Brett Johnson: US Most Wanted Cybercriminal
技术与编程音乐与艺术心理与人性政治与社会商业与创业
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gotdongoingguymoneydidndoingmanelsemomcrimesaidtrustgetswentnamestartedtolddadtalking
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🎙️ 完整对话（5418 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
I was on the run for four months, stole $600,000.
我逃亡了四个月，偷了 60 万美元。
Lex Fridman (00:03.480)
I was in Las Vegas, Nevada.
我在内华达州拉斯维加斯。
Lex Fridman (00:05.120)
One day I had stolen the night before
有一天我前一天晚上偷了东西
Lex Fridman (00:07.320)
and stolen 160K out of ATMs.
并从 ATM 机中盗走 16 万美元。
Lex Fridman (00:10.440)
Went in the next morning, I woke up,
第二天早上去了，我就醒了
Brett Johnson (00:12.760)
signed on to cartersmarket.com,
登录 cartersmarket.com，
Lex Fridman (00:14.680)
which was ran by Max Butler, the Iceman.
由“冰人”马克斯·巴特勒经营。
Lex Fridman (00:17.880)
And there's my name, US Most Wanted on it.
上面有我的名字，美国头号通缉犯。
Lex Fridman (00:21.160)
And that gets your attention.
这会引起你的注意。
Brett Johnson (00:24.120)
That was my real name with US Most Wanted beside of it.
这是我的真名，旁边还有美国头号通缉犯。
Lex Fridman (00:26.480)
Nobody knew my real name in that environment at all,
在那种环境下根本没有人知道我的真名，
Lex Fridman (00:29.160)
but then they did.
但后来他们做到了。
Lex Fridman (00:30.280)
And it was talking about me being part
它正在谈论我是其中的一部分
Brett Johnson (00:32.080)
of the Secret Service, Operation Anglerfish,
特勤局的“鮟鱇鱼行动”
Lex Fridman (00:34.880)
everything else.
其他一切。
Lex Fridman (00:36.480)
So of course, they're all like.
当然，他们都是一样的。
Lex Fridman (00:37.920)
Everybody's after you.
大家都在追赶你。
Brett Johnson (00:39.040)
They're like, oh yeah, we're gonna get this son of a bitch.
他们就像，哦，是的，我们要抓住这个王八蛋。
Lex Fridman (00:43.720)
The following is a conversation with Brett Johnson,
以下是与布雷特·约翰逊的对话，
Brett Johnson (00:46.200)
a former cyber criminal who built the first
前网络罪犯，他创建了第一个
Lex Fridman (00:48.680)
organized cybercrime community called Shadow Crew
Brett Johnson (00:52.000)
that is the precursor to today's Darknet
Lex Fridman (00:54.480)
and Darknet markets.
Brett Johnson (00:56.200)
He's referred to by the United States Secret Service
Lex Fridman (00:58.960)
as quote, the original internet godfather.
Brett Johnson (01:02.080)
He has been the central figure in the cybercrime world
Lex Fridman (01:05.120)
for almost 20 years.
Brett Johnson (01:06.640)
Placed on the US Most Wanted list in 2006
Lex Fridman (01:10.280)
before being convicted of 39 felonies for cybercrime,
Brett Johnson (01:14.080)
escaped from prison, and then eventually being locked up,
Lex Fridman (01:17.680)
served his time, and now is helping people understand
Lex Fridman (01:21.720)
and fight cybercrime.
Lex Fridman (01:24.320)
This was a raw, honest, emotional, and real episode.
Brett Johnson (01:29.440)
Brett has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people,
Lex Fridman (01:32.880)
and yet his own story is full of trauma and pain,
Lex Fridman (01:36.960)
and also redemption and love.
Lex Fridman (01:40.480)
This is a good time to say that I have and I will
Brett Johnson (01:44.240)
talk to people who have served time in prison,
Lex Fridman (01:46.760)
and perhaps people who currently are in prison.
Brett Johnson (01:50.480)
I will try to do my best to both empathize
Lex Fridman (01:53.080)
with the person across from me and not let them sugarcoat,
Brett Johnson (01:56.240)
explain away, or dismiss the crimes they committed.
Lex Fridman (02:00.440)
This is a tough line to walk,
Brett Johnson (02:01.920)
because if you close your heart to the other person,
Lex Fridman (02:04.640)
you'll never fully understand their mind and their story.
Lex Fridman (02:08.000)
But if you open the heart too much,
Lex Fridman (02:10.720)
you can be manipulated to where the conversation
Brett Johnson (02:13.240)
reveals nothing honest or real.
Lex Fridman (02:17.600)
This requires skill and willingness to take the risk.
Brett Johnson (02:21.520)
I don't know about the skill part,
Lex Fridman (02:23.400)
but I'd like to take the risk.
Brett Johnson (02:25.120)
I always wear my heart on my sleeve.
Lex Fridman (02:27.160)
If I get hurt for it, that's life.
Brett Johnson (02:30.860)
As I've said, I want to understand
Lex Fridman (02:32.600)
what makes a person do these crimes,
Brett Johnson (02:34.620)
the particular characteristics of their temporary
Lex Fridman (02:37.640)
or permanent madness, their justifications,
Lex Fridman (02:41.560)
but also their humanity.
Lex Fridman (02:43.520)
I believe each of us have the capacity
Brett Johnson (02:45.520)
to become both the criminal and the victim,
Lex Fridman (02:48.320)
the predator and the prey.
Brett Johnson (02:50.760)
It's up to us to avoid these paths
Lex Fridman (02:53.200)
or to find the path to redemption.
Brett Johnson (02:55.520)
It's on each of us.
Lex Fridman (02:57.320)
It's our responsibility and burden
Brett Johnson (03:00.360)
of being human in a complicated and dangerous world.
Lex Fridman (03:05.440)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
Brett Johnson (03:07.160)
To support it, please check out our sponsors
Lex Fridman (03:09.200)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (03:10.320)
And now, dear friends, here's Brett Johnson.
Lex Fridman (03:15.260)
You were convicted of 39 felonies for cybercrime
Brett Johnson (03:19.160)
placed on the US most wanted list in 2006,
Lex Fridman (03:22.920)
escaped from prison.
Brett Johnson (03:24.700)
You built the first organized cybercrime community
Lex Fridman (03:27.240)
called Shadow Crew that is the precursor
Brett Johnson (03:30.120)
to today's darknet and darknet markets.
Lex Fridman (03:32.880)
And for all this, the US intelligence service
Brett Johnson (03:36.280)
called you the original internet godfather.
Lex Fridman (03:39.520)
So first question, how did your career
Lex Fridman (03:42.920)
as a cybercrime criminal begin?
Lex Fridman (03:45.300)
My life of crime begins when I'm 10 years old.
Brett Johnson (03:47.920)
10 years old, man, think about that.
Lex Fridman (03:49.440)
I mean, you were probably playing the robots
Brett Johnson (03:51.360)
when you were 10.
Lex Fridman (03:52.360)
You know, usually kids are doing the Lego bit,
Brett Johnson (03:55.420)
getting involved with sports, everything else.
Lex Fridman (03:57.160)
And with me, it wasn't like that.
Brett Johnson (04:00.100)
With me, I'm from Eastern Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (04:02.360)
Eastern Kentucky is one of these,
Brett Johnson (04:05.360)
it's like parts of Texas, parts of Louisiana,
Lex Fridman (04:08.380)
that if you're not fortunate enough to have a job,
Brett Johnson (04:11.320)
you may be involved in a scam, hustle, fraud,
Lex Fridman (04:13.680)
whatever you want to call it, man.
Brett Johnson (04:14.920)
I was, my parents, my mom was basically
Lex Fridman (04:20.020)
the captain of the entire fraud industry.
Lex Fridman (04:22.400)
So this is a woman that at one point,
Lex Fridman (04:25.480)
she's stealing a 108,000 pound Caterpillar D9 bulldozer,
Brett Johnson (04:29.760)
tramming it down the road.
Lex Fridman (04:31.280)
You know, at another point, she's taking a slip
Lex Fridman (04:32.920)
and falling a convenience store trying to sue the owner.
Lex Fridman (04:35.680)
We had a neighbor she acted as a pimp for at one point.
Brett Johnson (04:38.920)
That's my mom, my dad.
Lex Fridman (04:41.840)
Wait, wait, wait, the neighbor acted as a pimp?
Brett Johnson (04:45.520)
My mom prostituted, I mean,
Lex Fridman (04:47.800)
she acted as a pimp for a neighbor.
Brett Johnson (04:50.080)
Her name was Debbie and my mom used to sell her out.
Lex Fridman (04:54.680)
Debbie needed money and my mom would find men
Brett Johnson (04:56.740)
for her to sleep with for cash
Lex Fridman (04:58.680)
and she'd take a part of the cash.
Lex Fridman (05:00.560)
So Sauna's like she diversified the methodologies
Lex Fridman (05:05.080)
by which she hustled.
Brett Johnson (05:06.940)
Very, had that entrepreneurial spirit.
Lex Fridman (05:09.840)
Okay.
Brett Johnson (05:10.680)
You know, we see that a lot with cyber criminals,
Lex Fridman (05:14.120)
you know, that sense of being that entrepreneur.
Lex Fridman (05:16.640)
So what was the motivation you think for her?
Lex Fridman (05:19.160)
Is it money?
Brett Johnson (05:22.600)
Is it basically the rush of playing with the system
Lex Fridman (05:27.040)
or being able to know the rules
Lex Fridman (05:30.960)
and break the rules and get away with it?
Lex Fridman (05:32.920)
My mom's a complex character.
Brett Johnson (05:34.660)
She is, there's no one single motivation.
Lex Fridman (05:36.880)
So my mom was the individual, she's still alive.
Brett Johnson (05:40.620)
My mom was the individual who tested people.
Lex Fridman (05:45.360)
She wanted to know how far she could abuse you
Lex Fridman (05:48.040)
and you come back and still love her.
Lex Fridman (05:50.200)
So, and that was with every relationship she's ever had.
Brett Johnson (05:53.940)
She would cheat on the men she was involved with.
Lex Fridman (05:56.120)
She would abuse her children, me and Denise.
Brett Johnson (05:59.320)
She would...
Lex Fridman (06:00.880)
Psychological, physical?
Brett Johnson (06:02.280)
Oh, it was mental, emotional, physical,
Lex Fridman (06:06.240)
everything, everything.
Brett Johnson (06:07.440)
I mean, she used to beat me and Denise with belt buckles,
Lex Fridman (06:12.160)
you know, and that ended when she was,
Brett Johnson (06:16.160)
I forgot what we had done.
Lex Fridman (06:18.320)
It wasn't much.
Brett Johnson (06:19.160)
I think that it may have been the part
Lex Fridman (06:23.260)
where she accused me of stealing her marijuana,
Lex Fridman (06:26.400)
but she was hitting me and Denise.
Lex Fridman (06:29.240)
We were living in a single wide trailer at that point.
Brett Johnson (06:32.680)
She was hitting me and Denise.
Lex Fridman (06:33.840)
We were on the bed trying to get away from it.
Lex Fridman (06:35.920)
And Denise kicks her through a closet is what happens.
Lex Fridman (06:40.720)
And Denise stands up and she said,
Brett Johnson (06:43.640)
you're through hitting me.
Lex Fridman (06:45.720)
And that was the last time that mom hit us at that point.
Brett Johnson (06:49.040)
But...
Lex Fridman (06:50.240)
So sorry to take us there.
Brett Johnson (06:51.600)
You're, for people who know you
Lex Fridman (06:53.680)
and people should definitely watch
Brett Johnson (06:55.200)
some of your lectures online.
Lex Fridman (06:57.100)
You're extremely charismatic and fun and jolly
Lex Fridman (07:01.240)
and whatever word you want to use.
Lex Fridman (07:03.160)
But, you know, if we look at that kind of life,
Brett Johnson (07:06.760)
there's darkness there, there's a struggle there.
Lex Fridman (07:10.900)
There's a lot of darkness.
Lex Fridman (07:12.300)
So if you, how did you feel?
Lex Fridman (07:16.480)
If you go back to the mind of the kid you were
Lex Fridman (07:20.000)
with your mom, was there sadness?
Lex Fridman (07:24.200)
Was there things like depression, self doubt,
Brett Johnson (07:28.280)
all those kinds of things, or did you see this crime,
Lex Fridman (07:31.300)
this chaos as ultimately exciting?
Brett Johnson (07:34.760)
You know, I don't think,
Lex Fridman (07:36.180)
back then I didn't view it as exciting.
Brett Johnson (07:37.920)
Now it becomes exciting when I start being involved
Lex Fridman (07:40.200)
in cyber crime, all right?
Lex Fridman (07:42.360)
But back then it was simply a means to an end
Lex Fridman (07:44.960)
was all it was.
Lex Fridman (07:45.800)
So you take a 10 year old kid
Lex Fridman (07:46.880)
and the way I get involved in crime is,
Brett Johnson (07:49.640)
like I said, my mom was the fraudster.
Lex Fridman (07:51.480)
My dad was a good guy.
Brett Johnson (07:53.540)
He just forgot he was this good guy.
Lex Fridman (07:55.960)
You know, he was always, he always had these principles,
Lex Fridman (07:58.400)
but his issue was is he loved my mom so much,
Lex Fridman (08:02.440)
he was scared of her leaving.
Lex Fridman (08:04.840)
So if she wanted to do something, commit crime,
Lex Fridman (08:07.980)
cheat on him, whatever,
Brett Johnson (08:10.360)
he would pretty much just put up with it the one instant.
Lex Fridman (08:14.720)
So, I mean, this woman used to,
Brett Johnson (08:16.800)
she used to bring men home in front of him,
Lex Fridman (08:19.320)
tell him that, hey, I'm leaving you.
Brett Johnson (08:21.160)
I don't love you anymore.
Lex Fridman (08:22.160)
I want you to die, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Brett Johnson (08:24.200)
This was my mom.
Lex Fridman (08:25.360)
There were two instances where the man,
Brett Johnson (08:30.880)
where he can't take it anymore.
Lex Fridman (08:33.060)
And the first instance, I was,
Brett Johnson (08:34.720)
I guess I was seven or eight.
Lex Fridman (08:36.380)
My sister Denise is a year younger than I am.
Brett Johnson (08:38.620)
My dad actually files for divorce,
Lex Fridman (08:41.120)
files for divorce at that point.
Brett Johnson (08:42.880)
My mom kind of goes crazy.
Lex Fridman (08:45.880)
My dad, I was with my dad.
Brett Johnson (08:47.520)
My sister was with my mother
Lex Fridman (08:49.120)
because that's that Eastern Kentucky mentality.
Brett Johnson (08:50.840)
You know, men stay with men, women stay with women.
Lex Fridman (08:53.620)
So he was filing for divorce.
Brett Johnson (08:57.880)
Me and my dad, we were living in an apartment.
Lex Fridman (09:00.600)
My mom was living with her grandparents
Lex Fridman (09:03.920)
and with her parents bouncing back and forth
Lex Fridman (09:05.440)
between the two.
Lex Fridman (09:07.520)
And I remember I was sleeping in the bed.
Lex Fridman (09:08.840)
We had a single wide bed.
Brett Johnson (09:09.920)
My dad slept on the sofa.
Lex Fridman (09:12.280)
I woke up one night
Lex Fridman (09:13.280)
and there was some sort of ruckus in the living room.
Lex Fridman (09:16.080)
So I wake up and I walk into the living room
Lex Fridman (09:18.600)
and my mom has a knife to my dad's throat.
Lex Fridman (09:22.200)
And basically you're not going to steal my son from me.
Brett Johnson (09:25.200)
My mom was this individual
Lex Fridman (09:26.920)
that when she knew she went so far,
Brett Johnson (09:29.760)
like I said, she was always this person that tested.
Lex Fridman (09:32.320)
What can I do this to you?
Lex Fridman (09:33.680)
And you'll still come back.
Lex Fridman (09:36.000)
She knew, she was always also this person
Brett Johnson (09:39.020)
that if she went too far, she knew it.
Lex Fridman (09:42.700)
And she would always try to divert that into something else.
Brett Johnson (09:46.420)
All right, so she knew at that point she'd went too far.
Lex Fridman (09:49.020)
So what does she do?
Brett Johnson (09:50.240)
She gets up crying, goes to the bathroom
Lex Fridman (09:53.760)
and pretends to slit her wrists
Lex Fridman (09:56.800)
so that my dad Ray will respond to that,
Lex Fridman (10:00.080)
not respond to what she's just done to him.
Brett Johnson (10:02.560)
That was my mom in a nutshell.
Lex Fridman (10:03.840)
She had a history of doing this kind of stuff.
Brett Johnson (10:07.080)
Motivations as far as fraud with her,
Lex Fridman (10:09.860)
I think with her it was, she was an LPN.
Brett Johnson (10:14.440)
She had a very good nurse, but she didn't want to work.
Lex Fridman (10:19.440)
It was a lot of it.
Lex Fridman (10:21.080)
So with her, it was easier for her to commit fraud.
Lex Fridman (10:25.400)
And when I say commit fraud,
Brett Johnson (10:26.680)
it was against businesses, against people.
Lex Fridman (10:29.520)
I remember at one point she's buying
Brett Johnson (10:31.700)
over the counter capsules and emptying the capsules out
Lex Fridman (10:34.760)
and putting some other crap in there
Lex Fridman (10:36.480)
and selling at a speed and people were buying it.
Lex Fridman (10:39.280)
She did anything she could for money.
Lex Fridman (10:41.160)
And of course I get involved with that.
Lex Fridman (10:42.520)
What happens is we were in Panama City at that point
Lex Fridman (10:46.960)
and my mom leaves my dad and the way she left my dad,
Lex Fridman (10:53.080)
my great grandfather had died.
Brett Johnson (10:55.800)
My mom tells all three of us, hey, I'm taking the kids
Lex Fridman (11:00.040)
and we're going back to Eastern Kentucky
Brett Johnson (11:01.280)
to attend the funeral.
Lex Fridman (11:02.720)
Well, that was her leaving.
Brett Johnson (11:05.320)
Me and Denise didn't know it.
Lex Fridman (11:06.280)
She didn't pack any of our clothes at all.
Brett Johnson (11:07.960)
She stows her clothes in the trunk of the car
Lex Fridman (11:11.000)
and she leaves my dad and I don't get to see my dad again
Brett Johnson (11:13.640)
for I think five, six years, something like that.
Lex Fridman (11:16.920)
My mom, like I said, she used to bring men home
Brett Johnson (11:18.680)
in front of my dad.
Lex Fridman (11:19.900)
She would, he'd sit there and cry and beg her not to do it.
Brett Johnson (11:22.800)
She'd do it anyway.
Lex Fridman (11:24.720)
When she leaves him, she kept up that.
Lex Fridman (11:28.080)
So we were living at my grandparents house.
Lex Fridman (11:31.680)
My grandfather, he had converted the house.
Brett Johnson (11:33.480)
He had raised the house up
Lex Fridman (11:34.760)
and built apartments underneath of it.
Lex Fridman (11:37.280)
So me and my sister and my mom lived
Lex Fridman (11:39.400)
in one of the apartments underneath
Lex Fridman (11:40.860)
and that whole side of the family was just nuts, was nuts.
Lex Fridman (11:45.480)
My granddad, Paul, he would,
Brett Johnson (11:49.920)
this is a man that he didn't want you
Lex Fridman (11:54.360)
to eat any of his food.
Brett Johnson (11:56.340)
So, you know, there was no such thing
Lex Fridman (11:58.120)
as me and Denise going upstairs to eat.
Brett Johnson (12:00.360)
If he found out me and Denise was taking a bath,
Lex Fridman (12:03.800)
we were allowed to bath and bathe in two inches of water
Brett Johnson (12:06.840)
one time a week
Lex Fridman (12:07.880)
because he didn't want to have to pay the water bill.
Brett Johnson (12:10.040)
There's rules.
Lex Fridman (12:10.880)
There are rules.
Brett Johnson (12:11.720)
You know, if you couldn't have the TV on,
Lex Fridman (12:14.600)
when he went to bed at night,
Brett Johnson (12:15.920)
you had to have the television, the volume.
Lex Fridman (12:17.800)
You could watch it, but without volume
Brett Johnson (12:20.360)
because if he heard it, he would get up
Lex Fridman (12:22.760)
in the middle of the night
Lex Fridman (12:23.600)
and he would kick the power breaker,
Lex Fridman (12:25.280)
turn off all the power on you.
Lex Fridman (12:26.960)
This is my, this is my, the family, right?
Lex Fridman (12:29.280)
So my mom, she used to leave me and Denise at home
Brett Johnson (12:32.320)
for days, man, for days.
Lex Fridman (12:34.480)
She'd go out and, you know, party.
Lex Fridman (12:36.880)
And I mean, sometimes she'd take me into these with her.
Lex Fridman (12:40.360)
We'd wait in the car.
Brett Johnson (12:41.740)
Sometimes we'd wait in the living room
Lex Fridman (12:43.900)
as she went and partied and everything else.
Brett Johnson (12:46.220)
Most of the time she left us at home
Lex Fridman (12:48.320)
and my entry into crime, Denise walks in one day,
Brett Johnson (12:52.840)
she's nine years old, man.
Lex Fridman (12:54.640)
She walks in one day
Lex Fridman (12:55.520)
and she's got a pack of pork chops in her hand
Lex Fridman (12:57.880)
and looked at her and I said, where'd you get that?
Brett Johnson (13:00.200)
She's like, I stole it.
Lex Fridman (13:01.940)
And you know, it's like, show me how you did that.
Lex Fridman (13:04.400)
So she takes me over
Lex Fridman (13:05.360)
and she shows me how she steals food,
Lex Fridman (13:07.040)
how she's stuffing it down her pants.
Lex Fridman (13:09.120)
So we start stealing food.
Brett Johnson (13:10.160)
I'm like, hell yeah, let's do that shit.
Lex Fridman (13:11.860)
So start stealing food.
Lex Fridman (13:13.440)
And we get to the point where we're wanting a sandwich.
Lex Fridman (13:16.040)
Well, you can't stuff a loaf of bread down your pants.
Lex Fridman (13:18.560)
So there was a Kmart in the shopping center.
Lex Fridman (13:20.980)
I go over to the Kmart, get a hoodie off the rack,
Brett Johnson (13:25.360)
take the tags off of it, wear it out, work just fine.
Lex Fridman (13:28.480)
And the way you steal bread
Brett Johnson (13:29.600)
is you put the hoodie over your shoulder,
Lex Fridman (13:31.440)
stuff a loaf of bread down the sleeve
Lex Fridman (13:32.880)
and you walk out with it.
Lex Fridman (13:34.360)
So we started doing that.
Lex Fridman (13:35.400)
How'd you figure that out?
Lex Fridman (13:36.840)
Just thought pattern.
Lex Fridman (13:38.160)
So there's like strategic thinking here.
Lex Fridman (13:43.920)
Yeah, you know, you can't wear the hoodie
Lex Fridman (13:45.320)
and put the bread down here
Lex Fridman (13:46.400)
cause you might mash the bread when you zip it up
Brett Johnson (13:48.840)
or they might notice the bread.
Lex Fridman (13:49.680)
Yeah, we have to think through that.
Brett Johnson (13:50.520)
You gotta think through it.
Lex Fridman (13:51.740)
But you gotta realize by this point,
Brett Johnson (13:53.800)
I'm already seeing what my parents are doing.
Lex Fridman (13:57.120)
You know, I'm already seeing the plotting.
Brett Johnson (13:59.520)
That kind of puzzle solving
Lex Fridman (14:01.000)
was something you were already developing yourself
Brett Johnson (14:02.760)
individually cause you're pretty young.
Lex Fridman (14:04.200)
Yeah, 10 years old, pretty young.
Lex Fridman (14:05.840)
But seeing how they act, how they respond to things.
Lex Fridman (14:08.400)
And my mom, I guess you could call it a good thing,
Brett Johnson (14:11.280)
they never kept any of that hidden from the kids.
Lex Fridman (14:14.800)
You know, there was no discussions behind closed doors.
Brett Johnson (14:17.720)
All that happened in front of everybody.
Lex Fridman (14:19.300)
And from your young minds perspective,
Brett Johnson (14:22.320)
seeing that kind of crime, you basically,
Lex Fridman (14:25.920)
you know, a lot of us kind of grow up
Brett Johnson (14:27.660)
thinking there's rules you're not supposed to break.
Lex Fridman (14:29.820)
If you see other humans breaking those rules,
Brett Johnson (14:31.940)
then you realize those rules are just human made.
Lex Fridman (14:35.680)
But it gets worse than that.
Brett Johnson (14:37.120)
I was in an environment where there were no decent people.
Lex Fridman (14:42.880)
I didn't really meet my first decent person
Brett Johnson (14:45.040)
until I was 16 years old.
Lex Fridman (14:47.160)
Who's that?
Brett Johnson (14:48.000)
That was a high school teacher.
Lex Fridman (14:49.920)
So what happens is, you know, we start shoplifting food.
Brett Johnson (14:54.480)
My mom finds out that we've been stealing stuff
Lex Fridman (14:56.720)
and you know, she joins us.
Lex Fridman (14:59.040)
What's that?
Lex Fridman (14:59.880)
She joins us.
Brett Johnson (15:00.880)
Yeah, she comes in, you know, I've got the television,
Lex Fridman (15:02.780)
I've got the Atari 2600, play the hell out of it.
Brett Johnson (15:05.120)
Oh my God.
Lex Fridman (15:05.960)
She starts seeing this shit.
Lex Fridman (15:06.880)
She's like, where'd this come from?
Lex Fridman (15:08.020)
And I'm like, well, we found it.
Brett Johnson (15:09.200)
She's like, you didn't find that.
Lex Fridman (15:10.360)
Denise, Denise stands up, we stole it.
Brett Johnson (15:13.520)
My mom, show me how you did that.
Lex Fridman (15:16.680)
And she gets her mom too, to join in.
Lex Fridman (15:19.520)
And she used to run me and Denise
Lex Fridman (15:20.760)
as these little shoplifters.
Brett Johnson (15:21.980)
We'd take, you know, we'd steal stuff for her.
Lex Fridman (15:24.520)
We would distract security
Lex Fridman (15:27.760)
and her and my grandmother would steal stuff.
Lex Fridman (15:30.840)
They got caught doing that.
Lex Fridman (15:32.380)
But that's the entry into crime.
Lex Fridman (15:34.920)
And Denise, you know, I'm adamant and I kind of mean it.
Lex Fridman (15:41.280)
But the truth is I say, and I do mean it,
Lex Fridman (15:45.760)
that I'm responsible for my choices as an adult, all right?
Brett Johnson (15:49.760)
I believe that when you're a child, you can't control that.
Lex Fridman (15:52.240)
The adults in your environment control what you do.
Lex Fridman (15:55.020)
All right?
Lex Fridman (15:55.860)
Once you're an adult though, your choices are yours.
Brett Johnson (15:58.900)
Now that being said, there's some,
Lex Fridman (16:03.700)
you can't dismiss that childhood
Brett Johnson (16:07.940)
influencing what I did as an adult.
Lex Fridman (16:10.880)
You can't do that.
Brett Johnson (16:12.140)
I mean, it was kind of written on slate that,
Lex Fridman (16:14.960)
hey, this guy's gonna be this guy when he grows up.
Brett Johnson (16:18.280)
That's like sometimes that one person you meet,
Lex Fridman (16:20.740)
that decent person can turn the tide of your life.
Brett Johnson (16:23.800)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (16:24.640)
So what happens is, you know, the abuse,
Brett Johnson (16:26.600)
everything continues on, when I'm 15,
Lex Fridman (16:30.520)
my dad was in Panama City, Florida.
Brett Johnson (16:33.520)
My mom was in, you know, we were in Hazard, Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (16:38.560)
She was dating this guy.
Brett Johnson (16:40.520)
My mom was this woman that the abuse would,
Lex Fridman (16:46.280)
it was crazy abuse, man, just crazy stuff.
Brett Johnson (16:49.500)
She would tell me and my sister, you know,
Lex Fridman (16:52.040)
that she gave up her life for us,
Brett Johnson (16:55.080)
that she was gonna leave one day and never come back,
Lex Fridman (16:57.680)
that we'd find her dead in a ditch someplace.
Brett Johnson (17:00.240)
She'd go out and date these men and she'd come back
Lex Fridman (17:02.080)
and she'd talk about how these men were abusing her.
Brett Johnson (17:05.680)
You know, so she'd be dating this guy
Lex Fridman (17:07.560)
and she'd come back and she'd, you know,
Brett Johnson (17:10.680)
start talking about how he had tried to rape her,
Lex Fridman (17:13.080)
you know, trying to get me to respond to that.
Lex Fridman (17:14.640)
And I would respond to that.
Lex Fridman (17:16.100)
Make no doubt, I would respond to that.
Brett Johnson (17:18.520)
Well, what happens is, and I knew that,
Lex Fridman (17:21.320)
I don't know if I knew it was abuse at that age, all right,
Lex Fridman (17:23.920)
but I knew things were fucked up.
Lex Fridman (17:25.840)
And I was talking to my dad in Panama City
Lex Fridman (17:29.200)
and I really had it in my head
Lex Fridman (17:30.840)
that I was gonna go down and live with my dad.
Lex Fridman (17:35.480)
And I called my dad one day.
Lex Fridman (17:40.480)
I was set to go to, me and my cousins
Brett Johnson (17:42.920)
were gonna go see Return of the Jedi.
Lex Fridman (17:45.240)
It had came out again in the theaters.
Lex Fridman (17:48.160)
So I called my dad, it was a Sunday,
Lex Fridman (17:50.480)
called my dad and he told me,
Brett Johnson (17:52.840)
he had either gotten married
Lex Fridman (17:54.480)
or he was about to get married to this woman.
Lex Fridman (17:56.880)
And basically Brett Johnson
Lex Fridman (17:59.480)
wasn't gonna go down to Florida.
Brett Johnson (18:01.200)
You know, I was gonna stay in Hazard.
Lex Fridman (18:03.680)
I had to call my dad from payphone,
Lex Fridman (18:05.060)
but the result of that was I walked him into a hospital,
Lex Fridman (18:11.320)
got in an elevator and a woman got in the elevator
Brett Johnson (18:15.560)
at the same time and I snapped
Lex Fridman (18:18.160)
and beat the hell out of her right there.
Lex Fridman (18:21.200)
And I was 15, didn't really know what the fuck happened.
Lex Fridman (18:27.320)
Didn't really know, but.
Brett Johnson (18:29.000)
Just anger came from somewhere.
Lex Fridman (18:30.520)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (18:32.080)
And you know, the elevator,
Lex Fridman (18:37.640)
beat the hell out of this lady.
Brett Johnson (18:40.000)
Turned out she looked a shitload like my mom,
Lex Fridman (18:43.760)
but the elevator doors open.
Lex Fridman (18:48.760)
And one of the security guards,
Lex Fridman (18:51.420)
I played basketball with his son.
Lex Fridman (18:53.500)
So he saw me immediately.
Lex Fridman (18:55.140)
I knocked the hell out of him, took off running,
Brett Johnson (18:58.620)
made it back to the house where my grandparents were.
Lex Fridman (19:02.940)
They didn't know what had happened.
Lex Fridman (19:04.020)
So I didn't say anything.
Lex Fridman (19:07.500)
About an hour later, Kentucky state police,
Brett Johnson (19:10.140)
they pull up in the front yard and two of them get out
Lex Fridman (19:13.820)
and I'm sitting on the front porch and me and my cousins are
Lex Fridman (19:16.620)
and they start walking up where everybody starts walking
Lex Fridman (19:18.940)
out of the house.
Lex Fridman (19:19.780)
And I'm like, I just remember saying, what do you want?
Lex Fridman (19:21.700)
What do you want?
Brett Johnson (19:22.520)
Well, you know what they wanted.
Lex Fridman (19:23.900)
They wanted to arrest Brett Johnson and they arrested me.
Brett Johnson (19:27.820)
I went in and I told them everything.
Lex Fridman (19:31.340)
Spent three months in a county jail.
Brett Johnson (19:33.220)
They didn't have juvenile facilities in that county.
Lex Fridman (19:37.580)
So I spent three months in solitary, went to trial,
Brett Johnson (19:42.440)
pled guilty to assault in the first degree.
Lex Fridman (19:44.740)
The judge sentenced me to time served
Lex Fridman (19:48.540)
and a psychological evaluation
Lex Fridman (19:50.180)
where they sent me to Louisville, Kentucky.
Brett Johnson (19:54.020)
Spent 30 days up there and they cut me loose.
Lex Fridman (19:55.780)
They wanted me to have counseling after that
Lex Fridman (19:59.180)
and never went to counseling.
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.160)
North Korea is about stealing money
Brett Johnson (1:00:02.480)
because they really don't know
Lex Fridman (1:00:03.320)
what the hell else to do right now, but...
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.200)
So North Korea is actively involved in cybercrime.
Lex Fridman (1:00:09.480)
Absolutely.
Brett Johnson (1:00:10.360)
They've stolen a shitload of Bitcoin, everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.320)
So absolutely, they're actively involved with that.
Brett Johnson (1:00:16.640)
Very, very skilled attackers, very skilled.
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.120)
But even if you look at, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.160)
I told you that stat about 90%, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:00:23.560)
So even though SolarWinds is going to be
Brett Johnson (1:00:27.920)
the number one attack,
Lex Fridman (1:00:29.320)
the followup to that is this NotPetya attack that happened.
Lex Fridman (1:00:33.040)
And so that was the most sophisticated attack
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.680)
launched by the Russian Sandworm Group
Brett Johnson (1:00:38.200)
using all known exploits throughout.
Lex Fridman (1:00:40.920)
So it's not, again, it's not...
Brett Johnson (1:00:43.920)
You're right in the sophistication
Lex Fridman (1:00:45.320)
is typically not technical sophistication,
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.880)
but it's a social engineering sophistication.
Lex Fridman (1:00:50.120)
How do you get these things put together
Lex Fridman (1:00:52.200)
in line to attack and succeed?
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.360)
But when you get access to the source code,
Brett Johnson (1:00:57.320)
that's where technical sophistication could really do
Lex Fridman (1:00:59.560)
a lot of damage.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.400)
And that's when you find out real quick,
Lex Fridman (1:01:02.760)
that's what separates the men from the boys in this game.
Brett Johnson (1:01:05.440)
All right, because all of a sudden it's not,
Lex Fridman (1:01:07.160)
I don't have to worry about social engineering.
Brett Johnson (1:01:09.000)
I've got source codes and I've got professionals
Lex Fridman (1:01:11.800)
that are looking at that.
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.280)
And that's your ass.
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.520)
Which then enables probably even more powerful
Brett Johnson (1:01:18.320)
social engineering methods too.
Lex Fridman (1:01:20.200)
I mean, it's just the cascade of...
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.560)
Is this terrifying to you, by the way?
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.480)
That this world that we're living in,
Brett Johnson (1:01:29.760)
as we put more and more of ourselves on the internet,
Lex Fridman (1:01:34.760)
into the metaverse, that there's so many more
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.720)
attack vectors on our wellbeing?
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.680)
What's terrifying to me, I used to preach it on Shadow Crew,
Brett Johnson (1:01:45.240)
is the idea that the perception of truth
Lex Fridman (1:01:49.640)
is more important than the truth itself.
Brett Johnson (1:01:52.320)
It doesn't matter what the facts are,
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.920)
it matters what I can convince you of.
Brett Johnson (1:01:56.640)
That's what's terrifying to me.
Lex Fridman (1:01:58.680)
So you look at deep fakes, you look at fake news,
Brett Johnson (1:02:02.000)
all this stuff that's going out,
Lex Fridman (1:02:03.760)
that becomes truly terrifying.
Brett Johnson (1:02:09.320)
Maybe there's an angle where it's freeing,
Lex Fridman (1:02:11.960)
if nothing is true and you can't trust anything.
Lex Fridman (1:02:15.720)
But you see, we as human beings, we wanna trust.
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.640)
We do, we need human interaction.
Lex Fridman (1:02:22.800)
And for that human interaction,
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.920)
you have to have a degree of trust.
Lex Fridman (1:02:27.000)
But it's more like you let go of an idea of absolute truth
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.920)
and it more becomes like a blockchain style consensus.
Lex Fridman (1:02:35.720)
So you let go of like, you know what?
Lex Fridman (1:02:39.600)
There's this human dream, you get this on the internet,
Brett Johnson (1:02:42.760)
you get like facts, as if there's at the bottom,
Lex Fridman (1:02:47.080)
at the bottom, there's one turtle that's holding
Brett Johnson (1:02:49.400)
this scroll that says, these are the truths of the world.
Lex Fridman (1:02:54.040)
The problem is, I mean, maybe believing
Brett Johnson (1:02:57.360)
that is counterproductive.
Lex Fridman (1:02:59.040)
Maybe human civilization is an ongoing process of consensus.
Lex Fridman (1:03:04.640)
And so it's always going to be, everything is shrouded
Lex Fridman (1:03:08.320)
and you can call them lies or you can call them inaccuracies
Brett Johnson (1:03:11.000)
or you can call them delusions.
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.720)
It's constantly going to be, it's going to be a sea of lies
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.680)
and delusions, but our hope is to over time
Lex Fridman (1:03:22.080)
develop bigger and bigger islands of consensus
Brett Johnson (1:03:24.520)
that allows us to live a stable and happy society.
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.520)
Don't call it true, call it a stable consensus
Brett Johnson (1:03:32.880)
that creates a high quality of life
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.880)
for the inhabitants of the island.
Brett Johnson (1:03:36.800)
I like it, I mean, I like it.
Lex Fridman (1:03:38.400)
I mean, we're going to agree on this.
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.240)
And then don't use outlook, no, I'm just kidding.
Lex Fridman (1:03:43.080)
So maybe a step back, you mentioned, I'd love to talk
Brett Johnson (1:03:47.840)
about ShadowCrew, maybe this is the right time
Lex Fridman (1:03:49.400)
to actually, yeah, let's go to ShadowCrew
Brett Johnson (1:03:51.440)
because it's such a fascinating story.
Lex Fridman (1:03:53.040)
So tell me the story of building ShadowCrew,
Brett Johnson (1:03:54.680)
the precursor to today's darknet and darknet markets.
Lex Fridman (1:03:59.800)
This is why you're the original Godfather.
Brett Johnson (1:04:02.960)
This is it, this is it.
Lex Fridman (1:04:04.600)
So I get married.
Brett Johnson (1:04:06.640)
I faked a car accident to get married,
Lex Fridman (1:04:09.120)
got the money from that.
Brett Johnson (1:04:10.160)
You're romantic.
Lex Fridman (1:04:11.120)
I remember, like my dad, man.
Brett Johnson (1:04:13.320)
I'm the guy that, you know, I get from mom,
Lex Fridman (1:04:15.000)
I get the criminal mindset.
Brett Johnson (1:04:16.720)
From dad, I get that, don't want him to leave.
Lex Fridman (1:04:19.600)
So, you know, so.
Lex Fridman (1:04:22.480)
To get married, what's that story?
Lex Fridman (1:04:26.520)
Oh, dude, I was.
Lex Fridman (1:04:28.160)
How did you fall in love there?
Lex Fridman (1:04:29.680)
My first girlfriend was a preacher's daughter
Lex Fridman (1:04:32.120)
and crazy over her, dated her for five years.
Lex Fridman (1:04:35.280)
And she figured out pretty quickly that,
Brett Johnson (1:04:38.680)
well, not quickly, it took her five years
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.360)
to figure out that Brett Johnson is not the man of God.
Brett Johnson (1:04:44.760)
I could talk it, but more that agnostic than anything,
Lex Fridman (1:04:50.600)
she breaks up with me.
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.320)
So I was at the community college.
Lex Fridman (1:04:54.880)
You'd make one hell of a preacher by the way.
Brett Johnson (1:04:56.840)
Thank you.
Lex Fridman (1:04:57.360)
Let's put that.
Brett Johnson (1:04:59.680)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.360)
I've got that Langston Hughes problem.
Brett Johnson (1:05:04.080)
I'm looking for Jesus to show up and he just doesn't.
Lex Fridman (1:05:08.920)
So I was at the community college
Lex Fridman (1:05:10.520)
and I was a straight asshole.
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.040)
I was arrogant, conceited, everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:05:14.480)
And I had posted an advertisement
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.520)
on one of the billboards looking for an adult babysitter,
Brett Johnson (1:05:20.440)
hot blonde, you know, come visit me in the library.
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.040)
Buddy of mine shows up and he's like, Brett.
Lex Fridman (1:05:26.240)
And I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:27.520)
He's like, hottest girl in school, right down the hall.
Lex Fridman (1:05:29.920)
And I was like, serious?
Lex Fridman (1:05:30.960)
He's like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:31.680)
And I was like, let's go see.
Lex Fridman (1:05:34.240)
Walk over and there's these two guys that are hitting on her.
Lex Fridman (1:05:37.360)
So I just walk up and me and Todd, that was my buddy,
Lex Fridman (1:05:40.840)
walk up and I'm just sitting there and listening.
Lex Fridman (1:05:43.360)
And they're giving the spill and everything.
Lex Fridman (1:05:45.280)
And she's just kind of taking it in.
Brett Johnson (1:05:46.680)
Finally, I looked over and I was like,
Lex Fridman (1:05:48.880)
you want to get out of here?
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.560)
And one of the guys looks at me and he's like, hey,
Lex Fridman (1:05:53.560)
we're talking to you.
