up.
[37:55.010 --> 37:57.170]  And it did a pretty good spoofing job of that.
[37:57.630 --> 38:00.630]  And Emmanuel and I were talking about that once.
[38:00.730 --> 38:06.830]  And we thought it might be a good idea to make these crystals available to people more readily than having to order them from RadioShack.
[38:06.930 --> 38:09.550]  RadioShack would even sell them to you because it was a standard crystal value.
[38:09.690 --> 38:10.990]  But it was a special order thing.
[38:11.070 --> 38:12.270]  You had to wait a couple of weeks.
[38:12.270 --> 38:18.810]  And so I just had this company make a bunch of crystals that were sub-mini in size, easier to mount inside a Touch-Tone dialer.
[38:20.270 --> 38:24.130]  And mailed them off to people along with an instruction sheet and how to modify Touch-Tone dialer.
[38:24.750 --> 38:29.210]  And I would make these crystals and unmodified dialers.
[38:29.290 --> 38:34.430]  I would buy it either from RadioShack at a discount or from flea markets or whatever.
[38:34.670 --> 38:37.990]  And make them available to people at 2600 meetings so they could build their own red boxes.
[38:37.990 --> 38:44.490]  And one kid built one with a cold solder joint.
[38:44.530 --> 38:45.370]  It didn't work very well.
[38:45.850 --> 38:52.150]  So I took it back from him and gave him another unmodified dialer in crystal and said, no, this is how you do a solder joint.
[38:52.610 --> 38:54.630]  And that one ended up being in my possession.
[38:54.990 --> 38:58.970]  And so I was charged with possessing a modified Touch-Tone dialer.
[38:58.970 --> 39:00.170]  And it was that one.
[39:00.370 --> 39:04.170]  But they were able to... Secret Service was able to get it to work somehow.
[39:04.910 --> 39:07.070]  And so I was charged with that.
[39:07.630 --> 39:24.970]  But one of the things I wanted to mention about the case too is the wording of the statute was so vague that back to the definition I said about modification of hardware or software or possessing tools thereof.
[39:25.110 --> 39:26.570]  I thought this could be applied to anything.
[39:26.710 --> 39:34.750]  A modem or a terminal emulator built into Microsoft Windows could be used to access a telecommunication system without authorization.
[39:35.210 --> 39:37.670]  It was such a vague, vague wording.
[39:37.670 --> 39:50.890]  And I did agree to plead guilty ultimately after many months because the federal prosecutor in my case told my attorney that what they were going to do is when I was found guilty...
[39:50.890 --> 39:53.330]  And there was no question I'd be found guilty because I agreed...
[39:53.330 --> 39:58.890]  I never disputed the fact that I did possess hardware and software that could have been misused.
[39:59.150 --> 40:02.130]  I just was arguing that I never cloned anyone else's cell phone.
[40:02.910 --> 40:05.210]  I never committed any cell phone fraud.
[40:05.410 --> 40:07.410]  I never sold a red box to anybody.
[40:09.070 --> 40:19.750]  While I did use red boxes, I hadn't admitted to that, but I did know that of all the money I'd ever plugged into payphones and not gotten change back, the phone company was still ahead of the game.
[40:21.010 --> 40:24.250]  But that doesn't quite factor into their thinking.
[40:25.710 --> 40:39.710]  So what the federal government said they were going to do was charge me with a fraud dollar amount based on their estimate that everyone who bought a crystal and made a red box with the parts that I made available or obtained a copy of the software.
[40:39.890 --> 40:44.590]  And they were talking about thousands of copies of the software that people had gotten copies of, copies of, copies of.
[40:46.090 --> 40:47.970]  Third, fourth generation copies or whatever.
[40:49.110 --> 40:56.950]  That all this could have been used to cause so many millions of dollars worth of fraud, which I'm responsible for.
[40:57.350 --> 41:02.110]  And that on the chart would bring you up into, you know, years and years and years in prison.
[41:02.430 --> 41:05.450]  And I'd have no way to dispute that before this Blakely v. Washington case was ruled unconstitutional.
[41:08.690 --> 41:11.550]  To dispute that, no, I shouldn't be responsible for that.
[41:11.610 --> 41:13.490]  I'm not responsible for other people's actions.
[41:13.490 --> 41:21.650]  So I pled out, ended up serving about 14 months in five different prisons.
[41:21.790 --> 41:23.450]  You were in a federal prison camp?
[41:23.750 --> 41:25.570]  Yeah, in Pennsylvania, yeah.
[41:25.990 --> 41:27.690]  And a pretty imposing looking place.
[41:28.030 --> 41:36.870]  We ended up meeting up with some other friends in Philadelphia, where I live, a few days before you were to report.
