Hacker History Podcast

Hacker History sits down with Bill Bernard. Bill tells us of his time building and breaking things with his father. The days of TI99 and Apple IIe in school, and some great engineering in college. Bill has some pretty cool experiences working for Zenith, then the phone company trying to sell TV, and a Cable […]

Hacker History sits down with Rebecca Jones. We learn of Rebecca's journey from using early Apple computers, to an early Windows machine, to eventually her current role dealing with security and identity. Rebecca explains how she stepped away from tech for a while due to some horrible advice. Along the way she picked up some […]

Hacker History sits down with Luke McOmie, AKA Pyr0, to talk about a new conference about hacker history, as well as his history. Pyr0 tells us all about NaClCON. It's a conference dedicated to the stories of the hackers themselves. Go register if you're interested ... while you still have time! Pyr0 then tells us […]

This is a packed episode where we talk to Laura Scherling, Ben Schmerler, and Rachael Tubbs about some hacker history, some hacker future, and the ten year anniversary of the IoT Village. We talk about the importance of cybersecurity education, the innovative efforts of IoT Village, and some awesome stories from Laura's book. We discuss […]

Hacker History sits down with David Bernstein. We learn about David's past in emergency management. David has seen a ton of wild events, and has some really interesting commentary about how emergency management and infosec collide. David isn't what many would consider a traditional hacker, but it's clear he has had incredible impact over the […]

Thug Shells is a freestyle rapper who hacks the english language, making it do whatever she wants. Did you know a group of rappers is called a cypher? It's a super fun conversation where we learn a lot about Thuggy as well as how rapping works, and all the uncanny connections to the world of […]

Hacker History sits down with Harish Pillay and hear about his journey. We start with curiosity that leads to hardware and ham radio. Eventually Harish is a graduate student and received a tape from the Free Software Foundation. We hear some stories about the early days of free software and how Harish was involved. We […]

Hacker History sits down with Abe. We hear about Abe's younger days in rural Canada. How he accidentally ended up in the Canadian army, and got to help work on a program in the army hosting capture the flag events. He eventually comes the head of security for a large Canadian city, which was full […]

Hacker History sits down with Lars Wirzenius. We hear about Lars growing up in Finland and the unique Swedish computer he started using. The GNU Manifesto changed his life. Lars witnessed the birth of Linux and helped fix some early issues. Started using Python back in 1993. He became a Debian developer, founded a backup […]

Hacker History sits down with Shecky about his hacker story. We start with Atari computers and PDP11s. Shecky tells us how sometimes the least technical hack is the best hack in a story about pwning a friend during school. He moves to photography for a while, then find himself back in the world of computing […]

Hacker History sits down with evilmog and learns of his hacker story. We start out hearing about evilmog's antics as a youth including hacking muds, getting banned from the school network, and his first few gigs out of school until he landed at IBM doing networking. He ends up in Afghanistan doing networking where he […]

Hacker History sits down with Jarrod Coulter to talk about how he got into red teaming. Jarrod's story starts out in IT and eventually find us discussing how he started a red team from the ground up and some of the lessons learned along the way. Jarrod also runs the GRASSr00tz security conference and we […]

Hacker History sits down with Hash to hear his history. Hash tells us how he got into the world of smart meter hacking. This led to the website RECESSIM, and a YouTube channel. We hear about his journey through the world of mini computers and microprocessors. Becoming a hardware tech, fixing video games, and even […]

Hacker History sits down with Investigator Chic to hear all about how she got into hacking. Like many of us, she didn't start out on a path focused on security, but unlike many of us, she had a hard link to the university mainframe in her house. Investigator Chic has some great advice for all […]

Hacker History sits down with wirefall and hears his story. Wirefall started his journey trying to avoid tech. He considers his early life a series of finding out what he doesn't want to do rather than discovering what to do. He found himself in the Air Force where he figured out the future is the […]

Hacker History sits down with Shannon Fritz to hear his story. Shannon started out as a kid playing with video games and computers, but had a very interesting path that got him deep into technology and eventually security. We hear about old school ISP days, recording TV shows, and sharing content on IRC. The stories […]