Lex Fridman (1:05:54.080)
And I was like, well, you're talking at her.
Lex Fridman (1:05:55.840)
You're not talking to her.
Brett Johnson (1:05:57.080)
I'm about to save her ass from you.
Lex Fridman (1:05:59.320)
Yeah, that's a smooth pick up line, by the way.
Brett Johnson (1:06:01.320)
If I ever heard one, that's good.
Lex Fridman (1:06:02.720)
You want to get out of here?
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.160)
So start dating, and she was the girl
Lex Fridman (1:06:08.520)
that screwed my brains out.
Lex Fridman (1:06:10.960)
And I fell head over heels.
Lex Fridman (1:06:13.120)
We got married six months later.
Brett Johnson (1:06:15.120)
Six months.
Lex Fridman (1:06:16.000)
That's what love does.
Brett Johnson (1:06:17.040)
That's what it does.
Lex Fridman (1:06:18.240)
And she didn't know I was a crook.
Brett Johnson (1:06:22.800)
She had no idea.
Lex Fridman (1:06:24.480)
She knew I was very bright.
Brett Johnson (1:06:26.240)
She knew I did a lot of theater, stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.480)
Got a job at, I was in hazard.
Brett Johnson (1:06:32.760)
There was no jobs to be had, so I got a job in Lexington,
Lex Fridman (1:06:35.760)
because we were going to be moving to the UK.
Brett Johnson (1:06:38.480)
Got a job in Lexington at Lexmark testing printer boards,
Lex Fridman (1:06:43.240)
circuit boards.
Lex Fridman (1:06:44.480)
So I would leave on a Thursday night,
Lex Fridman (1:06:46.920)
work three 18 hour shifts at Lexmark,
Brett Johnson (1:06:50.480)
come back home on Monday.
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.120)
Got married, faked a car accident
Brett Johnson (1:06:56.000)
to get the rest of the money that I needed to get married.
Lex Fridman (1:07:02.160)
And the faking on that, man, I had bought a Chevy Spectrum
Brett Johnson (1:07:07.240)
at a car auction.
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.080)
Gave like $500 for it.
Brett Johnson (1:07:09.840)
My aunt had previously defrauded USAA insurance
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.040)
on a car accident, and she was telling me all about it.
Brett Johnson (1:07:16.360)
She's like, look, go down to this chiropractor.
Lex Fridman (1:07:18.440)
Make sure you get the insurance where
Brett Johnson (1:07:19.940)
they'll pay for a rental car.
Lex Fridman (1:07:21.320)
They'll pay lost wages.
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.480)
I was like, they pay lost wages?
Lex Fridman (1:07:24.160)
She's like, yeah, they pay lost wages.
Brett Johnson (1:07:25.760)
I was like, hmm.
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.960)
She's like, by the way, you work for me.
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.120)
And I was like, I work for you.
Lex Fridman (1:07:32.000)
And you get to define the wage.
Lex Fridman (1:07:34.400)
And you could also define how long you were unable to work.
Lex Fridman (1:07:37.120)
Exactly.
Brett Johnson (1:07:37.760)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:07:38.360)
And the chiropractor will sign off on any damn thing.
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.760)
So my cousin, Ronnie, he figures out that I'm going.
Lex Fridman (1:07:45.720)
He finds out I'm going to fake this car accident.
Lex Fridman (1:07:47.840)
So he comes to me.
Lex Fridman (1:07:48.360)
He's like, hey, man, can I get in on that?
Brett Johnson (1:07:49.680)
I was like, yeah, man, you get on that.
Lex Fridman (1:07:51.440)
So this kid, he's five days younger than I am.
Brett Johnson (1:07:53.960)
This kid, he goes to the dentist the day
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.760)
that we're faking it, has a tooth pulled,
Brett Johnson (1:07:58.200)
tells the dentist not to numb it, not to stitch it,
Lex Fridman (1:08:01.040)
just pull it.
Lex Fridman (1:08:02.320)
So he shows up.
Lex Fridman (1:08:04.560)
He shows up the day that we're driving out
Brett Johnson (1:08:06.360)
to fake the accident.
Lex Fridman (1:08:07.120)
He's got blood all over his shirt.
Brett Johnson (1:08:08.360)
He's still bleeding out of the mouth and everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:08:09.960)
I'm like, are you OK?
Brett Johnson (1:08:10.760)
He's like, yeah, man, it's going to be good.
Lex Fridman (1:08:12.160)
It's going to be good.
Brett Johnson (1:08:12.960)
I'm like, OK.
Lex Fridman (1:08:14.680)
My mom, by this point, I'm living with my grandparents.
Brett Johnson (1:08:17.240)
My mom is up in the head of a hollow.
Lex Fridman (1:08:20.280)
So we're like, we'll just do it up there.
Brett Johnson (1:08:22.040)
We'll go act like we're visiting my mom on the way back out,
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.080)
ran over a mountain.
Brett Johnson (1:08:26.480)
OK.
Lex Fridman (1:08:27.240)
So we go visit and everything, come back out that night,
Brett Johnson (1:08:30.640)
run over the side of the hill.
Lex Fridman (1:08:32.360)
Me and Ronnie walk back up.
Brett Johnson (1:08:33.840)
Of course, it totals the car.
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.840)
Walk back to my mom's, acting like we've wrecked.
Brett Johnson (1:08:37.960)
She knows what time it is and everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:08:40.000)
And file the claims.
Lex Fridman (1:08:41.800)
So that gets the money to get married.
Lex Fridman (1:08:44.400)
And me and my wife moved from Hazard to Lexington.
Lex Fridman (1:08:49.080)
And I'm the kid that my crime, usually, if I was a single guy,
Lex Fridman (1:08:57.640)
wouldn't break the law.
Brett Johnson (1:08:58.960)
Wouldn't.
Lex Fridman (1:08:59.440)
I would be all right.
Lex Fridman (1:09:00.520)
But females involved, oh, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:03.280)
Oh, yeah.
Brett Johnson (1:09:03.760)
Got to spend the money.
Lex Fridman (1:09:04.640)
Got to show them gifts.
Brett Johnson (1:09:05.640)
Everything else was never enough to show love
Lex Fridman (1:09:07.840)
in some sort of healthy way.
Brett Johnson (1:09:09.280)
Always had to go overboard.
Lex Fridman (1:09:10.480)
And typically, it was buying or stealing
Brett Johnson (1:09:12.240)
some sort of expensive crap.
Lex Fridman (1:09:13.440)
So that was the thing.
Brett Johnson (1:09:15.200)
That was the way you show love is by buying expensive gifts.
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.120)
Or something overboard.
Brett Johnson (1:09:20.680)
Back then, with Susan, initially, it was,
Lex Fridman (1:09:24.360)
don't worry about working.
Brett Johnson (1:09:25.520)
I got it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.480)
You just worry about going to school.
Brett Johnson (1:09:27.980)
She was a music major.
Lex Fridman (1:09:29.480)
I was like, you just worry about going to school.
Lex Fridman (1:09:31.560)
So don't worry about cooking and cleaning.
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.040)
I got it.
Brett Johnson (1:09:34.560)
I got it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:35.360)
So not only was I this guy that was going overboard,
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.800)
but I was kind of a control freak, too.
Lex Fridman (1:09:40.200)
So no, I got it.
Brett Johnson (1:09:41.000)
I got it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:41.480)
I got it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:42.240)
So here I am, 60 hour a week job, 18 hour class load,
Lex Fridman (1:09:47.760)
cooking and cleaning.
Brett Johnson (1:09:48.760)
Something had to give.
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.320)
I quit the job.
Brett Johnson (1:09:51.200)
I couldn't do it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:51.880)
Quit the job and start back in fraud.
Lex Fridman (1:09:55.080)
And trying to hide that from her at the same time.
Lex Fridman (1:09:57.960)
So it was initially telemarketing fraud.
Brett Johnson (1:10:03.720)
The first job I had was a telemarketer at a cemetery,
Lex Fridman (1:10:07.240)
selling gravesites.
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.760)
And then that ended.
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.320)
Went over to work for the Shriners Circus, Shriners
Brett Johnson (1:10:13.640)
Hospital.
Lex Fridman (1:10:14.280)
And it was a third party company that
Brett Johnson (1:10:16.440)
was doing all the telemarketing.
Lex Fridman (1:10:17.780)
Made really good money doing that.
Brett Johnson (1:10:19.680)
That job ended.
Lex Fridman (1:10:21.420)
And then they pivoted over to working with Kiwanis Clubs,
Brett Johnson (1:10:25.120)
selling food baskets to the food banks and everything.
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.280)
So I stole the phone list and started at my own Kiwanis Club
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.880)
and would do the telemarketing, go out twice a week
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.000)
and pick up checks.
Brett Johnson (1:10:39.440)
Well, what happened was is I'm going out picking up checks,
Lex Fridman (1:10:44.920)
go knock on a door.
Brett Johnson (1:10:46.200)
Turns out one of the persons that I had called
Lex Fridman (1:10:48.440)
was a law enforcement officer.
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.800)
So he was like, who are you?
Lex Fridman (1:10:54.000)
I'm with the Kiwanis Club.
Lex Fridman (1:10:55.360)
And he's like, no, you're not.
Lex Fridman (1:10:57.320)
So got arrested, spent three months in a county jail
Brett Johnson (1:11:00.880)
for theft by deception.
Lex Fridman (1:11:03.080)
Got out.
Lex Fridman (1:11:04.240)
And we had to move from Lexington back to Hazard
Lex Fridman (1:11:09.120)
and live with Susan's parents.
Brett Johnson (1:11:10.920)
They had gotten a desktop computer, HP.
Lex Fridman (1:11:15.080)
And I started surfing around online.
Brett Johnson (1:11:18.640)
Found eBay.
Lex Fridman (1:11:19.880)
And didn't really know how to make money on eBay.
Brett Johnson (1:11:22.800)
At about the same time, I'm committing low level frauds
Lex Fridman (1:11:28.200)
online.
Lex Fridman (1:11:29.000)
And I don't really talk about that in the past.
Lex Fridman (1:11:30.960)
The first time I've really talked about that.
Lex Fridman (1:11:32.920)
But I would pay for it with bad checks.
Lex Fridman (1:11:37.560)
So more person, so not using a platform like eBay and more.
Brett Johnson (1:11:41.160)
I would find somebody that had like a stereo system on eBay,
Lex Fridman (1:11:44.080)
something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:11:44.920)
And I'd pay for it with a bad check
Lex Fridman (1:11:46.800)
and would rely on them not to chase me
Brett Johnson (1:11:49.880)
because they were out of state at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:11:51.680)
And the dollar amounts were very low.
Lex Fridman (1:11:53.960)
So got the money to move to finally
Lex Fridman (1:11:56.480)
did those schemes enough to get the money
Brett Johnson (1:11:58.800)
to move back to Lexington.
Lex Fridman (1:12:01.760)
Got to Lexington.
Lex Fridman (1:12:02.760)
And by this point, I'm doing, like I said,
Lex Fridman (1:12:04.880)
these schemes on eBay.
Lex Fridman (1:12:07.200)
And I'm like, there's got to be a better way
Lex Fridman (1:12:09.160)
to make money on eBay.
Brett Johnson (1:12:10.200)
Got to be.
Lex Fridman (1:12:11.000)
So didn't really know how.
Brett Johnson (1:12:13.560)
One night, I'm watching Inside Edition with Bill Riley.
Lex Fridman (1:12:16.520)
And they're profiling Beanie Babies.
Lex Fridman (1:12:18.400)
So I'm sitting there watching.
Lex Fridman (1:12:19.760)
The one they're profiling is this one called Peanut,
Brett Johnson (1:12:21.960)
the Royal Blue Elephant.
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.520)
Selling for $1,500 on eBay.
Brett Johnson (1:12:25.680)
I'm sitting there going like, shit,
Lex Fridman (1:12:27.200)
I need to find me a peanut.
Brett Johnson (1:12:30.440)
My initial thought was, well, there's
Lex Fridman (1:12:32.000)
got to be one in one of these Hallmark stores
Brett Johnson (1:12:33.880)
in Kentucky someplace.
Lex Fridman (1:12:35.440)
So I skip class the next day.
Brett Johnson (1:12:36.880)
Went out around all the Hallmark stores looking for peanut.
Lex Fridman (1:12:39.640)
No, idiot.
Brett Johnson (1:12:40.880)
He's on eBay for $1,500.
Lex Fridman (1:12:43.720)
So after a few hours of that, I'm like, hmm.
Brett Johnson (1:12:49.280)
Turns out they had a little gray Beanie Baby elephants
Lex Fridman (1:12:51.440)
for $8.
Brett Johnson (1:12:52.760)
Picked up one of those for $8.
Lex Fridman (1:12:54.440)
Stopped by Kroger on the way home.
Brett Johnson (1:12:56.040)
Picked up a pack of Blue Rit dye.
Lex Fridman (1:12:58.320)
Went home, tried to dye the little guy.
Lex Fridman (1:13:00.440)
So that was a nightmare.
Lex Fridman (1:13:02.560)
Turns out they're made out of polyester.
Brett Johnson (1:13:04.680)
Get them out of the bath.
Lex Fridman (1:13:05.760)
Looks like they've got the mange.
Lex Fridman (1:13:08.480)
And what happens is, so I'm trying to dye the damn thing.
Lex Fridman (1:13:11.680)
I'm like, well, that's not going to work.
Brett Johnson (1:13:13.280)
That's just not going to work.
Lex Fridman (1:13:14.680)
So I got online, found a picture of a real one,
Brett Johnson (1:13:17.320)
posted it on eBay, and I was like, well, what I can do
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.800)
is I can claim that's the one I've got
Lex Fridman (1:13:25.520)
and then maybe claim that it got messed up in the mail
Lex Fridman (1:13:28.400)
and work out like that.
Lex Fridman (1:13:29.400)
So posted a picture of a real one online.
Lex Fridman (1:13:32.080)
Woman thought I had the real thing.
Brett Johnson (1:13:33.640)
She wins the bid.
Lex Fridman (1:13:35.600)
That social engineering kicks in immediately.
Brett Johnson (1:13:37.480)
I didn't want to be on the defensive.
Lex Fridman (1:13:39.480)
I wanted to put her on the defensive.
Lex Fridman (1:13:41.360)
So as soon as she wins the bid, I send her a message.
Lex Fridman (1:13:44.000)
Hey, we've not done any business before.
Brett Johnson (1:13:46.160)
I don't even know if I can trust you.
Lex Fridman (1:13:47.760)
What I need you to do, protects us both.
Brett Johnson (1:13:50.640)
Go down the US Postal Service.
Lex Fridman (1:13:52.240)
Get two money orders totaling $1,500.
Brett Johnson (1:13:54.960)
Send them to me issued by the US government.
Lex Fridman (1:13:57.520)
That way we're both protected.
Brett Johnson (1:14:00.040)
Soon as I get the money orders, I'll send you your animal.
Lex Fridman (1:14:02.560)
She believed that.
Brett Johnson (1:14:03.320)
Didn't ask any questions at all.
Lex Fridman (1:14:04.680)
She believed that.
Brett Johnson (1:14:07.000)
Sent me the money orders.
Lex Fridman (1:14:07.960)
I cashed them out.
Brett Johnson (1:14:09.640)
Sent her the creature.
Lex Fridman (1:14:10.960)
Immediately got a phone call.
Brett Johnson (1:14:12.640)
I didn't order this.
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.840)
My response, lady, you ordered a blue elephant.
Brett Johnson (1:14:16.840)
I sent you a blue fish elephant.
Lex Fridman (1:14:19.840)
And she got pissed.
Lex Fridman (1:14:21.880)
And she kept calling.
Lex Fridman (1:14:23.920)
What I found out, and that's really
Brett Johnson (1:14:25.440)
the first lesson of cybercrime that most of these criminals,
Lex Fridman (1:14:27.800)
including self, learns.
Brett Johnson (1:14:29.160)
If you delay a victim long enough,
Lex Fridman (1:14:30.680)
just keep putting them off.
Brett Johnson (1:14:31.960)
A lot of them, they get exasperated,
Lex Fridman (1:14:33.720)
throw their hands in the air, walk away.
Brett Johnson (1:14:35.520)
You don't hear from them.
Lex Fridman (1:14:36.720)
And none of them, to this day, none of them
Brett Johnson (1:14:40.200)
complain to law enforcement.
Lex Fridman (1:14:41.480)
They eat it.
Lex Fridman (1:14:42.800)
So it's a mixture of you're exhausted by the process,
Lex Fridman (1:14:47.400)
so it's just easier to walk away,
Lex Fridman (1:14:49.520)
and second, almost like an embarrassment.
Lex Fridman (1:14:52.160)
So there's a whole slew of reasons, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:14:54.880)
There's the exhaustion, certainly.
Lex Fridman (1:14:56.760)
There's the embarrassment.
Lex Fridman (1:14:57.880)
So if you figure out, if you look at it today,
Lex Fridman (1:14:59.680)
where does the embarrassment come from?
Brett Johnson (1:15:00.960)
Well, the media, family members,
Lex Fridman (1:15:03.560)
we're all very good about blaming the victim for crimes.
Lex Fridman (1:15:06.520)
Why would you click on the link?
Lex Fridman (1:15:07.600)
Why would you send money to somebody you don't know?
Brett Johnson (1:15:09.280)
Blah, blah, blah.
Lex Fridman (1:15:10.240)
So you've got that that's going on.
Lex Fridman (1:15:12.240)
You've got the issue of, who do you complain to?
Lex Fridman (1:15:15.720)
Back then, you didn't know.
Lex Fridman (1:15:16.960)
Do you complain to local police?
Lex Fridman (1:15:18.160)
Because she's in another state, so which local police
Lex Fridman (1:15:21.240)
do you complain to?
Lex Fridman (1:15:22.440)
Do you complain to the feds?
Brett Johnson (1:15:23.600)
Well, the dollar amounts aren't high enough
Lex Fridman (1:15:25.400)
to complain to feds.
Brett Johnson (1:15:26.440)
Feds are going to tell you to go local.
Lex Fridman (1:15:28.200)
Local's going to tell you, hey, it happened in Kentucky.
Brett Johnson (1:15:30.720)
Complain to them.
Lex Fridman (1:15:31.600)
Kentucky's going to tell you, well, shit, you're over there.
Brett Johnson (1:15:34.080)
We need you to come in.
Lex Fridman (1:15:35.000)
So there's this whole issue of the jurisdiction,
Brett Johnson (1:15:38.320)
of the blame factor, everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:15:41.480)
So I got away with that crime and did it under my own name
Brett Johnson (1:15:45.240)
at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:15:46.920)
I kept going and got better at it,
Brett Johnson (1:15:49.360)
started to understand how to hide identities,
Lex Fridman (1:15:51.760)
things like that.
Brett Johnson (1:15:52.480)
Started selling pirated software.
Lex Fridman (1:15:54.720)
Pirated software led into installing mod chips.
Brett Johnson (1:15:58.080)
The initial pirated software was Sega Saturn, PlayStation 1.
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.040)
Well, you had to have a mod chip in those
Brett Johnson (1:16:03.760)
to play the pirated disk, so I started
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.480)
selling and installing mod chips.
Brett Johnson (1:16:08.760)
That led into installing mod chips in the cable television
Lex Fridman (1:16:11.680)
boxes so you could watch all the pay per view, which in turn
Brett Johnson (1:16:15.200)
led into programming satellite DSS cards.
Lex Fridman (1:16:18.160)
Those 18 inch RCA satellite systems,
Brett Johnson (1:16:20.880)
pull the card out of it, program it, turns on all the channels.
Lex Fridman (1:16:24.600)
Started doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:16:26.080)
Can we just pause?
Lex Fridman (1:16:28.400)
That is very entrepreneurial.
Lex Fridman (1:16:33.800)
So just technically, so there's laws and rules
Lex Fridman (1:16:41.160)
that you're breaking nonstop.
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.320)
So there's also legitimate ways of doing
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.920)
that, which is break the rules of the conventions of the past.
Brett Johnson (1:16:49.880)
That's the first principles thing.
Lex Fridman (1:16:51.360)
That's what Elon Musk and his ilk do all the time.
Brett Johnson (1:16:55.400)
That is guts and brilliance.
Lex Fridman (1:16:59.520)
But when it's crossing the lines of the law,
Brett Johnson (1:17:03.080)
actually sometimes the law is outdated.
Lex Fridman (1:17:07.240)
The thing is, as a human being, you
Brett Johnson (1:17:09.080)
have to then compute the ethical damage you're doing.
Lex Fridman (1:17:12.720)
Like ethically, the damage you're
Brett Johnson (1:17:14.000)
doing about other human beings, that is fundamentally
Lex Fridman (1:17:16.720)
the thing that you're breaking, is you're
Brett Johnson (1:17:19.040)
adding to the suffering in the world in one way or another,
Lex Fridman (1:17:22.720)
and you're justifying it.
Lex Fridman (1:17:24.160)
But in terms of me sort of as an engineer,
Lex Fridman (1:17:27.800)
that is some gutsy thinking.
Brett Johnson (1:17:29.440)
That's how Woz and Steve Jobs thought.
Lex Fridman (1:17:34.360)
That's innovation.
Lex Fridman (1:17:35.680)
And maybe just think, if you can introspect your thinking
Lex Fridman (1:17:40.880)
process here, this is a new, I like
Lex Fridman (1:17:44.720)
how you remember this in HP, this
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.800)
is a totally new thing to you.
Brett Johnson (1:17:50.160)
Computers is another domain.
Lex Fridman (1:17:53.640)
How were you figuring these puzzles out,
Lex Fridman (1:17:56.040)
presumably mostly alone?
Lex Fridman (1:17:58.320)
Alone.
Brett Johnson (1:17:58.960)
When you were thinking through these problems, is there,
Lex Fridman (1:18:03.160)
this is a strange question to ask,
Lex Fridman (1:18:04.720)
but what is your thinking process?
Lex Fridman (1:18:08.640)
What is your approach to solving these problems?
Lex Fridman (1:18:10.800)
So the approach is you do something, and you fuck it up,
Lex Fridman (1:18:15.680)
and you're like, you think back, OK, how do I fix that?
Brett Johnson (1:18:20.160)
You fix that aspect, you commit the crime again.
Lex Fridman (1:18:23.880)
And it goes a little bit further, and it screws up.
Lex Fridman (1:18:26.720)
OK, how do I fix that?
Lex Fridman (1:18:28.640)
What's the issue on that?
Lex Fridman (1:18:29.640)
How do I fix that?
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.440)
So there's not a deep design thinking like that?
Brett Johnson (1:18:32.880)
Later on, it becomes that.
Lex Fridman (1:18:33.960)
Once you lay that groundwork of the way
Brett Johnson (1:18:36.800)
these schemes are working, it becomes that.
Lex Fridman (1:18:39.160)
And you can apply that to other things in cybercrime
Brett Johnson (1:18:42.920)
as a whole.
Lex Fridman (1:18:44.480)
But initially, it's basically trial and error.
Lex Fridman (1:18:47.640)
You've got a problem, how do you solve that problem?
Lex Fridman (1:18:50.880)
So I'm committing these crimes under my name,
Lex Fridman (1:18:54.400)
how do I solve that?
Lex Fridman (1:18:56.360)
Well, one of the first principles
Brett Johnson (1:18:57.920)
that we started to teach on Shadow Crew
Lex Fridman (1:18:59.680)
is all crime should begin with identity theft.
Brett Johnson (1:19:03.920)
That's one of the main first principles
Lex Fridman (1:19:05.680)
that a lot of people to this day still don't really get.
Brett Johnson (1:19:08.160)
All right, why would I commit a crime under my name
Lex Fridman (1:19:10.240)
if I can do it under your name?
Lex Fridman (1:19:12.080)
So that's one of the big buffers.
Lex Fridman (1:19:13.840)
And that takes trial and error to get
Brett Johnson (1:19:15.440)
to that point where you start to understand
Lex Fridman (1:19:17.480)
that's the way crime should operate if you're a criminal.
Lex Fridman (1:19:20.960)
But with me, it's trial and error.
Lex Fridman (1:19:25.000)
It's that childhood where that mindset
Brett Johnson (1:19:28.160)
is kind of ingrained in you where you're looking
Lex Fridman (1:19:31.360)
for ways, let's say nontraditional ways
Brett Johnson (1:19:35.160)
of getting around things or getting through things.
Lex Fridman (1:19:37.840)
I mean, one of the questions I'll probably ask this later
Brett Johnson (1:19:41.160)
is there's also a unique aspect to the outcome
Lex Fridman (1:19:44.480)
of what you were doing, which is you weren't,
Brett Johnson (1:19:47.440)
you didn't get caught for a very long time.
Lex Fridman (1:19:50.480)
We'll talk about why that is.
Lex Fridman (1:19:52.000)
And the thing is, it's so interesting,
Lex Fridman (1:19:54.000)
all crime probably should, to be effective,
Brett Johnson (1:19:59.200)
should start with identity theft.
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.360)
I like that identity theft
Brett Johnson (1:20:02.760)
because identity theft can take so many forms.
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.240)
Right, right.
Lex Fridman (1:20:06.880)
So yes, so Shadow Crew.
Lex Fridman (1:20:09.160)
So what's, so as we're, you started with love.
Brett Johnson (1:20:13.240)
Started with love.
Lex Fridman (1:20:14.080)
So now we're doing these schemes online.
Brett Johnson (1:20:18.360)
I'm selling to these,
Lex Fridman (1:20:20.240)
I'm programming these satellite DSS cards.
Lex Fridman (1:20:22.000)
And one of the interesting things,
Lex Fridman (1:20:24.160)
and you still see that to this day,
Brett Johnson (1:20:26.000)
is something will happen
Lex Fridman (1:20:29.080)
that will create an industry for criminals, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:20:33.440)
So what happened is Canada, Canadian judge,
Lex Fridman (1:20:37.400)
rules about the same time
Brett Johnson (1:20:38.440)
that I'm doing these satellite cards,
Lex Fridman (1:20:40.560)
Canadian judge comes out and says,
Brett Johnson (1:20:41.920)
hey, it's legal for my citizens to pirate those signals.
Lex Fridman (1:20:47.560)
And his reasoning was is since RCA
Brett Johnson (1:20:49.960)
doesn't sell the systems up here,
Lex Fridman (1:20:51.480)
my citizens can pirate it.
Brett Johnson (1:20:53.920)
Okay, so what happens is is overnight,
Lex Fridman (1:20:57.440)
about the same time PayPal comes into play.
Lex Fridman (1:20:59.680)
So PayPal is coming right online at about the same time.
Lex Fridman (1:21:03.280)
Overnight, a little cottage industry
Brett Johnson (1:21:05.400)
pops up in the United States.
Lex Fridman (1:21:07.240)
You go down to Best Buy, buy the system for $100,
Brett Johnson (1:21:09.400)
take it out in the parking lot, open system up,
Lex Fridman (1:21:11.360)
pull it, open box up, pull the system out,
Brett Johnson (1:21:13.000)
pull the card out, throw the system away,
Lex Fridman (1:21:14.640)
program the card, ship its ass to Canada, $500 a pop.
Brett Johnson (1:21:17.840)
Started doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:21:19.920)
Business is good.
Brett Johnson (1:21:21.520)
Making, you know, $3,000, $4,000 a week doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:21:23.760)
I'm like, yeah, that's good.
Brett Johnson (1:21:26.040)
I have so many orders, I can't fill all the orders
Lex Fridman (1:21:29.000)
and quickly think to myself,
Lex Fridman (1:21:31.920)
why do I need to fill any of them?
Lex Fridman (1:21:33.720)
They're in Canada.
Brett Johnson (1:21:34.960)
I'm down here.
Lex Fridman (1:21:37.160)
You know, who are they gonna complain to?
Lex Fridman (1:21:39.160)
Because I already found out people don't complain, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:21:42.960)
They're not gonna complain to anybody.
Lex Fridman (1:21:45.160)
So I start not.
Lex Fridman (1:21:46.120)
Especially in Canada.
Brett Johnson (1:21:46.960)
Especially in Canada.
Lex Fridman (1:21:47.960)
And I'm having them send money.
Brett Johnson (1:21:50.560)
That's when PayPal's first into play.
Lex Fridman (1:21:53.000)
And it amazes me that everybody is using PayPal.
Brett Johnson (1:21:58.000)
It's like, you don't even have to really ask.
Lex Fridman (1:22:00.360)
They're like, can we pay by,
Brett Johnson (1:22:01.400)
yeah, you can pay all day long by PayPal.
Lex Fridman (1:22:03.240)
And PayPal had no clue what they were doing with security.
Lex Fridman (1:22:05.840)
So it's like, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:22:08.280)
So they're sending money to PayPal.
Brett Johnson (1:22:09.800)
I'm having the PayPal cashed out to bank accounts
Lex Fridman (1:22:13.280)
in my name at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:22:15.520)
And I get scared because by that point,
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.400)
I'm still in four to $6,000 a week.
Lex Fridman (1:22:20.080)
And I'm like, somebody's gonna be looking at money laundering.
Lex Fridman (1:22:23.440)
So get it in my head.
Brett Johnson (1:22:24.920)
I'm like, best thing that I can do
Lex Fridman (1:22:27.160)
is get a fake driver's license,
Brett Johnson (1:22:28.880)
open up a bank account using that driver's license,
Lex Fridman (1:22:31.120)
cash out at the ATM.
Brett Johnson (1:22:33.240)
Good.
Lex Fridman (1:22:34.080)
No idea where to get a fake ID.
Brett Johnson (1:22:35.400)
Not a clue.
Lex Fridman (1:22:36.480)
So I get online, looked around.
Brett Johnson (1:22:38.640)
Spent a couple of weeks looking around.
Lex Fridman (1:22:40.280)
Thought I found a guy.
Brett Johnson (1:22:41.480)
He went by the screen name of Fake ID Man.
Lex Fridman (1:22:43.840)
Thought I found a guy, sent him $200, sent him my picture.
Brett Johnson (1:22:46.920)
Dude rips me off.
Lex Fridman (1:22:48.120)
And I'm like, what the hell, man?
Brett Johnson (1:22:52.720)
Oh, I got played.
Lex Fridman (1:22:53.560)
He had a little website set up with reviews.
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.200)
And I'm like, oh, it's all legitimate.
Lex Fridman (1:22:58.720)
He's building that trust that I talked about.
Lex Fridman (1:23:01.080)
So the end result, I got pissed.
Lex Fridman (1:23:05.400)
And there was no site that dealt with anything
Brett Johnson (1:23:10.400)
criminal or cyber crime related.
Lex Fridman (1:23:14.000)
The only real avenue you had was an IRC chat session,
Brett Johnson (1:23:17.040)
internet relay chat.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.520)
And that, I'm sure you've been on that.
Brett Johnson (1:23:20.760)
It's this rolling chat board.
Lex Fridman (1:23:22.800)
You don't know who the hell you're talking to.
Brett Johnson (1:23:24.680)
Most of them are full of shit.
Lex Fridman (1:23:26.000)
You can't trust anybody.
Lex Fridman (1:23:27.280)
And you're sitting there trying to conduct business.
Lex Fridman (1:23:29.440)
So if somebody claims they've got a product or service,
Lex Fridman (1:23:32.200)
do they have it?
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.040)
Does it work?
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.880)
Are they just gonna rip you off?
Lex Fridman (1:23:34.700)
Because in those channels, everyone's a criminal.
Brett Johnson (1:23:37.000)
I kept looking around and I've happened upon a website
Lex Fridman (1:23:42.960)
called Counterfeit Library.
Lex Fridman (1:23:44.600)
And Counterfeit Library only dealt with counterfeit degrees
Lex Fridman (1:23:48.160)
and certificates, degree mail type stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:23:51.720)
But they had a forum and no one was using the forum.
Lex Fridman (1:23:55.320)
So I basically get on there and bitch every day.
Brett Johnson (1:23:58.360)
I got ripped off, don't know what to do,
Lex Fridman (1:24:00.360)
bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Brett Johnson (1:24:01.600)
About the same time I started doing that,
Lex Fridman (1:24:03.320)
two other guys show up.
Brett Johnson (1:24:04.840)
One's named Mr. X, he's out of Los Angeles.
Lex Fridman (1:24:07.360)
Other guy's named Beelzebub,
Brett Johnson (1:24:08.720)
he's out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.760)
And we all become buddies.
Lex Fridman (1:24:13.560)
So a few weeks of me bitching,
Lex Fridman (1:24:15.240)
a few weeks of them responding.
Brett Johnson (1:24:17.760)
Beelzebub gets me on ICQ and he sends me a message.
Lex Fridman (1:24:20.800)
He's like, I went by the screen name of Gollum
Brett Johnson (1:24:22.560)
at that point, Gollum Fun.
Lex Fridman (1:24:24.080)
And he's like, Gollum, I can make you
Brett Johnson (1:24:26.120)
a fake driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:24:27.200)
And I was like, well, motherfucker, do it.
Lex Fridman (1:24:28.640)
And he's like, well, I'm gonna charge you for it.
Lex Fridman (1:24:30.660)
I'm like, yeah, you are.
Brett Johnson (1:24:32.360)
He's like, I am.
Lex Fridman (1:24:33.880)
I was like, no, you're not.
Lex Fridman (1:24:35.440)
And he's like, look, man, he said,
Lex Fridman (1:24:37.980)
this business, if you're gonna do this,
Brett Johnson (1:24:40.240)
you have to trust people or you're gonna fail.
Lex Fridman (1:24:44.120)
He said, so I'm gonna charge you $200,
Lex Fridman (1:24:46.720)
but I'm gonna send you a driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:24:49.000)
Well, by this point, I'm friends with the people
Brett Johnson (1:24:51.080)
who own Counterfeit Library.
Lex Fridman (1:24:53.080)
We're emailing, chatting, everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.640)
And I tell him, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna send you $200.
Lex Fridman (1:24:59.580)
That way, when you rip me off, I'll have them ban you
Lex Fridman (1:25:02.360)
and I don't have to deal with you anymore.
Lex Fridman (1:25:04.000)
And he's like, bet.
Brett Johnson (1:25:04.880)
I'm like, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:25:06.360)
So I sent him $200, sent him my picture.
Brett Johnson (1:25:09.800)
Two weeks later, I get a driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:25:11.680)
Name is Steven Schwecki out of Ohio.
Lex Fridman (1:25:13.720)
And real guy, worked at ADP payroll to this day,
Lex Fridman (1:25:17.360)
works at ADP, is where the guy works.
Brett Johnson (1:25:20.880)
Got the driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:25:22.660)
And to me, at that point in time,
Brett Johnson (1:25:24.360)
it was the prettiest thing that I'd ever seen.
Lex Fridman (1:25:27.160)
You know, I'd never seen a fake ID before.
Brett Johnson (1:25:29.540)
I thought it was great.
Lex Fridman (1:25:30.840)
Turns out, you know, looking back, it was like, eh.
Brett Johnson (1:25:33.680)
So, but.
Lex Fridman (1:25:35.320)
That is kind of a strong first step
Brett Johnson (1:25:39.600)
in creating a fake identity.
Lex Fridman (1:25:42.560)
Very strong, very strong.
Lex Fridman (1:25:44.120)
So this is. So that was like, Gasko just,
Lex Fridman (1:25:48.360)
on the point he made, that if you're gonna be successful
Brett Johnson (1:25:53.440)
in this, you should have people you trust.
Lex Fridman (1:25:56.640)
Is he right on that?
Brett Johnson (1:25:58.000)
Oh, he's absolutely right.
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.040)
He's absolute.
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.880)
So you have to have, this is like mob.
Lex Fridman (1:26:03.680)
You have to.
Brett Johnson (1:26:04.520)
You have to have an inner circle that you trust.
Lex Fridman (1:26:07.480)
You know, I'm sure you've probably
Brett Johnson (1:26:08.800)
heard me say this before.
Lex Fridman (1:26:11.400)
Successful cyber crime, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:26:14.560)
There are three necessities to being successful online
Lex Fridman (1:26:17.580)
if you're a criminal.
Brett Johnson (1:26:18.520)
Three necessities are gathering data,
Lex Fridman (1:26:21.080)
committing the crime, and then cashing it out.
Brett Johnson (1:26:24.240)
All three of those necessities have to work in conjunction.
Lex Fridman (1:26:26.720)
If they don't, the crime fails.
Brett Johnson (1:26:28.440)
The problem, and it's a huge problem,
Lex Fridman (1:26:30.760)
is that one guy can't do all three things.
Brett Johnson (1:26:34.880)
You know, you've got the people who gather the data.
Lex Fridman (1:26:37.040)
Basically, the general store sells people
Brett Johnson (1:26:39.680)
who sell PII, credit card logins, data tools.
Lex Fridman (1:26:44.480)
They always sell the spoofed phone numbers
Lex Fridman (1:26:46.220)
and the RDPs, stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (1:26:48.560)
A lot of the times, those people don't know
Lex Fridman (1:26:49.800)
how to commit the crime.
Lex Fridman (1:26:51.080)
And those people certainly don't know
Lex Fridman (1:26:52.200)
how to launder the money out, put cash in pocket.
Lex Fridman (1:26:54.640)
So you've got, either because of a skill level,
Brett Johnson (1:26:58.000)
sometimes a geographic location,
Lex Fridman (1:27:00.160)
limits what that individual can do, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:27:03.240)
So you have to rely on people who are good in areas
Lex Fridman (1:27:06.600)
where you are not in order for that crime to succeed.
Lex Fridman (1:27:10.640)
And that means you have to trust those people.
Lex Fridman (1:27:15.380)
So what happens with Shadow Crew, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:27:17.760)
So Counterfeit Library is the start, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:27:21.440)
Counterfeit Library transitions over to Shadow Crew.
Brett Johnson (1:27:24.520)
Right before that transition, there's a Ukrainian guy.
Lex Fridman (1:27:27.880)
By the name of Dmitry Golubov.
Brett Johnson (1:27:29.600)
He was a spammer at that point in time.
Lex Fridman (1:27:31.240)
He saw what we were doing with Counterfeit Library
Lex Fridman (1:27:34.320)
and he liked it.
Lex Fridman (1:27:35.960)
He was getting all these credit card details
Lex Fridman (1:27:37.760)
and this kid, I mean, he's a kid.
Lex Fridman (1:27:39.940)
This kid has an idea.
Lex Fridman (1:27:41.280)
And his idea was, I wonder if people would buy
Lex Fridman (1:27:43.560)
stolen credit card details.
Brett Johnson (1:27:45.200)
That's pretty good Ukrainian Russian accent.
Lex Fridman (1:27:47.600)
So he picks up the phone, he calls his buddies.
Brett Johnson (1:27:52.200)
They call their buddies.
Lex Fridman (1:27:53.300)
They have a physical conference in Odessa.
Brett Johnson (1:27:56.240)
150 of these cyber criminals show up.
Lex Fridman (1:27:58.440)
And they launched this idea,
Brett Johnson (1:28:00.200)
this launches a website called Carter Planet,
Lex Fridman (1:28:03.080)
which is the genesis of all modern credit card theft
Lex Fridman (1:28:06.040)
as we know it, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:28:07.440)
And so, remember I mentioned those three necessities
Brett Johnson (1:28:10.680)
of cyber crime.
Lex Fridman (1:28:12.440)
Dmitry had all the credit data in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:28:16.040)
And he partnered with all these other Ukrainians
Lex Fridman (1:28:17.800)
who had all this data as well.
Brett Johnson (1:28:19.560)
The problem was, is so much fraud had been committed
Lex Fridman (1:28:22.240)
on that Eastern side of Europe,
Brett Johnson (1:28:24.100)
that every card had been shut down.
Lex Fridman (1:28:26.480)
Even if you were a legitimate card holder
Lex Fridman (1:28:28.880)
and tried to cash it out,
Lex Fridman (1:28:30.080)
you weren't doing it at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:28:32.040)
So again, those three necessities,
Lex Fridman (1:28:33.720)
gathering data, committing crime, cashing out.
Brett Johnson (1:28:35.840)
Dmitry had the data.
Lex Fridman (1:28:37.520)
They could commit the crime.
Brett Johnson (1:28:38.960)
They could not put cash in pocket.
Lex Fridman (1:28:41.640)
So we were running counterfeit library.
Brett Johnson (1:28:44.400)
One day I get this message,
Lex Fridman (1:28:46.120)
or not a message, one day script shows up.
Lex Fridman (1:28:48.840)
And he posts just on the general forum.
Lex Fridman (1:28:50.960)
He posts, hey, I've got credit card data.
Brett Johnson (1:28:54.280)
Give me an address, give me a burner phone number,
Lex Fridman (1:28:56.640)
wait five business days, order whatever you want to.
Brett Johnson (1:28:58.960)
We had never seen anything like that.
Lex Fridman (1:29:01.360)
We were a PayPal fraud and eBay fraud site,
Brett Johnson (1:29:03.680)
is what we were, and fake driver's licenses.
Lex Fridman (1:29:06.280)
So then, and we had,
Brett Johnson (1:29:07.560)
I guess we had two, 3,000 members at that point.
Lex Fridman (1:29:09.960)
So the response from the members was, that can't be real.
Brett Johnson (1:29:16.200)
You've gotta be law enforcement.
Lex Fridman (1:29:17.600)
It's gotta be trying to get us arrested and everything else.
Brett Johnson (1:29:21.080)
What, let me backtrack a little bit.