[41:36.870 --> 41:38.510]  And we drove up there.
[41:38.710 --> 41:41.210]  And actually, there was a crazy blizzard and ice storm.
[41:41.510 --> 41:42.090]  Yeah, there was a really good ice storm.
[41:42.150 --> 41:42.890]  It was really crazy.
[41:43.330 --> 41:50.630]  Yeah, I mean, even though I'm from right here in New York, you could really end up almost anywhere on the East Coast.
[41:50.650 --> 41:53.450]  Or even in the Midwest, if it's overcrowded.
[41:54.610 --> 41:57.430]  I was basically assigned to go to Pennsylvania.
[41:57.710 --> 41:59.250]  So it's just purely coincidental.
[41:59.310 --> 42:02.970]  So we went and stayed with Ed the weekend before I was supposed to report.
[42:03.210 --> 42:06.110]  We had a great couple, three days.
[42:06.110 --> 42:11.530]  And he got a couple days stay of execution in his sentence because the roads were so bad.
[42:11.670 --> 42:15.050]  The governor was claiming that, you know, nobody can be driving on the road.
[42:15.170 --> 42:15.630]  It's that bad.
[42:16.450 --> 42:25.610]  And so we ended up calling the prison from my home and saying, well, I kind of did some social engineering.
[42:25.610 --> 42:26.890]  I said I was his lawyer.
[42:27.230 --> 42:33.450]  And that the governor is saying that people should not be driving in these counties.
[42:33.930 --> 42:37.290]  And that we didn't want to violate the law by going against the governor's order.
[42:37.730 --> 42:43.210]  So we ended up spending a couple extra days altogether and having a good time before we checked him in.
[42:43.310 --> 42:46.030]  And we still had to go up through treacherous icy roads to get there.
[42:46.170 --> 42:49.390]  And it was like the middle of the night when we got there and there was ice all over the place.
[42:49.550 --> 42:52.490]  And it took us like an hour or two to figure out how to get you into the place.
[42:52.490 --> 42:54.370]  Because the place looked like it was shut down.
[42:54.990 --> 42:56.730]  And we got a video of the whole thing.
[42:56.850 --> 43:01.470]  It was like this bizarre, surreal, weird thing trying to get him into prison.
[43:01.470 --> 43:02.490]  Like we had to really try.
[43:04.830 --> 43:06.750]  We're down to the wire on time.
[43:07.030 --> 43:07.070]  Okay.
[43:07.170 --> 43:08.490]  Do we have time to take some questions?
[43:09.470 --> 43:09.870]  Okay.
[43:10.490 --> 43:11.990]  Yeah, we can take three questions.
[43:16.720 --> 43:18.120]  What was prison like?
[43:18.300 --> 43:19.480]  What did you do in prison?
[43:19.780 --> 43:21.360]  What was your daily life like?
[43:21.560 --> 43:22.720]  What was the weekends like?
[43:22.720 --> 43:24.900]  Were you allowed to make phone calls?
[43:25.120 --> 43:26.720]  Were you able to hack the phone calls?
[43:27.560 --> 43:29.460]  Did you play pranks on the guards?
[43:30.000 --> 43:31.400]  That's more than three questions.
[43:32.860 --> 43:35.920]  But I can try to answer them really quickly.
[43:37.400 --> 43:41.860]  Mark and I had different experiences.
[43:42.580 --> 43:45.520]  But Kevin and I had similar experiences from the standpoint of...
[43:45.520 --> 43:49.940]  Mark was aware of the length of his sentence before he went in.
[43:50.080 --> 43:50.900]  Before he got locked up.
[43:51.040 --> 43:51.300]  Is that right?
[43:51.300 --> 43:51.680]  That's right.
[43:51.840 --> 43:52.500]  So he knew...
[43:52.500 --> 43:53.580]  He had light at the end of the tunnel.
[43:53.700 --> 43:54.520]  He knew when he was going to get out.
[43:54.580 --> 43:55.700]  He had a day to look forward to.
[43:56.280 --> 44:01.920]  In Kevin's case and in my case, it was a tunnel with no light at the end.
[44:02.120 --> 44:04.880]  And that's really a psychologically...
[44:05.780 --> 44:07.520]  It has a strong psychological impact.
[44:07.700 --> 44:15.460]  When you're literally locked into a cage, some of the cages I was locked into were five by eight feet.
[44:15.460 --> 44:17.400]  And that was room for...
[44:17.400 --> 44:21.460]  That includes a metal bed, a toilet, and a sink.
[44:21.660 --> 44:24.280]  And a little cabinet to put your toiletries in.
[44:24.560 --> 44:26.180]  So figure that out.
[44:26.300 --> 44:32.640]  You're locked into something like that with no idea how long you're going to be there for a long, long time.