Hacker History sits down with Bryan Mcaninch about how he ended up founding Hacking is NOT a Crime. We learn of Bryan's past learning tech from his grandfather. He explains how the skateboarding is not a crime movement inspired the Hacking is NOT a Crime movement. It's a great story! Show Notes Bryan's Twitter Hacking […]

Hacker History sits down with Jonathan Leitschuh. We cover how he started out in robotics and found his way into security. Jonathan has reported vulnerabilities in things such as Gradle, Snyk, Zoom, and more! He's doing modern security at scale now in ways that few researchers are. Show Notes Jonathan's Twitter Jonathan's Zoom writeup explained […]

Hacker History sits down with Casey Ellis, the founder and chairman of Bugcrowd and co founder of disclose.io project. Casey talks about his history with technology, how he hosted a TV show at one point, and how his career got started. There are some incredible lessons for us around starting a company and working in […]

Hacker History sits down with Brian Proffitt to discuss his journey from tech journalist to community organizer. Brian was an author and journalist during the birthing pangs of Linux and open source. He reminds us of such events as the SCO lawsuit, IBM investing in Linux, the early days of internet journalism and his eventual […]

Hacker History sits down with Dick Morrell to discuss the history of many many things. Dick started in the UK working on a lot of different computing systems until he found open source. He went on to work with Linuxcare, co-founded Smoothwall, and worked at Red Hat to name just a few. It's an amazing […]

Hacker History sits down with Greg Ferro AKA EtherealMind. We learn how Greg started his podcast and blogging empire back before most people even know what podcasting and blogging was. We learn about the early days of networking, Netware vs SCO. working with dictaphones at a law office. Show Notes Greg's Twitter Packet Pushers Greg's […]

Hacker History sits down with Chloé Messdaghi. We learn about her work with Hacking is NOT a Crime. How she hacked her way into Summer Camp. What it's like breaking into the space and why a diverse set of voices is hugely important. Show Notes Chloé's Twitter Hacking is NOT a Crime

Hacker History sits down with Tracy Maleeff AKA InfoSecSherpa. We learn of Tracy's early years, how she developed the hacker mindset by breaking into her house after school. We also talk about her journey into technology and infosec while getting an enormous amount of advice on how to enter and excel in the infosec space. […]

Hacker History sits down with Larry Cashdollar. We learn about Larry's humble beginnings not being allowed to touch the home computer. He talks about some penetration testing before that was even a thing and how he ended up where he is today. Larry's story should be an inspiration to anyone who hears it. Show Notes […]

Hacker History sits down with Mike Goetzman to learn about his history. Mike is the person behind the CypherCon, the Wisconsin Hacker Conference. We learn about how Mike caused some trouble in school, got to help out as the "punishment", goes to school, meets his wife on ICQ. Mike traveled to Cuba to help spread […]

Hacker History sits down with Steve Ragan. Steve tells us about his early years of computer games, hacking, warez, modems, and dumpster diving. He eventually ends up as a security journalist and now is responsible for the yearly State of the Internet report. Show Notes Steve Ragan State of the Internet report

Hacker History sits down with Wolfgang Goerlich. We learn about the importance of having root and admin when becoming a hacker and how truly important it is that we have patience and empathy for one another. We also learn that skateboarding in a datacenter doesn't actually work. Wolf's Twitter War Games bottlecap

Hacker History sits down with Bitterman. We start our story with computer classes at school. We learn about Bitterman's many hacks to solve problems, and we learn about how Bitterman became a creator of hacker puzzles that we now see at conferences. While he claims multiple times he's not a hacker, we learn that this […]

Hacker History sits down with Mark Loveless AKA Simple Nomad. We start our story by buying a bluebox from Woz and Steve Jobs. Mark picks up his handle from the supernatural. We learn of the time scanned the IP space of China to test a security scanner and gain some unwanted attention. Show Notes Simple […]