Lex Fridman (1:29:23.400)
So the driver's license that I had got,
Brett Johnson (1:29:27.160)
Beelzebub had an idea.
Lex Fridman (1:29:28.840)
What he wanted to do is he wanted to sell driver's licenses.
Brett Johnson (1:29:34.800)
Mr. X wanted to sell social security cards.
Lex Fridman (1:29:36.680)
He made a very passable social security card.
Brett Johnson (1:29:39.240)
Me, I didn't, I had no skill level on that.
Lex Fridman (1:29:40.960)
I knew PayPal fraud and eBay fraud.
Lex Fridman (1:29:42.880)
So Beelzebub was like, I'll tell you what,
Lex Fridman (1:29:45.560)
you be the reviewer.
Brett Johnson (1:29:47.360)
That way you get every product or service that comes in.
Lex Fridman (1:29:50.120)
They'll have to send it to you or let you have access to it.
Brett Johnson (1:29:53.040)
You can learn the entire game.
Lex Fridman (1:29:55.480)
And because you're not selling anything,
Lex Fridman (1:29:57.880)
it gives you legitimacy on the reviews, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:30:01.400)
So I started out as a reviewer,
Brett Johnson (1:30:02.640)
the only reviewer on Counterfeit Library.
Lex Fridman (1:30:05.640)
So over the next year, Beelzebub turns out
Brett Johnson (1:30:09.160)
he was a pot grower.
Lex Fridman (1:30:10.120)
He goes back to growing pot
Brett Johnson (1:30:11.800)
because he wasn't making shit selling driver's licenses.
Lex Fridman (1:30:14.480)
Mr. X, about a year and a half in,
Brett Johnson (1:30:16.800)
he gets arrested cashing out driver's, not credit cards,
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.560)
cashing out to casinos, doing some shit with that.
Lex Fridman (1:30:24.240)
So I'm the only guy left standing
Lex Fridman (1:30:26.200)
and I'm at the top of the heap.
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.400)
And it becomes this thing where if I review somebody,
Lex Fridman (1:30:32.600)
they make a lot of money.
Brett Johnson (1:30:33.880)
If I don't, you don't do business here.
Lex Fridman (1:30:36.720)
So script shows up saying he's got this.
Brett Johnson (1:30:38.800)
I'm the only reviewer on site.
Lex Fridman (1:30:41.480)
People think he's law enforcement.
Brett Johnson (1:30:43.960)
First week it goes like that.
Lex Fridman (1:30:45.520)
After a while, I'm like, okay, I gotta do something.
Lex Fridman (1:30:47.320)
And I'm scared, man,
Lex Fridman (1:30:48.240)
because I'm like, he may be law enforcement.
Lex Fridman (1:30:50.560)
So I get him on ICQ and I'm like,
Lex Fridman (1:30:52.040)
hey, you have to be reviewed.
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.120)
He's like, what the hell is that?
Lex Fridman (1:30:54.720)
So I tell him what it is, he's like, you reviewed me.
Brett Johnson (1:30:56.840)
I was like, yeah, that's the idea.
Lex Fridman (1:30:58.520)
So give him a drop address, give him a burner phone number,
Brett Johnson (1:31:03.000)
wait five business days,
Lex Fridman (1:31:04.440)
and I try to hit Dell for $5,000.
Brett Johnson (1:31:06.840)
The order fails.
Lex Fridman (1:31:08.160)
I get back on ICQ, hey man, it didn't work.
Brett Johnson (1:31:10.400)
He's like, give me one more chance.
Lex Fridman (1:31:12.000)
I was like, look, I'll give you one more chance,
Lex Fridman (1:31:13.760)
but it's your ass after that.
Lex Fridman (1:31:15.080)
He's like, one more chance.
Brett Johnson (1:31:16.720)
I go, okay, give him another address, another phone number,
Lex Fridman (1:31:20.080)
wait another five business days,
Brett Johnson (1:31:22.400)
hit Thompson's Computer Warehouse for $4,000,
Lex Fridman (1:31:25.320)
Dell for $5,000.
Brett Johnson (1:31:26.880)
Order goes through, get the products in.
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.800)
I post that review on Counterfeit Library,
Lex Fridman (1:31:33.880)
and literally overnight,
Lex Fridman (1:31:35.600)
we turn from an eBay PayPal fraud site
Brett Johnson (1:31:38.240)
to a credit theft site.
Lex Fridman (1:31:40.000)
And that becomes a lot of money really quickly for members.
Lex Fridman (1:31:44.160)
So we were doing, now it's called CMP fraud,
Lex Fridman (1:31:46.760)
card not present fraud.
Lex Fridman (1:31:47.720)
So you hit an online merchant
Lex Fridman (1:31:49.720)
with stolen credit card data.
Brett Johnson (1:31:51.280)
Back then, a fairly experienced fraudster
Lex Fridman (1:31:54.560)
could profit 30 to $40,000 a month, okay?
Brett Johnson (1:31:58.640)
Just buying laptops, what have you,
Lex Fridman (1:32:00.800)
and cashing out, put them on eBay for sale
Lex Fridman (1:32:03.080)
and sell them like that.
Lex Fridman (1:32:03.920)
And 30 to 40K a month was the profit on that.
Brett Johnson (1:32:06.880)
Script had a lot of buddies.
Lex Fridman (1:32:08.520)
He had people like Roman Vega,
Brett Johnson (1:32:11.000)
these other guys that would sell
Lex Fridman (1:32:12.520)
not just credit card data,
Lex Fridman (1:32:14.120)
but counterfeit physical credit cards as well.
Lex Fridman (1:32:17.280)
We had, and he.
Brett Johnson (1:32:18.480)
Counterfeit, not stolen.
Lex Fridman (1:32:20.080)
So counterfeit.
Brett Johnson (1:32:21.000)
Counterfeit.
Lex Fridman (1:32:22.600)
That must be tough to do.
Lex Fridman (1:32:25.160)
So the connection.
Lex Fridman (1:32:26.000)
That must be harder than driver's licenses.
Brett Johnson (1:32:28.280)
It's crazy.
Lex Fridman (1:32:29.120)
So what BOA initially had,
Lex Fridman (1:32:32.680)
and I became the United States salesperson for BOA,
Lex Fridman (1:32:37.160)
but what he had was,
Brett Johnson (1:32:38.240)
is he was the first dumps provider in the United States.
Lex Fridman (1:32:42.440)
So on the back of your credit or debit card,
Brett Johnson (1:32:44.640)
there's a magnetic stripe.
Lex Fridman (1:32:47.120)
Three data tracks on the stripe.
Brett Johnson (1:32:48.440)
There was the first data track is the customer's name.
Lex Fridman (1:32:50.400)
Second data track is the card number,
Brett Johnson (1:32:52.640)
forward slash 16 digit algorithm outside of that.
Lex Fridman (1:32:56.080)
That's important.
Brett Johnson (1:32:56.920)
We'll get back to that in a few minutes.
Lex Fridman (1:32:58.560)
Third data track is called indiscriminate data.
Lex Fridman (1:33:00.560)
No one uses it, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:02.600)
So what's bought and sold is the second data track.
Brett Johnson (1:33:05.760)
It's called the dump.
Lex Fridman (1:33:06.920)
And the reason that's sold is when you go into a shop,
Brett Johnson (1:33:10.120)
you insert the card or you swipe the card,
Lex Fridman (1:33:12.840)
the only information that's sent out for verification
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.320)
is the second data track, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:17.280)
That goes to the processor bank for verification.
Brett Johnson (1:33:19.760)
The first data track, that customer's name,
Lex Fridman (1:33:21.640)
shows up on the screen of the cashier in front of you.
Lex Fridman (1:33:24.640)
So what typically happens is,
Lex Fridman (1:33:26.400)
is you buy 10 of these dumps.
Brett Johnson (1:33:28.200)
You get 10 counterfeit cards
Lex Fridman (1:33:30.560)
in code track two on all 10 cards.
Brett Johnson (1:33:32.440)
Track one, you create one fake driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:33:35.320)
Track one is just the name
Brett Johnson (1:33:36.680)
of that one fake driver's license.
Lex Fridman (1:33:38.200)
That way, when you go in the shop, swipe the card,
Brett Johnson (1:33:40.280)
track two gets sent off for verification.
Lex Fridman (1:33:42.120)
Track one shows up on the screen in front of the cashier.
Brett Johnson (1:33:44.920)
If you ever ask for ID, you pull out the fake ID.
Lex Fridman (1:33:47.600)
Everyone's a nice, warm, fuzzy.
Brett Johnson (1:33:48.880)
You walk out with the cameras, Rolex.
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.240)
And track one could be, it doesn't have to be connected.
Brett Johnson (1:33:54.120)
It's not connected to track two.
Lex Fridman (1:33:55.120)
Not connected at all, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:57.320)
That's one of the big problems, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:59.880)
So Scrip brought a host of technical people
Brett Johnson (1:34:05.560)
into that type of environment,
Lex Fridman (1:34:07.000)
all committing credit card theft.
Brett Johnson (1:34:08.520)
We had proxy providers.
Lex Fridman (1:34:10.200)
We had all these people that were doing this stuff.
Brett Johnson (1:34:13.080)
We start making a lot of money, a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:34:15.560)
And the reason that happens is, again,
Brett Johnson (1:34:17.680)
Scrip did not have the ability to cash out.
Lex Fridman (1:34:21.160)
So he was reduced to selling things.
Lex Fridman (1:34:23.600)
And at the same time, he's looking for,
Lex Fridman (1:34:25.160)
how do I make more money, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:34:28.120)
The Ukrainians happened upon this thing
Lex Fridman (1:34:31.520)
called the CVV1 breach, or hack,
Brett Johnson (1:34:34.440)
is what they called it.
Lex Fridman (1:34:36.120)
So what happens is, remember I told you track two,
Brett Johnson (1:34:39.120)
card number forward slash 16 digit algorithm.
Lex Fridman (1:34:43.440)
You gotta know the algorithm to encode it
Lex Fridman (1:34:46.320)
so you can swipe the card or take it to the ATM machine.
Lex Fridman (1:34:49.360)
All right, ATM.
Brett Johnson (1:34:51.800)
You gotta know it.
Lex Fridman (1:34:52.800)
Now we were fishing data from hell.
Brett Johnson (1:34:54.840)
I mean, we were doing a lot of fishing, a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:34:58.600)
We were getting pins, we were getting card numbers,
Lex Fridman (1:35:01.360)
but you can't get that algorithm.
Lex Fridman (1:35:03.680)
So Ukrainians start testing stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:35:07.000)
What they found out was no bank
Lex Fridman (1:35:10.240)
had implemented the hash on track two.
Lex Fridman (1:35:13.640)
So you take the card number forward slash any 16 digits,
Lex Fridman (1:35:17.600)
it would encode.
Brett Johnson (1:35:19.360)
Take it to the ATM, pull cash out,
Lex Fridman (1:35:21.840)
because you got the pin, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:35:24.280)
Started doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:35:26.320)
Well, wait, sorry, I'm trying to understand.
Lex Fridman (1:35:28.680)
So that means, so if there's no hash,
Lex Fridman (1:35:32.960)
are they generating random numbers
Lex Fridman (1:35:34.680)
or do they have valid numbers for track two?
Lex Fridman (1:35:37.120)
No numbers needed at all,
Brett Johnson (1:35:38.320)
as long as just the track two was a complete track two.
Lex Fridman (1:35:41.840)
So it's a valid track two that doesn't match,
Lex Fridman (1:35:45.680)
so the pin is the thing that gets you in?
Lex Fridman (1:35:48.560)
So back then, all right, back then,
Lex Fridman (1:35:50.240)
what we're talking about is you needed,
Lex Fridman (1:35:52.120)
typically today you need a whole track two.
Brett Johnson (1:35:54.320)
You need that valid track two.
Lex Fridman (1:35:55.800)
All right, you need the 16 digit card number,
Brett Johnson (1:35:59.040)
forward slash, and then whatever that algorithm
Lex Fridman (1:36:01.320)
does, the other side of it, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:36:03.160)
Back then, none of the banks had implemented that algorithm.
Lex Fridman (1:36:06.760)
So while the algorithm was there,
Brett Johnson (1:36:08.920)
you didn't need it to encode.
Lex Fridman (1:36:13.640)
Interesting.
Brett Johnson (1:36:14.480)
Interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.920)
So you can make a lot of money with physical of fake.
Lex Fridman (1:36:20.960)
So much money that card not present fraud.
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.000)
Card not present fraud, remember I told you,
Lex Fridman (1:36:25.520)
was $30,000 to $40,000 a month, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:36:28.320)
That turned into $30,000 to $40,000 a day.
Brett Johnson (1:36:32.560)
The Ukrainians, again, they can't cash it out.
Lex Fridman (1:36:36.800)
They've got all the data on the planet,
Lex Fridman (1:36:38.240)
but they can't cash it out,
Lex Fridman (1:36:39.240)
those three necessities of cybercrime.
Lex Fridman (1:36:41.400)
So the deal became, you have to rely on the Americans.
Lex Fridman (1:36:44.600)
Tell you what, we'll give you 40%.
Lex Fridman (1:36:46.600)
So you had all these cashiers
Lex Fridman (1:36:48.080)
that were 40% of $40,000 a day.
Lex Fridman (1:36:51.160)
Yeah, we'll take that, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:36:53.360)
Send the rest of it over to buy Western Union
Brett Johnson (1:36:55.560)
or what have you to your Ukrainian contact.
Lex Fridman (1:36:57.880)
That's before cryptocurrency came into play.
Brett Johnson (1:36:59.720)
Now you had a couple of forerunners
Lex Fridman (1:37:01.000)
with eGold and Liberty Reserve, things like that.
Lex Fridman (1:37:04.320)
But back then it starts out with Western Union,
Lex Fridman (1:37:07.680)
then it becomes prepaid cards,
Brett Johnson (1:37:09.360)
sending track information over,
Lex Fridman (1:37:11.120)
loading the card up like that,
Lex Fridman (1:37:12.440)
and then finally you get to eGold, Liberty Reserve,
Lex Fridman (1:37:14.480)
and then today it's with crypto that's used.
Brett Johnson (1:37:19.840)
Started stealing a lot of money, a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:37:23.240)
And that got law enforcement attention.
Lex Fridman (1:37:26.560)
So we started to see, I mean, it's a crazy ass story.
Lex Fridman (1:37:30.400)
We started to see IPs coming in
Brett Johnson (1:37:33.600)
from law enforcement agencies, government agencies,
Lex Fridman (1:37:35.640)
because back then they didn't know
Lex Fridman (1:37:36.760)
how to shield their identity either.
Lex Fridman (1:37:38.280)
So you saw Secret Service, you saw DoD,
Brett Johnson (1:37:42.080)
you saw all these like, and you're like,
Lex Fridman (1:37:44.520)
that's interesting.
Brett Johnson (1:37:45.480)
So, you know, and at the same time,
Lex Fridman (1:37:51.440)
it was called a hack, but it wasn't a hack.
Brett Johnson (1:37:54.120)
We had a guy that worked at T Mobile in Los Angeles.
Lex Fridman (1:37:58.840)
This is the same guy that back then
Brett Johnson (1:38:01.240)
published Paris Hilton's phone contact list.
Lex Fridman (1:38:04.640)
That made a lot of news.
Brett Johnson (1:38:07.200)
Not only did he do that, but it turned out
Lex Fridman (1:38:09.800)
that the Los Angeles Secret Service Agency
Brett Johnson (1:38:12.440)
was using T Mobile phones.
Lex Fridman (1:38:14.240)
So he's getting text messages of the Secret Service
Brett Johnson (1:38:17.960)
investigating Shadow Crew,
Lex Fridman (1:38:19.960)
and he posts those damn things on Shadow Crew.
Lex Fridman (1:38:21.840)
So I'm sitting there going, head of the pile,
Lex Fridman (1:38:23.920)
I'm sitting there going, this is not gonna end well.
Brett Johnson (1:38:27.040)
This is not gonna end well.
Lex Fridman (1:38:28.600)
So at the same time, I had access,
Brett Johnson (1:38:31.400)
I started out with access
Lex Fridman (1:38:33.080)
to the Indiana State Sex Offenders Registry,
Lex Fridman (1:38:35.720)
and I was using that to create bank accounts,
Lex Fridman (1:38:37.880)
launder the money out, and I would sell the bank accounts,
Brett Johnson (1:38:39.720)
stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (1:38:42.000)
They shut that down.
Brett Johnson (1:38:43.160)
The next database I had access to
Lex Fridman (1:38:44.960)
was the Texas Driver's License database,
Lex Fridman (1:38:47.640)
and started using that to create fake driver's licenses,
Lex Fridman (1:38:51.080)
what have you.
Lex Fridman (1:38:52.120)
And then finally, we happened upon
Lex Fridman (1:38:54.440)
the California Death Index, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:38:58.840)
Complete information, mother's maiden,
Lex Fridman (1:39:00.800)
socials, DOBs, all that, and it's like,
Brett Johnson (1:39:04.680)
gotta be a use for that.
Lex Fridman (1:39:06.280)
Well, you can use it to create identities all day long.
Brett Johnson (1:39:09.680)
My idea was, I wonder if you could take somebody
Lex Fridman (1:39:14.840)
that's died and then file for social security death benefit,
Brett Johnson (1:39:18.480)
not death benefits, but social security benefits
Lex Fridman (1:39:20.360)
for that individual, and get that recurring paycheck in.
Lex Fridman (1:39:23.200)
So that takes a lot of research
Lex Fridman (1:39:24.680)
to start seeing if you can do that.
Lex Fridman (1:39:26.760)
How does the federal government know if you're dead?
Lex Fridman (1:39:29.440)
Do federal indexes reference state indexes?
Brett Johnson (1:39:32.680)
You got all these questions that pop up.
Lex Fridman (1:39:34.920)
Well, it turns out, federal indexes
Brett Johnson (1:39:36.760)
don't reference state indexes, it's against the law.
Lex Fridman (1:39:39.760)
It also turns out, the only way the federal government
Brett Johnson (1:39:42.200)
knows you're dead is prior to 1998,
Lex Fridman (1:39:46.120)
the family had to file a social security death benefit
Lex Fridman (1:39:51.000)
for that person, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:53.800)
Prior to 98.
Brett Johnson (1:39:54.640)
Which of course most people don't.
Lex Fridman (1:39:56.040)
Right, prior to 98, it took the family.
Brett Johnson (1:39:58.560)
After 98, the hospital can do it,
Lex Fridman (1:40:01.200)
funeral home can do it, or the family can do it.
Lex Fridman (1:40:03.560)
So a lot more people have it filed after,
Lex Fridman (1:40:05.840)
if they've died after.
Lex Fridman (1:40:06.680)
But it's still, there's a lot of people
Lex Fridman (1:40:08.320)
who probably don't. A lot of people don't.
Lex Fridman (1:40:09.840)
Because that death benefit's only like $219, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:40:13.960)
Nobody's thinking about that shit.
Lex Fridman (1:40:15.960)
So I started to apply for social security benefits.
Lex Fridman (1:40:19.840)
Nope, number's dormant.
Lex Fridman (1:40:21.760)
So they want you to come in for a physical interview.
Lex Fridman (1:40:23.760)
Here I am, you know, 32.
Brett Johnson (1:40:26.480)
You're not gonna pass as a 65 year old, so no.
Lex Fridman (1:40:29.600)
So the next idea I had was,
Brett Johnson (1:40:32.920)
I wonder if you could file income tax returns
Lex Fridman (1:40:34.800)
on these people.
Brett Johnson (1:40:37.080)
Turns out you can, all day long.
Lex Fridman (1:40:40.400)
So I started doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:40:42.120)
And I started to steal, once I got ramped up,
Lex Fridman (1:40:45.080)
because you test everything.
Brett Johnson (1:40:46.280)
You know, you're testing to make sure,
Lex Fridman (1:40:47.720)
you gotta figure out what the deposit instrument is
Lex Fridman (1:40:50.400)
and everything else.
Lex Fridman (1:40:51.240)
And once you get all that lined out,
Brett Johnson (1:40:53.240)
I started to steal $160,000 a week,
Lex Fridman (1:40:55.960)
every week for 10 months out of the year.
Lex Fridman (1:40:58.520)
By paying taxes?
Lex Fridman (1:41:00.800)
By filing fake returns.
Brett Johnson (1:41:03.120)
Yeah, filing fake tax returns.
Lex Fridman (1:41:05.120)
So you find a business, and the way the system worked
Brett Johnson (1:41:07.680)
is the IRS will issue a refund on somebody
Lex Fridman (1:41:11.760)
before they're able to verify
Brett Johnson (1:41:13.120)
that that person worked for an employer.
Lex Fridman (1:41:15.360)
Still works like that today.
Brett Johnson (1:41:17.440)
All right, so.
Lex Fridman (1:41:18.440)
And you're keeping the amounts relatively low.
Brett Johnson (1:41:20.560)
Keep them at $3,000.
Lex Fridman (1:41:22.600)
All right.
Brett Johnson (1:41:23.440)
Amounts are very low.
Lex Fridman (1:41:24.280)
But you're still able to achieve scale
Brett Johnson (1:41:25.680)
because this large index of real people.
Lex Fridman (1:41:27.200)
I got to where, and I was manual.
Brett Johnson (1:41:28.920)
Later on, a couple buddies of mine
Lex Fridman (1:41:30.280)
went automated with it.
Lex Fridman (1:41:31.520)
Wait, you were doing this by hand?
Lex Fridman (1:41:32.960)
So there's no code involved?
Brett Johnson (1:41:34.760)
All manual.
Lex Fridman (1:41:35.720)
Wow.
Brett Johnson (1:41:36.560)
I'd file a return once every six minutes.
Lex Fridman (1:41:39.280)
Work 10 hours a day, three days a week.
Lex Fridman (1:41:42.120)
So clicking on, so typing fast and clicking.
Lex Fridman (1:41:44.680)
One return every six minutes.
Brett Johnson (1:41:46.560)
That's changing IP.
Lex Fridman (1:41:47.880)
That's changing address.
Brett Johnson (1:41:49.320)
Everything else, one return every six minutes.
Lex Fridman (1:41:52.680)
For three days a week.
Brett Johnson (1:41:54.040)
Fourth day, I would take a road trip,
Lex Fridman (1:41:57.040)
plot out a map of ATMs.
Lex Fridman (1:41:59.280)
And then the next two days, cash out.
Lex Fridman (1:42:01.520)
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Brett Johnson (1:42:02.880)
All right.
Lex Fridman (1:42:03.720)
Come back home, rinse and repeat.
Brett Johnson (1:42:06.240)
Turns out that a backpack,
Lex Fridman (1:42:08.040)
I don't see anybody sitting around here,
Lex Fridman (1:42:09.320)
but a backpack will hold $150,000 of 20s,
Lex Fridman (1:42:12.960)
is what it will hold.
Lex Fridman (1:42:14.400)
So I'd put 150K and 20s in a backpack.
Lex Fridman (1:42:16.680)
I had a spare bedroom.
Brett Johnson (1:42:18.240)
I'd come in, toss the backpack in the bedroom.
Lex Fridman (1:42:21.040)
This is very, very important information.
Lex Fridman (1:42:23.080)
And the fact that you know it is also very,
Lex Fridman (1:42:25.360)
first we started with the volume of coal that weighs a ton,
Lex Fridman (1:42:27.920)
and now a backpack holds $150,000 of 20s.
Lex Fridman (1:42:32.280)
And then you can multiply that by five 400s.
Brett Johnson (1:42:35.320)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:42:36.240)
I like this.
Lex Fridman (1:42:37.080)
It's also times 20s coming out of ATM, right?
Lex Fridman (1:42:39.680)
Each 20 weighs a gram.
Brett Johnson (1:42:42.000)
Each 20 weighs a gram.
Lex Fridman (1:42:43.840)
So you can actually go by weight,
Brett Johnson (1:42:45.480)
which is what federal authorities do
Lex Fridman (1:42:47.320)
when they get a pallet of cash, they just weigh it.
Brett Johnson (1:42:49.920)
Oh, they just, they just weigh it.
Lex Fridman (1:42:52.200)
So 150K is seven and a half keys of cash.
Brett Johnson (1:42:55.720)
One and a half, 15, oh, that's pretty light.
Lex Fridman (1:42:59.440)
Not bad, not bad.
Brett Johnson (1:43:00.280)
Yeah, you get a big backpack,
Lex Fridman (1:43:02.080)
go do a good run with David Goggins with it.
Brett Johnson (1:43:05.120)
I like it.
Lex Fridman (1:43:05.960)
The fact that you know this is great.
Lex Fridman (1:43:08.560)
So wait, where does that come in with the backpack?
Lex Fridman (1:43:11.320)
So what happens is I didn't know how to launder money.
Brett Johnson (1:43:14.040)
All right, so I'm throwing cash in the spare bedroom.
Lex Fridman (1:43:17.280)
One day you open up the bedroom and you're like,
Brett Johnson (1:43:20.320)
gotta do something with those backpacks.
Lex Fridman (1:43:22.120)
And that's when you start learning how to launder money,
Brett Johnson (1:43:25.200)
cash based businesses, things like that.
Lex Fridman (1:43:26.880)
I had a production company,
Brett Johnson (1:43:28.040)
had a couple of detailing company.
Lex Fridman (1:43:29.560)
I was thinking about going into food trucks,
Brett Johnson (1:43:31.900)
things like that in Charleston.
Lex Fridman (1:43:33.080)
Actually, can you pause on that to take a tangent there?
Lex Fridman (1:43:35.240)
How does money laundering work?
Lex Fridman (1:43:39.080)
I mean, at that time and what years are we talking about?
Brett Johnson (1:43:42.240)
This is, by the time the tax return schemes go into play,
Lex Fridman (1:43:46.840)
we're talking 2002, 2003 is when tax returns start.
Lex Fridman (1:43:51.000)
And so what, at that time and what you're aware of now,
Lex Fridman (1:43:54.920)
how it evolved, how does money laundering work?
Brett Johnson (1:43:59.400)
You know, it's not that much different.
Lex Fridman (1:44:00.640)
It's really not.
Brett Johnson (1:44:02.200)
You get a cash based business,
Lex Fridman (1:44:04.160)
start laundering the money or putting the money through that,
Brett Johnson (1:44:06.160)
saying the transactions are legal.
Lex Fridman (1:44:08.080)
You then start depositing into bank accounts.
Brett Johnson (1:44:11.160)
From bank accounts, my thing was is
Lex Fridman (1:44:15.880)
have bank accounts in the United States, Mexico, Canada,
Lex Fridman (1:44:19.920)
and then finally bounce over to Estonia
Lex Fridman (1:44:22.400)
was the final destination of all this stuff.
Lex Fridman (1:44:24.040)
And the idea is to try to move them to so many places
Lex Fridman (1:44:28.480)
that by the end of the day, it looks legal
Lex Fridman (1:44:31.200)
and you can't trace it all if you're ever caught,
Lex Fridman (1:44:34.480)
which you ultimately are.
Lex Fridman (1:44:36.280)
But so cash based businesses, you know.
Lex Fridman (1:44:38.400)
So when you say, sorry to interrupt,
Brett Johnson (1:44:40.040)
the cash based businesses,
Lex Fridman (1:44:41.800)
so you have money that needs to be moved to other people.
Lex Fridman (1:44:48.680)
So how does that work?
Lex Fridman (1:44:49.600)
What's the business?
Brett Johnson (1:44:50.880)
Are people providing you a service
Lex Fridman (1:44:52.640)
and you're giving them money?
Brett Johnson (1:44:54.320)
Right, so you do the Ozark thing if you wanna do that.
Lex Fridman (1:44:57.440)
So you can gamble, cash out something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:44:59.640)
So it trips to whatever casinos you've got.
Lex Fridman (1:45:02.560)
You've got your production company or your detail company.
Lex Fridman (1:45:05.880)
So how many cars are you cleaning a day?
Lex Fridman (1:45:08.080)
How many companies have you got to do that?
Brett Johnson (1:45:10.280)
All right, whatever that company is,
Lex Fridman (1:45:12.680)
it's gotta be cash based.
Brett Johnson (1:45:13.760)
Somebody's paying you in cash is what you're doing.
Lex Fridman (1:45:16.960)
You have to have enough of those cash based businesses
Brett Johnson (1:45:19.040)
where it doesn't look funny.
Lex Fridman (1:45:21.200)
All right, because if you're a detail company
Brett Johnson (1:45:23.160)
making $100,000 a month, that's a problem.
Lex Fridman (1:45:26.000)
Okay, so then you start depositing into that.
Brett Johnson (1:45:30.320)
Well, because of the Patriot Act,
Lex Fridman (1:45:33.200)
a suspicious activity report, SARS, came in at $2,500
Brett Johnson (1:45:37.760)
instead of the 10K that it used to be.
Lex Fridman (1:45:40.360)
So all of a sudden you've got multiple bank accounts
Lex Fridman (1:45:42.240)
that you've got to set up, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:45:44.680)
Fortunately, what you also had
Brett Johnson (1:45:46.320)
is you had a bunch of prepaid debit cards
Lex Fridman (1:45:47.960)
that were coming into play at the same time.
Lex Fridman (1:45:49.840)
So a combination of bank accounts, prepaid debits
Lex Fridman (1:45:53.760)
that had ACH abilities attached to those as well,
Lex Fridman (1:45:56.480)
and you start running them all together.
Lex Fridman (1:45:58.360)
Then once it's out of the United States,
Brett Johnson (1:46:00.240)
you don't have to worry as much.
Lex Fridman (1:46:01.320)
You can start funneling that into fewer bank accounts
Brett Johnson (1:46:05.320)
until finally you've got the one main account
Lex Fridman (1:46:07.640)
that's over at Bank Letico in Estonia at that point.
Brett Johnson (1:46:11.280)
That's what you've got.
Lex Fridman (1:46:12.960)
So a bunch of hops that end up at a place
Brett Johnson (1:46:15.400)
that you can't trace.
Lex Fridman (1:46:16.360)
And to give you an idea, I was arrested February 8th, 2005.
Brett Johnson (1:46:19.840)
My last seizure was 2010.
Lex Fridman (1:46:22.920)
Got the last seizure notice.
Lex Fridman (1:46:24.320)
So they got it, but it didn't took them that long
Lex Fridman (1:46:28.760)
to get to it.
Lex Fridman (1:46:30.320)
So how do stories like with Script that come into play here
Lex Fridman (1:46:34.400)
where he had someone who owed him money
Brett Johnson (1:46:38.680)
kidnapped and tortured.
Lex Fridman (1:46:40.080)
So when does it turn darker?
Brett Johnson (1:46:45.160)
It turns darker the more money you make.
Lex Fridman (1:46:48.800)
Script was a kid that he was stealing enough money
Brett Johnson (1:46:52.840)
that he was able to buy whatever estate he wanted to.
Lex Fridman (1:46:55.120)
And he would brag about touring the countryside.
Lex Fridman (1:46:58.000)
And if he saw property that he liked, he would buy it.
Lex Fridman (1:47:00.960)
And that was not just a brag, he was doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:47:03.880)
So this kid is stealing a lot of money.
Lex Fridman (1:47:05.800)
At the same time, he's got connections politically
Brett Johnson (1:47:08.640)
because of his family, he's got connections
Lex Fridman (1:47:10.960)
and that family's got connections with a Ukrainian mob.
Brett Johnson (1:47:13.560)
All right, so he's got these inroads
Lex Fridman (1:47:16.240)
and people are looking out for him
Lex Fridman (1:47:17.760)
and he's stealing a lot of money at the same time.
Lex Fridman (1:47:20.040)
Somebody doesn't pay him a decent amount of money.
Brett Johnson (1:47:24.400)
Somebody doesn't pay him.
Lex Fridman (1:47:25.400)
Now we had never, with Shadow Crew, with Carter Planet,
Brett Johnson (1:47:29.400)
with Counterfeit Library, we were basically the geeks.
Lex Fridman (1:47:33.240)
All right, we were just the fraudsters,
Brett Johnson (1:47:35.360)
the social engineers.
Lex Fridman (1:47:36.880)
We had never really considered violence.
Brett Johnson (1:47:38.880)
The rules that I had in play were,
Lex Fridman (1:47:40.560)
hey, we don't do child pornography,
Brett Johnson (1:47:43.160)
we don't do counterfeit currency, we don't do drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:47:46.800)
And the only thing we ended up really obeying
Brett Johnson (1:47:48.880)
was the child porn stuff, except for Max Butler,
Lex Fridman (1:47:51.640)
who you mentioned earlier.
Brett Johnson (1:47:54.520)
Script, someone rips the guy off.
Lex Fridman (1:47:57.240)
And he comes online on Shadow Crew at that point
Lex Fridman (1:48:02.280)
and he posts these pictures one day.
Lex Fridman (1:48:04.320)
And I mean, it was a detailed narrative through the pictures.
Brett Johnson (1:48:07.280)
Had the guy that rammed in the van,
Lex Fridman (1:48:10.320)
he had the door open, rammed in the van,
Brett Johnson (1:48:12.720)
had the guy tied up, had the guy being tortured.
Lex Fridman (1:48:15.800)
And the response was, this is what happens
Brett Johnson (1:48:20.240)
when you steal from me.
Lex Fridman (1:48:22.480)
And that's the first time that violence came into play
Brett Johnson (1:48:27.800)
at that point, and that's when things got,
Lex Fridman (1:48:29.960)
you start realizing things are getting a little serious.
Lex Fridman (1:48:32.600)
How did that make you feel?
Lex Fridman (1:48:34.680)
The first response is, can't be real.
Brett Johnson (1:48:38.080)
He's just doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:48:42.040)
You know, he's wanting to send a message.
Brett Johnson (1:48:44.160)
Then you're like, no, that's real, that's real.
Lex Fridman (1:48:49.960)
Were you afraid in your own heart
Lex Fridman (1:48:52.000)
that you might descend to that too?
Lex Fridman (1:48:55.160)
Like if you see that, or was it pretty clear to you
Brett Johnson (1:48:58.480)
that that's a line that some people can cross
Lex Fridman (1:49:02.320)
and some can't and you're not one of those that can cross it?
Brett Johnson (1:49:05.040)
You know, I gotta tell you, I joke with my wife.
Lex Fridman (1:49:10.040)
The joke I tell my wife is, you know,
Brett Johnson (1:49:13.040)
I knew some guy that had 8,000 Bitcoins.
Lex Fridman (1:49:15.960)
I might be persuaded to ask him for access to that.
Lex Fridman (1:49:19.560)
And she was like, how?
Lex Fridman (1:49:20.400)
And I was like, well, hammer and toes.
Lex Fridman (1:49:23.440)
And I say that as a joke,
Lex Fridman (1:49:28.120)
but there's that line where you're like,
Brett Johnson (1:49:32.160)
I remember who I used to be.
Lex Fridman (1:49:34.200)
And if you're looking at that kind of money,
Brett Johnson (1:49:38.480)
I might be persuaded to do that back then.
Lex Fridman (1:49:41.560)
You know, that's, and I think that was Scripps issue
Brett Johnson (1:49:46.800)
is it was a lot of money to him.
Lex Fridman (1:49:49.160)
There's the money.
Lex Fridman (1:49:50.000)
And then there's, you know, violence can also be gradual.
Lex Fridman (1:49:53.240)
So over time you do a little more, a little more,
Brett Johnson (1:49:54.840)
a little more, a little more.
Lex Fridman (1:49:56.840)
You get used to what's going on
Lex Fridman (1:49:58.400)
and then I get desensitized.
Lex Fridman (1:49:59.680)
And you figure, you take somebody like Ross Ulbricht,
Brett Johnson (1:50:02.880)
the Silk Road guy, all right.
Lex Fridman (1:50:05.880)
Ross was not a violent guy.
Brett Johnson (1:50:08.040)
He was not.
Lex Fridman (1:50:08.960)
But at that point in time, you know,
Brett Johnson (1:50:10.240)
he was sitting on 24 million in Bitcoin.
Lex Fridman (1:50:13.120)
He was the only game in town.
Lex Fridman (1:50:15.120)
And that 24 now is like, I don't know,
Lex Fridman (1:50:17.200)
22, 24 billion, some crap like that.
Lex Fridman (1:50:20.440)
But he felt in danger.
Lex Fridman (1:50:27.080)
This guy was gonna turn him in.
Brett Johnson (1:50:28.640)
You know, it was a black mountain and everything.
Lex Fridman (1:50:29.920)
So Ross thinks he hires a couple hit men to kill the guy.
Lex Fridman (1:50:34.800)
So it becomes that thing.
Lex Fridman (1:50:36.680)
And I saw that over and over again.
Lex Fridman (1:50:38.520)
And I'd like to say I wasn't like that,
Lex Fridman (1:50:41.240)
but given the same circumstances,
Brett Johnson (1:50:43.920)
I would have probably done the same thing.
Lex Fridman (1:50:46.280)
And also when you're, it's not just about money,
Brett Johnson (1:50:49.040)
there's a lot of other forces.
Lex Fridman (1:50:50.200)
Like if you're threatened for your wellbeing
Brett Johnson (1:50:54.400)
or for your wealth or for your power,
Lex Fridman (1:50:56.240)
all of us operate under different motivations.
Brett Johnson (1:50:59.240)
Plus that online aspect with those communities like that,
Lex Fridman (1:51:02.560)
if you're the head guy,
Brett Johnson (1:51:03.920)
you really feel like you're the parent of these guys.
Lex Fridman (1:51:06.320)
So somebody is starting to threaten them,
Lex Fridman (1:51:07.840)
it's like, all right, what do I need to do?
Lex Fridman (1:51:10.360)
So what do you make of Silk Road?
Brett Johnson (1:51:12.000)
The Shadow Crew started something that today
Lex Fridman (1:51:16.400)
you can call dark net and dark net markets.
Lex Fridman (1:51:19.520)
So these markets that operate, that trade,
Lex Fridman (1:51:23.600)
trade things, everything from child pornography to drugs,
Lex Fridman (1:51:28.600)
to, I mean, what else?
Lex Fridman (1:51:31.680)
Everywhere.
Lex Fridman (1:51:32.520)
What are the dark things that humans want to do
Lex Fridman (1:51:34.640)
that they don't want anyone to know about?
Brett Johnson (1:51:36.640)
All of those things.
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.920)
So can you maybe tell me, you know what?
Brett Johnson (1:51:44.040)
Let's just even step back.
Lex Fridman (1:51:45.160)
What is the dark net?
Lex Fridman (1:51:46.200)
How big is it?
Lex Fridman (1:51:47.600)
What happens there?
Brett Johnson (1:51:48.920)
Let's backtrack a little bit more before we get to that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:51.960)
All right, what Shadow Crew did,
Brett Johnson (1:51:56.720)
other than dealing in all these stolen wares,
Lex Fridman (1:52:01.720)
what Shadow Crew did that's really important.
Lex Fridman (1:52:04.960)
Remember those three necessities that I talked about?
Lex Fridman (1:52:08.000)
But the important thing is,
Lex Fridman (1:52:09.520)
is it established trust among criminals, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:52:13.200)
Because that's a necessity.
Brett Johnson (1:52:14.360)
You have to be able to trust who you're dealing with
Lex Fridman (1:52:17.440)
because you have to deal with somebody.
Lex Fridman (1:52:19.320)
You have to, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:52:21.240)
So how do you know you're not dealing with a cop?
Lex Fridman (1:52:23.480)
How do you know you're dealing
Lex Fridman (1:52:24.320)
with somebody that's skilled?
Lex Fridman (1:52:25.520)
How do you know you're going to deal with somebody
Lex Fridman (1:52:26.640)
that's not going to rip you off?
Brett Johnson (1:52:27.960)
You have to be able to trust that individual.
Lex Fridman (1:52:30.040)
The Shadow Crew provided
Brett Johnson (1:52:31.160)
that trust mechanism for criminals.
Lex Fridman (1:52:33.000)
You had that communication channel, the forums,
Brett Johnson (1:52:35.840)
where you could reference conversations weeks, months old,
Lex Fridman (1:52:38.880)
take part and learn from those conversations.
Brett Johnson (1:52:41.320)
You had vouching systems and review systems in place,
Lex Fridman (1:52:44.080)
escrow systems in place.
Brett Johnson (1:52:46.080)
You knew by looking at someone's screen name,
Lex Fridman (1:52:49.720)
if you could trust the individual,
Lex Fridman (1:52:51.520)
network with the individual, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:52:53.320)
And that community of just humans
Brett Johnson (1:52:57.560)
provided that backbone of trust.
Lex Fridman (1:53:01.240)
And that's really interesting when you think about it.
Brett Johnson (1:53:04.080)
You had the trust that was there,
Lex Fridman (1:53:05.520)
but you also had this,
Brett Johnson (1:53:08.400)
almost this instantaneous information
Lex Fridman (1:53:11.360)
that was available about the community
Brett Johnson (1:53:13.640)
or about cyber crime at large.
Lex Fridman (1:53:15.440)
And that's still in play today, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:53:18.080)
So that was the way things were
Lex Fridman (1:53:21.440)
until a couple of things happened.
Lex Fridman (1:53:23.160)
And one was cryptocurrency.
Lex Fridman (1:53:25.640)
The other one was the Tor browser, the dark web.
Brett Johnson (1:53:29.000)
Now I was working with a secret service,
Lex Fridman (1:53:30.920)
ripping the secret service off,
Lex Fridman (1:53:32.840)
when Tor comes into play, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:53:34.840)
So we got a memo in one day
Lex Fridman (1:53:37.080)
and it was talking about the Tor browser.