[44:32.640 --> 44:36.520]  And I think that amounts to torture in a certain immense.
[44:36.720 --> 44:39.980]  But certainly when you're held without bail, as I was and as Kevin was...
[44:39.980 --> 44:40.820]  Four and a half years.
[44:40.960 --> 44:41.100]  Yeah.
[44:41.360 --> 44:42.240]  It's just...
[44:42.240 --> 44:45.220]  This is something you would attribute to third world countries.
[44:45.580 --> 44:50.780]  And I wouldn't call us political prisoners, but it's the kind of thing you hear about happening in other countries.
[44:50.780 --> 44:52.560]  Like, how can they do that?
[44:52.780 --> 44:56.060]  You know, we couldn't ever do something like that in America.
[44:56.280 --> 45:05.580]  So to answer Captain Crunch's question, Kevin's and my experience, I think, were harrowing from the standpoint of you don't know how long you're going to be there.
[45:07.380 --> 45:08.800]  I also was in...
[45:08.800 --> 45:18.420]  I was in different kinds of prisons in that they were sort of considered maximum security or medium max, where I was in there with murderers and mob bosses and things like that.
[45:18.420 --> 45:21.540]  And you were in a sort of white-collar kind of...
[45:21.540 --> 45:21.840]  I was in...
[45:21.840 --> 45:24.760]  Well, I was in a minimum security facility.
[45:24.860 --> 45:29.320]  Even though some people refer to it as a camp, you're not going to sing songs and roast marshmallows.
[45:30.240 --> 45:31.940]  So, yeah, there's none of that going on.
[45:31.940 --> 45:32.340]  And there's no...
[45:32.340 --> 45:33.560]  It's not a nice place to be.
[45:33.620 --> 45:39.720]  Contrary to popular belief, there's no such thing as camp fed, where you go there and there's tennis courts and swimming pools.
[45:39.860 --> 45:40.820]  That's complete bullshit.
[45:41.000 --> 45:42.340]  That was created by Hollywood.
[45:42.580 --> 45:43.460]  There's no such thing.
[45:43.580 --> 45:44.480]  Prison is prison.
[45:44.480 --> 45:50.420]  The only difference between minimum security and higher security is you have limited to free movement.
[45:50.940 --> 45:53.260]  And at certain times, you're not allowed to go anywhere.
[45:53.420 --> 45:57.440]  But there are certain times when you have more or less free movement throughout the facility.
[45:57.820 --> 45:59.460]  That's the only difference at all.
[45:59.620 --> 46:01.360]  At the end of the night, you can't leave.
[46:01.640 --> 46:02.580]  It's still prison.
[46:03.120 --> 46:04.820]  And really, the only...
[46:04.820 --> 46:07.700]  The thing that's common in all of them is it's the...
[46:08.560 --> 46:10.100]  Psychologically, it's a real drain.
[46:10.100 --> 46:14.200]  You could be in a small cell, and obviously, that's a larger psychological drain.
[46:14.600 --> 46:22.800]  But knowing that you can't go home or see the people you want to be with and so on, it's a really difficult period to get through.
[46:23.660 --> 46:24.700]  Maybe one more question.
[46:24.740 --> 46:25.420]  One or two more questions.
[46:25.800 --> 46:26.120]  Okay.
[46:26.600 --> 46:27.900]  I have a question back here.
[46:28.240 --> 46:28.680]  Thanks.
[46:29.380 --> 46:40.600]  I was wondering if you guys were able to seek damages after the ruling came down that no further evidence could be admitted or used in your sentencing after the trial with the jury.
[46:41.560 --> 46:43.260]  Well, there have been appeals.
[46:43.360 --> 46:45.380]  Other people have used that Blakely versus Washington thing.
[46:45.520 --> 46:46.000]  But it's just...
[46:46.000 --> 46:48.180]  Who wants to go back there and visit all this shit?
[46:48.440 --> 46:49.160]  Not that it's...
[46:49.540 --> 46:51.800]  What would be a pyrrhic victory if you won?
[46:51.920 --> 46:52.960]  Because you're out now.
[46:53.120 --> 46:53.880]  So what's...
[46:53.880 --> 46:58.120]  You don't win lawsuits against the federal government in these kinds of things and you get a lot of money or anything like that.
[46:58.120 --> 46:58.440]  It's just...
[46:58.440 --> 47:00.320]  You just want to put it behind you.
[47:00.500 --> 47:00.840]  Right.
[47:00.880 --> 47:01.020]  Yeah.
[47:01.120 --> 47:04.300]  I mean, the best thing to do after prison is just to forget about prison.
[47:04.560 --> 47:04.700]  Right.
[47:04.980 --> 47:05.600]  There's no...