Lex Fridman (1:53:38.840)
And it was like, we really need to be careful with this.
Brett Johnson (1:53:41.840)
This is going to be problem.
Lex Fridman (1:53:43.240)
And so we all fired up the Tor browser
Lex Fridman (1:53:45.640)
and it turns out it was, this was 2005, early six.
Lex Fridman (1:53:50.480)
It turns out it was completely unusable,
Brett Johnson (1:53:52.160)
could not use it at all,
Lex Fridman (1:53:53.200)
simply because no one was using it
Lex Fridman (1:53:55.080)
and it was extremely slow.
Lex Fridman (1:53:56.440)
So for people who don't know,
Brett Johnson (1:53:58.240)
Tor browser is a way to be completely anonymous.
Lex Fridman (1:54:01.440)
As long as you properly know how to use it, huge caveat.
Brett Johnson (1:54:04.920)
All right, so developed by the United States Navy
Lex Fridman (1:54:07.840)
and they developed it.
Brett Johnson (1:54:08.680)
I don't know this.
Lex Fridman (1:54:10.040)
Oh yeah.
Brett Johnson (1:54:10.880)
It wasn't the hackers that, interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:54:13.280)
US Navy, to this day, the number one funder of Tor,
Lex Fridman (1:54:17.280)
military, to this day, all right?
Lex Fridman (1:54:20.400)
Interesting.
Brett Johnson (1:54:21.240)
I mean, the same, I guess with the internet,
Lex Fridman (1:54:22.440)
the origins are the dark web and DOD.
Brett Johnson (1:54:25.080)
It was developed so that operatives could communicate
Lex Fridman (1:54:28.400)
with each other without being identified, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:54:31.360)
That then goes open source.
Lex Fridman (1:54:33.160)
They release it, EFF comes in,
Brett Johnson (1:54:35.200)
start sponsoring and everything else like that.
Lex Fridman (1:54:38.320)
The next idea was, well, you know,
Brett Johnson (1:54:40.160)
people can get around their country's firewalls,
Lex Fridman (1:54:42.520)
whistleblowers can use it, things like that.
Brett Johnson (1:54:44.160)
Well, someone forgot to mention
Lex Fridman (1:54:45.800)
that the first adoptees of tech,
Brett Johnson (1:54:48.000)
if you can use it to launder money or remain anonymous,
Lex Fridman (1:54:50.960)
are criminals.
Lex Fridman (1:54:52.880)
And so criminals start to use the damn thing.
Lex Fridman (1:54:55.320)
All right?
Lex Fridman (1:54:56.680)
So along the same time we get,
Lex Fridman (1:54:59.080)
well, a few years later,
Brett Johnson (1:55:00.040)
we get Satoshi Nakamoto pops up
Lex Fridman (1:55:02.560)
with his ideas for Bitcoin,
Lex Fridman (1:55:05.240)
and then Ross Ulbrich runs with it.
Lex Fridman (1:55:07.640)
Ross Ulbrich decides he's gonna start up Silk Road.
Lex Fridman (1:55:10.160)
So initially the people who were using Tor,
Lex Fridman (1:55:13.080)
which later is the dark web,
Brett Johnson (1:55:15.120)
people were using Tor or just talking with each other,
Lex Fridman (1:55:18.600)
visiting websites, communicating like that.
Brett Johnson (1:55:21.560)
Someone figured out,
Lex Fridman (1:55:22.400)
hey man, we could host websites on this thing,
Lex Fridman (1:55:25.920)
and they have a lot of trouble finding the box.
Lex Fridman (1:55:28.960)
So that is the advent of Silk Road all of a sudden.
Brett Johnson (1:55:33.680)
Ross Ulbrich has this idea
Lex Fridman (1:55:35.120)
that he's gonna change the world
Brett Johnson (1:55:37.760)
by becoming the largest drug dealer on the planet.
Lex Fridman (1:55:40.960)
So he opens up the Silk Road
Lex Fridman (1:55:42.600)
and the only payment instrument he allows is Bitcoin.
Lex Fridman (1:55:46.520)
So if those people out there are wondering
Lex Fridman (1:55:48.640)
why Bitcoin is going at what, 44K today?
Lex Fridman (1:55:51.800)
Yeah, and by the time this is out,
Brett Johnson (1:55:54.120)
it could be 100,000 or 10,000.
Lex Fridman (1:55:56.240)
Absolutely.
Brett Johnson (1:55:57.080)
We'll see.
Lex Fridman (1:55:57.920)
Who knows?
Brett Johnson (1:55:58.760)
If it's 10,000, I'm going to buy some.
Lex Fridman (1:56:04.000)
Which is a hilarious statement to make
Brett Johnson (1:56:06.040)
because that statement would be ridiculously wrong
Lex Fridman (1:56:09.200)
like five years ago, right?
Brett Johnson (1:56:10.560)
I know, I know, I know.
Lex Fridman (1:56:12.680)
People 100 years from now will be laughing,
Lex Fridman (1:56:14.560)
wait, it was that low back then?
Lex Fridman (1:56:18.480)
So he only accepts Bitcoin,
Lex Fridman (1:56:20.080)
and of course the initial use case of crypto
Lex Fridman (1:56:23.960)
is no one wants to admit it today,
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.600)
but the initial use case is we're gonna buy a bunch of pot.
Lex Fridman (1:56:29.880)
We need somebody, we need a way to pay for it.
Lex Fridman (1:56:33.600)
So that's what happens.
Lex Fridman (1:56:35.520)
Ross, it's really interesting to me.
Brett Johnson (1:56:38.680)
If you look at motivations of cyber criminals,
Lex Fridman (1:56:43.240)
the motivations are status, cash, ideology, all right?
Brett Johnson (1:56:48.040)
My guys, all cash, across the board, all cash.
Lex Fridman (1:56:52.280)
Ross is ideology.
Brett Johnson (1:56:54.640)
He really believed he was gonna change the world.
Lex Fridman (1:56:57.080)
He really didn't.
Brett Johnson (1:56:57.920)
I've been fortunate.
Lex Fridman (1:56:59.280)
I actually know the guy who ran Silk Road 2
Lex Fridman (1:57:03.680)
and have talked to the kid, everything else,
Lex Fridman (1:57:07.000)
and I will tell you that those guys
Brett Johnson (1:57:10.040)
who are motivated by ideology,
Lex Fridman (1:57:13.960)
they are a completely different breed.
Brett Johnson (1:57:16.080)
They really are.
Lex Fridman (1:57:17.080)
It's not, you know, the cash guy, it's low hanging fruit.
Brett Johnson (1:57:21.640)
The ease of, it's hard to stop committing crime,
Lex Fridman (1:57:26.320)
but it's much easier for a cash motivated individual
Brett Johnson (1:57:29.400)
to stop than it is that ideology guy.
Lex Fridman (1:57:32.520)
That Silk Road 2 guy, he's still got it.
Brett Johnson (1:57:35.080)
You know, he's not breaking the law,
Lex Fridman (1:57:36.520)
but you can see it's like, he wants to, he wants to.
Lex Fridman (1:57:41.360)
So it's...
Lex Fridman (1:57:44.000)
That's fascinating that, I mean,
Brett Johnson (1:57:45.760)
the worst atrocities in human history
Lex Fridman (1:57:47.680)
are committed with people that operate under ideology.
Brett Johnson (1:57:51.160)
All the other motivations are much weaker.
Lex Fridman (1:57:53.160)
But you know, you think about it,
Brett Johnson (1:57:54.920)
with Ross, I mean, very bright guy, very bright guy,
Lex Fridman (1:57:59.640)
but think about the amount of cognitive dissonance
Brett Johnson (1:58:02.320)
that the guy's got,
Lex Fridman (1:58:04.160)
that he thinks he's gonna change the world
Brett Johnson (1:58:06.640)
by running a drug site.
Lex Fridman (1:58:09.640)
I mean, certainly, I mean, could he have changed the world?
Lex Fridman (1:58:12.720)
Yeah, could he have done it like that?
Lex Fridman (1:58:15.880)
Probably not.
Brett Johnson (1:58:17.320)
Well, I can steel man those arguments.
Lex Fridman (1:58:19.480)
I listened to quite a few libertarians
Lex Fridman (1:58:22.320)
and you can push that to anarchists.
Lex Fridman (1:58:25.760)
You know, there's a lot of people that argue...
Lex Fridman (1:58:28.880)
So I actually talked to a professor at Columbia
Lex Fridman (1:58:32.800)
who actually argues that all drugs should be legalized
Lex Fridman (1:58:35.160)
and not at a philosophical level, political level,
Lex Fridman (1:58:37.440)
but the fact that all the negative consequences of drugs
Brett Johnson (1:58:41.320)
that people talk about actually have to do
Lex Fridman (1:58:44.640)
with other factors in your life.
Brett Johnson (1:58:47.160)
I would agree with that.
Lex Fridman (1:58:48.240)
And so that's, okay, but that's more like a argument
Brett Johnson (1:58:51.600)
about negative aspects of drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:58:53.640)
I think the ideology comes in where it's like,
Brett Johnson (1:58:56.400)
well, nobody should tell you what to do.
Lex Fridman (1:58:59.280)
You should have the responsibility of your own actions.
Brett Johnson (1:59:02.960)
Like the government or any other institution
Lex Fridman (1:59:07.840)
shouldn't be the rule setters,
Brett Johnson (1:59:12.320)
the constraints for how you live your life.
Lex Fridman (1:59:14.560)
And so I could see that argument being made
Lex Fridman (1:59:17.160)
and ultimately if you like create an open market for drugs,
Lex Fridman (1:59:22.680)
how that could build a better society,
Brett Johnson (1:59:24.600)
it might break down the outdated, the corrupt,
Lex Fridman (1:59:28.160)
the bureaucratic institutions.
Brett Johnson (1:59:29.600)
I mean, you can make that argument.
Lex Fridman (1:59:31.880)
There's an argument and let's be fair.
Brett Johnson (1:59:33.640)
I wanna be fair with it.
Lex Fridman (1:59:34.560)
I mean, did he change the world?
Brett Johnson (1:59:38.160)
We do have this whole thing called cryptocurrency.
Lex Fridman (1:59:40.520)
Yeah, in the long arc of history, perhaps.
Brett Johnson (1:59:43.080)
Yeah, we do have that.
Lex Fridman (1:59:46.040)
That's a biggie.
Lex Fridman (1:59:48.080)
And that might've been for it to take hold in society.
Lex Fridman (1:59:50.720)
Maybe the darker parts of society at first,
Brett Johnson (1:59:52.960)
maybe that was necessary.
Lex Fridman (1:59:54.160)
Right, I mean, maybe, we'll see how it pans out.
Brett Johnson (1:59:57.320)
Shadow Crew, we had this guy, Albert Gonzalez,
Lex Fridman (20:02.740)
You know, I wanted to, but mom was like, don't need it.
Lex Fridman (20:05.540)
And so never went to counseling.
Lex Fridman (20:08.140)
And I became this pariah in the county. It's crazy, man.
Brett Johnson (20:16.780)
I mean, not a day goes by that I don't think about that.
Lex Fridman (20:21.580)
That moment in the elevator.
Brett Johnson (20:23.460)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:24.580)
And what happens is, you know, you're 15.
Brett Johnson (20:29.140)
Fuck man, you're 15.
Lex Fridman (20:31.580)
So I go back to the high school that I was in
Lex Fridman (20:34.660)
and I'm this piece of shit.
Lex Fridman (20:38.700)
So everybody, you're not the outcast.
Brett Johnson (20:41.460)
Everybody knows.
Lex Fridman (20:43.280)
So I moved, we moved, we were in Whitesburg at that point.
Brett Johnson (20:47.120)
I finished up the year there and moved back to Perry County,
Lex Fridman (20:52.260)
which is where Hazard is.
Lex Fridman (20:55.140)
So we moved there and they've got three high schools here.
Lex Fridman (20:57.940)
They've got MC Napier, they've got Hazard High School
Lex Fridman (21:00.260)
and then they've got Dills Combs High School.
Lex Fridman (21:02.700)
So I was within, me and Denise were within
Brett Johnson (21:07.500)
half mile of MC Napier.
Lex Fridman (21:10.820)
Show up there the first day of school
Lex Fridman (21:13.700)
and I met me and my mom and my sister
Lex Fridman (21:16.100)
were walking into the school and the kids won't let me in.
Brett Johnson (21:20.640)
The kids stand out there, he's not coming in.
Lex Fridman (21:26.740)
So my mom starts raising hell and I'm like,
Brett Johnson (21:29.240)
nah, let's just go, let's go.
Lex Fridman (21:30.780)
So from there it was, we went down to the city school,
Brett Johnson (21:33.380)
Hazard and the principal tells my mom,
Lex Fridman (21:36.940)
Denise can come, he can't.
Lex Fridman (21:40.540)
So my mom wants to raise hell and I'm like, no,
Lex Fridman (21:43.660)
let's just take me to this other school.
Lex Fridman (21:45.700)
So this other school was like 15 miles away
Lex Fridman (21:48.340)
and country high school.
Lex Fridman (21:55.320)
So I go there and they accept me
Lex Fridman (21:57.140)
and I walked in the first day
Lex Fridman (21:59.220)
and this English teacher
Lex Fridman (22:04.020)
name's Carol Combs, I walked in
Lex Fridman (22:07.220)
and handed her the paper, she was my homeroom teacher
Lex Fridman (22:11.940)
and she heard this voice,
Brett Johnson (22:14.380)
that is the way she explains it today,
Lex Fridman (22:15.820)
she heard this voice and she looks up
Lex Fridman (22:19.660)
and she was like, son, have you ever done any drama before?
Lex Fridman (22:24.020)
And I'm like, no maam,
Lex Fridman (22:27.580)
but I'm interested in the academic team,
Lex Fridman (22:29.240)
I was this quick recall guy, right?
Lex Fridman (22:31.340)
And she's like, no.
Lex Fridman (22:33.080)
She's like, drama.
Brett Johnson (22:37.580)
I'm like, no, I'm not interested in theater,
Lex Fridman (22:39.980)
I'm interested in academics.
Brett Johnson (22:41.980)
Well, she was the head of the drama department
Lex Fridman (22:44.520)
and head of the academics department.
Lex Fridman (22:46.040)
So the deal was, tell you what,
Lex Fridman (22:48.500)
you can get on the academics team
Brett Johnson (22:50.440)
if you start with theater too.
Lex Fridman (22:53.100)
And I was like, okay.
Lex Fridman (22:54.780)
So what happens is she was the only,
Lex Fridman (22:56.780)
she was the first decent person I met in my life
Lex Fridman (22:58.700)
and she became this kind of surrogate mother to me.
Lex Fridman (23:01.820)
So under her tutelage,
Brett Johnson (23:04.740)
I become one of the top academic team guys in the state.
Lex Fridman (23:09.740)
Around there, I was captain of the team,
Brett Johnson (23:11.380)
I was this just scourge across all the counties
Lex Fridman (23:15.740)
in that part of Kentucky.
Brett Johnson (23:16.660)
If we had a meet, it was like,
Lex Fridman (23:20.080)
Jesus Christ, that's Brett Johnson.
Lex Fridman (23:21.780)
And it was like, she used to tell people
Lex Fridman (23:26.580)
they would, the high school that I came from was Whitesburg
Lex Fridman (23:29.900)
and the first time that Whitesburg came against us,
Lex Fridman (23:32.820)
she told me, I was talking to her about a year ago
Lex Fridman (23:35.740)
and she told me, she's like, Brett,
Lex Fridman (23:37.920)
she said, that first meet against Whitesburg,
Brett Johnson (23:40.420)
she said, the captain came in, looked at you and said,
Lex Fridman (23:45.180)
oh, you've got that Johnson boy on your team?
Lex Fridman (23:47.580)
And she said, my response was that Johnson boy is our team.
Lex Fridman (23:52.240)
So, but I did that and then with theater,
Brett Johnson (23:57.740)
I ended up, my senior year,
Lex Fridman (24:00.540)
I won best actor and actress in the state.
Brett Johnson (24:04.060)
Only guy to ever do that in the state.
Lex Fridman (24:05.940)
So, did pretty well, man, did pretty well.
Brett Johnson (24:08.920)
Had scholarships coming out of high school
Lex Fridman (24:11.900)
and everything else and I'm the idiot that turned them down.
Brett Johnson (24:14.460)
Ask you a funny question.
Lex Fridman (24:15.700)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (24:16.620)
You'd make a hell of a, I mean,
Lex Fridman (24:18.300)
of all the many things you could probably do,
Brett Johnson (24:20.220)
you would make a hell of a actor.
Lex Fridman (24:23.140)
I'm very good on stage.
Brett Johnson (24:24.820)
I'm very good on stage.
Lex Fridman (24:26.020)
Have you acted professionally anywhere or not?
Brett Johnson (24:28.780)
Not professionally.
Lex Fridman (24:29.620)
We've done the college circuit and stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (24:31.900)
What happened was is, so I turned down the scholarships,
Lex Fridman (24:38.260)
you know, scared of leaving, I guess is what it was.
Brett Johnson (24:40.140)
Started in community college
Lex Fridman (24:41.820)
and the community college there hires
Brett Johnson (24:44.580)
a new theater director out of California.
Lex Fridman (24:46.340)
Well, he knew the guy
Brett Johnson (24:48.020)
that ran the San Jose State Theater program.
Lex Fridman (24:50.900)
A guy named Edward Emmanuel was his name.
Brett Johnson (24:53.020)
His claim to fame, he had written the Three Ninjas movie.
Lex Fridman (24:56.340)
Remember that, the three little ninja kids
Brett Johnson (24:58.460)
back in the eighties, he had written this damn film
Lex Fridman (25:00.780)
and it had made a shitload of money.
Brett Johnson (25:02.900)
So, he invites Ed Emmanuel to come down and see the play
Lex Fridman (25:06.140)
and Ed had written this Civil War piece.
Brett Johnson (25:09.120)
So, we put that on.
Lex Fridman (25:11.440)
I was doing like, it was a multiple role thing.
Brett Johnson (25:13.660)
I was doing like 18 different roles in the show.
Lex Fridman (25:16.140)
So, Ed sees the show and he was like, scholarship.
Brett Johnson (25:19.580)
He said, look, he said,
Lex Fridman (25:20.780)
right now you're a big fish in a small pond.
Brett Johnson (25:22.660)
We'll make you a big fish in a big pot.
Lex Fridman (25:24.180)
And I was like, deal.
Brett Johnson (25:25.620)
So, I took the scholarship, man.
Lex Fridman (25:27.580)
And he was like, I'll be back in two weeks.
Brett Johnson (25:29.280)
So, he flies out.
Lex Fridman (25:30.380)
Two weeks later, this guy flies back in.
Brett Johnson (25:32.820)
He drives down to where I'm living.
Lex Fridman (25:35.400)
I'm out shooting ball with one of my cousins and friends.
Brett Johnson (25:39.580)
He pulls up and he gets out of the car
Lex Fridman (25:42.620)
and I was like, I'm walking over to him.
Brett Johnson (25:43.940)
I was like, hey man, I'll walk you in.
Lex Fridman (25:45.820)
You can meet my parents.
Brett Johnson (25:47.020)
He's like, no, I got it.
Lex Fridman (25:48.540)
I was like, okay.
Brett Johnson (25:49.540)
So, I keep shooting ball.
Lex Fridman (25:50.500)
He walks in the house, stays about 15 minutes,
Brett Johnson (25:54.780)
walks out, white as a sheet, doesn't say a word to me,
Lex Fridman (25:58.620)
gets in the car, leaves.
Brett Johnson (26:00.980)
I don't hear from him again.
Lex Fridman (26:02.760)
Had no idea what went on.
Brett Johnson (26:04.780)
Takes me a couple of weeks.
Lex Fridman (26:06.580)
What happened is my mom, he walks in and introduces himself.
Brett Johnson (26:10.620)
My mom pulls a knife on the guy.
Lex Fridman (26:13.420)
I will kill you.
Brett Johnson (26:14.780)
You are not going to steal my goddamn son from me.
Lex Fridman (26:17.700)
Scares the guy to death.
Brett Johnson (26:19.340)
He bugs out and kind of broke my spirit at that point.
Lex Fridman (26:24.340)
I was like, okay.
Brett Johnson (26:27.020)
So, went into, just full fledged into scams,
Lex Fridman (26:32.940)
crimes, everything else.
Brett Johnson (26:34.080)
I had already been, when I was a minor,
Lex Fridman (26:37.220)
I'd already been kind of brought up
Brett Johnson (26:39.100)
on that side of the family with the crimes
Lex Fridman (26:40.740)
that they were doing.
Brett Johnson (26:41.580)
My mom was drug trafficking, the pimp stuff,
Lex Fridman (26:45.380)
illegally mining coal, charity fraud.
Lex Fridman (26:48.780)
Illegally mining coal?
Lex Fridman (26:50.100)
Yeah, wildcatting coal.
Brett Johnson (26:51.380)
So, you...
Lex Fridman (26:52.220)
Can you explain that?
Brett Johnson (26:53.060)
Yeah, so, to properly mine coal,
Lex Fridman (26:55.980)
you have to get a permit, all right?
Brett Johnson (26:58.580)
Eastern Kentucky, a lot of people don't,
Lex Fridman (27:00.460)
they can't afford the permits.
Brett Johnson (27:02.580)
They can get them a piece of equipment.
Lex Fridman (27:04.340)
You get a dozer or a loader or whatever you're going to get
Brett Johnson (27:06.420)
or an auger or what have you.
Lex Fridman (27:08.260)
So, you start mining, but you don't get the permit.
Brett Johnson (27:10.740)
So, you don't have to do the, you don't have to pay.
Lex Fridman (27:12.900)
Back then, it was like $3,500 for a two acre permit
Brett Johnson (27:15.740)
or $5,000 for a two acre permit.
Lex Fridman (27:17.620)
Let you strip mine the coal on that.
Brett Johnson (27:20.540)
Then you have to pay for the reclamation on top of that.
Lex Fridman (27:22.780)
So, once you uncover the pit, take the coal out,
Brett Johnson (27:25.740)
you have to cover back up the pit, sow grass,
Lex Fridman (27:28.700)
make sure everything is environmentally friendly.
Brett Johnson (27:30.420)
You got a silt pond, everything else at that point.
Lex Fridman (27:32.940)
So, the whole idea is you buy an acre of land
Brett Johnson (27:35.060)
or some area of land and then you can,
Lex Fridman (27:36.940)
there's a whole process you're supposed to go through.
Brett Johnson (27:38.580)
Entire process.
Lex Fridman (27:39.580)
How many people involved in a mining,
Brett Johnson (27:41.940)
the smallest number of people required
Lex Fridman (27:43.980)
for a mining operation?
Brett Johnson (27:45.060)
You can do it with three or four people.
Lex Fridman (27:46.820)
Okay.
Brett Johnson (27:47.660)
So, you've got your loader operator,
Lex Fridman (27:48.480)
you've got your dozer operator.
Brett Johnson (27:49.900)
You need, you can farm out the trucking to someone
Lex Fridman (27:52.860)
if you need that or trucking company if you need to do that.
Brett Johnson (27:56.540)
Then you've got your, whoever owns the business as well.
Lex Fridman (27:58.700)
So, very few people can run an operation like that
Lex Fridman (28:01.780)
and profit fairly well as long as
Lex Fridman (28:04.700)
you don't have to do the reclamation,
Lex Fridman (28:07.100)
all that crap on top of it, all right?
Lex Fridman (28:08.860)
The reclamation gets pretty expensive.
Brett Johnson (28:10.900)
So, if you're uncovering a pit of coal,
Lex Fridman (28:14.460)
a pit, so a ton of coal is basically about 36 cubic inches
Brett Johnson (28:18.100)
is what a 2000 pounds of coal weighs
Lex Fridman (28:20.700)
if you're in Eastern Kentucky
Brett Johnson (28:21.860)
because it's at the weight of the bituminous coal
Lex Fridman (28:24.420)
and everything.
Brett Johnson (28:25.260)
The fact that you know this is awesome.
Lex Fridman (28:26.580)
The fact that you know exactly the volume
Brett Johnson (28:32.140)
of a ton of coal, I mean, it's great.
Lex Fridman (28:34.340)
Yeah, you learn this shit, right?
Lex Fridman (28:35.500)
Can you rattle this shit off?
Lex Fridman (28:36.620)
So, you uncover the pit and then you've got to sell the pit.
Brett Johnson (28:40.220)
Well, the thing is, is that,
Lex Fridman (28:41.860)
where are you gonna sell the coal?
Brett Johnson (28:43.260)
Well, you sell it to one of these other coal tipples
Lex Fridman (28:45.700)
that knows that they're buying the shit illegally.
Brett Johnson (28:48.660)
So, back then a ton of coal was,
Lex Fridman (28:50.620)
they'd give you like 36 bucks per ton is what that is.
Lex Fridman (28:54.140)
And you'd have to go out and you'd test the BTUs on it.
Lex Fridman (28:56.700)
You take a sample to the lab, test the BTUs,
Brett Johnson (28:58.980)
you take that into the company.
Lex Fridman (28:59.820)
What BTU?
Brett Johnson (29:00.820)
British Thermal Unit.
Lex Fridman (29:02.220)
So, you'd test what the BTU on the coal was.
Lex Fridman (29:04.780)
How pure the coal is.
Lex Fridman (29:05.860)
How pure the coal is, what BTU it burns at.
Brett Johnson (29:08.900)
Back then, a good BTU was around 12.9
Lex Fridman (29:12.540)
was what you'd get, all right?
Brett Johnson (29:14.100)
So, 12.9 coal, $36 a ton.
Lex Fridman (29:17.020)
You'd take that sample over to the coal tipple.
Brett Johnson (29:19.420)
They'd say, okay, we'll buy this for you.
Lex Fridman (29:21.540)
How many trucks you got or how many tons you got?
Lex Fridman (29:23.140)
And you'd say, this is what we've got.
Lex Fridman (29:24.700)
Then you'd hire the trucking company.
Lex Fridman (29:26.180)
And where you get it out because you've got the agents
Lex Fridman (29:29.900)
that are looking for you by this point
Brett Johnson (29:32.260)
because the people that you've bought the rights
Lex Fridman (29:36.020)
to whoever the landowner is,
Brett Johnson (29:37.660)
you said you're gonna give them $2 a ton or whatever this is.
Lex Fridman (29:41.380)
Well, the other people there,
Lex Fridman (29:42.500)
are you paying them off or are you not?
Lex Fridman (29:45.220)
Well, if you're not paying them off, guess what?
Brett Johnson (29:47.060)
They know your ass is mining it illegally.
Lex Fridman (29:49.940)
They're gonna report you.
Brett Johnson (29:50.980)
Well, all of a sudden, you've got all these inspectors
Lex Fridman (29:53.220)
that are coming around and everything.
Brett Johnson (29:54.420)
Hey, we know what you're doing.
Lex Fridman (29:55.940)
So, they're looking for you to get the pit out.
Lex Fridman (29:57.540)
So, when do you get the pit out?
Lex Fridman (29:58.940)
Right in dead of night.
Brett Johnson (2:00:02.320)
Albert Gonzalez, that's the kid's name.
Lex Fridman (2:00:04.520)
We had, we were growing so big
Brett Johnson (2:00:06.720)
that I had to start farming things out.
Lex Fridman (2:00:11.240)
So the first thing I started farming,
Brett Johnson (2:00:12.640)
I instituted this review system,
Lex Fridman (2:00:16.320)
kind of establishing that trust mechanism
Brett Johnson (2:00:18.320)
even further for criminals to use.
Lex Fridman (2:00:21.480)
We needed somebody to take care of our tech aspects
Brett Johnson (2:00:25.040)
of the forum.
Lex Fridman (2:00:25.880)
So an associate of mine by the name of Kim Taylor,
Brett Johnson (2:00:29.560)
where we're looking for a forum techie,
Lex Fridman (2:00:31.400)
he comes to me one night and he's like,
Brett Johnson (2:00:33.040)
found our forum techie.
Lex Fridman (2:00:34.200)
I was like, who's that?
Lex Fridman (2:00:35.040)
And he's like, it's this kid.
Lex Fridman (2:00:36.920)
And I was like, is he any good?
Brett Johnson (2:00:38.400)
He's like, well, he knows the software.
Lex Fridman (2:00:39.560)
And I was like, okay, we'll just sign his ass on.
Brett Johnson (2:00:43.120)
He went by the screen name of Kumbajonny,
Lex Fridman (2:00:45.600)
was his screen name.
Lex Fridman (2:00:46.800)
And he starts selling credit cards after a while
Lex Fridman (2:00:49.800)
under a screen name of Scarface.
Lex Fridman (2:00:51.600)
And that CB1 breach where you're cashing out
Lex Fridman (2:00:56.600)
the track twos at ATMs, $40,000 a day.
Lex Fridman (2:01:02.040)
So Albert's in New Jersey one day, broad daylight,
Lex Fridman (2:01:06.840)
and stands at an ATM for 40 minutes, just standing there,
Brett Johnson (2:01:11.960)
feeding in one ATM card after another, pulling out cash,
Lex Fridman (2:01:16.240)
taking the 20s out, stuffing them in that backpack.
Brett Johnson (2:01:19.600)
Meanwhile, just across the street,
Lex Fridman (2:01:21.320)
a couple of cops just happened to be there.
Lex Fridman (2:01:23.920)
And they start noticing this kid just standing there.
Lex Fridman (2:01:28.320)
So 40 minutes, they watch this kid, 40 minutes.
Brett Johnson (2:01:31.600)
Finally, one cop looks at the other,
Lex Fridman (2:01:33.560)
let me see what's going on there.
Brett Johnson (2:01:36.240)
Walks over across the street, Albert's wearing a wig.
Lex Fridman (2:01:39.240)
He's got the disguise on, everything else like that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:42.000)
Ask him, kid, what are you doing?
Lex Fridman (2:01:43.960)
Albert falls apart.
Brett Johnson (2:01:46.480)
We didn't know Albert had been arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:01:48.760)
So Albert immediately goes in,
Brett Johnson (2:01:51.200)
I wanna work for the Secret Service.
Lex Fridman (2:01:55.040)
At that point in time, Secret Service,
Brett Johnson (2:01:59.560)
I referred to, and I wanna make sure I don't say,
Lex Fridman (2:02:03.200)
it's not like that anymore.
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.720)
But back then, they were fucking idiots, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:02:07.920)
They had no clue what was going on.
Lex Fridman (2:02:09.520)
So there was a competence issue
Lex Fridman (2:02:10.960)
that they were working through is one way to put it.
Brett Johnson (2:02:12.760)
That's a nice euphemism.
Lex Fridman (2:02:15.200)
So, or fucking idiots is another way to say it.
Lex Fridman (2:02:19.000)
So they're just not aware of the digital world.
Lex Fridman (2:02:21.800)
They had no clue, no clue.
Brett Johnson (2:02:23.080)
The way that Albert tells them how to catch us
Lex Fridman (2:02:26.160)
because they looked at him, how do we catch them?
Lex Fridman (2:02:28.640)
And Albert's like, Albert, I'm serious, I'm serious.
Lex Fridman (2:02:32.440)
So Albert's like, well, you could try a VPN.
Lex Fridman (2:02:35.680)
What's a VPN?
Lex Fridman (2:02:37.480)
So he explains it to them, they're like,
Brett Johnson (2:02:39.840)
that's a good idea.
Lex Fridman (2:02:41.800)
So I quit Shadow Crew.
Brett Johnson (2:02:43.920)
I was worried about all the news
Lex Fridman (2:02:45.080)
that was coming in and everything like that.
Brett Johnson (2:02:46.200)
I'm stealing 160K a week.
Lex Fridman (2:02:47.840)
I didn't know Albert had been arrested.
Brett Johnson (2:02:51.400)
I'm worried about being arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:02:52.520)
I know the writing's on the wall.
Lex Fridman (2:02:54.520)
And I'm like, I'm quitting.
Lex Fridman (2:02:56.680)
Where did you see the writing?
Brett Johnson (2:02:58.400)
The IPs that were coming in,
Lex Fridman (2:03:00.400)
the text messages about the Secret Service investigators
Brett Johnson (2:03:03.320)
I referred to.
Lex Fridman (2:03:04.160)
So the pressure's building.
Brett Johnson (2:03:05.600)
This is not gonna end well.
Lex Fridman (2:03:06.840)
This is going to be bad.
Lex Fridman (2:03:09.080)
So I announced my retirement of February 15th,
Lex Fridman (2:03:13.560)
I'm sorry, April 15th, 2004 is my retirement.
Brett Johnson (2:03:18.200)
I think that's the 2004.
Lex Fridman (2:03:19.920)
And I quit, I walk away.
Brett Johnson (2:03:22.720)
Well, Albert had been arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:03:24.960)
They cut him loose.
Brett Johnson (2:03:26.200)
No one knows he's been arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:03:27.320)
He comes back into Shadow Crew.
Brett Johnson (2:03:29.120)
I leave Kim Taylor at the same time.
Lex Fridman (2:03:31.720)
He's kind of on the run, which if you wanna know that story,
Brett Johnson (2:03:34.520)
that's a nightmare story in and of itself.
Lex Fridman (2:03:36.880)
So my second in charge, Kim Taylor, this guy,
Lex Fridman (2:03:40.400)
there was this guy named David, oh, what was his name?
Lex Fridman (2:03:46.240)
He was, El Mariachi was the guy's name.
Brett Johnson (2:03:49.080)
David Thomas.
Lex Fridman (2:03:50.320)
David, yeah, he was a film guy.
Brett Johnson (2:03:53.440)
Scarface.
Lex Fridman (2:03:54.920)
So El Mariachi, real name David Thomas,
Brett Johnson (2:03:58.400)
he's on the run out of Nebraska for check fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:04:02.320)
He comes to us on Shadow Crew telling us this sad story.
Brett Johnson (2:04:06.280)
We take up a collection for this guy.
Lex Fridman (2:04:09.000)
Send it to him, all right?
Brett Johnson (2:04:10.600)
I get him a job working with a low level carter
Lex Fridman (2:04:13.800)
trying to make him some money, all right?
Brett Johnson (2:04:16.640)
El Mariachi, Thomas does this for a few weeks,
Lex Fridman (2:04:19.320)
comes to me one day and he's like,
Brett Johnson (2:04:20.480)
man, I'm not making any money.
Lex Fridman (2:04:22.080)
I'm like, okay, let me see what I can do.
Brett Johnson (2:04:23.440)
Well, I had a Ukrainian guy by the name of Big Buyer.
Lex Fridman (2:04:27.120)
He, a real friend of mine.
Lex Fridman (2:04:29.440)
And I contacted him, I was like, look, man,
Lex Fridman (2:04:30.920)
I got a guy that wants to do some work.
Lex Fridman (2:04:32.160)
Can you help the guy out?
Lex Fridman (2:04:33.000)
And he's like, I got it.
Brett Johnson (2:04:34.000)
I was like, okay.
Lex Fridman (2:04:35.120)
So he sends Thomas enough money to go,
Brett Johnson (2:04:38.480)
Thomas is in Texas at that point,
Lex Fridman (2:04:40.320)
sends Thomas enough money to go from Texas
Lex Fridman (2:04:43.360)
to Issaquah, Washington and rent an office space, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:04:48.560)
So Thomas goes up there, rents his office space,
Brett Johnson (2:04:51.000)
him and his girlfriend rents an office space.
Lex Fridman (2:04:54.360)
And the plan is, is Big Buyer is going to place an order,
Brett Johnson (2:04:59.920)
get product sent, Mariachi is going to get the product,
Lex Fridman (2:05:03.320)
list it on eBay, cash out 50 50, easy enough, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:05:07.120)
So Big Buyer places an order.
Lex Fridman (2:05:09.040)
First order is outpost.com, $18,000.
Brett Johnson (2:05:13.320)
The largest order outpost.com had ever received
Lex Fridman (2:05:16.320)
at that point in time.
Brett Johnson (2:05:18.480)
Order goes through.
Lex Fridman (2:05:19.760)
It goes through still.
Lex Fridman (2:05:20.640)
Goes through, he gets the product, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:05:23.640)
Mariachi comes back, tells me,
Brett Johnson (2:05:25.160)
tells my second in charge, Kim Taylor.
Lex Fridman (2:05:27.080)
Kim Taylor at this point, I'm 33, 34.
Brett Johnson (2:05:31.120)
Kim Taylor's 46.
Lex Fridman (2:05:32.520)
He works at the Tattered Cover Bookstore
Brett Johnson (2:05:35.000)
in Denver, Colorado is where he works at this point.
Lex Fridman (2:05:37.840)
And he fancies himself Jason Bourne, all right?
Brett Johnson (2:05:40.960)
He's even got one of the screen names of Jason Bourne.
Lex Fridman (2:05:43.720)
So I'm like, all right, so Mariachi is telling us
Lex Fridman (2:05:46.400)
how much money he's making, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:05:48.320)
I'm like, well, that's good.
Brett Johnson (2:05:49.160)
I'm glad you're all right.
Lex Fridman (2:05:50.360)
Kim contacts me and he's like, I want to go to Issaquah.
Lex Fridman (2:05:53.400)
And I was like, why?
Lex Fridman (2:05:54.240)
And he's like, to make some money.
Brett Johnson (2:05:55.520)
I'm like, you're making money.
Lex Fridman (2:05:57.120)
He's like, I want to go to Issaquah.
Brett Johnson (2:05:58.640)
I was like, all right, go, be careful.
Lex Fridman (2:06:00.800)
So he gets in the car, Saturn is what he's driving.
Brett Johnson (2:06:04.560)
He drives his little piece of Saturn
Lex Fridman (2:06:06.880)
all the way up to Issaquah.
Brett Johnson (2:06:08.440)
Gets there, you know, midnight.
Lex Fridman (2:06:10.680)
They party all night long
Brett Johnson (2:06:12.520)
because they've never met each other.
Lex Fridman (2:06:14.240)
They're just celebrating, partying, drinking,
Brett Johnson (2:06:16.160)
everything else like that.
Lex Fridman (2:06:17.760)
Meanwhile, Big Buyer has placed another order
Brett Johnson (2:06:23.440)
with Outpost.com, $17,000.
Lex Fridman (2:06:27.200)
The second largest order Outpost.com had ever received
Brett Johnson (2:06:31.320)
at that point in time.
Lex Fridman (2:06:33.480)
By this point in time, Outpost knows
Brett Johnson (2:06:35.400)
the first order was fraudulent.
Lex Fridman (2:06:37.040)
Guess where it's going?
Brett Johnson (2:06:38.200)
The exact same address the first order goes.
Lex Fridman (2:06:41.200)
So Outpost picks up the phone, calls Issaquah PD.
Brett Johnson (2:06:44.200)
Hey, we got a fraudster.
Lex Fridman (2:06:46.560)
Issaquah's like, would you mind sending some empty boxes?
Lex Fridman (2:06:51.280)
And Outpost is like, be happy to.
Lex Fridman (2:06:54.440)
So the rule was, is on credit card fraud,
Brett Johnson (2:06:58.280)
if you've got full account access,
Lex Fridman (2:07:00.600)
you place the order.
Brett Johnson (2:07:01.920)
The morning it's supposed to arrive,
Lex Fridman (2:07:03.720)
you sign into the bank account or the credit card account.
Brett Johnson (2:07:06.240)
If you can sign in, you go pick up your product.
Lex Fridman (2:07:09.200)
If you can't sign in, you go back to sleep that day.
Lex Fridman (2:07:12.480)
All right?
Lex Fridman (2:07:13.760)
Well, Big Buyer was the guy who placed the order.
Lex Fridman (2:07:17.160)
Mariachi and my second in charge are partying, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:07:20.400)
So they're supposed to contact Big Buyer, they don't.
Brett Johnson (2:07:24.320)
Meanwhile, Big Buyer is raising hell,
Lex Fridman (2:07:26.920)
getting up with me like, hey, where are the guys?
Brett Johnson (2:07:31.200)
I can't find them.
Lex Fridman (2:07:32.320)
They don't need to pick up this product.
Lex Fridman (2:07:34.440)
So I can't get in touch with them.
Lex Fridman (2:07:36.360)
They go down to pick up the,
Lex Fridman (2:07:37.480)
so Mariachi's got a Cadillac, old 70s Cadillac.
Lex Fridman (2:07:41.480)
He's got a Cadillac, pulls into the complex.
Brett Johnson (2:07:45.640)
Now Mariachi's driving,
Lex Fridman (2:07:49.040)
Kim Taylor's in the passenger seat,
Brett Johnson (2:07:51.680)
David Thomas's girlfriend's in the back seat.
Lex Fridman (2:07:54.200)
As they pull into the complex,
Brett Johnson (2:07:55.880)
going through the parking lot,
Lex Fridman (2:07:57.600)
Mariachi just happens to glance over and he sees a van
Brett Johnson (2:08:00.640)
with a guy sitting sideways in the van.
Lex Fridman (2:08:03.000)
And he looks at Kim Taylor and he's like,
Brett Johnson (2:08:05.680)
that's an undercover.
Lex Fridman (2:08:07.840)
And Kim's like, ah, it's fine.
Lex Fridman (2:08:10.520)
So they pull up to the office complex.
Lex Fridman (2:08:13.600)
Kim's like, I'll go in and get the packages.
Lex Fridman (2:08:16.720)
So he walks in, looks at the guy behind the counter.
Lex Fridman (2:08:19.640)
I believe you have some packages for us.
Brett Johnson (2:08:21.240)
Guy's like, one second.
Lex Fridman (2:08:23.440)
So he disappears around the wall,
Brett Johnson (2:08:26.120)
out pops the Issaquah PD, arrests Kim.
Lex Fridman (2:08:29.760)
David Thomas is in the car watching all this happen.
Brett Johnson (2:08:32.480)
He bugs out and they arrest him on the interstate
Lex Fridman (2:08:37.000)
where he has three fake driver's licenses in his wallet
Brett Johnson (2:08:40.240)
along with his real driver's license, another no, no,
Lex Fridman (2:08:43.200)
but they get him.
Lex Fridman (2:08:44.200)
So David Thomas had outstanding warrants out of Nebraska.
Lex Fridman (2:08:48.160)
We couldn't bond him out.
Brett Johnson (2:08:50.160)
Kim Taylor didn't have any warrants.
Lex Fridman (2:08:52.320)
So we bonded him out.
Brett Johnson (2:08:53.840)
My third in charge, kid, Seth Sanders was his name.
Lex Fridman (2:09:00.000)
He bonds him out, uses his girlfriend's account
Brett Johnson (2:09:02.640)
to bond him out.
Lex Fridman (2:09:03.520)
And I get Kim Taylor to go to Utah
Brett Johnson (2:09:09.040)
where another friend of mine agrees to house him,
Lex Fridman (2:09:13.560)
him and his wife.
Lex Fridman (2:09:15.240)
So I think everything's fine and all that.
Lex Fridman (2:09:18.720)
About three weeks later, this guy in Utah
Brett Johnson (2:09:21.400)
gets me on the phone.
Lex Fridman (2:09:22.240)
I'm like, hey, he's got to go.
Lex Fridman (2:09:24.400)
I'm like, what's going on?
Lex Fridman (2:09:27.640)
He's like, well, the only thing he's doing
Brett Johnson (2:09:30.560)
is popping ecstasy tablets every day, all day.
Lex Fridman (2:09:33.840)
And I'm like, seriously?
Brett Johnson (2:09:35.200)
He's like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:09:36.040)
I was like, okay, he's got to go.
Lex Fridman (2:09:37.120)
So we kick him out of there.
Lex Fridman (2:09:38.880)
By this point, I've got another crew that's coming through.
Brett Johnson (2:09:40.640)
I mean, I had all these crews running.
Lex Fridman (2:09:42.440)
Had another crew that's coming through Denver.
Brett Johnson (2:09:45.380)
Send Kim back to Denver to partner up with these guys.
Lex Fridman (2:09:50.160)
Kim gets these guys arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:09:52.080)
So by this point in time, I'm exasperated.
Lex Fridman (2:09:54.800)
I just want to throw my hands up in the air and walk away.
Lex Fridman (2:09:57.960)
So my retirement's coming up at the same time.
Lex Fridman (2:10:00.720)
So I'm like, fuck it, I'm done.
Lex Fridman (2:10:03.680)
So I tell everybody, the rest of the admins
Lex Fridman (2:10:06.120)
and the mods there, I'm like, this is what's going on.
Brett Johnson (2:10:08.000)
You guys need to watch out for this.
Lex Fridman (2:10:09.480)
We need to ban Kim, not let him back in.
Brett Johnson (2:10:11.960)
Be careful what's going on.
Lex Fridman (2:10:13.400)
I walk away.
Brett Johnson (2:10:15.220)
At the same time I walk away,
Lex Fridman (2:10:17.860)
Cumberjani, Albert Gonzalez, comes back into play.
Brett Johnson (2:10:20.880)
He sees everything that's going on.
Lex Fridman (2:10:22.560)
He uses that to his advantage.
Brett Johnson (2:10:24.080)
He starts banning everyone that's suspicious of him,
Lex Fridman (2:10:26.880)
sets up the VPN at the same time and says,
Brett Johnson (2:10:29.280)
hey, to make sure we're all secure,
Lex Fridman (2:10:31.560)
I need all transactions to go through this VPN.
Brett Johnson (2:10:34.880)
VPNs ran by the Secret Service.
Lex Fridman (2:10:37.560)
All right, Secret Service ends up,
Brett Johnson (2:10:39.320)
I think they ended up cataloging like $7 million
Lex Fridman (2:10:41.560)
worth of transactions over the next four or five months.
Brett Johnson (2:10:45.160)
Shadow Crew makes the front cover of Forbes, August, 2004.
Lex Fridman (2:10:49.760)
Headline, Who's Stealing Your Identity.
Brett Johnson (2:10:52.600)
October 26, 2004, United States Secret Service arrest,
Lex Fridman (2:10:56.720)
33 people, six countries, six hours.
Brett Johnson (2:11:00.360)
I was in Charleston, South Carolina when I saw it happen.
Lex Fridman (2:11:02.860)
And I'm like.
Lex Fridman (2:11:03.700)
So you're the one that got away.
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.480)
I'm the one public.
Brett Johnson (2:11:09.320)
There were a couple other guys that got away
Lex Fridman (2:11:10.760)
that they didn't publicly mention.
Brett Johnson (2:11:12.480)
One, his name was Tron.
Lex Fridman (2:11:14.960)
He was a zero.
Brett Johnson (2:11:17.080)
Yeah, exactly.
Lex Fridman (2:11:18.160)
But he went by the screen name Tron.
Brett Johnson (2:11:21.000)
He had access, almost unfettered access to Bank of America.
Lex Fridman (2:11:27.240)
So what happens is they identified the guy,
Brett Johnson (2:11:29.600)
Secret Service is in the air to go get him.
Lex Fridman (2:11:31.800)
They call the Ukrainian police.
Brett Johnson (2:11:33.400)
Hey, we're coming down to arrest this guy.
Lex Fridman (2:11:34.840)
Ukrainian cops are like, oh, come on down.
Lex Fridman (2:11:38.000)
So as soon as they got off the phone,
Lex Fridman (2:11:39.320)
Ukrainian cops get in the car, go down and tell Tron,
Brett Johnson (2:11:42.380)
hey, they're coming to get you.
Lex Fridman (2:11:44.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:11:45.360)
So he bugs out down to South America
Lex Fridman (2:11:47.800)
and they don't catch him I think for six or seven years
Brett Johnson (2:11:50.480)
after that, something like that.
Lex Fridman (2:11:51.320)
But caught him eventually.
Brett Johnson (2:11:52.680)
Caught him eventually.
Lex Fridman (2:11:53.520)
Well, let me actually ask you on this point.
Brett Johnson (2:11:55.720)
You've said that if you do cyber crime eventually,
Lex Fridman (2:11:59.680)
it's not gonna end well.
Brett Johnson (2:12:00.880)
It does not end well.
Lex Fridman (2:12:02.200)
Why is that?
Lex Fridman (2:12:03.760)
So I don't wanna say that's because
Lex Fridman (2:12:05.440)
you're gonna be arrested because honestly,
Lex Fridman (2:12:07.380)
very few people are arrested, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:12:10.200)
But it doesn't end well because of the type of person
Brett Johnson (2:12:13.720)
that you become.
Lex Fridman (2:12:14.800)
You quoted me earlier, you lie to everybody around you.
Brett Johnson (2:12:21.520)
You lie to yourself, you lie to your friends,
Lex Fridman (2:12:23.360)
you lie to your family.
Brett Johnson (2:12:24.200)
Of course, you lie to your victims.
Lex Fridman (2:12:25.760)
You don't have any friends.
Brett Johnson (2:12:27.800)
You know, I went 20 years without friends.
Lex Fridman (2:12:30.860)
I had associates, I didn't have friends.
Lex Fridman (2:12:33.520)
And you can't truly trust anybody.
Lex Fridman (2:12:35.280)
You don't trust anybody.
Brett Johnson (2:12:36.700)
You don't trust anybody.
Lex Fridman (2:12:37.680)
You know, I had my wife, I was married for nine years.
Brett Johnson (2:12:41.640)
I lied to her every single day of those nine years.
Lex Fridman (2:12:46.200)
And it took her nine years to give up on me,
Brett Johnson (2:12:49.720)
to realize that I was that piece of shit.
Lex Fridman (2:12:52.500)
And she leaves at that point.
Brett Johnson (2:12:55.480)
Then from there, I started dating a stripper
Lex Fridman (2:12:58.280)
and lied to her.
Brett Johnson (2:12:59.920)
I thought I had friends.
Lex Fridman (2:13:00.840)
I lied to all those people that I knew
Brett Johnson (2:13:02.680)
that thought they were my friends.
Lex Fridman (2:13:04.720)
I lied to them the entire time.
Brett Johnson (2:13:06.940)
You become that individual.
Lex Fridman (2:13:08.760)
I don't think a lot of people really understand
Lex Fridman (2:13:13.240)
how bad that is.
Lex Fridman (2:13:14.220)
You know, you talked about, you pointed out that woman
Brett Johnson (2:13:17.200)
that I ripped off.
Lex Fridman (2:13:18.040)
She was trying to put a roof on her house
Brett Johnson (2:13:20.080)
for her freaking kids, man.
Lex Fridman (2:13:22.000)
You're that person.
Brett Johnson (2:13:23.680)
You're that person.
Lex Fridman (2:13:24.880)
So you're also lying to yourself.
Lex Fridman (2:13:29.020)
And that's not a mindset in which you can
Lex Fridman (2:13:34.560)
grow as a person, find happiness,
Brett Johnson (2:13:38.500)
find genuine, simple human affection,
Lex Fridman (2:13:41.080)
which is what love is.
Brett Johnson (2:13:42.960)
Simple, real friendship, all of those things.
Lex Fridman (2:13:46.080)
So I went to prison, of course.
Brett Johnson (2:13:48.360)
One of the things, one of the most important lessons
Lex Fridman (2:13:50.620)
that I've learned in prison,
Brett Johnson (2:13:52.600)
because cyber crime as a whole,
Lex Fridman (2:13:54.480)
if you're a criminal, it's an addiction, all right?
Brett Johnson (2:13:56.960)
If you're addicted to something,
Lex Fridman (2:13:57.960)
whether it be drugs, crime, gambling, what have you,
Brett Johnson (2:14:00.520)
if you're addicted to something,
Lex Fridman (2:14:01.760)
you cannot love anything else except the addiction.
Lex Fridman (2:14:05.880)
The addiction comes first, all right?
Lex Fridman (2:14:08.640)
And you pointed out some of those truly despicable things.
Brett Johnson (2:14:13.640)
Script, for example, tortures that guy.
Lex Fridman (2:14:16.040)
You get to the point where it's like,
Brett Johnson (2:14:18.000)
okay, this is the business.
Lex Fridman (2:14:20.520)
And I tried to convince myself that I'm a businessman,
Lex Fridman (2:14:25.380)
but I'm a good guy on the other end.
Lex Fridman (2:14:27.120)
And you're not, you're not.
Lex Fridman (2:14:28.600)
So those lies become part of it, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:14:31.960)
And yeah, the higher ups are usually arrested, they are.
Lex Fridman (2:14:37.600)
But you've got millions of cyber criminals these days.
Lex Fridman (2:14:40.320)
So most guys are not gonna be arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:14:43.120)
So you may be arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:14:45.040)
You may be like freaking Jonathan James.
Brett Johnson (2:14:49.520)
He was a minor, a very, very talented individual,
Lex Fridman (2:14:53.080)
very competent.
Brett Johnson (2:14:54.280)
He had, as a kid, he had broke into NASA,
Lex Fridman (2:14:57.600)
the OD, Pentagon.
Brett Johnson (2:14:59.080)
He shut the NASA computers down for six weeks.
Lex Fridman (2:15:01.520)
This is that kid.
Brett Johnson (2:15:03.520)
Then he decides he wants to go into credit card theft,
Lex Fridman (2:15:06.120)
partners with Albert, he's arrested with Albert.
Brett Johnson (2:15:09.640)
Law enforcement, they were gonna blame him.
Lex Fridman (2:15:13.240)
He was the only competent individual.
Lex Fridman (2:15:15.980)
So this kid gets up one day, he wasn't in prison yet.
Lex Fridman (2:15:19.280)
He gets up one day, goes in his dad's bedroom,
Brett Johnson (2:15:21.200)
gets out his 45, walks in the bathroom,
Lex Fridman (2:15:24.320)
and blows his brains out.
Brett Johnson (2:15:26.580)
You know, you've got things like that.
Lex Fridman (2:15:29.980)
Or you're gonna rip somebody off,
Lex Fridman (2:15:31.240)
and you're gonna end up like scripted with that guy,
Lex Fridman (2:15:32.960)
the guy who ran Evolution Marketplace.
Brett Johnson (2:15:37.280)
No one knew who, two people ran that guy and a girl.
Lex Fridman (2:15:40.760)
And no one knew who they were.
Brett Johnson (2:15:42.840)
He ends up stealing about $24 million,
Lex Fridman (2:15:45.080)
a lot of it from Ukrainian mob,
Lex Fridman (2:15:46.880)
and they found him about a year later
Lex Fridman (2:15:48.760)
on a beach without his head in hands.
Lex Fridman (2:15:51.160)
But you know, it always goes south.
Lex Fridman (2:15:53.360)
But more than anything, to me,
Brett Johnson (2:15:54.920)
the negative thing is you really become somebody that,
Lex Fridman (2:16:02.240)
I mean, just truly a despicable human being.
Brett Johnson (2:16:05.720)
When you get to the point when you're destroying
Lex Fridman (2:16:09.840)
people's retirement accounts,
Brett Johnson (2:16:11.980)
you're stealing money from a woman
Lex Fridman (2:16:13.360)
that simply wants to do something good for her family.
Brett Johnson (2:16:18.220)
When you become that individual,
Lex Fridman (2:16:20.560)
and you're okay with that, my God, man.
Brett Johnson (2:16:23.240)
It got to the point, I had one guy I ripped off,
Lex Fridman (2:16:26.360)
it's like for $900,
Brett Johnson (2:16:27.600)
is when I first started the cybercrime stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:16:29.920)
It's when I was becoming competent.
Lex Fridman (2:16:31.980)
And I ripped him off for like $900,
Lex Fridman (2:16:35.560)
and he sent me an email, and he was like,
Brett Johnson (2:16:41.080)
the email said something like,
Lex Fridman (2:16:43.740)
I guess you needed the money, and it's okay.
Brett Johnson (2:16:47.680)
You know, you keep it.
Lex Fridman (2:16:48.880)
And I'm getting chills right now thinking about it.
Brett Johnson (2:16:52.040)
It's that, where you become that individual.
Lex Fridman (2:17:00.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:17:02.020)
Can I actually backtrack?
Lex Fridman (2:17:03.460)
Listen, I love love, okay?
Brett Johnson (2:17:06.260)
I do too.
Lex Fridman (2:17:07.100)
And there's a story that you fell in love with a stripper.
Brett Johnson (2:17:11.320)
I mean, you have to tell the story.
Lex Fridman (2:17:13.160)
So how did you fall in love with somebody,
Brett Johnson (2:17:17.240)
not that there's anything wrong with that profession,
Lex Fridman (2:17:19.040)
but it's romantic.
Brett Johnson (2:17:20.800)
It's like a true romance, by the way, great movie.
Lex Fridman (2:17:23.760)
It is a great film.
Brett Johnson (2:17:24.960)
It's truly a great film.
Lex Fridman (2:17:27.000)
Even Brad Pitt, who makes a brief appearance, is genius.
Brett Johnson (2:17:31.120)
There's so much good acting there.
Lex Fridman (2:17:32.880)
Anyway, so tell me that love story.
Brett Johnson (2:17:35.800)
All right, so like I said, from my dad,
Lex Fridman (2:17:39.580)
I get that fear of being abandoned.
Brett Johnson (2:17:41.920)
I lied to my wife for nine years until she leaves.
Lex Fridman (2:17:45.520)
And I was in Charleston, South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:17:48.100)
And what happened was, I noticed that Susan,
Lex Fridman (2:17:53.120)
she was not coming to bed like she used to.
Brett Johnson (2:17:56.120)
She'd stay up all night long,
Lex Fridman (2:17:57.500)
and sometimes she'd go and be gone a few hours
Lex Fridman (2:18:01.080)
and everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:18:02.160)
And I'm like, well, something's going on.
Lex Fridman (2:18:03.400)
And I'd pass by her computer
Lex Fridman (2:18:05.520)
and she would minimize the screens.
Lex Fridman (2:18:06.960)
And I'm like, well, gotta figure out
Lex Fridman (2:18:08.840)
what the hell is going on.
Lex Fridman (2:18:10.880)
So put a key logger on her system.
Lex Fridman (2:18:13.400)
As anybody should in a relationship.
Lex Fridman (2:18:17.160)
Absolutely, because you trust them, so why not?
Lex Fridman (2:18:20.880)
You should be tracking all their movements,
Brett Johnson (2:18:22.360)
all their stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:18:23.200)
Exactly, exactly.
Brett Johnson (2:18:24.240)
Like I said, I was the control freak too.
Lex Fridman (2:18:26.040)
It's romantic.
Lex Fridman (2:18:26.880)
So I found out she'd been cheating on me.
Lex Fridman (2:18:29.560)
And she was.
Brett Johnson (2:18:30.400)
See, there you go, they had a reason.
Lex Fridman (2:18:31.920)
They had a reason, I justified.
Lex Fridman (2:18:34.040)
So I found out she was cheating on me.
Lex Fridman (2:18:35.360)
She was asleep when I found it out.
Lex Fridman (2:18:36.800)
And I sat there looking at it and I was like, well, shit.
Lex Fridman (2:18:40.040)
So I got up, walked in the bedroom,
Brett Johnson (2:18:42.160)
opened up the wardrobe, got a suitcase out,
Lex Fridman (2:18:45.160)
started putting her clothes in it.
Lex Fridman (2:18:46.720)
And she wakes up, she's like, where are you going?
Lex Fridman (2:18:48.800)
And I'm like, I'm not, you are.
Brett Johnson (2:18:51.360)
Well, my bravado disappeared pretty quickly.
Lex Fridman (2:18:54.720)
I took about a week of both of us
Brett Johnson (2:18:58.680)
crying and arguing and everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:19:01.260)
And she finally left.
Lex Fridman (2:19:03.640)
And I went through this depression.
Lex Fridman (2:19:07.400)
I was in Charleston, South Carolina.
Brett Johnson (2:19:09.400)
I would just walk around the house kind of stumbling in a daze.
Lex Fridman (2:19:12.960)
Realized I was getting suicidal.
Lex Fridman (2:19:15.240)
And was smart enough to do something about it.
Lex Fridman (2:19:18.440)
And picked up the phone book.
Lex Fridman (2:19:19.840)
And that's where there's always this sense of humor.
Lex Fridman (2:19:22.320)
So I picked up the phone book.
Brett Johnson (2:19:23.520)
I'm going through the yellow pages.
Lex Fridman (2:19:25.020)
I'm like, psychologist, criminal psychologist,
Brett Johnson (2:19:27.220)
because I need that.
Lex Fridman (2:19:30.280)
Called the psychologist, crying to her.
Brett Johnson (2:19:32.000)
I mean, crying on the phone.
Lex Fridman (2:19:33.040)
Told her everything.
Brett Johnson (2:19:33.760)
I'm this criminal.
Lex Fridman (2:19:34.360)
This is what's happened.
Brett Johnson (2:19:35.400)
She's like, come in now.
Lex Fridman (2:19:36.760)
So I go in, spill my guts.
Lex Fridman (2:19:39.000)
And saw her for about four months.
Lex Fridman (2:19:42.240)
And I joke about it, but it's true.
Brett Johnson (2:19:43.960)
She was trying to get me to stop breaking the law
Lex Fridman (2:19:47.440)
and to go into real estate.
Lex Fridman (2:19:48.840)
And I remember telling her, is there a difference?
Lex Fridman (2:19:51.920)
She was like, yes, there's a difference.
Lex Fridman (2:19:54.640)
So I saw her for about four months.
Lex Fridman (2:19:57.080)
I was 34.
Brett Johnson (2:19:59.160)
I didn't start drinking until I was 34.
Lex Fridman (2:20:02.200)
I'd never done drugs or anything else like that,
Brett Johnson (2:20:04.640)
because my mom was an addict as well.
Lex Fridman (2:20:07.040)
So I was this guy that always wanted to be in control.
Brett Johnson (2:20:09.680)
Didn't want to lose control of myself.
Lex Fridman (2:20:13.520)
And had never been to a strip club.
Lex Fridman (2:20:16.640)
So one night, I was getting lonely.
Lex Fridman (2:20:19.520)
So I walked into the strip club.
Brett Johnson (2:20:20.760)
Actually, I was researching the strip club.
Lex Fridman (2:20:22.520)
And it was Joe's Roundup in Charleston, South Carolina.
Brett Johnson (2:20:27.200)
Joe's Roundup.
Lex Fridman (2:20:28.520)
Little bitty hole in the wall stuff.
Brett Johnson (2:20:30.720)
Yeah, real classy.
Lex Fridman (2:20:32.280)
So I walked in, and I'm literally
Brett Johnson (2:20:35.080)
that guy, man, that fell in love with the first stripper
Lex Fridman (2:20:39.920)
that he sees.
Brett Johnson (2:20:41.420)
She walks by, I'm like, that one.
Lex Fridman (2:20:44.360)
So I didn't know the strip club game.
Brett Johnson (2:20:46.240)
Again, criminal, naive as hell.
Lex Fridman (2:20:48.320)
So belly up at the bar, order the beer.
Brett Johnson (2:20:52.480)
I'm sitting there drinking it.
Lex Fridman (2:20:54.400)
She comes over to me, and we start talking.
Lex Fridman (2:20:57.800)
And she's like, would you like to get a bottle of champagne?
Lex Fridman (2:21:01.000)
I was like, does that mean going in back or what?
Brett Johnson (2:21:03.160)
She's like, well, yeah, you need to do the bottle
Lex Fridman (2:21:04.860)
when you're going back.
Lex Fridman (2:21:05.360)
And I was like, sure, let's buy a bottle of champagne.
Lex Fridman (2:21:08.040)
$400 bottle of Korbel.
Lex Fridman (2:21:11.160)
So I'm like, all right.
Lex Fridman (2:21:13.360)
And again, that bravado disappears pretty quickly.
Brett Johnson (2:21:15.440)
I get back there, and we talk for two hours.
Lex Fridman (2:21:18.880)
And nowadays, I don't understand that most men
Brett Johnson (2:21:21.160)
who go to strip clubs, the strippers
Lex Fridman (2:21:23.280)
are their therapist most of the time.
Lex Fridman (2:21:26.000)
So I'm sitting there talking, we're talking.
Lex Fridman (2:21:27.800)
And of course, she's sizing me up.
Brett Johnson (2:21:29.640)
She's looking at the watch.
Lex Fridman (2:21:30.760)
She's like, what kind of car do you drive?
Brett Johnson (2:21:33.800)
Everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:21:34.520)
And I'm telling her and talking.
Lex Fridman (2:21:36.680)
So at the end of the night, I'm like, really nice meeting.
Lex Fridman (2:21:39.200)
She's like, it's so nice meeting you, too.
Lex Fridman (2:21:41.920)
So I leave.
Lex Fridman (2:21:44.200)
You guys just talked.
Brett Johnson (2:21:45.400)
Just talked.
Lex Fridman (2:21:46.000)
And there's still this feeling of love and all of that.
Brett Johnson (2:21:48.840)
Yeah, so just talked.
Lex Fridman (2:21:49.840)
Just got along pretty good.
Brett Johnson (2:21:51.160)
I'm like, I like her.
Lex Fridman (2:21:52.920)
I like her.
Lex Fridman (2:21:54.320)
So come back in a week later.
Lex Fridman (2:21:57.000)
Walk in and call her over.
Lex Fridman (2:21:59.440)
And I was like, look, I said, that was my first time
Lex Fridman (2:22:02.720)
to a strip club.
Brett Johnson (2:22:03.320)
I said, don't know you.
Lex Fridman (2:22:04.400)
I like you.
Brett Johnson (2:22:04.840)
I'd like to know you more.
Lex Fridman (2:22:05.900)
Would you like to go out to dinner?
Lex Fridman (2:22:07.880)
And she was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:22:10.160)
I was like, where would you like to go?
Lex Fridman (2:22:11.960)
So she says, Rue de Jon.
Lex Fridman (2:22:13.800)
And I was like, don't know what it is.
Brett Johnson (2:22:15.560)
That's where we'll go.
Lex Fridman (2:22:16.440)
So I go back.
Lex Fridman (2:22:16.960)
And I had a theater buddy at that point in time
Lex Fridman (2:22:19.520)
because I was trying to get my life together.
Brett Johnson (2:22:23.120)
JC was his name.
Lex Fridman (2:22:24.120)
And I was like, I got a date.
Lex Fridman (2:22:25.560)
He's like, you got a date?
Lex Fridman (2:22:26.760)
I was like, yeah, man, I got a date.
Lex Fridman (2:22:28.320)
And he's like, OK, where are you going?
Lex Fridman (2:22:30.440)
I was like, Rue de Jon.
Lex Fridman (2:22:31.480)
And he's like, take your wallet.
Lex Fridman (2:22:34.520)
I'm like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:22:35.120)
And he's like, take your wallet.
Lex Fridman (2:22:37.480)
I was like, all right.
Lex Fridman (2:22:38.960)
So we start doing the lunch and the dinner thing.
Lex Fridman (2:22:43.720)
And I get to where I really like her.
Brett Johnson (2:22:47.920)
I was 34.
Lex Fridman (2:22:48.720)
She was 23 and got along really well,
Brett Johnson (2:22:52.720)
had common interest in music and arts and stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (2:22:57.520)
I mean, it's stereotypical.
Brett Johnson (2:22:59.200)
She had graduated college with a degree in religious studies.
Lex Fridman (2:23:05.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:23:06.400)
So I was like, all right.
Lex Fridman (2:23:08.880)
So yeah, you just fell in love.
Brett Johnson (2:23:10.600)
We got along really well, really well.
Lex Fridman (2:23:12.640)
So I ended up moving her in with me.
Brett Johnson (2:23:14.640)
She hadn't quit her job.
Lex Fridman (2:23:16.480)
And what was happening was she was working weekends.
Lex Fridman (2:23:22.000)
And the club would close at 3 or 4.
Lex Fridman (2:23:26.840)
She wouldn't come home until 10 or 11 in the morning.
Lex Fridman (2:23:30.280)
And most of the time, it would be a phone call saying,
Lex Fridman (2:23:33.280)
come and pick me up.
Brett Johnson (2:23:34.120)
I can't drive home.
Lex Fridman (2:23:35.960)
And then I'd never used drugs, had never been around.
Lex Fridman (2:23:39.680)
And my mom, Valium and pot and things like that.
Lex Fridman (2:23:42.320)
But as far as interacting with her,
Brett Johnson (2:23:43.840)
I'd never done anything like that.
Lex Fridman (2:23:46.080)
By this point in time, I'm kind of getting head over heels
Brett Johnson (2:23:48.620)
with her.
Lex Fridman (2:23:48.840)
I moved her in with me and everything.
Lex Fridman (2:23:50.320)
And I had never, I was 34, I had never
Lex Fridman (2:23:54.740)
went through a woman's purse in my entire life.
Lex Fridman (2:23:57.880)
And so she comes in, passes out.
Lex Fridman (2:24:01.880)
And I'm like, I got to know what the fuck's going on.
Lex Fridman (2:24:04.440)
And went over and went through her purse.
Lex Fridman (2:24:08.960)
Found cocaine and the straw, cut off straws and all that stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:24:13.120)
And I'm like, broke my heart.
Lex Fridman (2:24:15.480)
I just sat there and started crying.
Brett Johnson (2:24:19.320)
Got online, and I'm the guy that can find information.
Lex Fridman (2:24:23.400)
So I started looking for forums on strip clubs.
Brett Johnson (2:24:26.840)
Found a forum, found that one, found
Lex Fridman (2:24:30.040)
where it was talking about her prostituting herself
Brett Johnson (2:24:33.960)
to support the habit.
Lex Fridman (2:24:35.920)
And that got me, man.
Brett Johnson (2:24:40.540)
That got me.
Lex Fridman (2:24:41.040)
It was talking about everything she was doing to do that.
Lex Fridman (2:24:45.720)
And I broke your heart there.
Lex Fridman (2:24:46.960)
Oh, man.
Brett Johnson (2:24:48.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:24:49.520)
So I didn't have the heart to tell her
Brett Johnson (2:24:53.680)
that I knew she was prostituting.
Lex Fridman (2:24:55.880)
But I went to her, and I was like, she's waking up.
Lex Fridman (2:24:58.000)
And I was like, look, I found this in your purse.
Lex Fridman (2:25:01.280)
I can't have that.
Lex Fridman (2:25:02.680)
And she's like, well, you think I'm prostituting?
Lex Fridman (2:25:04.480)
I was like, no, no, I don't think that.
Brett Johnson (2:25:06.320)
I knew it, but I didn't mention it to her.
Lex Fridman (2:25:08.760)
And I was like, I can't have that.
Brett Johnson (2:25:11.800)
Well, I don't do that.
Lex Fridman (2:25:13.120)
It's just a one time thing.
Brett Johnson (2:25:14.240)
I was like, all right.
Lex Fridman (2:25:15.560)
So she went back to work and continued
Brett Johnson (2:25:18.720)
to do it for a couple more weeks.
Lex Fridman (2:25:20.100)
And then finally, I was like, I can't.
Lex Fridman (2:25:23.040)
So I picked her up one morning.
Lex Fridman (2:25:25.320)
She couldn't drive home.
Brett Johnson (2:25:28.760)
Before I picked her up, I had written her a note,
Lex Fridman (2:25:31.000)
left it on the pillow.
Lex Fridman (2:25:32.860)
So I brought her home, tucked her in the bed,
Lex Fridman (2:25:35.560)
and told her I'd be back that night.
Brett Johnson (2:25:41.560)
Told her she had a letter when she woke up.
Lex Fridman (2:25:43.880)
And the letter was basically, I love you.
Brett Johnson (2:25:46.840)
If you can't stop this, don't be here when I get back.
Lex Fridman (2:25:50.640)
And I went to Columbia that day, came back that night,
Lex Fridman (2:25:59.680)
and she had quit her job.
Lex Fridman (2:26:07.760)
And she quit drugs that night, really quit them.
Lex Fridman (2:26:13.640)
And I got it in my head that I needed
Lex Fridman (2:26:21.960)
to do whatever I needed to do to make sure she didn't go back
Brett Johnson (2:26:26.160)
to that.
Lex Fridman (2:26:29.240)
That became, to me, because of my background,
Brett Johnson (2:26:35.600)
that meant spending a lot of money.
Lex Fridman (2:26:37.640)
And so every night was $300 to $600 for dinner.
Brett Johnson (2:26:42.520)
It was $1,000 shoes every week, $2,000 purse every week,
Lex Fridman (2:26:49.040)
all that.
Brett Johnson (2:26:49.520)
I had most of my money laundered out to Estonia.
Lex Fridman (2:26:54.840)
And Elizabeth, at the same time, she quit.
Lex Fridman (2:27:02.720)
But she didn't want me to go anywhere.
Lex Fridman (2:27:09.480)
All right, she wanted me there all the time.
Brett Johnson (2:27:12.040)
I guess that was that connection.
Lex Fridman (2:27:14.280)
I guess she was scared she might go back to something.
Lex Fridman (2:27:17.720)
So Shadow Crew gets busted.
Lex Fridman (2:27:21.680)
I go through, basically, all my US funds.
Brett Johnson (2:27:24.920)
Can't get anything from overseas.
Lex Fridman (2:27:26.800)
Shadow Crew gets busted October.
Brett Johnson (2:27:28.480)
I can't go into committing tax fraud because season's over.
Lex Fridman (2:27:32.880)
Can't go back into credit fraud because Shadow Crew's
Brett Johnson (2:27:35.120)
been busted.
Lex Fridman (2:27:35.760)
I don't know who to trust online.
Brett Johnson (2:27:38.160)
I'm left with running counterfeit cashier's checks
Lex Fridman (2:27:40.920)
to get money in, trying to make it until I can start back
Brett Johnson (2:27:45.080)
with some other fraud, and lying to her the entire time.
Lex Fridman (2:27:49.240)
She knows about none of this.
Brett Johnson (2:27:50.840)
None of it.
Lex Fridman (2:27:53.280)
And she thinks I've got a shitload of money.
Lex Fridman (2:27:55.800)
And she's got expensive taste.
Lex Fridman (2:27:59.360)
So at the same time, she couldn't be intimate.
Brett Johnson (2:28:06.640)
I mean, the girl loved me.
Lex Fridman (2:28:09.120)
That's the first time I've really said that.
Lex Fridman (2:28:12.880)
So there's deep love there both ways.
Lex Fridman (2:28:15.480)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:28:17.320)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:28:18.800)
Things we do.
Lex Fridman (2:28:21.480)
So she couldn't be intimate unless she was stone cold drunk.
Lex Fridman (2:28:30.560)
I mean, just shit.
Brett Johnson (2:28:31.760)
Stone cold drunk.
Lex Fridman (2:28:34.760)
And shit, I didn't mind her drinking alcohol.
Brett Johnson (2:28:38.120)
I'd rather have that than cocaine.
Lex Fridman (2:28:40.840)
So that was the intimacy there.
Lex Fridman (2:28:44.600)
And I kept thinking, if I continue to invest,
Lex Fridman (2:28:51.640)
that it would work out, that just keep going,
Brett Johnson (2:28:57.160)
she'll be all right, we'll be all right.
Lex Fridman (2:29:03.760)
And what happens is, like I said, she thought I had money.
Brett Johnson (2:29:07.400)
She thought I had money.
Lex Fridman (2:29:09.560)
She wanted a couple of Tiffany engagement rings.
Lex Fridman (2:29:11.760)
So I said, we can get married.
Lex Fridman (2:29:13.920)
I figured of marriage, show her that I love her,
Brett Johnson (2:29:17.000)
show her it's going to be all right.
Lex Fridman (2:29:18.440)
So I was like, let's get married.
Brett Johnson (2:29:21.280)
She's like, well, I've always wanted a Tiffany ring.
Lex Fridman (2:29:23.600)
She doesn't have money to buy the Tiffany ring
Brett Johnson (2:29:25.400)
because all my money was overseas.
Lex Fridman (2:29:26.840)
So here I am.
Brett Johnson (2:29:27.600)
I defraud.
Lex Fridman (2:29:29.400)
So it's counterfeit cashiers.
Brett Johnson (2:29:31.200)
I find like a three carat ring on eBay for 20 grand
Lex Fridman (2:29:36.680)
and pay for it with a counterfeit cashiers check.
Brett Johnson (2:29:40.560)
At the same time, because she doesn't want me to leave,
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.960)
she needs me there, typically, if you're
Brett Johnson (2:29:46.400)
doing that type of crime, you need to be traveling.
Lex Fridman (2:29:49.440)
You can't do it in one central area
Brett Johnson (2:29:51.560)
because you're going to be identified pretty quickly.
Lex Fridman (2:29:53.960)
I knew that, but I didn't have much choice.
Lex Fridman (2:29:57.160)
So start running counterfeit cashiers checks
Lex Fridman (2:30:00.480)
to get the money to live and everything.
Brett Johnson (2:30:03.600)
Get the engagement ring.
Lex Fridman (2:30:06.800)
We were scheduled to be married. Our wedding date
Brett Johnson (2:30:13.360)
was February 26, 2005.
Lex Fridman (2:30:19.080)
February 8, 2005.
Brett Johnson (2:30:23.000)
I've got a Tiffany wedding band, a couple of them coming in.
Lex Fridman (2:30:28.160)
And I get arrested in Charleston, South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:30:32.040)
And she didn't know.
Lex Fridman (2:30:34.360)
I told her, I said, I've got to go pick up those rings.
Brett Johnson (2:30:36.720)
She thought I was just having them sent in.
Lex Fridman (2:30:39.080)
I said, I've got to go get those rings.
Lex Fridman (2:30:40.680)
And I said, we'll go out to dinner after that.
Lex Fridman (2:30:43.240)
And I left at like 8 o clock in the morning.
Lex Fridman (2:30:49.160)
And I was arrested at, I think, 1130, something like that.
Lex Fridman (2:30:54.680)
Of course, I wanted to call her.
Lex Fridman (2:30:56.560)
And the FBI got me.
Lex Fridman (2:30:58.760)
It turns out it was controlled delivery.
Brett Johnson (2:31:00.560)
There were like 30 agents in the parking lot.
Lex Fridman (2:31:03.200)
FBI got me.
Brett Johnson (2:31:04.040)
Charleston PD got me.
Lex Fridman (2:31:05.640)
Within 45 minutes, the Secret Service
Brett Johnson (2:31:07.560)
comes in, takes over that investigation.
Lex Fridman (2:31:09.800)
They knew exactly who they had.
Brett Johnson (2:31:13.280)
Along about 7 o clock at night, they're
Lex Fridman (2:31:16.720)
like, we want to search your house.
Lex Fridman (2:31:18.600)
And I was like, look, I'll sign off on the search
Lex Fridman (2:31:21.040)
if you let me go with you so I can see her.
Lex Fridman (2:31:23.760)
And they were like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:31:27.240)
So I got to see my phone at that point.
Brett Johnson (2:31:28.880)
I had like 140 calls where she had
Lex Fridman (2:31:32.880)
been trying to call all that time.
Brett Johnson (2:31:34.480)
She was worried.
Lex Fridman (2:31:35.440)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:31:36.640)
And so they load me up.
Lex Fridman (2:31:40.000)
And hell, I mean, you talk about 10, 12 cars, 40 agents,
Brett Johnson (2:31:45.520)
everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:31:46.520)
She's got a dog at that point.
Brett Johnson (2:31:47.880)
I'm scared they're going to shoot the dog.
Lex Fridman (2:31:49.640)
And it was dark.
Lex Fridman (2:31:55.920)
And they had me walk up.
Lex Fridman (2:31:57.160)
And they're all behind me.
Brett Johnson (2:31:58.840)
I knock on the door and tell her the police are there.
Lex Fridman (2:32:01.640)
She needs to put the dog up.
Lex Fridman (2:32:03.840)
So she does, and they come in and just
Lex Fridman (2:32:06.800)
start ransacking them to put me in cuffs, set me down,
Brett Johnson (2:32:09.600)
start berating her with questions.
Lex Fridman (2:32:11.360)
She had no idea what the hell was going on.
Lex Fridman (2:32:13.720)
Were you able to say a word or two to help her understand?
Lex Fridman (2:32:16.800)
Yeah, I was trying to tell her.
Lex Fridman (2:32:18.160)
And at the same time, they take a watch off her wrist.
Lex Fridman (2:32:21.520)
They let her keep the ring.
Brett Johnson (2:32:24.080)
They're telling her that I'm this guy.
Lex Fridman (2:32:25.880)
What's my real name?
Brett Johnson (2:32:27.360)
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang across the board.
Lex Fridman (2:32:29.480)
So she's probably terrified.
Brett Johnson (2:32:31.000)
Oh, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:32:31.720)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:32:32.600)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:32:33.320)
And I tell her, I was like, look,
Brett Johnson (2:32:34.920)
they're going to arraign me tomorrow.
Lex Fridman (2:32:36.320)
Don't come.
Brett Johnson (2:32:37.440)
Don't come.
Lex Fridman (2:32:38.480)
I said, see what's going on, but don't show up.
Brett Johnson (2:32:42.000)
Of course, she's there next morning.
Lex Fridman (2:32:43.560)
Her and her dad.
Lex Fridman (2:32:45.240)
And she's back in the back crying.
Lex Fridman (2:32:47.720)
They're reading off the charges.
Brett Johnson (2:32:49.520)
I'm under $300,000 bond, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:32:55.520)
And that's it.
Brett Johnson (2:32:59.320)
They throw me in a cell.
Lex Fridman (2:33:01.040)
Meanwhile, more charges keep coming in.
Lex Fridman (2:33:04.560)
And it's like 10, 12 charges a day at that point.
Lex Fridman (2:33:10.280)
And I'm trying to call her to make sure she's all right.
Lex Fridman (2:33:13.560)
And does it get through?
Lex Fridman (2:33:16.600)
So I spent three months in jail.
Lex Fridman (2:33:19.000)
And during that three months, she visits twice.
Lex Fridman (2:33:21.520)
I get like three or four phone calls to her.
Brett Johnson (2:33:26.160)
Looking back now, I understand why.
Lex Fridman (2:33:28.000)
Back then, it was like, I'm the victim.
Lex Fridman (2:33:29.720)
Why doesn't she talk to me?
Lex Fridman (2:33:31.160)
But now I understand why.
Brett Johnson (2:33:35.160)
Hell, the girl loved me too.
Lex Fridman (2:33:37.240)
She found out I was this piece of shit.
Lex Fridman (2:33:39.000)
And after a week in county jail, two agents
Lex Fridman (2:33:44.040)
fly in from New Jersey, two Secret Service guys.
Brett Johnson (2:33:47.160)
Pulled me out of cell, looked at me, and they were like,
Lex Fridman (2:33:50.520)
we've got your laptop.
Lex Fridman (2:33:51.400)
And I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:33:52.440)
And he's like, well, have you got anything on your laptop?
Lex Fridman (2:33:55.200)
And I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:33:56.160)
He's like, you're going to be charged for it.