[47:05.600 --> 47:07.200]  There's no real sense dwelling on it.
[47:07.500 --> 47:11.340]  If you can take anything from the experience and grow from it, do so.
[47:11.880 --> 47:19.800]  But, I mean, don't make it your life's purpose to get all mixed up in the legal process and the Bureau of Prisons because there's just no sense to it.
[47:19.860 --> 47:21.580]  You need to move on with your life and put it behind you.
[47:21.580 --> 47:24.520]  And that in itself becomes a form of prison, trying to deal with the case.
[47:24.580 --> 47:27.800]  I mean, I did file an appeal, but my appeal was while I was still locked up.
[47:27.800 --> 47:29.940]  Appealing the constitutionality of the statute.
[47:30.220 --> 47:30.720]  But I wasn't...
[47:30.720 --> 47:35.060]  We weren't really allowed to make any oral arguments or admit any case law that had...
[47:35.060 --> 47:38.540]  Binding case law had just been decided just after the deadline of submitting it.
[47:38.900 --> 47:45.940]  The Communications Decency Act was similar to my case and vague statute about telecommunications terms and stuff like that.
[47:46.060 --> 47:46.860]  But you just...
[47:46.860 --> 47:50.440]  After that, you just want to just make it go away and get on with your life.
[47:50.660 --> 47:51.580]  Maybe one more question?
[47:52.080 --> 47:52.460]  Yeah.
[47:54.650 --> 47:56.370]  I think that's the question, Mike, behind you.
[47:58.230 --> 48:01.330]  After prison, after being restricted on parole and so forth...
[48:01.330 --> 48:01.770]  No parole.
[48:02.210 --> 48:02.710]  No parole?
[48:02.890 --> 48:04.290]  No, there's no parole in the federal system.
[48:04.790 --> 48:08.790]  There are restrictions on computer use, things like that, electronic gear.
[48:08.870 --> 48:10.610]  What was the best way for you to get your skill set back?
[48:12.270 --> 48:16.590]  Well, I myself didn't have any restrictions as far as using computers.
[48:16.790 --> 48:17.270]  Neither did I.
[48:17.470 --> 48:18.210]  After the fact.
[48:18.430 --> 48:20.090]  Only Kevin did, to my knowledge.
[48:20.930 --> 48:28.190]  I did have restrictions on travel that did affect my work at first, being that I was a consultant.
[48:30.210 --> 48:34.050]  But other than that, really, I didn't have issues as far as...
[48:34.050 --> 48:39.530]  I mean, a lot of people sent me books and magazines and materials while I was in prison.
[48:39.530 --> 48:45.450]  Some of them got limited or confiscated, and others were not, sort of randomly.
[48:45.470 --> 48:47.110]  There was no real reasoning behind it.
[48:47.450 --> 48:51.770]  But luckily, I was able to stay fairly up to date in the time that I lost.
[48:53.070 --> 48:54.270]  George, do you have a final comment?
[48:55.350 --> 48:56.070]  Actually, no.
[48:56.170 --> 48:58.590]  It was the same thing that he just said about Kevin.
[48:59.190 --> 49:04.710]  A lot of people sent him things while he was in prison, books, printed out things from the Internet.
[49:04.710 --> 49:06.970]  And so he caught up that way.
[49:07.130 --> 49:13.490]  And then when he got out, of course, he was restricted from not just computers, any kind of electronics.
[49:14.230 --> 49:19.090]  Everything had to be cleared through the Justice Department before he could have it.
[49:19.230 --> 49:23.110]  And they do stuff like stop by your workplace and stuff like, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff.
[49:23.110 --> 49:24.210]  They messed with you for years.
[49:24.730 --> 49:26.070]  But I just want to thank everybody.
[49:26.190 --> 49:27.930]  And I think for Kevin, I will thank everybody.
[49:28.130 --> 49:30.410]  And I think Mark got a lot of...
[49:30.410 --> 49:35.030]  I just want to thank everybody who didn't just come here today, I hope, but who sent us letters of support.
[49:35.130 --> 49:37.510]  Yeah, we got tons of support all through a very difficult time.
[49:37.510 --> 49:43.170]  We were all very fortunate from a standpoint of we had huge numbers of people who didn't even know us supporting us.
[49:43.170 --> 49:48.570]  And keeping that moral thing going, keeping that moral support going was extremely important to me, I'm sure to Kevin, and I'm sure to...
[49:48.570 --> 49:48.930]  Absolutely.
[49:49.350 --> 49:50.250]  That's what kept us going.
[49:50.390 --> 49:54.990]  We're really lucky for all you folks to have supported us because most people, they don't get that.
[49:55.150 --> 49:56.570]  We just happen to know the right people.