Brett Johnson (2:33:57.560)
I was like, I figured.
Lex Fridman (2:33:59.280)
And then he looks at me, he's like,
Lex Fridman (2:34:01.760)
can you do anything for us?
Lex Fridman (2:34:05.280)
And I told him my exact words were, look,
Brett Johnson (2:34:07.240)
you let me get back with Elizabeth.
Lex Fridman (2:34:08.720)
I'll do whatever you want me to do.
Lex Fridman (2:34:11.240)
And he looks at me, he's like, we're going to get you out.
Lex Fridman (2:34:14.160)
I was like, all right.
Lex Fridman (2:34:15.200)
So they let me sit there for three months
Lex Fridman (2:34:17.920)
to get a taste of it and get me out.
Brett Johnson (2:34:21.960)
My sister, they have the bond reduced to $1,000.
Lex Fridman (2:34:25.260)
My sister pays the $1,000 bond.
Brett Johnson (2:34:27.200)
By this point, she's disowned me.
Lex Fridman (2:34:28.920)
And because I'm dating the stripper.
Lex Fridman (2:34:31.880)
And Denise bonds me out.
Lex Fridman (2:34:36.000)
The person that I call immediately is Elizabeth.
Brett Johnson (2:34:40.280)
I'm out.
Lex Fridman (2:34:41.240)
And she's like, I'll be there.
Brett Johnson (2:34:43.480)
I was like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:34:44.680)
So it's like 11 o clock at night.
Brett Johnson (2:34:49.120)
I'm in the parking lot of the Charleston County jail.
Lex Fridman (2:34:53.520)
Me and a Secret Service agent standing there.
Lex Fridman (2:34:55.960)
And Elizabeth had a friend that owned a limo company.
Lex Fridman (2:34:58.800)
So she pulls up in a limo, gets out, pops the trunk,
Brett Johnson (2:35:04.640)
gets these two plastic containers out
Lex Fridman (2:35:06.960)
that have my clothes in them, drops them off the pavement,
Brett Johnson (2:35:12.560)
comes over, hugs me, call me later.
Lex Fridman (2:35:16.320)
Gets in the car, drives off.
Brett Johnson (2:35:18.480)
I'm sitting there crying like a baby.
Lex Fridman (2:35:20.800)
Agent looks at me, is that your fiancee?
Brett Johnson (2:35:23.260)
I'm like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:35:23.880)
And he's like, I am so sorry.
Lex Fridman (2:35:25.520)
And I'm like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:35:28.320)
I had to.
Brett Johnson (2:35:30.040)
She sounds fascinating.
Lex Fridman (2:35:32.360)
Pull up in a limo.
Brett Johnson (2:35:36.720)
I had $30 in my name at that point, $30.
Lex Fridman (2:35:40.200)
The agent had to pay for my hotel room that first night.
Lex Fridman (2:35:43.920)
So he drops me off after paying for the hotel room,
Lex Fridman (2:35:45.840)
buy me something to eat.
Brett Johnson (2:35:47.320)
Soon as he drops me off, I take that $30,
Lex Fridman (2:35:50.280)
walk a half mile to Walmart, buy a prepaid debit card
Lex Fridman (2:35:53.880)
so I can start back in tax fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:35:56.080)
Soon as I get back to the hotel room, call Elizabeth,
Brett Johnson (2:35:58.320)
beg her to come see me.
Lex Fridman (2:36:00.480)
She comes to see me, and we talk most of the night,
Lex Fridman (2:36:03.320)
and convince her to give me a chance.
Lex Fridman (2:36:05.580)
I tell her that everything's going to be all right.
Brett Johnson (2:36:07.920)
They're going to hire me.
Lex Fridman (2:36:09.000)
I'm going to be this big consultant.
Brett Johnson (2:36:11.080)
Lies, lies, just so she'd get back with me.
Lex Fridman (2:36:14.320)
And she's like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:36:16.720)
And so we move from Charleston.
Lex Fridman (2:36:20.600)
The field office is in Columbia, South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:36:24.800)
And I'm breaking the law.
Lex Fridman (2:36:27.800)
Even before I start working with them, I'm breaking the law.
Lex Fridman (2:36:30.460)
And so they've got me in the office, the field office.
Lex Fridman (2:36:34.680)
They got this big war room in there.
Brett Johnson (2:36:36.400)
I'm on a laptop, outside line, laptops hooked up
Lex Fridman (2:36:39.840)
to a 50 inch plasma monitor on the wall.
Brett Johnson (2:36:43.240)
They've got a desktop sitting directly next to me,
Lex Fridman (2:36:47.000)
outside line, two Secret Service officers in the room
Brett Johnson (2:36:50.640)
at all times with a South Carolina law enforcement officer.
Lex Fridman (2:36:54.960)
My job is 46 hours a day, surfing the web,
Brett Johnson (2:36:59.320)
picking up targets, intel, teaching them
Lex Fridman (2:37:01.640)
how cybercrime operates, everything else like that.
Brett Johnson (2:37:04.800)
For the first two weeks, they are extremely diligent.
Lex Fridman (2:37:08.840)
They pay attention to everything that's going on,
Brett Johnson (2:37:10.840)
ask questions, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:37:12.140)
But the problem is that that shit gets boring real quick,
Brett Johnson (2:37:17.280)
because I'm very fast online doing that.
Lex Fridman (2:37:20.440)
So they're like, what the hell is he doing?
Lex Fridman (2:37:22.600)
And it gets tiring looking at a guy just doing that shit.
Lex Fridman (2:37:25.520)
So after two weeks, they get lazy and bored.
Lex Fridman (2:37:28.960)
And they start watching porn instead of watching me.
Lex Fridman (2:37:34.760)
At the same time, they've got a keylogger.
Lex Fridman (2:37:37.240)
And they've got Spectre Pro and Camtasia,
Lex Fridman (2:37:39.680)
keyloggers and taking snapshots of everything that I'm doing.
Brett Johnson (2:37:43.840)
Every night, it goes on a DVD rom on a spindle.
Lex Fridman (2:37:46.960)
So I'm like, they're not going to go through that shit.
Lex Fridman (2:37:51.840)
So I'm like, fuck it.
Lex Fridman (2:37:53.600)
Start breaking the law from inside the Secret Service
Brett Johnson (2:37:55.840)
offices while they're in the room.
Lex Fridman (2:37:57.640)
Why not?
Brett Johnson (2:38:00.920)
That continues for 10 months.
Lex Fridman (2:38:03.800)
At the same time, the relationship with Elizabeth
Brett Johnson (2:38:06.880)
fell apart, completely fell apart.
Lex Fridman (2:38:12.440)
Do you have an understanding of why?
Brett Johnson (2:38:14.680)
Because her heart got broken because there was lying.
Lex Fridman (2:38:18.320)
It was the trust.
Brett Johnson (2:38:19.120)
She felt like she did a lot to sacrifice for the relationship.
Lex Fridman (2:38:23.360)
You've got a woman there that she had even said it.
Brett Johnson (2:38:33.080)
She was like, she had told one of her friends
Lex Fridman (2:38:38.560)
we were out having dinner one night.
Lex Fridman (2:38:41.360)
And this was before I got arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:38:42.840)
She told one of her friends that I was the only guy that ever
Brett Johnson (2:38:47.320)
asked her to stop using drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:38:49.800)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:38:51.080)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:38:52.120)
Yeah, I have to say that part of the story is so powerful.
Lex Fridman (2:38:57.920)
And then that she chose to do it, and she chose to stop.
Lex Fridman (2:39:03.920)
And she told me that there was one instance she told me
Brett Johnson (2:39:07.880)
that if she didn't marry me, she'd never be married.
Lex Fridman (2:39:10.880)
And as far as I know, she's never been married.
Lex Fridman (2:39:15.800)
And so it started to fall apart there.
Lex Fridman (2:39:17.800)
Yeah, because I was that piece of shit.
Brett Johnson (2:39:23.640)
Still, you didn't take a step.
Lex Fridman (2:39:25.520)
By the way, can I just say how just moving it is,
Lex Fridman (2:39:29.600)
how honest you are.
Lex Fridman (2:39:30.440)
But thank you.
Brett Johnson (2:39:32.080)
Thank you for being that person.
Lex Fridman (2:39:34.600)
But at that time, there's still that lying.
Brett Johnson (2:39:38.440)
Oh, man, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:39:39.320)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:39:39.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:39:40.640)
So it's falling apart.
Brett Johnson (2:39:44.680)
She wants to start going to strip clubs.
Lex Fridman (2:39:46.640)
And I'm like, fuck it.
Lex Fridman (2:39:49.280)
Why not?
Lex Fridman (2:39:50.120)
We'll go.
Lex Fridman (2:39:51.560)
So we start going to strip clubs,
Lex Fridman (2:39:52.880)
and she'll come back and get wasted.
Lex Fridman (2:39:55.200)
And we'll have sex, what have you.
Lex Fridman (2:39:58.000)
And one night, she looks at me, and she was like,
Brett Johnson (2:40:07.840)
I think it'd be funny if you got a blow job
Lex Fridman (2:40:10.360)
from somebody else.
Lex Fridman (2:40:12.760)
And that got me.
Lex Fridman (2:40:15.960)
That got me.
Brett Johnson (2:40:16.520)
I was like, to me, that was the final straw right there.
Lex Fridman (2:40:20.720)
I was like, she doesn't care for me anymore or anything else
Brett Johnson (2:40:23.800)
like that.
Lex Fridman (2:40:25.480)
We've been going to strip clubs, so I
Brett Johnson (2:40:27.600)
started dating another stripper.
Lex Fridman (2:40:29.160)
And she knew something was going on.
Lex Fridman (2:40:33.760)
And she looks at me one day, and she's like,
Lex Fridman (2:40:37.080)
why don't you just tell me that it's over?
Lex Fridman (2:40:39.040)
And I looked at her, and I said, it's over.
Lex Fridman (2:40:41.080)
We're done.
Lex Fridman (2:40:42.160)
And I told her, I was like, look, I said, whatever you want.
Lex Fridman (2:40:48.360)
We were renting an apartment.
Brett Johnson (2:40:49.560)
I was like, whatever you want in here, take it.
Lex Fridman (2:40:53.000)
And I said, not only that, but I'll
Brett Johnson (2:40:58.400)
make sure you got money for several months
Lex Fridman (2:41:02.840)
so you're all right.
Lex Fridman (2:41:04.160)
And I was like, just leave me my TV
Lex Fridman (2:41:07.280)
and leave me some plates and stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:41:11.680)
So I go to work that day at the Secret Service,
Lex Fridman (2:41:15.000)
come back that night, and she's taken everything
Lex Fridman (2:41:19.320)
and left a picture of herself in the bedroom on the floor.
Lex Fridman (2:41:22.800)
I'm like, OK, I guess I deserve that.
Brett Johnson (2:41:26.960)
She's got, I like her.
Lex Fridman (2:41:28.680)
She's got a sense of humor.
Brett Johnson (2:41:29.880)
Yeah, she was cool.
Lex Fridman (2:41:30.840)
She was cool.
Brett Johnson (2:41:33.240)
I'm giving her $1,000 every two weeks
Lex Fridman (2:41:36.600)
or some shit like that.
Lex Fridman (2:41:37.640)
And it gets to the point, because I'm
Lex Fridman (2:41:40.400)
doing this tax fraud from inside the offices.
Brett Johnson (2:41:43.520)
Well, the debit card companies are pinging the cards.
Lex Fridman (2:41:47.640)
They start to realize that, hey, some son of a bitch
Brett Johnson (2:41:49.720)
is stealing money using our debit card.
Lex Fridman (2:41:51.840)
So they start to shut down the cards
Brett Johnson (2:41:53.280)
before I can pull cash out.
Lex Fridman (2:41:54.920)
So I start not to have the money to send to her.
Lex Fridman (2:41:57.320)
And I'm like, so she calls, and she's like, look,
Lex Fridman (2:42:01.400)
I have to have money.
Lex Fridman (2:42:02.920)
And I was like, well, look, I'm doing what I can.
Lex Fridman (2:42:05.800)
You promised money.
Lex Fridman (2:42:06.760)
And I was like, look, if you knew
Lex Fridman (2:42:08.120)
what I was doing to get this money,
Brett Johnson (2:42:10.000)
you wouldn't be asking that.
Lex Fridman (2:42:11.600)
And she's like, I need money.
Brett Johnson (2:42:13.960)
My rent's behind by a month right now.
Lex Fridman (2:42:16.560)
And I'm like, your rent's behind?
Brett Johnson (2:42:18.040)
She's like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:42:18.760)
So I was like, OK, so I pick up the phone,
Brett Johnson (2:42:21.760)
call the rental office.
Lex Fridman (2:42:23.360)
And I was like, I just want to make sure that I'm sorry
Brett Johnson (2:42:27.360)
I'm behind on the rent for this apartment number.
Lex Fridman (2:42:29.720)
Oh, no, that rent's paid up three months.
Brett Johnson (2:42:33.440)
It's like, OK, hang up, call Elizabeth back.
Lex Fridman (2:42:35.720)
I was like, you're behind on the rent.
Lex Fridman (2:42:38.040)
And she was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:42:39.440)
And I was like, funny, they just said
Brett Johnson (2:42:42.280)
you're up on it three months.
Lex Fridman (2:42:43.440)
And she gets quiet, and she's like, well, you lied to me, too.
Lex Fridman (2:42:47.480)
And I was like, you're right.
Lex Fridman (2:42:50.520)
I did.
Brett Johnson (2:42:51.200)
I did that.
Lex Fridman (2:42:52.440)
I was like, but look, I can't do it anymore.
Lex Fridman (2:42:54.640)
And that's the last time I spoke to her right there.
Lex Fridman (2:43:00.320)
What happens is I was breaking law
Brett Johnson (2:43:05.960)
from inside the offices.
Lex Fridman (2:43:07.440)
I had a buddy that his name was Sean Mims out of Los Angeles.
Brett Johnson (2:43:12.560)
I had taught him how to do tax return fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:43:16.480)
I had told Sean, I go missing, I go missing for three months.
Brett Johnson (2:43:19.320)
I told him if I ever went missing not to contact me.
Lex Fridman (2:43:22.280)
And so I go missing, then I show back up online.
Brett Johnson (2:43:26.760)
First day, he contacts.
Lex Fridman (2:43:28.360)
So he becomes a target.
Lex Fridman (2:43:29.880)
And they identify him pretty quickly at that point.
Lex Fridman (2:43:33.200)
He's set to be arrested sometime in March of six.
Brett Johnson (2:43:38.560)
That's when he's set to be arrested.
Lex Fridman (2:43:40.880)
Operation Rolling Stone was the name of the operation.
Brett Johnson (2:43:43.160)
Nine people were supposed to be arrested that night.
Lex Fridman (2:43:45.800)
So Secret Service goes and arrests this guy.
Brett Johnson (2:43:50.120)
They search his apartment and don't find anything.
Lex Fridman (2:43:53.720)
The apartment manager comes out and explains to him
Lex Fridman (2:43:56.400)
how Sean has done all kinds of work to the apartment.
Lex Fridman (2:43:58.440)
As a matter of fact, he brought in $30,000 worth of Italian tile
Brett Johnson (2:44:03.480)
to put in the apartment that he's renting.
Lex Fridman (2:44:06.000)
And by the way, last night he had a UHaul out here
Lex Fridman (2:44:09.440)
and took out a whole shitload of stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:44:11.760)
So Secret Service comes back in.
Brett Johnson (2:44:15.640)
They look at me and they're like, we
Lex Fridman (2:44:17.040)
need you to take a polygraph.
Lex Fridman (2:44:19.440)
And my answer was, I ain't taking a polygraph.
Lex Fridman (2:44:22.880)
So they're like, well, we'll throw you back in jail
Brett Johnson (2:44:25.000)
if you don't.
Lex Fridman (2:44:25.400)
And I was like, call my lawyer.
Brett Johnson (2:44:26.640)
Lawyer gets me on the phone.
Lex Fridman (2:44:27.880)
He's like, you don't have to take the polygraph.
Brett Johnson (2:44:30.400)
I was like, well, good, I'm not going to.
Lex Fridman (2:44:32.200)
But they will throw you back in jail.
Lex Fridman (2:44:33.920)
And I was like, don't want to do that.
Lex Fridman (2:44:35.840)
And he's like, have you done anything?
Lex Fridman (2:44:39.000)
And I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:44:41.160)
And he's like, well, you can try to pass the polygraph.
Brett Johnson (2:44:46.640)
I'm like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:44:48.080)
So I slipped out.
Brett Johnson (2:44:49.040)
I was like, let's take the polygraph.
Lex Fridman (2:44:51.200)
They asked three questions.
Lex Fridman (2:44:52.360)
The questions were, have you talked to anybody?
Lex Fridman (2:44:56.360)
Have you been on a computer outside of the offices?
Brett Johnson (2:44:58.920)
Have you talked to the press, which
Lex Fridman (2:45:00.600)
I was interviewing with a New York Times
Lex Fridman (2:45:02.280)
writer the entire time?
Lex Fridman (2:45:03.720)
And then have you contacted or warned anybody
Lex Fridman (2:45:05.880)
about investigations?
Lex Fridman (2:45:07.080)
And I failed polygraph completely.
Lex Fridman (2:45:09.560)
So they revoked the bond, took me back down
Lex Fridman (2:45:12.800)
to Charleston County, throw me into jail.
Brett Johnson (2:45:15.960)
Three days later, Secret Service shows back up
Lex Fridman (2:45:19.760)
and pulled me out of a cell.
Brett Johnson (2:45:21.400)
It's Jim Ramacone and Bobby Kirby.
Lex Fridman (2:45:23.320)
And I mean, honestly, they were good men.
Lex Fridman (2:45:27.240)
And they gave me chances upon chances to do the right thing.
Lex Fridman (2:45:30.920)
And I was not ready to do that.
Lex Fridman (2:45:33.560)
And Jim Ramacone and Bobby's in there.
Lex Fridman (2:45:36.640)
And Bobby, I mean, Bobby was a friend.
Brett Johnson (2:45:39.240)
I mean, he truly was.
Lex Fridman (2:45:40.520)
Later on, a couple of years ago, I had a chance to have lunch
Brett Johnson (2:45:50.520)
with a man.
Lex Fridman (2:45:51.320)
And I told him I was sorry for everything I did to him
Brett Johnson (2:45:55.080)
because I got him and another agent fired.
Lex Fridman (2:45:58.000)
And I told him I was sorry for what happened.
Lex Fridman (2:46:01.320)
And he told me then, he's like, we were your friends, man.
Lex Fridman (2:46:05.320)
We were truly your friends.
Lex Fridman (2:46:07.200)
So they were good men.
Lex Fridman (2:46:08.200)
They wanted to help.
Brett Johnson (2:46:09.080)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:46:10.360)
They wanted you to be a good man.
Brett Johnson (2:46:12.440)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:46:13.800)
What got me so damn bad is I told him,
Brett Johnson (2:46:17.240)
I was like, man, I'm trying to be a better guy.
Lex Fridman (2:46:19.400)
And he's like, Brett, you always were a good guy.
Brett Johnson (2:46:22.560)
You just didn't know it.
Lex Fridman (2:46:24.640)
Fuck.
Brett Johnson (2:46:25.120)
People like that, we need people like that in this world.
Lex Fridman (2:46:28.120)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:46:30.080)
You need somebody to basically believe that you
Lex Fridman (2:46:33.760)
can be a good man.
Lex Fridman (2:46:35.360)
So Jim Ramacone pulls me out.
Lex Fridman (2:46:37.200)
He's the second in charge in South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:46:39.560)
He's got the Miranda waiver in front of him, right?
Lex Fridman (2:46:43.240)
And he looks at me.
Brett Johnson (2:46:43.960)
He's like, I'm playing hard ass.
Lex Fridman (2:46:45.840)
Bobby's over here looking distraught and like a hurt dog.
Lex Fridman (2:46:49.440)
And Jim's like, here's the way this is going to work.
Lex Fridman (2:46:52.840)
He said, you're going to tell me everything you've done
Brett Johnson (2:46:55.320)
the past six years, or I'm going to make it my mission in life
Lex Fridman (2:46:58.440)
to fuck over you and your family.
Lex Fridman (2:47:01.440)
And he said, not just this case.
Lex Fridman (2:47:03.520)
Once you get out of prison, I'll hound you
Brett Johnson (2:47:05.840)
the rest of your life.
Lex Fridman (2:47:07.200)
Then he slides the Miranda waiver over,
Lex Fridman (2:47:09.080)
and he's like, now you want to talk?
Lex Fridman (2:47:11.600)
And I looked at him, and I was like, nope.
Brett Johnson (2:47:15.960)
He was like, he gets up, gets all red in the face,
Lex Fridman (2:47:19.360)
storms out on the way out.
Brett Johnson (2:47:20.920)
He's like, fuck you very much.
Lex Fridman (2:47:23.320)
So I go back to the cell.
Brett Johnson (2:47:24.800)
A week later, I was only under state charges.
Lex Fridman (2:47:28.360)
A week later, judge rules they revoke the bond improperly.
Brett Johnson (2:47:33.840)
Wow.
Lex Fridman (2:47:36.440)
Reinstates the bond.
Brett Johnson (2:47:37.860)
Nobody calls the Secret Service to tell them I walk out.
Lex Fridman (2:47:42.280)
I walk out.
Brett Johnson (2:47:43.000)
I was dating this stripper, and I told my mom.
Lex Fridman (2:47:46.600)
I was like, well, if they're going to fuck me,
Brett Johnson (2:47:49.160)
they're going to have to find me.
Lex Fridman (2:47:52.320)
She just went on the move.
Brett Johnson (2:47:53.600)
Yeah, I called this stripper girl up.
Lex Fridman (2:47:55.440)
I'd given her like 60K, some bullshit like that.
Lex Fridman (2:47:58.600)
And I told her, I was like, Kim, I need some money.
Lex Fridman (2:48:01.920)
And she was like, what?
Brett Johnson (2:48:03.400)
I was like, look, I said, give me $1,000.
Lex Fridman (2:48:06.040)
I'll give you back $3,000 in two weeks.
Brett Johnson (2:48:08.260)
She was like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:48:09.000)
So I met her in Augusta, Georgia,
Lex Fridman (2:48:11.800)
and got the $1,000 from her and started driving west on I20.
Lex Fridman (2:48:16.640)
No idea where to go to, anything else.
Brett Johnson (2:48:18.520)
Got to Dallas.
Lex Fridman (2:48:20.400)
There was a prepaid debit card supplier in Dallas.
Brett Johnson (2:48:23.120)
Went in, walked in the office, convinced the guy,
Lex Fridman (2:48:26.560)
social engineering, convinced the guy
Brett Johnson (2:48:27.960)
to give me 60 prepaid debit cards without a driver's
Lex Fridman (2:48:30.280)
license, without payment, anything else he did.
Lex Fridman (2:48:33.120)
And that started the run.
Lex Fridman (2:48:35.320)
I ended up stealing.
Brett Johnson (2:48:36.360)
From that, I stole like 160K profit,
Lex Fridman (2:48:39.040)
used that to buy a Jeep Cherokee.
Lex Fridman (2:48:41.080)
And the idea was to steal enough money
Lex Fridman (2:48:43.920)
to bug out to Florianopolis, Brazil,
Lex Fridman (2:48:47.280)
and set up shop down there, and do it again.
Lex Fridman (2:48:51.720)
That was the dream.
Brett Johnson (2:48:52.600)
That was it.
Lex Fridman (2:48:53.120)
That was it.
Lex Fridman (2:48:53.680)
So I was on the run for four months, stole $600,000.
Lex Fridman (2:48:58.320)
I was in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brett Johnson (2:49:00.000)
One day, I had stolen the night before.
Lex Fridman (2:49:02.120)
I had stolen 160K out of ATMs.
Brett Johnson (2:49:05.280)
Went in the next morning.
Lex Fridman (2:49:06.840)
I woke up, signed on to cartersmarket.com,
Brett Johnson (2:49:09.520)
which was ran by Max Butler, the ice man.
Lex Fridman (2:49:12.720)
And there's my name, US Most Wanted on it.
Lex Fridman (2:49:16.000)
And that gets your attention.
Lex Fridman (2:49:18.960)
That was my real name with the US Most Wanted beside of it.
Brett Johnson (2:49:21.320)
Nobody knew my real name in that environment at all.
Lex Fridman (2:49:24.000)
But then they did.
Lex Fridman (2:49:25.160)
And it was talking about me being
Lex Fridman (2:49:26.640)
part of the Secret Service, Operation Anglerfish,
Brett Johnson (2:49:29.720)
everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:49:31.280)
So of course, they're all like, everybody's after you.
Brett Johnson (2:49:33.920)
They're like, oh, yeah, we're going to get this son of a bitch.
Lex Fridman (2:49:36.760)
So I sat there looking at it.
Lex Fridman (2:49:38.160)
And I was like, said it out loud.
Lex Fridman (2:49:39.520)
I was like, well, Mr. Johnson, you've
Brett Johnson (2:49:41.060)
made the United States Most Wanted list.
Lex Fridman (2:49:42.920)
What do you do now?
Lex Fridman (2:49:44.120)
And I was like, I'm going to Disney World.
Lex Fridman (2:49:47.760)
Literally.
Brett Johnson (2:49:48.480)
Literally.
Lex Fridman (2:49:49.240)
Literally.
Brett Johnson (2:49:49.880)
Said that out loud.
Lex Fridman (2:49:51.760)
So loaded up the Jeep, drove from Las Vegas
Brett Johnson (2:49:54.280)
to Orlando, Florida, and got the two annual passes,
Lex Fridman (2:49:59.760)
one to Disney World, the other one to Universal Studios.
Brett Johnson (2:50:02.920)
Paid for a timeshare.
Lex Fridman (2:50:05.120)
They were building these new timeshares right off
Brett Johnson (2:50:07.680)
Universal Drive, building these brand new timeshares,
Lex Fridman (2:50:10.760)
paid for a timeshare in nine months, cash.
Lex Fridman (2:50:13.800)
I was like, we take cash?
Lex Fridman (2:50:15.000)
Yeah, we take cash.
Brett Johnson (2:50:15.920)
There's $12,900.
Lex Fridman (2:50:18.040)
Then it wasn't furnished.
Lex Fridman (2:50:19.200)
So I went down to a furniture store,
Lex Fridman (2:50:20.760)
bought $30,000 in furniture.
Brett Johnson (2:50:22.920)
They had seized a DVD collection of mine worth $30,000,
Lex Fridman (2:50:27.080)
bought that back, and proceeded to go to Disney World
Brett Johnson (2:50:31.400)
every day.
Lex Fridman (2:50:32.040)
And that lasted about six weeks.
Brett Johnson (2:50:35.360)
They used a trigger fish, is what they use.
Lex Fridman (2:50:37.800)
Nowadays, it's called a stingray to find me.
Lex Fridman (2:50:42.040)
So one day, it was like 1030 in the morning on Saturday.
Lex Fridman (2:50:45.440)
September 16 was the day, 2006.
Brett Johnson (2:50:48.400)
Yeah, 2006, September 16.
Lex Fridman (2:50:50.960)
I was used to the builders coming around knocking,
Brett Johnson (2:50:54.080)
making sure everything was all right.
Lex Fridman (2:50:55.960)
So I was asleep, heard this knock at the door,
Lex Fridman (2:50:59.240)
and get up, look through the keyhole, nobody's there.
Lex Fridman (2:51:02.160)
You know, people, nobody's there.
Brett Johnson (2:51:03.600)
I was like, huh.
Lex Fridman (2:51:04.720)
Open the door, step out into the hallway.
Brett Johnson (2:51:06.960)
Walking down the hall is Bobby Kirby,
Lex Fridman (2:51:09.800)
another South Carolina guy and a Orlando Orange County cop.
Lex Fridman (2:51:14.680)
And they turn around, and they're like, hey, Brett.
Lex Fridman (2:51:17.720)
And I'm like, hey, Bobby, how are you?
Lex Fridman (2:51:19.400)
And it's like, we're good, how are you?
Lex Fridman (2:51:20.960)
And I'm like, I'm fine, would you like to come in?
Brett Johnson (2:51:23.400)
He was like, let's put you in cuffs first.
Lex Fridman (2:51:25.560)
And I was like, that's probably a good idea.
Brett Johnson (2:51:28.840)
He was like, he walks in, he's like,
Lex Fridman (2:51:33.040)
have you got anything in here?
Lex Fridman (2:51:34.600)
And I was like, yeah, there's $120,000 in the bedroom.
Lex Fridman (2:51:37.400)
And he was like, seriously?
Brett Johnson (2:51:39.080)
I was like, yeah, that and an AK 47.
Lex Fridman (2:51:42.160)
His face goes white, and he's like, you've got a rifle?
Lex Fridman (2:51:44.680)
And I was like, no, I'm kidding with you.
Lex Fridman (2:51:48.880)
He was like, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:51:50.760)
So they throw me in jail in Orange County,
Lex Fridman (2:51:54.080)
and they give me diesel therapy.
Lex Fridman (2:51:57.280)
And diesel therapy is, it took like two weeks
Lex Fridman (2:52:01.560)
to transport me from Orange County, Orlando,
Brett Johnson (2:52:04.800)
to Columbia, South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:52:06.480)
And what happens is, is you stop at every county jail
Brett Johnson (2:52:08.760)
you possibly can, go through the processing, which
Lex Fridman (2:52:11.560)
is about six hours.
Brett Johnson (2:52:13.160)
Once you get to your bunk, hey, time to transport you.
Lex Fridman (2:52:18.080)
They do that on purpose?
Brett Johnson (2:52:19.880)
On purpose, on purpose.
Lex Fridman (2:52:21.600)
Wears you down mentally and physically and everything.
Brett Johnson (2:52:24.760)
I get to Columbia, South Carolina.
Lex Fridman (2:52:26.880)
Now, while I was at Orange County, what happens is,
Brett Johnson (2:52:29.800)
this inmate, because we were in federal holding,
Lex Fridman (2:52:32.680)
this inmate, he looks at me.
Brett Johnson (2:52:33.800)
His name was Yeti.
Lex Fridman (2:52:35.200)
And he's like, hey, man, you know,
Brett Johnson (2:52:36.520)
the only time you get off in federal prison
Lex Fridman (2:52:38.960)
is the drug program.
Brett Johnson (2:52:40.480)
I was like, well, man, I don't use drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:52:42.320)
And he's like, you can find a drug problem, can't you?
Lex Fridman (2:52:45.600)
And I was like, I can find a drug problem.
Lex Fridman (2:52:48.800)
So what happens is, is every county jail I stop at
Brett Johnson (2:52:51.560)
on the way to Columbia, I tell them I'm alcoholic and cocaine.
Lex Fridman (2:52:56.800)
So by the time I get to Columbia, South Carolina,
Brett Johnson (2:52:58.840)
they've got this paper trail of Mr. Johnson
Lex Fridman (2:53:00.760)
requesting help for drugs.
Brett Johnson (2:53:04.760)
I had hired Strom Thurmond's son as an attorney.
Lex Fridman (2:53:09.960)
They make me drop him because I paid for him
Brett Johnson (2:53:12.120)
with illegal funds.
Lex Fridman (2:53:13.440)
So they give me a public defender.
Brett Johnson (2:53:15.880)
He gets a psychological evaluation order for me.
Lex Fridman (2:53:19.920)
So psychologist comes in county jail, four hour interview.
Brett Johnson (2:53:22.640)
About halfway through, he looks at me,
Lex Fridman (2:53:24.200)
he's like, you using these type of drugs?
Brett Johnson (2:53:25.800)
I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:53:26.840)
What do you use?
Brett Johnson (2:53:27.680)
Cocaine.
Lex Fridman (2:53:28.400)
Smoke or snort?
Brett Johnson (2:53:29.400)
Snort.
Lex Fridman (2:53:29.920)
How much?
Brett Johnson (2:53:30.400)
An eight ball a day.
Lex Fridman (2:53:32.480)
That's a lot.
Brett Johnson (2:53:33.080)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:53:34.240)
Do you have any trouble out of that?
Brett Johnson (2:53:36.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:53:37.960)
I can't get an erection.
Lex Fridman (2:53:40.080)
And he looks at me.
Lex Fridman (2:53:41.320)
And I'm looking at him like, because I had gotten
Brett Johnson (2:53:44.440)
that shit from Boogie Nights.
Lex Fridman (2:53:49.520)
Finally, I'm like, is that right?
Lex Fridman (2:53:51.840)
And he was like, it could happen.
Lex Fridman (2:53:54.320)
I was like, OK.
Brett Johnson (2:53:57.040)
That makes it into my pre sentence report.
Lex Fridman (2:54:00.960)
So all federal inmates, probation office
Lex Fridman (2:54:03.680)
and prosecutor, they do this detailed background check
Lex Fridman (2:54:07.080)
to basically tell the judge how much time to give you.
Lex Fridman (2:54:09.880)
So that drug bit with that interview makes it into the PSR.
Lex Fridman (2:54:14.640)
So day of interview, I mean, day of sentencing.
Brett Johnson (2:54:17.840)
I had pled guilty, day of sentencing.
Lex Fridman (2:54:21.280)
The prosecutor, he stands up, and this dude
Brett Johnson (2:54:24.640)
is screaming at this point.
Lex Fridman (2:54:26.640)
And he's like, Mr. Johnson's manipulated
Brett Johnson (2:54:28.880)
the Secret Service.
Lex Fridman (2:54:30.120)
He's manipulated the prosecutor.
Brett Johnson (2:54:31.640)
Then he points at the judge.
Lex Fridman (2:54:33.160)
And he's manipulating you today, Your Honor.
Brett Johnson (2:54:35.600)
We insist on the upper limits of the guidelines.
Lex Fridman (2:54:38.400)
Well, I've been telling everybody in the jail
Brett Johnson (2:54:40.480)
that if they give me any more than 60 months,
Lex Fridman (2:54:43.240)
I am not staying.
Lex Fridman (2:54:45.000)
So we're like, OK, sure.
Lex Fridman (2:54:47.880)
So the judge looks at me.
Brett Johnson (2:54:50.400)
She's like, I agree.
Lex Fridman (2:54:51.760)
I'm like, she says, 75 months.
Lex Fridman (2:54:55.040)
So I looked at my lawyer, and I was like,
Lex Fridman (2:54:57.600)
can you get the drug program for me?
Brett Johnson (2:54:59.400)
He's like, I don't know why I ask.
Lex Fridman (2:55:00.760)
So he stands up.
Lex Fridman (2:55:02.920)
Your Honor, will you order the drug program for Mr. Johnson?
Lex Fridman (2:55:05.520)
The judge says, no, but I'll recommend he gets evaluated.
Lex Fridman (2:55:09.320)
So the Secret Service had told her, hey, he's full of shit.
Lex Fridman (2:55:12.960)
So she's like, no, but I'll recommend he gets evaluated.
Lex Fridman (2:55:15.000)
I looked at my lawyer, and I was like, what does that mean?
Lex Fridman (2:55:16.960)
He was like, you're probably not going to get it.
Lex Fridman (2:55:19.000)
I'm like, how soon can you get me to the camp?
Lex Fridman (2:55:22.160)
And he was like, well, if you don't appeal,
Brett Johnson (2:55:24.760)
I can get you there pretty quick.
Lex Fridman (2:55:26.200)
My exact words were, fuck the appeal.
Brett Johnson (2:55:29.080)
Get me to the camp.
Lex Fridman (2:55:30.320)
I'll take it from there.
Brett Johnson (2:55:31.800)
He looks at me like I'm the biggest idiot in the world.
Lex Fridman (2:55:35.400)
I get sent to, because you can get a camp recommended.
Brett Johnson (2:55:38.400)
I have friends, family members look
Lex Fridman (2:55:41.360)
for camps that don't have a fence around them.
Lex Fridman (2:55:43.760)
And we settle on Ashland, Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (2:55:47.120)
Six weeks later, I'm in Ashland, Kentucky,
Lex Fridman (2:55:49.120)
and pull up there, 14 foot fence, a razor wire on top.
Lex Fridman (2:55:53.960)
And I'm like, I don't climb fences, so I go in.
Brett Johnson (2:55:58.720)
First question I ask is, are there any jobs
Lex Fridman (2:56:01.120)
outside of the fence?
Lex Fridman (2:56:02.160)
And he was like, guards like, well, you
Lex Fridman (2:56:04.080)
can work in the national forest.
Lex Fridman (2:56:05.560)
And I'm like, no, I'll die out there.
Lex Fridman (2:56:07.640)
He was like, well, you could do landscaping.
Brett Johnson (2:56:09.680)
I'm like, I can run a weed eater.
Lex Fridman (2:56:13.320)
Two days later, I walk into the landscaping office,
Lex Fridman (2:56:16.920)
and the cop, this is this genius of some
Lex Fridman (2:56:19.520)
of these people and institutions.
Brett Johnson (2:56:21.160)
The cop, behind his desk, the entire wall
Lex Fridman (2:56:25.480)
is a blown up photo of the compound and the outlying area.
Lex Fridman (2:56:29.720)
So I can literally sit there and plot where I'm going.
Lex Fridman (2:56:35.000)
My dad, I hadn't spoken to that man in years.
Lex Fridman (2:56:40.520)
And he shows up at my sentencing and stands up
Lex Fridman (2:56:44.800)
in front of the judge.
Lex Fridman (2:56:45.720)
And he's like, Your Honor, I want to make
Lex Fridman (2:56:47.560)
sure Brett gets a good start.
Brett Johnson (2:56:49.680)
He can live with me when he gets out, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:56:52.680)
Looking back, the man meant that.
Lex Fridman (2:56:54.720)
And I just thought it was bullshit at the time.
Lex Fridman (2:56:58.240)
So he starts to visit me in prison.
Brett Johnson (2:57:00.560)
I mean, yeah, in prison, he starts to visit.
Lex Fridman (2:57:02.320)
And about the third visit in, he looks at me.
Brett Johnson (2:57:05.120)
He's like, I've been reading about you online.
Lex Fridman (2:57:07.720)
I was like, yeah.
Brett Johnson (2:57:08.200)
He's like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:57:09.480)
He's like, that's a lot of money you made.
Lex Fridman (2:57:11.240)
And I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:57:12.520)
He's like, you think you can teach somebody
Lex Fridman (2:57:15.440)
how to do that?
Lex Fridman (2:57:16.200)
And I'm like, so what I used to say,
Lex Fridman (2:57:21.640)
and again, it's this thing of really coming
Lex Fridman (2:57:25.000)
to terms with things.
Lex Fridman (2:57:26.120)
What I used to say was I thought my dad was back in my life
Lex Fridman (2:57:31.800)
and that he was just trying to use me.
Brett Johnson (2:57:35.080)
The truth of the matter was is that my dad
Lex Fridman (2:57:38.000)
hadn't really seen me except in that frame of crime,
Brett Johnson (2:57:43.360)
being that criminal with my mom, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:57:46.600)
I really think that's how the man was trying
Brett Johnson (2:57:48.280)
to communicate with me.
Lex Fridman (2:57:50.000)
He wanted to connect with you in the places
Brett Johnson (2:57:52.040)
where you know, where you love, where you're interested in,
Lex Fridman (2:57:54.840)
where your addiction is, essentially.
Lex Fridman (2:57:56.440)
And what I did is I manipulated the man
Lex Fridman (2:58:00.000)
into helping me escape.
Lex Fridman (2:58:01.920)
So I agreed to teach him how to do tax fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:58:04.240)
And in return, the only money he had to his name,
Brett Johnson (2:58:06.840)
he had $4,000 cash.
Lex Fridman (2:58:09.080)
So I manipulated him into giving me that
Lex Fridman (2:58:11.280)
and to dropping me off a change of clothes, a cell phone,
Lex Fridman (2:58:13.840)
and a driver's license.
Brett Johnson (2:58:14.840)
The only driver's license he had was my driver's license,
Lex Fridman (2:58:17.040)
Brett Johnson.
Lex Fridman (2:58:18.360)
So I was at the camp for, I don't know, six, eight weeks.
Lex Fridman (2:58:22.720)
And the hardest worker that landscaping had ever seen.
Brett Johnson (2:58:26.840)
At one point, the cops got me on a mountainside
Lex Fridman (2:58:29.720)
with a broom, sweeping off the mountain.
Brett Johnson (2:58:31.680)
I'm like, yeah, we'll do that, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (2:58:34.160)
So you're building trust with the guys there.
Brett Johnson (2:58:36.160)
Yeah, working my ass off.
Lex Fridman (2:58:37.480)
And in six weeks, I take off.
Lex Fridman (2:58:39.720)
And I lasted, I think, two, three weeks, something
Lex Fridman (2:58:42.920)
like that.
Brett Johnson (2:58:43.680)
US Marshals, I made it 100.
Lex Fridman (2:58:45.000)
They called you escaped.
Brett Johnson (2:58:45.960)
Yeah, escaped.
Lex Fridman (2:58:46.680)
Escaped.
Brett Johnson (2:58:47.600)
US Marshals, they're canvassing a three state area.
Lex Fridman (2:58:50.120)
They found me, I think, 250 miles away.
Brett Johnson (2:58:52.000)
It's like Lexington, Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (2:58:53.800)
They found me in Lexington because I had
Brett Johnson (2:58:55.720)
to use my real driver's license.
Lex Fridman (2:58:57.360)
I had a laptop.
Brett Johnson (2:58:59.120)
I had prepaid debit cards.
Lex Fridman (2:59:00.920)
And I had stolen identity information.
Lex Fridman (2:59:03.040)
And the way it got me was I had dyed my hair this flaming red.
Lex Fridman (2:59:09.240)
I had this deep tan.
Brett Johnson (2:59:10.280)
I didn't look anything like myself.
Lex Fridman (2:59:11.920)
And I was at a hotel, had the curtains open, saw this guy.
Brett Johnson (2:59:18.160)
I was on the laptop, saw this guy walk by.
Lex Fridman (2:59:21.120)
He walks by the window, and he stops.
Lex Fridman (2:59:24.600)
And then he backs up.
Lex Fridman (2:59:26.560)
He looks inside.
Brett Johnson (2:59:28.120)
He knocks on the window.
Lex Fridman (2:59:30.080)
I look up at him.
Brett Johnson (2:59:31.080)
He's like, you.
Lex Fridman (2:59:32.680)
I was like, me?
Brett Johnson (2:59:33.480)
He's like, you.
Lex Fridman (2:59:34.840)
Then he pulls out this badge, and he points at it.
Brett Johnson (2:59:37.520)
He's like, and then he points at the door.
Lex Fridman (2:59:39.920)
Now!
Lex Fridman (2:59:41.320)
So I was like, oh, OK.
Lex Fridman (2:59:42.480)
So I open up the door.
Brett Johnson (2:59:44.080)
He's like, US Marshals Service.
Lex Fridman (2:59:47.480)
So they arrest me.
Lex Fridman (2:59:49.240)
How did they track you down?
Lex Fridman (2:59:50.600)
They canvassed that area.
Brett Johnson (2:59:51.640)
They talked to every hotel, everything else.
Lex Fridman (2:59:54.880)
So it's like a traditional, like, they were just tracking?
Brett Johnson (2:59:57.200)
Traditional police work is what it was.
Lex Fridman (2:59:58.440)
So it wasn't like, from the internet,
Lex Fridman (2:59:59.960)
they kind of got something?
Lex Fridman (30:00.140)
So, you're loading it up two o clock in the morning,
Brett Johnson (30:02.940)
hauling this ass out is what you're doing.
Lex Fridman (30:04.740)
You sell it out from there.
Brett Johnson (30:06.260)
So.
Lex Fridman (30:07.100)
And your mom ran operations like this?
Brett Johnson (30:08.940)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (30:10.220)
And you said you worked the mine too when you were younger?
Brett Johnson (30:12.500)
Yeah, I learned how to run a loader, run a dozer,
Lex Fridman (30:14.180)
learn how to clean off a pit, everything like that.
Brett Johnson (30:18.700)
So, this is the lifestyle you grow up in.
Lex Fridman (30:22.020)
You learn how to do this stuff.
Lex Fridman (30:23.540)
And so, I knew how to do charity fraud as well,
Lex Fridman (30:27.100)
insurance fraud, so.
Brett Johnson (30:28.540)
Charity fraud.
Lex Fridman (30:29.660)
Can we break down some of these?
Brett Johnson (30:31.820)
Charity fraud, it's much more romantic than what it sounds.
Lex Fridman (30:34.580)
It was basically, it was basically standing beside the road
Brett Johnson (30:39.340)
with a sign and a bucket taking up collections
Lex Fridman (30:42.500)
for homeless shelters, for abused women,
Brett Johnson (30:44.860)
for children, stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (30:47.540)
Then later on, I branched off.
Brett Johnson (30:49.660)
When I started off on my own,
Lex Fridman (30:51.020)
I would set up my own charity company
Lex Fridman (30:53.380)
and do some telemarketing and go on by
Lex Fridman (30:55.140)
and collect checks and things like that.
Brett Johnson (30:57.100)
We're gonna talk about that.
Lex Fridman (30:58.140)
But actually, can we just step back
Lex Fridman (30:59.860)
and talk about your mom and your dad?
Lex Fridman (31:04.260)
Given all of that, given all the abuse,
Brett Johnson (31:08.980)
the complex ways that she played with love,
Lex Fridman (31:12.300)
to see how far she can push you and the people around her,
Lex Fridman (31:15.700)
and they still love her.
Lex Fridman (31:18.220)
Today, do you love her?
Brett Johnson (31:20.460)
You know, I called my dad yesterday.
Lex Fridman (31:22.660)
My dad, he's dying now.
Brett Johnson (31:24.500)
He's got a heart condition.
Lex Fridman (31:25.500)
He's not gonna get the operation to fix it.
Lex Fridman (31:27.340)
So he's like, fuck it, I'm ready to go.
Lex Fridman (31:29.220)
And I'm like, I looked at him,
Brett Johnson (31:30.420)
because hell, I'm 52 now.
Lex Fridman (31:32.660)
Prior to 52, I'd have been like, no, you need to do this.
Lex Fridman (31:35.180)
But I looked at him and I was like, I understand.
Lex Fridman (31:38.340)
I understand.
Brett Johnson (31:39.420)
You're done.
Lex Fridman (31:40.460)
And so he's not gonna get the operation.
Brett Johnson (31:42.780)
I was talking to him yesterday and he asked me,
Lex Fridman (31:44.220)
he's like, have you seen your mom?
Lex Fridman (31:45.780)
And I was like, dad, I've not talked to her
Lex Fridman (31:47.100)
for about two years.
Lex Fridman (31:48.660)
And I told him, I was like, I love my mom,
Lex Fridman (31:52.620)
but my mom is not a good person.
Brett Johnson (31:54.900)
She's not.
Lex Fridman (31:55.740)
And he told me, I was talking to him on the phone yesterday,
Lex Fridman (31:59.180)
and he told me that it took him several years
Lex Fridman (32:01.780)
to really understand that.
Brett Johnson (32:03.260)
You know, he loved her too,
Lex Fridman (32:04.780)
but it takes, when you're getting abused like that,
Brett Johnson (32:07.460)
especially my dad, my dad came from a good family,
Lex Fridman (32:09.940)
everything else, and, you know, upstanding family.
Lex Fridman (32:13.300)
And I think that when you're that victim of abuse,
Lex Fridman (32:18.460)
you know, you've never seen it before,
Brett Johnson (32:20.300)
you've never encountered it, and then it happens,
Lex Fridman (32:23.260)
well, you're like that frog in water all of a sudden.
Brett Johnson (32:25.300)
You know, you get to the point where it gradually increases
Lex Fridman (32:28.260)
until how do you get out of it?
Brett Johnson (32:30.100)
Everybody else sees what's happening, but you don't.
Lex Fridman (32:32.820)
I grew up in that environment though, you know,
Lex Fridman (32:34.740)
so it took me a long time to come to terms with that.
Lex Fridman (32:39.060)
My sister came to terms with it long before I did.
Brett Johnson (32:42.020)
You know, my sister, she's been a decade
Lex Fridman (32:44.180)
without talking to my mom,
Brett Johnson (32:45.860)
like she had tried to commit suicide, I didn't know that.
Lex Fridman (32:48.380)
What got me so bad is she said at one point
Brett Johnson (32:51.740)
that she always thought someone was gonna come in
Lex Fridman (32:55.020)
and save us, and my response, just immediate response,
Brett Johnson (32:58.180)
not even thinking about it, my response was,
Lex Fridman (32:59.900)
well, Denise, I knew no one ever was.
Lex Fridman (33:02.500)
And looking at things now,
Lex Fridman (33:06.060)
I think that's where our paths diverged.
Brett Johnson (33:10.500)
Me, it was, if you wanna do it,
Lex Fridman (33:13.220)
if anybody's gonna take care of you,
Brett Johnson (33:14.500)
you gotta take care of yourself.
Lex Fridman (33:15.980)
You're on your own.
Brett Johnson (33:16.820)
You're on your own, you know, it's up to you.
Lex Fridman (33:20.140)
And Denise has always been that child
Brett Johnson (33:24.100)
that has expected someone to come in and save her.
Lex Fridman (33:27.780)
Well, and almost like it's all going to be okay, somebody.
Brett Johnson (33:31.380)
Yeah, and I knew it wasn't.
Lex Fridman (33:33.580)
No, no, you go.
Brett Johnson (33:34.420)
Unless you.
Lex Fridman (33:35.260)
Unless you make it okay, it ain't gonna be okay.
Brett Johnson (33:38.460)
So, you know, I was.
Lex Fridman (33:40.820)
Are you able to forgive her, your mom?
Brett Johnson (33:45.220)
My boundary with my mom, the reason I've not spoken with her,
Lex Fridman (33:49.580)
over two years ago, I started this legal career of mine.
Brett Johnson (33:55.780)
I've been the guy who has,
Lex Fridman (33:57.540)
I spent a lot of time thinking about my past
Lex Fridman (34:01.420)
and those choices and what brought those choices around.
Lex Fridman (34:04.260)
So I'm big about taking responsibility for my actions.
Brett Johnson (34:06.780)
I truly am.
Lex Fridman (34:07.620)
I think it's really important you have to do that.
Brett Johnson (34:09.540)
Well, my mom, not so much.
Lex Fridman (34:12.540)
So I was talking to her, you know,
Lex Fridman (34:14.740)
and I would start saying, you know,
Lex Fridman (34:16.300)
she would start the conversation talking about,
Brett Johnson (34:19.300)
she didn't understand
Lex Fridman (34:20.260)
why Denise wouldn't speak to her anymore.
Brett Johnson (34:22.300)
That was one of her tropes.
Lex Fridman (34:24.180)
So, and my response started to become,
Brett Johnson (34:26.020)
well, because you were the abuser
Lex Fridman (34:28.780)
and you spent your life doing that to her.
Lex Fridman (34:31.100)
So it's more healthy for her not to talk to you.
Lex Fridman (34:34.340)
So she's still not able to see the flaws
Brett Johnson (34:37.900)
in her ways of the past.
Lex Fridman (34:40.140)
No, not at all.
Lex Fridman (34:41.140)
So my ultimatum to my mom was, look,
Lex Fridman (34:44.660)
when you're able to admit
Brett Johnson (34:46.860)
that you abused the people in your life,
Lex Fridman (34:49.980)
accept that responsibility
Lex Fridman (34:51.460)
and be able to discuss it with me, we'll have a talk.
Lex Fridman (34:55.780)
Other than that, I don't want to talk to you anymore.
Lex Fridman (34:58.500)
So for the first year it was, you know,
Lex Fridman (35:00.500)
calling, cussing my wife out, cussing me out,
Brett Johnson (35:04.900)
you know, I don't need you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Lex Fridman (35:07.580)
And then finally it started to taper off
Lex Fridman (35:09.580)
and she's never really contacted me after that point.
Lex Fridman (35:12.260)
And your dad is dying.
Lex Fridman (35:18.020)
What do you take from the way he's taken on death?
Lex Fridman (35:21.140)
Just saying, fuck it.
Brett Johnson (35:22.940)
You know, it's the man.
Lex Fridman (35:25.460)
And what have you learned from your dad?
Lex Fridman (35:27.740)
What do you love about your dad?
Lex Fridman (35:30.100)
He's one of these guys that, you know, like I told him,
Brett Johnson (35:34.380)
I told my dad about the abuse and everything else.
Lex Fridman (35:37.700)
And there was a point.
Brett Johnson (35:39.060)
So, you know, I told you about the elevator stuff,
Lex Fridman (35:41.220)
but before that, man, it was,
Brett Johnson (35:44.900)
it took me 40 years to talk about that,
Lex Fridman (35:47.980)
but it also took me 40 years to talk about,
Brett Johnson (35:53.820)
there was a point that my mom and dad would leave the house
Lex Fridman (36:00.540)
and I would urinate in the floor.
Brett Johnson (36:03.780)
All right.
Lex Fridman (36:04.620)
And...
Lex Fridman (36:05.900)
Is that like out of anger?
Lex Fridman (36:09.300)
No, no idea why.
Brett Johnson (36:11.300)
All right.
Lex Fridman (36:12.140)
But I would.
Brett Johnson (36:12.980)
Piss on the carpet.
Lex Fridman (36:13.820)
Carpet pissers like the Lebowski, right?
Brett Johnson (36:18.260)
It really tied the room together, dude.
Lex Fridman (36:20.260)
It really tied the room together.
Brett Johnson (36:22.100)
I was talking about that
Lex Fridman (36:22.940)
and this lady comes up to me after the presentation
Lex Fridman (36:26.700)
and she had a career previous to that
Lex Fridman (36:29.500)
where she dealt with abused kids.
Lex Fridman (36:31.860)
And she told me, she was like,
Lex Fridman (36:32.780)
Brett, she's like, it's a control mechanism.
Brett Johnson (36:37.220)
The only control you had was that.
Lex Fridman (36:40.060)
And she's like, kids do that.
Lex Fridman (36:42.180)
And I was like, so I'm not unique.
Lex Fridman (36:43.500)
She's like, no, you're not unique in that.
Lex Fridman (36:45.660)
So that, you know, this whole history of abuse,
Lex Fridman (36:49.580)
Denise dealt with it by drinking,
Brett Johnson (36:51.780)
by trying to commit suicide, things like that.
Lex Fridman (36:55.100)
And then finally she escapes.
Brett Johnson (36:56.340)
I'm the kid that didn't.
Lex Fridman (36:57.180)
And not only that, my wife pointed out to me that,
Brett Johnson (37:00.540)
again, it's that Eastern Kentucky mentality stuff.
Lex Fridman (37:02.780)
You know, the male's expected to do things.
Lex Fridman (37:04.780)
So with me, it was almost like I stepped up
Lex Fridman (37:09.660)
to take part in those crimes
Lex Fridman (37:12.180)
so that Denise didn't have to.
Lex Fridman (37:14.580)
And she was able to avoid all that.
Brett Johnson (37:16.580)
Other than that one shoplifting stuff,
Lex Fridman (37:18.140)
Denise doesn't break the law anymore.
Brett Johnson (37:19.940)
She goes off to be a, she's a good parent.
Lex Fridman (37:22.820)
She's an angry parent.
Brett Johnson (37:24.140)
She's a good parent.
Lex Fridman (37:24.980)
She's a teacher, a good citizen overall.
Brett Johnson (37:27.700)
I was just the guy that kept right on going with it.
Lex Fridman (37:30.940)
Kept on going.
Lex Fridman (37:31.780)
So let me ask you about that.
Lex Fridman (37:32.980)
So your life of cyber crime.
Brett Johnson (37:37.300)
In describing some of the things you did or knew about,
Lex Fridman (37:40.220)
you said, quote,
Brett Johnson (37:41.700)
"'I once stole several thousand dollars worth of coins
Lex Fridman (37:44.580)
"'from a family trying to sell them
Brett Johnson (37:47.140)
"'to put a new roof on their home.
Lex Fridman (37:48.820)
"'Another time, I sent a counterfeit cashier's check
Brett Johnson (37:52.900)
"'to a victim and he ended up being arrested for it.
Lex Fridman (37:55.980)
"'I lied to family, friends, everyone I knew.
Brett Johnson (37:58.580)
"'I was a truly despicable person.'"
Lex Fridman (38:01.100)
True.
Brett Johnson (38:02.340)
"'One of my Ukrainian associates script
Lex Fridman (38:05.100)
"'had someone who owed him money kidnapped and tortured.
Brett Johnson (38:08.660)
"'He posted pictures of it online.
Lex Fridman (38:11.320)
"'Another member, Iceman,
Brett Johnson (38:13.600)
"'used to flood his enemy's email addresses
Lex Fridman (38:16.200)
"'with child pornography, then called the police on them.'"
Brett Johnson (38:19.740)
That's some stories.
Lex Fridman (38:20.820)
Can you tell some of these stories that stand out to you
Brett Johnson (38:23.900)
that are particularly despicable or representative
Lex Fridman (38:29.180)
or interesting when you look back
Lex Fridman (38:31.580)
that defined your approach and who you were at that time?
Lex Fridman (38:36.260)
Let me say that I did not care about my victim, all right?
Brett Johnson (38:41.940)
I cared about me, is what I cared about.
Lex Fridman (38:45.940)
It's rough to admit that.
Brett Johnson (38:50.140)
You don't give a shit what you're doing to anybody else,
Lex Fridman (38:51.780)
you only care about you.
Lex Fridman (38:52.820)
But that's the truth of the matter.
Lex Fridman (38:54.280)
I didn't care about the victims.
Brett Johnson (38:56.480)
The lady, that wasn't even at the beginning of my career
Lex Fridman (39:00.740)
as a cyber criminal, that was right at the last of it.
Lex Fridman (39:03.060)
Which lady?
Lex Fridman (39:03.900)
The coin lady.
Brett Johnson (39:05.900)
By that point, Shadow Crew had made
Lex Fridman (39:07.500)
the front cover of Forbes, August of 04.
Brett Johnson (39:10.580)
October 26th of 04, Secret Service had shut us down,
Lex Fridman (39:13.860)
33 people arrested, six countries in six hours.
Brett Johnson (39:16.900)
I was the guy that was publicly mentioned as getting away.
Lex Fridman (39:20.620)
What happened was is I was the guy who was,
Brett Johnson (39:23.580)
I had kind of invented this crime
Lex Fridman (39:25.700)
called tax return identity theft
Lex Fridman (39:27.860)
and was stealing a lot of money.
Lex Fridman (39:30.980)
I went through all my stateside savings
Lex Fridman (39:33.660)
and Shadow Crew gets shut down.
Lex Fridman (39:35.540)
I don't have any way to come in with any money,
Lex Fridman (39:37.820)
so I start running counterfeit cashier's checks,
Lex Fridman (39:40.940)
defrauding people with that,
Brett Johnson (39:42.380)
having them send products or bullion collections,
Lex Fridman (39:45.840)
what have you, by COD, collect on delivery,
Lex Fridman (39:48.260)
and I would pay with it
Lex Fridman (39:49.300)
with a counterfeit cashier's check.
Brett Johnson (39:51.100)
This lady was on eBay.
Lex Fridman (39:54.060)
She had been collecting these silver coins all of her life.
Brett Johnson (39:57.180)
You know, the U.S. currency used to be,
Lex Fridman (39:58.700)
the coins used to be silver,
Brett Johnson (3:00:01.080)
I don't know, just straight police work.
Lex Fridman (3:00:02.200)
Good, good, good, good.
Brett Johnson (3:00:03.200)
US Marshals are outstanding in everything they do.
Lex Fridman (3:00:05.800)
So they arrest me.
Brett Johnson (3:00:06.760)
I go to a, I'm initially held at a county
Lex Fridman (3:00:09.320)
jail in Moorhead, Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (3:00:11.240)
And that, man, that was one hell of an experience there.
Lex Fridman (3:00:14.600)
But then I'm transferred after sentencing on that.
Lex Fridman (3:00:17.360)
So sentencing, here's the weird thing.
Lex Fridman (3:00:20.440)
So I spend like, I think, two or three months at the county
Brett Johnson (3:00:23.000)
jail in Moorhead, Kentucky.
Lex Fridman (3:00:26.200)
Get sentenced.
Brett Johnson (3:00:27.480)
At my sentencing, it happens so quickly
Lex Fridman (3:00:31.600)
after the initial sentencing that they
Brett Johnson (3:00:34.000)
use the exact same presentence report.
Lex Fridman (3:00:36.360)
The report that's got all that drug shit in there.
Lex Fridman (3:00:39.120)
So at my sentencing, prosecutor's there,
Lex Fridman (3:00:42.080)
Secret Service is there, judge, me, and my attorney.
Brett Johnson (3:00:47.640)
Prosecutor stands up.
Lex Fridman (3:00:48.640)
He's like, Your Honor, we would like
Brett Johnson (3:00:50.760)
it if you would consider that when Mr. Johnson was arrested,
Lex Fridman (3:00:54.160)
he had a laptop, he had all this information with him,
Brett Johnson (3:00:56.600)
looks like he was engaged in identity theft yet again.
Lex Fridman (3:01:00.040)
Judge looks at the prosecutor, says no.
Brett Johnson (3:01:03.160)
Says, hey, if you were going to charge him with it,
Lex Fridman (3:01:05.240)
you should have charged him with it.
Brett Johnson (3:01:06.780)
I'm only considering the escape.
Lex Fridman (3:01:08.520)
Then he looks at me.
Brett Johnson (3:01:09.760)
He's like, Mr. Johnson.
Lex Fridman (3:01:11.600)
He said, it looks like by you keeping your mouth shut right
Brett Johnson (3:01:14.240)
now, you're really saving yourself
Lex Fridman (3:01:16.720)
a pretty serious charge.
Lex Fridman (3:01:17.760)
And my response was, yes, Your Honor.
Lex Fridman (3:01:20.360)
And he was like, then he opens up the presentence report,
Brett Johnson (3:01:22.680)
he's fingering through, and he's like,
Lex Fridman (3:01:24.240)
it also looks like before you got
Brett Johnson (3:01:26.560)
involved with all these drugs, you were a pretty good citizen.
Lex Fridman (3:01:30.040)
I was like, yes, Your Honor.
Lex Fridman (3:01:33.160)
And he's like, so here's what I'm going to do.
Lex Fridman (3:01:34.760)
He said, I'm going to give you 18 months on the escape.
Brett Johnson (3:01:38.720)
I was like, OK.
Lex Fridman (3:01:39.680)
He said, I'm also going to give you,
Brett Johnson (3:01:41.240)
no, it's 15 months on the escape.
Lex Fridman (3:01:42.320)
He said, I'm going to give you 15 months on the escape.
Brett Johnson (3:01:44.040)
He said, and I'm also going to order the drug program for you.
Lex Fridman (3:01:48.760)
I was like, yes, Your Honor.
Lex Fridman (3:01:51.720)
So the drug program gives you a year off,
Lex Fridman (3:01:54.920)
and it gives you six months and halfway house.
Lex Fridman (3:01:59.240)
So by escaping, I got out of prison three months earlier
Lex Fridman (3:02:03.600)
than what I should have gotten out of it.
Lex Fridman (3:02:05.520)
So the original thing about drugs worked in the long term.
Lex Fridman (3:02:11.160)
The interesting thing with that, and this
Brett Johnson (3:02:12.680)
was the best lie I ever told, honestly,
Lex Fridman (3:02:14.240)
the best lie I ever told.
Brett Johnson (3:02:17.360)
I spent eight months in solitary confinement, eight months.
Lex Fridman (3:02:21.800)
And that's an experience.
Brett Johnson (3:02:24.160)
Because you ain't got no books for the first month or so,
Lex Fridman (3:02:27.440)
then they give you a King James Bible.
Brett Johnson (3:02:30.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:02:31.720)
And then for a month, no books.
Brett Johnson (3:02:34.920)
No books for a month.
Lex Fridman (3:02:36.360)
This is a pretty small and.
Brett Johnson (3:02:38.280)
Six by nine room.
Lex Fridman (3:02:39.200)
Six by nine.
Brett Johnson (3:02:40.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:02:41.240)
No books.
Brett Johnson (3:02:41.920)
No books, no paper, no pen, no pencil.
Lex Fridman (3:02:44.400)
You're alone with your mind.
Brett Johnson (3:02:45.560)
You got a mat, a toilet.
Lex Fridman (3:02:48.280)
What's that like?
Brett Johnson (3:02:50.120)
You sleep as much as you can.
Lex Fridman (3:02:52.240)
You're sleeping 16, 18 hours a day is what you're doing.
Lex Fridman (3:02:55.640)
What about, were you thinking about even just going back
Lex Fridman (3:03:00.720)
like Elizabeth?
Brett Johnson (3:03:01.800)
You think about.
Lex Fridman (3:03:02.520)
You go through all that.
Brett Johnson (3:03:03.640)
The whole thing.
Lex Fridman (3:03:04.200)
Through all that.
Brett Johnson (3:03:04.920)
Every bit.
Lex Fridman (3:03:05.560)
Your mom, too.
Brett Johnson (3:03:06.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:03:07.120)
Going through every single bit of that.
Lex Fridman (3:03:08.760)
And so you're supposed to get out an hour a day.
Lex Fridman (3:03:12.920)
Law says you're supposed to get out an hour a day.
Brett Johnson (3:03:15.320)
That's the law.
Lex Fridman (3:03:16.320)
That's not the way things actually happen.
Lex Fridman (3:03:18.160)
What actually happens is you're lucky to get out an hour a week.
Lex Fridman (3:03:21.520)
You take a shower twice a week, and that's it.
Brett Johnson (3:03:25.280)
You get a phone call once a month.
Lex Fridman (3:03:26.840)
Oh, so you don't get to see nature.
Brett Johnson (3:03:28.760)
Don't see anything.
Lex Fridman (3:03:29.640)
You're getting solitary.
Lex Fridman (3:03:31.640)
And it takes about a week.
Lex Fridman (3:03:34.200)
The first week is the roughest.
Brett Johnson (3:03:36.440)
You're bouncing off the walls that first week
Lex Fridman (3:03:38.400)
because you can't sleep, can't do anything else.
Brett Johnson (3:03:40.640)
Then you start to adapt to it after a while.
Lex Fridman (3:03:43.560)
When that book does arrive, you're happy as hell to have it.
Brett Johnson (3:03:46.480)
I'm well versed in King James Bible.
Lex Fridman (3:03:49.840)
So you're happy to have it.
Brett Johnson (3:03:51.840)
Then finally, you get other books
Lex Fridman (3:03:53.760)
that come in from that point.
Brett Johnson (3:03:56.280)
Spent eight months at that.
Lex Fridman (3:03:57.720)
And they send me out to a real prison, Big Spring, Texas,
Lex Fridman (3:04:02.640)
West Texas, where have you been out there?
Lex Fridman (3:04:07.200)
No.
Brett Johnson (3:04:07.680)
Man.
Lex Fridman (3:04:08.160)
But I could tell.
Brett Johnson (3:04:10.000)
Prairie dogs and tarantulas is what it is.
Lex Fridman (3:04:13.160)
No kidding, it gets so hot that warnings
Brett Johnson (3:04:16.400)
come on the radio telling you not to drive on certain streets
Lex Fridman (3:04:19.720)
because they're melted.
Brett Johnson (3:04:21.120)
That's Big Spring.
Lex Fridman (3:04:23.560)
So if you've seen the movie From Dusk
Brett Johnson (3:04:26.760)
Till Dawn, the opening scene is in Big Spring, Texas.
Lex Fridman (3:04:30.880)
So it's hot.
Brett Johnson (3:04:31.440)
Yeah, very hot.
Lex Fridman (3:04:33.240)
And that's where I find out what a real prison is.
Lex Fridman (3:04:35.360)
And it's not ran by guards.
Lex Fridman (3:04:38.520)
Prisons are ran by inmates.
Lex Fridman (3:04:40.280)
And that's a fact.
Lex Fridman (3:04:41.760)
So you're met at the door by whatever race you are
Brett Johnson (3:04:47.440)
is what happens.
Lex Fridman (3:04:48.200)
So Big Spring is a converted Air Force compound.
Brett Johnson (3:04:50.840)
It's a disciplinary prison.
Lex Fridman (3:04:52.160)
So you get the bad guys are in there.
Lex Fridman (3:04:54.200)
So I go through processing, and I'm walking up to the unit,
Lex Fridman (3:05:00.160)
and I'm met at the door by a guy named Nick Sandifer.
Brett Johnson (3:05:03.560)
He's the treasurer of the Aryan Brotherhood.
Lex Fridman (3:05:06.120)
And first question out of his mouth
Lex Fridman (3:05:08.640)
is, any more white guys come in?
Lex Fridman (3:05:10.640)
And shit, I didn't know.
Lex Fridman (3:05:11.680)
I was like, hell, I don't know, four or five?
Lex Fridman (3:05:13.760)
Next question is, what are you in here for?
Brett Johnson (3:05:17.360)
My answer was, because I'm like, I got no worries.
Lex Fridman (3:05:19.360)
My answer was, computer crime.
Brett Johnson (3:05:20.920)
Smiled at him.
Lex Fridman (3:05:22.760)
Turns out, wrong thing to say, because computer crime is not
Brett Johnson (3:05:27.160)
credit card theft or hacking or any bullshit like that.
Lex Fridman (3:05:30.080)
Computer crime in prison is child pornography.
Lex Fridman (3:05:34.080)
So tell him that.
Lex Fridman (3:05:35.440)
He looks at me like I'm a piece of shit,
Brett Johnson (3:05:37.680)
goes and gets his buddies.
Lex Fridman (3:05:38.920)
They circle around.
Lex Fridman (3:05:40.760)
What are you in here for?
Lex Fridman (3:05:41.760)
I like how the Aryan Brotherhood has lines.
Brett Johnson (3:05:45.040)
They're like, oh, yeah, this is child porn.
Lex Fridman (3:05:47.920)
That's it.
Brett Johnson (3:05:48.760)
That's the bad guy.
Lex Fridman (3:05:49.920)
They circle around.
Lex Fridman (3:05:50.680)
They're like, what did you say you're in here for?
Lex Fridman (3:05:53.360)
So I'm sitting there trying to explain it to them.
Brett Johnson (3:05:55.760)
They're like, you tell a good story.
Lex Fridman (3:05:57.280)
You still said this.
Brett Johnson (3:05:59.440)
Computer crime basically really does
Lex Fridman (3:06:02.120)
mean usually child pornography.
Brett Johnson (3:06:04.760)
In prison, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:06:06.120)
And what you see, and that's one of things you find out,
Brett Johnson (3:06:08.320)
the guys that are going in there for child porn,
Lex Fridman (3:06:10.960)
they will tell them it's credit card theft.
Lex Fridman (3:06:14.120)
So yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:06:15.400)
Right.
Brett Johnson (3:06:15.880)
They've learned.
Lex Fridman (3:06:16.680)
So I'm that guy.
Lex Fridman (3:06:17.920)
But you also don't, I mean, for people
Lex Fridman (3:06:19.840)
who are just listening to this, you don't exactly look
Brett Johnson (3:06:22.840)
like the typical computer hacker.
Lex Fridman (3:06:24.840)
That's true.
Brett Johnson (3:06:25.680)
That's true.
Lex Fridman (3:06:26.360)
That's very true.
Lex Fridman (3:06:27.480)
But I don't look like the pedophile either.
Lex Fridman (3:06:29.320)
That's right.
Brett Johnson (3:06:30.640)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (3:06:31.480)
But it's like it doesn't make it seem like you're, I mean,
Brett Johnson (3:06:34.080)
I guess you're not wearing a hoodie,
Lex Fridman (3:06:36.000)
and you're not like emo, dark.
Brett Johnson (3:06:41.040)
The way it actually works in prison,
Lex Fridman (3:06:43.160)
they won't attack you until they know.
Lex Fridman (3:06:47.520)
So they have to see paperwork, which now in federal prison,
Lex Fridman (3:06:50.920)
you don't get transported with paperwork because of that.
Lex Fridman (3:06:54.280)
So they have to see paperwork, or a guard
Lex Fridman (3:06:57.000)
will tell them what you're in there for.
Brett Johnson (3:07:00.680)
Guards will tell who the pedophiles are.
Lex Fridman (3:07:02.480)
So none of the guards told them that it was anything.
Lex Fridman (3:07:06.000)
So for the first month, they think I am,
Lex Fridman (3:07:08.080)
but they're not doing anything because they
Brett Johnson (3:07:09.720)
don't know for sure.
Lex Fridman (3:07:10.960)
At the end of the first month, I'd
Brett Johnson (3:07:12.360)
been talking to Kevin Polson over at Wired Magazine
Lex Fridman (3:07:15.680)
about Max Butler.
Brett Johnson (3:07:17.680)
He does an article about that.
Lex Fridman (3:07:19.000)
It shows up in Wired Magazine.
Lex Fridman (3:07:20.400)
So at the end of the first month,
Lex Fridman (3:07:21.360)
Wired Magazine hits a compound, front cover, all the story.
Brett Johnson (3:07:24.880)
You would think.
Lex Fridman (3:07:25.720)
You would think it saved me.
Lex Fridman (3:07:27.240)
So I'm reading the article, really happy about it.
Lex Fridman (3:07:29.640)
So what happens is four o clock is mail call.
Brett Johnson (3:07:31.920)
Four o clock's a stand up count nationwide.
Lex Fridman (3:07:34.000)
After four o clock is your mail call.
Brett Johnson (3:07:35.520)
They hand out all the mail for the day.
Lex Fridman (3:07:37.160)
So the mail comes, I get the magazine.
Brett Johnson (3:07:38.800)
I'm reading through it.
Lex Fridman (3:07:39.800)
I'm like, well, shit, I'm good to go.
Brett Johnson (3:07:41.560)
Then it says, Brett Johnson, Secret Service informant
Lex Fridman (3:07:45.760)
in the article.
Lex Fridman (3:07:47.520)
So you're now a snitch.
Lex Fridman (3:07:49.560)
Which is right up there with the pedophiles.
Lex Fridman (3:07:51.480)
So we go to dinner after that.
Lex Fridman (3:07:55.400)
At dinner, you can hear it.
Brett Johnson (3:07:57.120)
You can hear the chat.
Lex Fridman (3:07:57.920)
We got a snitch.
Brett Johnson (3:07:58.760)
I think it's that guy over there.
Lex Fridman (3:08:01.000)
Warden, next day, shuts down the entire compound,
Brett Johnson (3:08:04.680)
calls me into his office.
Lex Fridman (3:08:06.080)
They got security there.
Brett Johnson (3:08:07.160)
They got the counselors there and everything else.
Lex Fridman (3:08:08.480)
Warden looks at me.
Lex Fridman (3:08:09.280)
He's like, did you give an interview to Wired Magazine?
Lex Fridman (3:08:12.680)
I'm like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:08:13.920)
He's like, do you not know they will kill you in here?
Lex Fridman (3:08:17.240)
I was like, he was like, do you feel safe?
Brett Johnson (3:08:21.840)
Well, I know if you tell me you don't feel safe,
Lex Fridman (3:08:24.440)
they transport you.
Brett Johnson (3:08:25.280)
Transport you means another eight months
Lex Fridman (3:08:27.160)
in solitary confinement.
Brett Johnson (3:08:28.680)
You start to see shit in solitary after a while.
Lex Fridman (3:08:31.880)
So I'm like, no, not gonna do that.
Lex Fridman (3:08:33.240)
So I'm like, completely safe.
Lex Fridman (3:08:34.960)
He was like, look, he's like,
Brett Johnson (3:08:37.200)
if anybody says anything to you, immediately come to us
Lex Fridman (3:08:42.160)
because they'll fucking kill you.
Lex Fridman (3:08:44.640)
So they do a locker search,
Lex Fridman (3:08:45.880)
try to confiscate the magazines.
Brett Johnson (3:08:47.200)
They can't.
Lex Fridman (3:08:48.040)
The next day, I walk into the unit.
Brett Johnson (3:08:50.320)
There's Nick Sandefur laying on his bunk,
Lex Fridman (3:08:52.200)
magazine wide open reading it.
Brett Johnson (3:08:53.960)
I'm like, oh shit.
Lex Fridman (3:08:55.640)
Walked up to him.
Lex Fridman (3:08:56.480)
I was like, hey, Nick, what are you doing?
Lex Fridman (3:08:58.440)
He's like, oh, doing some reading.
Lex Fridman (3:09:00.080)
I was like, anything interesting?
Lex Fridman (3:09:01.320)
He's like, it's getting there.
Brett Johnson (3:09:03.560)
I was like, let me save you the trouble.
Lex Fridman (3:09:07.080)
Take the magazine, turn it over to the page.
Brett Johnson (3:09:08.560)
I was like, right there is what you're looking for.
Lex Fridman (3:09:10.960)
He was like, man, I already knew.
Lex Fridman (3:09:12.680)
I was like, do we have a problem?
Lex Fridman (3:09:15.640)
And he looks at me.
Lex Fridman (3:09:16.480)
He's like, is anyone on the compound you told on?
Lex Fridman (3:09:20.120)
I was like, no.
Brett Johnson (3:09:21.280)
He's like, until someone gets here, you snitched on.
Lex Fridman (3:09:24.680)
We're okay.
Brett Johnson (3:09:26.000)
I was like, okay.
Lex Fridman (3:09:28.160)
He's like, but I need you to do something for me.
Brett Johnson (3:09:32.120)
All right, so in federal prison, you gotta have a job.
Lex Fridman (3:09:35.280)
Everybody works.
Brett Johnson (3:09:36.120)
It doesn't matter what you do, but you gotta work.
Lex Fridman (3:09:37.600)
I got a job in education teaching a lit class.
Brett Johnson (3:09:42.120)
Every Wednesday, six to 8.30 PM, lit.
Lex Fridman (3:09:45.320)
And had all, every area on the compound
Brett Johnson (3:09:48.840)
signs up for the lit class.
Lex Fridman (3:09:50.280)
Had a couple of guards every now and then popped in.
Lex Fridman (3:09:52.440)
And did we teach lit?
Lex Fridman (3:09:54.880)
No, we taught fraud.
Brett Johnson (3:09:56.920)
Every Wednesday, six to 8.30 PM.
Lex Fridman (3:09:59.920)
That's how I didn't get my ass beaten.
Lex Fridman (3:10:02.160)
And my other job, I had two jobs with them.
Lex Fridman (3:10:04.720)
The other job, you get to the point, it's weird, man.
Brett Johnson (3:10:07.840)
You get to the point, people walking off the bus,
Lex Fridman (3:10:11.720)
you know immediately two groups of people.
Brett Johnson (3:10:14.040)
You know who the bank robbers are immediately.
Lex Fridman (3:10:16.760)
Just by them walking off the bus,
Brett Johnson (3:10:18.120)
you're like, that motherfucker's a bank robber.
Lex Fridman (3:10:20.400)
And you know who the pedophiles are immediately.
Lex Fridman (3:10:23.600)
So my job as the white guy was to approach
Lex Fridman (3:10:27.200)
the white pedophiles and have a conversation.
Lex Fridman (3:10:29.880)
And the conversation was basically,
Lex Fridman (3:10:31.080)
hey, don't know what you're in here for.
Brett Johnson (3:10:34.680)
Don't care what you're in here for.
Lex Fridman (3:10:37.000)
But if you got some sort of fucked up charge,
Brett Johnson (3:10:40.960)
you need to tell me.
Lex Fridman (3:10:43.160)
If you tell me, everything's gonna be all right.
Lex Fridman (3:10:46.320)
If you don't tell me, you see those guys over there?
Lex Fridman (3:10:49.480)
If you start to associate with them
Brett Johnson (3:10:51.200)
or they start to talk to you,
Lex Fridman (3:10:52.600)
and then they find out you're in here on something,
Brett Johnson (3:10:55.480)
they're gonna kill you.
Lex Fridman (3:10:57.240)
And what are the things, pedophile?
Brett Johnson (3:10:59.640)
Pedophile, rapist, anything that harms children,
Lex Fridman (3:11:02.680)
harms women, anything like that.
Lex Fridman (3:11:04.760)
And there are, it's like the mob,
Lex Fridman (3:11:07.120)
there's rules, there's an ethical code.
Brett Johnson (3:11:10.440)
Even if you have the division between races on all that,
Lex Fridman (3:11:15.160)
you still have these lines drawn.
Lex Fridman (3:11:17.760)
And there's a hierarchy too.
Lex Fridman (3:11:19.680)
Very, very much so.
Lex Fridman (3:11:20.520)
And what that looks like in prison,
Lex Fridman (3:11:22.000)
depending on the, it depends on the security class
Brett Johnson (3:11:25.080)
that you're in, what level prison.
Lex Fridman (3:11:27.640)
But at that prison, what that looked like
Brett Johnson (3:11:29.840)
was you're not allowed to talk to anybody.
Lex Fridman (3:11:33.320)
You're not allowed to watch television.
Brett Johnson (3:11:35.480)
You can go to the library.
Lex Fridman (3:11:37.240)
You don't associate with anyone except your own type.
Brett Johnson (3:11:40.680)
If you do anything like this, we will kill you.
Lex Fridman (3:11:44.600)
If someone wants to extort you,
Brett Johnson (3:11:47.560)
we will do that too and you won't tell on us
Lex Fridman (3:11:51.000)
or we'll kill you.
Lex Fridman (3:11:52.640)
So that's the way that works at that point.
Lex Fridman (3:11:55.440)
And everybody quickly large this.
Brett Johnson (3:11:58.080)
Quickly, quickly.
Lex Fridman (3:11:59.640)
And so typically the guys would say,
Brett Johnson (3:12:02.400)
I just wanna do my own time.
Lex Fridman (3:12:03.680)
That would be the line.
Lex Fridman (3:12:05.080)
And it's like, okay, don't mess with him, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:12:09.640)
Every now and then you'd have somebody lie
Lex Fridman (3:12:11.720)
and that would come with those types of consequences.
Lex Fridman (3:12:14.800)
I got to see, while I was there, saw two people murdered,
Brett Johnson (3:12:20.840)
saw, went through three prison riots
Lex Fridman (3:12:23.160)
and through my entire tenure in prison, saw four suicides.
Brett Johnson (3:12:26.960)
The people who got killed, it was,
Lex Fridman (3:12:29.880)
so we had, outside you had this track,
Brett Johnson (3:12:32.040)
a third of a mile track.
Lex Fridman (3:12:33.440)
You walk it counterclockwise.
Lex Fridman (3:12:35.760)
And inside of the track, you got two handball courts.
Lex Fridman (3:12:38.200)
So of an evening that happened both times,
Brett Johnson (3:12:42.400)
all of us would be walking, doing our exercises.
Lex Fridman (3:12:44.680)
And at the top of the key, like a flock of birds,
Brett Johnson (3:12:47.720)
you'd see all the inmates start to migrate down
Lex Fridman (3:12:51.120)
toward the gate.
Lex Fridman (3:12:52.920)
So the first time you see that, you see that migration,
Lex Fridman (3:12:55.280)
you look up in the distance and one of the inmates
Brett Johnson (3:12:57.800)
got another inmate down and he's just hammering his head
Lex Fridman (3:13:01.680)
right into the pavement, like that right there.
Brett Johnson (3:13:04.040)
Well, guards don't stop that because a guard may get hurt.
Lex Fridman (3:13:07.480)
So a guard is 15 minutes coming out to stop that
Brett Johnson (3:13:11.680)
until everything's over.
Lex Fridman (3:13:12.520)
By that point, the guy doesn't have a head.
Brett Johnson (3:13:15.280)
They shut the compound down and this is what happens.
Lex Fridman (3:13:17.800)
So you shut the entire compound down.
Brett Johnson (3:13:20.960)
They make two lines of the inmates.
Lex Fridman (3:13:22.800)
And what happens is the inmate walks into a room,
Brett Johnson (3:13:25.800)
they shut the door behind the inmate,
Lex Fridman (3:13:27.320)
guard asks them two questions.
Lex Fridman (3:13:28.680)
First question is, did you see anything?
Lex Fridman (3:13:30.360)
The answer is no.
Brett Johnson (3:13:31.640)
Second question is, if you had seen anything,
Lex Fridman (3:13:34.200)
would you say anything?
Brett Johnson (3:13:35.480)
Answer is no.
Lex Fridman (3:13:36.680)
Guard then says, get the fuck out.
Lex Fridman (3:13:38.520)
And that's it.
Lex Fridman (3:13:40.120)
Anybody that stays in any longer than that
Brett Johnson (3:13:43.960)
is automatically suspect.
Lex Fridman (3:13:45.840)
So there was one incident, I remember this Hispanic guy,
Brett Johnson (3:13:49.600)
he's in there for a few minutes.
Lex Fridman (3:13:51.680)
And everybody's like, what's going on?
Lex Fridman (3:13:55.960)
So his people then call him over,
Lex Fridman (3:13:59.400)
explain to us what went on.
Lex Fridman (3:14:01.800)
And it happens like that.
Lex Fridman (3:14:03.200)
It's fascinating because you talked about
Brett Johnson (3:14:05.080)
the network of trust in the cyber crime community.
Lex Fridman (3:14:10.680)
And here's a network of trust
Brett Johnson (3:14:13.160)
in the prison crime community.
Lex Fridman (3:14:16.000)
And trust.
Brett Johnson (3:14:17.440)
Trust matters.
Lex Fridman (3:14:18.960)
Trust drives everything at the end of the day.
Brett Johnson (3:14:21.080)
The riots that I went through,
Lex Fridman (3:14:23.080)
the first riot, man, you're scared to death.
Brett Johnson (3:14:26.320)
Scared to death.
Lex Fridman (3:14:27.520)
You know, you've got the cops dressed up
Brett Johnson (3:14:29.400)
in the Ninja Turtle outfits,
Lex Fridman (3:14:30.680)
you've got the rubber bullets,
Brett Johnson (3:14:33.000)
the tear gas canisters, all that crap.
Lex Fridman (3:14:35.520)
You got the inmates that are raising hell.
Brett Johnson (3:14:37.920)
Scared to death.
Lex Fridman (3:14:39.240)
The second riot, you calm down.
Brett Johnson (3:14:42.400)
Second riot, you start to notice.
Lex Fridman (3:14:44.680)
This is racial riot.
Brett Johnson (3:14:46.200)
This is typically, and almost always,
Lex Fridman (3:14:48.680)
it's Hispanics and African Americans.
Lex Fridman (3:14:50.840)
So you get to detect what is the motivation
Lex Fridman (3:14:53.920)
for the riot, what is the reason,
Lex Fridman (3:14:55.400)
and that gives you some calm.
Lex Fridman (3:14:56.560)
That's exactly right.
Lex Fridman (3:14:57.400)
So the second riot, you start to notice this.
Lex Fridman (3:14:58.680)
Hey, man, this ain't me.
Brett Johnson (3:15:00.840)
This ain't our group.
Lex Fridman (3:15:02.640)
Third riot, no shit.
Brett Johnson (3:15:03.760)
Third riot, you lay in your bunk.
Lex Fridman (3:15:07.800)
You let them wage war all around you,
Lex Fridman (3:15:10.680)
and every now and then you have an inmate
Lex Fridman (3:15:12.040)
that'll run up to you and he'll point to a locker
Lex Fridman (3:15:13.640)
and say, is that your locker?
Lex Fridman (3:15:14.760)
And if you tell him yes, they leave it alone.
Brett Johnson (3:15:16.800)
If you say it's not my locker,
Lex Fridman (3:15:17.960)
they'll break into it and steal everything out of it
Lex Fridman (3:15:20.080)
and go from there, and that's what happens, but.
Lex Fridman (3:15:23.440)
So you did your time for five years.
Brett Johnson (3:15:25.400)
Five and a half.
Lex Fridman (3:15:26.240)
Five and a half.
Brett Johnson (3:15:27.920)
You made it out.
Lex Fridman (3:15:28.840)
Made it out.
Brett Johnson (3:15:29.680)
I went through, I told you it was a good lie that I told.
Lex Fridman (3:15:32.280)
I went through the residential drug abuse program.
Brett Johnson (3:15:35.680)
It's a nine month intensive therapy,
Lex Fridman (3:15:37.800)
and the way I got to that, this counselor at Big Spring,
Brett Johnson (3:15:42.120)
he bought this.
Lex Fridman (3:15:44.680)
He wanted inmates to be educated.
Brett Johnson (3:15:46.800)
He was a really good guy.
Lex Fridman (3:15:48.240)
So he wanted inmates to be educated.
Brett Johnson (3:15:49.640)
He got a discount on a game theory class set.
Lex Fridman (3:15:55.000)
So he gets all these discs and everything,
Lex Fridman (3:15:56.680)
and he's asking, does anybody on the compound
Lex Fridman (3:15:59.400)
know anything about game theory?
Lex Fridman (3:16:00.960)
And somebody says, if anybody does, it'll be Brett Johnson.
Lex Fridman (3:16:04.800)
So he comes up to me one day at my buggy.
Lex Fridman (3:16:07.480)
He's like, are you Brett Johnson?
Lex Fridman (3:16:09.120)
I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:16:10.160)
He was like, do you know anything about game theory?
Lex Fridman (3:16:12.640)
And I was like, yes, I do.
Lex Fridman (3:16:15.280)
So I start rattling off Prisoner's Dilemma
Lex Fridman (3:16:17.160)
and everything else.
Lex Fridman (3:16:18.000)
He's like, well, you teach a class?
Lex Fridman (3:16:20.120)
So I start teaching that.
Brett Johnson (3:16:21.160)
I start teaching inmates public speaking
Lex Fridman (3:16:24.480)
and to make friends with this counselor.
Lex Fridman (3:16:26.640)
So it gets time where I'm supposed to be transferring out
Lex Fridman (3:16:29.680)
to this drug program that they only had in Fort Worth,
Lex Fridman (3:16:32.880)
and the transfers are taking like four or five months.
Lex Fridman (3:16:36.440)
That's four or five months I could be out free.
Lex Fridman (3:16:39.280)
So I went up to him one day and I was like, look,
Lex Fridman (3:16:41.440)
his name was Keely.
Brett Johnson (3:16:42.280)
I was like, look, man, I said, is there any way
Lex Fridman (3:16:45.360)
that I can get transferred out any sooner?
Lex Fridman (3:16:47.080)
And he looks at me and he's like, Brett, I cannot help you.
Lex Fridman (3:16:50.800)
And I was like, I appreciate that.
Brett Johnson (3:16:52.080)
Thank you so much for even trying.
Lex Fridman (3:16:53.840)
So he said that a week later, I'm on a bus
Brett Johnson (3:16:58.080)
by going to Fort Worth.
Lex Fridman (3:16:59.120)
So he got me to Fort Worth.
Brett Johnson (3:17:00.080)
I got it.
Lex Fridman (3:17:00.920)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (3:17:01.760)
I love it.
Lex Fridman (3:17:02.580)
So it was a nine month program,
Brett Johnson (3:17:04.240)
24 hours a day of cognitive behavioral therapy.
Lex Fridman (3:17:06.720)
Had nothing to do with drugs.
Brett Johnson (3:17:07.800)
It was all peer study stuff and CBT training.
Lex Fridman (3:17:12.080)
And honestly, it's the best thing that could ever happen.
Brett Johnson (3:17:15.960)
Truly is.
Lex Fridman (3:17:16.800)
So that part, what was the thing that changed you as a man?
Lex Fridman (3:17:21.600)
Is it the solitary confinement?
Lex Fridman (3:17:23.520)
Was it the years?
Lex Fridman (3:17:24.680)
Was it losing the people you loved?
Lex Fridman (3:17:28.840)
Or was it that behavioral therapy?
Brett Johnson (3:17:30.600)
It's a combination, man.
Lex Fridman (3:17:31.920)
It's a combination.
Brett Johnson (3:17:32.840)
It was, so my sister disowns me.
Lex Fridman (3:17:36.500)
The only person I had in my life.
Brett Johnson (3:17:38.320)
I mean, me and my sister, that's it.
Lex Fridman (3:17:41.400)
I mean, yeah, I loved Elizabeth.
Brett Johnson (3:17:42.920)
I love my wife now, but it's...
Lex Fridman (3:17:46.440)
Me and my sister, we went through all that shit together.
Lex Fridman (3:17:49.240)
So Denise disowns me.
Lex Fridman (3:17:50.320)
She doesn't talk to me for an entire year
Brett Johnson (3:17:52.920)
when all this stuff happens.
Lex Fridman (3:17:54.640)
And after I get arrested on the escape,
Brett Johnson (3:17:58.920)
she ends up driving seven hours
Lex Fridman (3:18:01.040)
to come see me to tell me she loves me.
Lex Fridman (3:18:02.520)
And I don't see her again for five and a half years.
Lex Fridman (3:18:04.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:18:05.760)
So that's really the first turnaround.
Lex Fridman (3:18:07.920)
Took me two and a half years in prison
Brett Johnson (3:18:10.320)
to accept responsibility.
Lex Fridman (3:18:12.720)
That was amazing that she did that.
Brett Johnson (3:18:14.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:18:15.480)
She's down.
Brett Johnson (3:18:16.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:18:17.360)
She did that.
Brett Johnson (3:18:18.200)
Yeah, she's something.
Lex Fridman (3:18:19.020)
She's something.
Brett Johnson (3:18:19.860)
Yeah, she saw me for 10 minutes,
Lex Fridman (3:18:20.880)
tell me she loves me and then I don't see her again.
Brett Johnson (3:18:23.320)
Planted the seed.
Lex Fridman (3:18:24.160)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (3:18:24.980)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:18:25.820)
So...
Lex Fridman (3:18:26.660)
But yeah, you had time to think over those years.
Lex Fridman (3:18:29.320)
Took two and a half years to realize
Brett Johnson (3:18:31.280)
that I didn't commit crime
Lex Fridman (3:18:32.620)
because of stripper girlfriends or wives or family.
Brett Johnson (3:18:35.320)
I committed it because I wanted to, chose to.
Lex Fridman (3:18:38.180)
And that's the first turnaround.
Brett Johnson (3:18:42.080)
Second turnaround is the CBT training.
Lex Fridman (3:18:45.400)
It didn't really hit while I was in prison.
Brett Johnson (3:18:50.120)
I went through it and they ingrained it in you,
Lex Fridman (3:18:52.140)
but until you choose to make it work, it doesn't work.
Lex Fridman (3:18:56.720)
So I got out in 2011, didn't wanna break the law, did not.
Lex Fridman (3:19:00.520)
And I was under three years probation,
Brett Johnson (3:19:02.920)
couldn't touch a computer.
Lex Fridman (3:19:04.620)
I had a job offer from Deloitte
Brett Johnson (3:19:07.440)
to run a cyber crime office in the UK,
Lex Fridman (3:19:10.760)
which that was a no.
Brett Johnson (3:19:11.840)
Now you're not moving and that's a computer idiot.
Lex Fridman (3:19:13.880)
So then I had a job offer from Know Before,
Brett Johnson (3:19:18.240)
a phishing company, couldn't take that.
Lex Fridman (3:19:20.680)
I got to where I was trying to apply for fast food jobs.
Brett Johnson (3:19:24.040)
That's a computer, can't touch that.
Lex Fridman (3:19:26.440)
Okay, then what about a waiter's position?
Brett Johnson (3:19:28.780)
Well, that's a computer and access to credit cards, idiot.
Lex Fridman (3:19:31.760)
Can't touch that either.
Lex Fridman (3:19:33.480)
So literally could not get a job, could not.
Lex Fridman (3:19:38.400)
Doing food stamps, I had a roommate
Brett Johnson (3:19:40.040)
that paid half the rent.
Lex Fridman (3:19:42.520)
They tell you when you leave prison
Brett Johnson (3:19:43.760)
to get a job in something you care about
Lex Fridman (3:19:46.840)
and you won't recidivate, couldn't get a job.
Lex Fridman (3:19:48.940)
And what I had was a cat, and Monster the Cat,
Lex Fridman (3:19:53.480)
that was the cat's name.
Lex Fridman (3:19:55.320)
And I had enough money to feed that little guy
Lex Fridman (3:19:59.600)
and didn't have money to buy toilet paper for the apartment.
Lex Fridman (3:20:02.720)
So I was on Panama City Beach.
Lex Fridman (3:20:05.400)
How long were you living like this?
Brett Johnson (3:20:07.360)
It was a steady decline,
Lex Fridman (3:20:08.920)
because remember I taught my dad how to commit tax fraud.
Lex Fridman (3:20:11.400)
So he bankrolled a lot of that until he couldn't.
Lex Fridman (3:20:14.280)
And then from there, it's like, what the fuck do you do?
Lex Fridman (3:20:18.160)
So I didn't want to go into computer crime at all.
Lex Fridman (3:20:20.800)
And I ended up shoplifting toilet paper, man.
Brett Johnson (3:20:25.220)
Shoplifting toilet paper.
Lex Fridman (3:20:26.520)
Just like for the basics, the basics of survival.
Lex Fridman (3:20:30.600)
So about the same time I had a friend that, this guy,
Lex Fridman (3:20:35.200)
I'd been dating the same type of women I had been dating,
Brett Johnson (3:20:37.720)
you know, the unhealthy ones, the hot unhealthy ones.
Lex Fridman (3:20:41.580)
Yes, love, that's how that works.
Lex Fridman (3:20:45.000)
So I had a friend post an ad for me on Plenty of Fish.
Lex Fridman (3:20:49.000)
And this woman responds, my wife, she responds.
Lex Fridman (3:20:53.100)
And the pictures I had taken were these prison type pictures,
Lex Fridman (3:20:56.520)
you know, the serious like, they were there.
Lex Fridman (3:20:59.000)
She sends me a message of, why aren't you smiling?
Lex Fridman (3:21:01.480)
And my response was, that is my happy face.
Lex Fridman (3:21:04.240)
So we start talking and we started dating.
Lex Fridman (3:21:09.320)
And she's that second saving thing, man.
Brett Johnson (3:21:13.320)
I ended up moving in with her.
Lex Fridman (3:21:14.720)
I was going broke.
Brett Johnson (3:21:15.720)
I was about to get kicked out of the apartment and everything
Lex Fridman (3:21:17.300)
else.
Lex Fridman (3:21:17.600)
And she didn't say it, but I think she knew it.
Lex Fridman (3:21:20.000)
And moved in with her.
Lex Fridman (3:21:26.440)
And I got a job.
Lex Fridman (3:21:27.880)
And the job I got, my probation officer
Brett Johnson (3:21:30.040)
let me have a cell phone.
Lex Fridman (3:21:31.560)
I was going through Craigslist.
Brett Johnson (3:21:32.800)
This guy was advertising for landscaping.
Lex Fridman (3:21:35.040)
Called him up.
Brett Johnson (3:21:35.880)
His name was Dustin DeRamus.
Lex Fridman (3:21:38.060)
Called him up.
Lex Fridman (3:21:38.760)
And he's like, come on down, talk to me.
Lex Fridman (3:21:40.000)
So he was running this business, him and his brother
Brett Johnson (3:21:42.080)
were, out of his house.
Lex Fridman (3:21:43.800)
So I'm sitting there talking to him for about 20 minutes.
Brett Johnson (3:21:46.240)
He looks at me.
Lex Fridman (3:21:46.800)
He's like, can I ask you a question?
Brett Johnson (3:21:48.340)
I was like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:21:49.360)
He's like, are you on the run or something?
Lex Fridman (3:21:51.920)
So I'm like, no, why?
Lex Fridman (3:21:53.440)
And he's like, well, you just don't look
Brett Johnson (3:21:55.240)
like the kind of guy that do this.
Lex Fridman (3:21:57.980)
So I told him.
Brett Johnson (3:21:59.040)
I was like, this is who I am.
Lex Fridman (3:21:59.920)
This is what I've done.
Lex Fridman (3:22:01.000)
And he looks at me.
Lex Fridman (3:22:03.320)
He's like, man, I got to think about that.
Lex Fridman (3:22:05.800)
So he tells me to go on home.
Lex Fridman (3:22:08.640)
That was a Friday.
Brett Johnson (3:22:09.800)
Sunday evening, he gives me a call.
Lex Fridman (3:22:11.320)
And he was like, Brett, if I hire you, will you actually work?
Lex Fridman (3:22:17.820)
And I told him, I was like, Dustin, if you give me a job,
Lex Fridman (3:22:20.000)
I promise I'll work my ass off.
Lex Fridman (3:22:22.440)
And he's like, show up 6 o clock.
Lex Fridman (3:22:24.120)
I was like, all right.
Lex Fridman (3:22:25.140)
So my job was to push a lawnmower 10 hours a day,
Lex Fridman (3:22:29.000)
five days a week for $400 a week, and busted my ass.
Brett Johnson (3:22:33.240)
I hit it so hard, I would come in of a night and pass out,
Lex Fridman (3:22:40.200)
wake up the next morning, and hit it again.
Lex Fridman (3:22:42.200)
And it got to the point, this dude
Lex Fridman (3:22:47.560)
ended up offering me to come in and partner with his business.
Brett Johnson (3:22:51.440)
His brother dropped out.
Lex Fridman (3:22:52.400)
And by that point, I'd learned everything
Brett Johnson (3:22:54.900)
on the business and everything.
Lex Fridman (3:22:56.400)
And he was like, if you'd like to come in,
Brett Johnson (3:22:58.840)
I'll cut you in half.
Lex Fridman (3:22:59.720)
And I was like, Dustin, I can't do it, man.
Brett Johnson (3:23:02.260)
Because I wasn't making any money.
Lex Fridman (3:23:03.720)
He didn't want to pay me anymore until he was able to do more.
Lex Fridman (3:23:07.480)
And I thought I found another job doing something else.
Lex Fridman (3:23:12.400)
And in a speech, I say it got cold and the grass
Brett Johnson (3:23:14.600)
started to stop growing.
Lex Fridman (3:23:15.600)
The truth of the matter was I thought I found another job.
Brett Johnson (3:23:18.760)
Guy was offering to pay me $1,500 a week doing the sales
Lex Fridman (3:23:23.400)
for oil rig training, was what it was.
Lex Fridman (3:23:26.640)
And I accepted the job.
Lex Fridman (3:23:29.320)
I quit working for Dustin.
Lex Fridman (3:23:31.920)
And the guy, I told him before he even offered me a job,
Lex Fridman (3:23:36.480)
I told him my criminal history because I
Brett Johnson (3:23:38.400)
was required to do that.
Lex Fridman (3:23:41.040)
So I was supposed to start work.
Brett Johnson (3:23:42.360)
Well, he calls me and tells me he can't hire me.
Lex Fridman (3:23:44.720)
So I'm out of work.
Lex Fridman (3:23:46.800)
And Dustin's already hired somebody else by that point,
Lex Fridman (3:23:49.040)
so I can't go back with him.
Lex Fridman (3:23:51.680)
And I'm that guy again, man.
Lex Fridman (3:23:58.840)
It's important for me to show value in a relationship.
Lex Fridman (3:24:05.640)
So Michelle was the only one working.
Lex Fridman (3:24:10.120)
I'm like, I got to do something.
Lex Fridman (3:24:12.280)
And I get it in my head.
Lex Fridman (3:24:14.320)
I was like, if nothing else, I can just
Brett Johnson (3:24:16.120)
bring food in the house.
Lex Fridman (3:24:17.760)
She was only making, I think she was, I mean,
Brett Johnson (3:24:20.320)
we had it hard, it was just her working.
Lex Fridman (3:24:23.360)
And I was like, if nothing else, I can bring food in the house
Lex Fridman (3:24:27.720)
and get on the dark web, get some stolen credit cards,
Lex Fridman (3:24:32.520)
start ordering food.
Brett Johnson (3:24:33.600)
Well, it gets worse than that.
Lex Fridman (3:24:36.440)
She's got two sons there.
Lex Fridman (3:24:38.400)
So I'm like, well, they need clothes.
Lex Fridman (3:24:40.360)
So they start stealing clothes.
Lex Fridman (3:24:42.760)
And it continues like that.
Lex Fridman (3:24:44.280)
I get arrested.
Brett Johnson (3:24:45.080)
I get arrested on a food order.
Lex Fridman (3:24:48.200)
And Michelle didn't know what I was doing.
Lex Fridman (3:24:53.200)
So she had been to work, and she was coming back from work.
Lex Fridman (3:24:55.960)
I get arrested.
Lex Fridman (3:24:56.560)
And I'm like, they let me make a phone call.
Lex Fridman (3:24:59.240)
And I call her, and I say, come to the police station.
Brett Johnson (3:25:01.440)
I've been arrested.
Lex Fridman (3:25:02.200)
And she shows up.
Lex Fridman (3:25:04.520)
And she didn't know I'd been doing that.
Lex Fridman (3:25:06.800)
My probation officer, of course, he didn't know anything else.
Brett Johnson (3:25:11.720)
At my sentencing for that, probation officer
Lex Fridman (3:25:14.880)
was there, prosecutor, the judge, US Marshals, Michelle,
Lex Fridman (3:25:19.680)
and me.
Lex Fridman (3:25:21.240)
Michelle stands up, and she tells the judge
Brett Johnson (3:25:23.280)
that I'm a better dad to her kids
Lex Fridman (3:25:25.000)
than their actual father is.
Lex Fridman (3:25:26.840)
And by that point, I'm crying.
Lex Fridman (3:25:33.400)
Probation officer stands up.
Lex Fridman (3:25:35.360)
And he was like, we think Mr. Johnson's a good guy.
Lex Fridman (3:25:39.280)
We think this is a one time thing.
Brett Johnson (3:25:40.600)
Prosecutor says the same thing.
Lex Fridman (3:25:43.680)
Judge sentences me to one year.
Brett Johnson (3:25:46.880)
Probation officer stands back up.
Lex Fridman (3:25:49.240)
And he was like, Mr. Johnson, Judge,
Brett Johnson (3:25:52.800)
if you can give Mr. Johnson a year and a day,
Lex Fridman (3:25:55.600)
he can get the good time and get back to his family sooner.
Lex Fridman (3:25:59.440)
So the judge amends the sentence to a year and a day.
Lex Fridman (3:26:01.920)
So I served 10 months.
Brett Johnson (3:26:03.040)
They sent me back to Texas.
Lex Fridman (3:26:04.960)
And that's when I find out that Michelle didn't need me
Brett Johnson (3:26:08.480)
for what I could give her.
Lex Fridman (3:26:10.160)
She just wanted me for me that entire time.
Brett Johnson (3:26:12.040)
She stands by me the entire time.
Lex Fridman (3:26:14.960)
I do my 10 months, get out.
Brett Johnson (3:26:16.760)
We get married after that.
Lex Fridman (3:26:18.120)
And they kill probation.
Lex Fridman (3:26:20.160)
So I can touch a computer.
Lex Fridman (3:26:21.280)
They tell you, they were like, you know,
Brett Johnson (3:26:23.880)
inmates, a felon, if nothing else, he can sell cars.
Lex Fridman (3:26:28.520)
Well, it turns out you can't.
Brett Johnson (3:26:30.520)
You can sell cars if you're a drug dealer.
Lex Fridman (3:26:32.640)
If you're the guy that steals all the money and people's
Brett Johnson (3:26:34.160)
information, no, fuck no.
Lex Fridman (3:26:35.720)
You can't get a job selling cars.
Lex Fridman (3:26:37.960)
So can't get a job.
Lex Fridman (3:26:39.720)
Cannot.
Lex Fridman (3:26:40.680)
And to this day, Lex, I know what my triggers are.
Lex Fridman (3:26:45.080)
I know what it would take to get me back
Brett Johnson (3:26:46.480)
into committing crime.
Lex Fridman (3:26:48.320)
So, and I knew I'd go so far at that point.
Lex Fridman (3:26:50.120)
So I looked at Michelle and I was like,
Lex Fridman (3:26:51.240)
let me see what I can do.
Brett Johnson (3:26:53.080)
Signed on to LinkedIn, reached out to this FBI super cop
Lex Fridman (3:26:56.920)
named Keith Malarski out of the Pittsburgh office.
Brett Johnson (3:26:58.960)
He was involved with my arrest and some associates
Lex Fridman (3:27:02.360)
and everything else and sent him a message.
Lex Fridman (3:27:05.240)
And the message was, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:27:06.200)
hey, I respect everything you did.
Brett Johnson (3:27:07.760)
Think you did a great job.
Lex Fridman (3:27:09.720)
By the way, I'd like to be legal.
Lex Fridman (3:27:12.400)
And dude responded within two hours.
Lex Fridman (3:27:16.240)
Two hours, he gives me references, advice,
Brett Johnson (3:27:19.360)
takes me in under his wing, everything else like that.
Lex Fridman (3:27:22.160)
And from that point, man, it was the head
Brett Johnson (3:27:24.200)
of the identity theft council did the same thing.
Lex Fridman (3:27:28.840)
Card not present group hires me to speak.
Brett Johnson (3:27:31.480)
Microsoft hires me to consult with them.
Lex Fridman (3:27:34.400)
And the Microsoft hire established enough trust
Brett Johnson (3:27:37.520)
in the industry that I was all right from that point.
Lex Fridman (3:27:42.400)
So now you're helping in many ways,
Brett Johnson (3:27:45.240)
fight the very guy that you used to be.
Lex Fridman (3:27:48.720)
So big picture advice.
Brett Johnson (3:27:52.280)
What, given that you were that guy,
Lex Fridman (3:27:55.760)
how do we fight cyber crime today
Lex Fridman (3:27:58.160)
and in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years?
Lex Fridman (3:28:01.920)
What advice do you have to individuals, to companies,
Brett Johnson (3:28:04.240)
to governments of what, and also to Elizabeth,
Lex Fridman (3:28:13.480)
like the humans, human beings that love,
Lex Fridman (3:28:19.960)
that live, that are friends with cyber criminals?
Lex Fridman (3:28:24.040)
There's so many lessons to really be had from that.
Brett Johnson (3:28:30.520)
To me, the lesson, one of the big lessons to me
Lex Fridman (3:28:33.520)
is you can't serve two masters.
Brett Johnson (3:28:38.720)
If you're that guy that is committing crime
Lex Fridman (3:28:41.280)
or that person that's addicted,
Brett Johnson (3:28:43.440)
or you're in love with somebody that's addicted or has that,
Lex Fridman (3:28:48.320)
they don't love you.
Brett Johnson (3:28:49.400)
They love that addiction that comes first.
Lex Fridman (3:28:51.600)
It's always gonna come first.
Lex Fridman (3:28:53.120)
So you have to realize that.
Lex Fridman (3:28:54.720)
You have to know when to cut somebody off,
Brett Johnson (3:28:59.720)
when to end something, that knowing
Lex Fridman (3:29:02.560)
that they're not gonna change until they decide to change.
Brett Johnson (3:29:07.280)
At the same time, you gotta realize
Lex Fridman (3:29:08.720)
that the only reason I was able to turn my life around
Brett Johnson (3:29:12.200)
is because people took that chance on me.
Lex Fridman (3:29:14.880)
That's really the only reason.
Brett Johnson (3:29:16.680)
They believe that there's a good person in there.
Lex Fridman (3:29:18.480)
Yeah, if Malarski hadn't responded,
Brett Johnson (3:29:21.600)
if I hadn't had my sister, my wife,
Lex Fridman (3:29:23.720)
these companies that initially gave me that chance,
Brett Johnson (3:29:26.440)
my ass would be back in prison for 20 years.
Lex Fridman (3:29:28.960)
I have no doubt about that at all, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:29:31.720)
So you have to realize that.
Lex Fridman (3:29:34.600)
Cybercrime, a lot of companies that I talk to,
Brett Johnson (3:29:37.560)
they don't really understand or appreciate
Lex Fridman (3:29:41.160)
that networking aspect, that trust aspect
Brett Johnson (3:29:44.760)
of how criminals establish trust with each other,
Lex Fridman (3:29:47.120)
how they work together.
Brett Johnson (3:29:48.200)
A lot of companies think that it's a single player
Lex Fridman (3:29:51.040)
that's out victimizing them.
Lex Fridman (3:29:52.280)
And when you really break down how cybercrime operates,
Lex Fridman (3:29:55.080)
that you've got a group of individuals
Brett Johnson (3:29:57.360)
that are working together to hit you,
Lex Fridman (3:29:59.280)
but not only hit you,
Lex Fridman (3:30:00.120)
but they share and exchange information freely.
Lex Fridman (3:30:03.000)
Companies don't do that.
Brett Johnson (3:30:04.240)
You've got privacy concerns,
Lex Fridman (3:30:05.280)
you've got competitive edge concerns, everything else.
Brett Johnson (3:30:07.480)
Companies don't share information across the board
Lex Fridman (3:30:09.640)
like criminals do.
Brett Johnson (3:30:11.040)
Criminals do that.
Lex Fridman (3:30:13.040)
You have to appreciate that.
Brett Johnson (3:30:13.880)
You have to understand that big statistic
Lex Fridman (3:30:17.000)
that 90% of your tax use known exploits.
Brett Johnson (3:30:19.520)
It's not the stuff we don't know about,
Lex Fridman (3:30:20.840)
it's the shit we do know about.
Brett Johnson (3:30:22.680)
We're not doing anything about.
Lex Fridman (3:30:24.040)
So the way to defend against cybercrime
Brett Johnson (3:30:26.040)
is like there's a lot of low hanging fruit
Lex Fridman (3:30:29.520)
that you should fix.
Brett Johnson (3:30:30.360)
A lot of that.
Lex Fridman (3:30:31.280)
A lot of that.
Brett Johnson (3:30:32.120)
Sort of a lot of basic stuff
Lex Fridman (3:30:33.200)
that's already vulnerabilities,
Brett Johnson (3:30:34.440)
update the system security.
Lex Fridman (3:30:35.880)
Now that doesn't take care of SolarWinds or CNAP
Brett Johnson (3:30:39.280)
or anything like that.
Lex Fridman (3:30:40.360)
It doesn't.
Lex Fridman (3:30:41.680)
But those instances, I mean, okay, that's a big instance.
Lex Fridman (3:30:46.600)
I mean, it is.
Lex Fridman (3:30:47.440)
But in the full spectrum of, especially in the future,
Lex Fridman (3:30:52.160)
because there's more and more companies
Brett Johnson (3:30:56.400)
that are coming online, they're becoming digital.
Lex Fridman (3:30:58.880)
And it's just more and more and more.
Lex Fridman (3:31:01.440)
And those vulnerabilities in terms of human nature,
Lex Fridman (3:31:03.720)
so for social engineering and the actual outdated systems,
Brett Johnson (3:31:07.680)
all of it.
Lex Fridman (3:31:08.520)
Some of it, I guess is, I mean, you're exceptionally good
Brett Johnson (3:31:11.760)
at this is educating on the social engineering side,
Lex Fridman (3:31:14.480)
is educating people in companies that like.
Brett Johnson (3:31:16.520)
You've got to do that.
Lex Fridman (3:31:18.120)
And companies have to, you know, I made that point
Brett Johnson (3:31:20.520)
that they never report to law enforcement.
Lex Fridman (3:31:23.320)
That's companies and individuals.
Brett Johnson (3:31:25.160)
You know, I've worked with Fortune 50 companies
Lex Fridman (3:31:27.560)
that will not press charges.
Brett Johnson (3:31:30.960)
Instead, they'll have that insider or that criminal
Lex Fridman (3:31:34.440)
sign an NDA, they'll pay them off.
Lex Fridman (3:31:36.880)
And we won't mention this shit anymore.
Lex Fridman (3:31:39.440)
You have to be, you have to press charges.
Brett Johnson (3:31:41.360)
You have to report, you have to raise the awareness
Lex Fridman (3:31:43.600)
of everyone in the group.
Brett Johnson (3:31:45.600)
You have to be, it's that idea.
Lex Fridman (3:31:47.800)
And I've talked about that before
Brett Johnson (3:31:49.040)
of understanding your place in that cyber crime spectrum.
Lex Fridman (3:31:52.760)
The way a criminal will victimize you
Brett Johnson (3:31:55.640)
depends on who you are and what you do
Lex Fridman (3:31:57.360)
as a person and as a business.
Lex Fridman (3:31:59.840)
So you have to understand that, design security around that.
Lex Fridman (3:32:02.240)
You know, we've got 7,500 security companies out there.
Brett Johnson (3:32:05.240)
A whole lot of them are snake oil salesmen.
Lex Fridman (3:32:07.680)
A lot of them is going to tell you that
Brett Johnson (3:32:09.080)
we're the one stop solution, but you're not, you're not.
Lex Fridman (3:32:13.400)
You're a tool, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:32:15.320)
And you may have a very good tool,
Lex Fridman (3:32:17.400)
but it's not the only tool that's needed
Brett Johnson (3:32:19.960)
to protect against the attacks that are out there.
Lex Fridman (3:32:22.400)
And we have to be open and honest
Brett Johnson (3:32:24.040)
about that kind of stuff if we're not.
Lex Fridman (3:32:25.560)
So I guess defending defense is not just like one tool.
Brett Johnson (3:32:29.800)
It's a process of just like a diversity
Lex Fridman (3:32:33.400)
and just constantly educating people.
Brett Johnson (3:32:36.080)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (3:32:36.920)
So it's the social side, it's constantly,
Brett Johnson (3:32:40.200)
because there's so many probably attack vectors
Lex Fridman (3:32:42.360)
in terms of the software that you have.
Brett Johnson (3:32:43.880)
If you look at it, that attack surface,
Lex Fridman (3:32:45.900)
you can't plug everything.
Brett Johnson (3:32:47.480)
It's too damn large to plug everything.
Lex Fridman (3:32:50.160)
But you can do the best job you can possibly do,
Lex Fridman (3:32:52.320)
but it takes a variety of tools to do that, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:32:55.760)
The idea, and Arcos is big about that,
Lex Fridman (3:32:59.200)
but the idea is to take the cost of fraud
Lex Fridman (3:33:04.080)
to the fraudster so high that they basically
Lex Fridman (3:33:06.780)
try to pick another target, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:33:08.640)
And that's the idea that you want.
Brett Johnson (3:33:09.820)
You want it to be not worth the criminal's time
Lex Fridman (3:33:12.920)
to hit your company.
Lex Fridman (3:33:14.800)
What about white hat hacking?
Lex Fridman (3:33:16.840)
So like hacking for good,
Brett Johnson (3:33:21.720)
sort of testing systems and then giving companies
Lex Fridman (3:33:24.840)
the vulnerabilities as you find them?
Brett Johnson (3:33:27.040)
I think it's outstanding.
Lex Fridman (3:33:28.320)
I do, I think that, I think pen testing,
Brett Johnson (3:33:29.960)
white hat stuff is outstanding.
Lex Fridman (3:33:31.480)
I truly do.
Brett Johnson (3:33:32.420)
I think that you have to.
Lex Fridman (3:33:36.160)
It has to be tempered with what is reality as well though.
Brett Johnson (3:33:40.860)
All right, we've got a whole industry of people
Lex Fridman (3:33:43.160)
who try to sell RFID wallets,
Brett Johnson (3:33:45.680)
that I don't know of many RFID hackers out there
Lex Fridman (3:33:48.480)
on the criminal side, to be honest with you.
Brett Johnson (3:33:50.760)
Yeah, so some of it is just like a psychological
Lex Fridman (3:33:52.920)
safety blanket that's not actually providing any protection.
Brett Johnson (3:33:58.240)
By the way, you wrote on LinkedIn something about ID me.
Lex Fridman (3:34:04.520)
What is it?
Lex Fridman (3:34:05.720)
Why is it a problem?
Lex Fridman (3:34:07.160)
I was going down a rabbit hole with you.
Brett Johnson (3:34:08.760)
I was wondering if you were gonna mention that.
Lex Fridman (3:34:10.800)
You know, they lost, I guess I was partially responsible
Brett Johnson (3:34:14.040)
for them losing an $86 million contract.
Lex Fridman (3:34:17.480)
What was the contract with the government?
Brett Johnson (3:34:19.080)
With the IRS.
Lex Fridman (3:34:19.920)
Just with the IRS.
Lex Fridman (3:34:21.300)
So what is it?
Lex Fridman (3:34:22.320)
So ID me is an identity, okay, backtrack.
Brett Johnson (3:34:25.840)
ID me is a marketing company that wants to say
Lex Fridman (3:34:28.880)
they're an identity verification company.
Brett Johnson (3:34:30.440)
I just wanna bring this up to see you get angry.
Lex Fridman (3:34:32.600)
Okay.
Brett Johnson (3:34:35.280)
I'll tell you what my issue is.
Lex Fridman (3:34:36.880)
My issue is.
Lex Fridman (3:34:37.920)
So it's a company that's used for authentication
Lex Fridman (3:34:42.240)
by the IRS, I guess.
Brett Johnson (3:34:43.600)
IRS, Social Security Administration, VA,
Lex Fridman (3:34:47.080)
at 1.23 state unemployment offices, few other services.
Lex Fridman (3:34:51.760)
So I guess the idea is that you would be able
Lex Fridman (3:34:54.660)
to unlock your account or authenticate yourself
Brett Johnson (3:35:00.220)
as a human being by using your face or something like that.
Lex Fridman (3:35:04.880)
Or private information.
Brett Johnson (3:35:06.680)
They've got a tiered system with verification.
Lex Fridman (3:35:08.880)
They've got, you can do, they've got a free system
Brett Johnson (3:35:12.040)
which is questionable where you submit an ID
Lex Fridman (3:35:14.920)
and it's been shown, several bypasses have been shown.
Lex Fridman (3:35:17.840)
And I don't wanna talk about their security horribly bad
Lex Fridman (3:35:20.080)
because I wanna be honest, there are bypasses
Brett Johnson (3:35:22.880)
for a lot of security systems out there.
Lex Fridman (3:35:24.920)
All right?
Brett Johnson (3:35:26.400)
The issue that I have with ID me is that
Lex Fridman (3:35:30.760)
their policies are somewhat questionable.
Brett Johnson (3:35:34.760)
I don't care if you're a private company
Lex Fridman (3:35:36.100)
that has those policies in place.
Lex Fridman (3:35:37.520)
But if you're a government agency
Lex Fridman (3:35:40.760)
and you as a citizen are entitled to a benefit
Brett Johnson (3:35:43.760)
or a service of that government agency,
Lex Fridman (3:35:46.680)
and then the government agency forces you
Brett Johnson (3:35:49.400)
to give up your complete identity profile
Lex Fridman (3:35:52.400)
to a private company.
Lex Fridman (3:35:53.480)
And then that private company uses that profile
Lex Fridman (3:35:55.480)
for marketing purposes, to further profit, things like that.
Brett Johnson (3:35:59.440)
I have a huge issue with that.
Lex Fridman (3:36:01.760)
I don't care if you're a private company that does that.
Brett Johnson (3:36:03.880)
I just don't think that citizens need to be forced
Lex Fridman (3:36:05.840)
into doing that in order to get a benefit
Brett Johnson (3:36:07.920)
or service that they're entitled to.
Lex Fridman (3:36:09.960)
So that's my big issue.
Lex Fridman (3:36:11.760)
So that, I mean, given how much value,
Lex Fridman (3:36:14.840)
how much we talked about the value of identity,
Lex Fridman (3:36:17.440)
you don't think that should be handed over lightly?
Lex Fridman (3:36:19.720)
No, absolutely not.
Lex Fridman (3:36:21.600)
And who would have thought that Brett Johnson
Lex Fridman (3:36:23.000)
would ever become a privacy advocate?
Lex Fridman (3:36:25.000)
But here I am.
Lex Fridman (3:36:29.040)
I mean, it's just, people don't understand
Brett Johnson (3:36:33.240)
or appreciate the value of who they are.
Lex Fridman (3:36:38.920)
And certainly you've got a host of companies,
Brett Johnson (3:36:41.300)
ID means not the only one,
Lex Fridman (3:36:42.360)
but you've got some of these companies that say,
Brett Johnson (3:36:44.080)
well, we strip out the PII of the individual.
Lex Fridman (3:36:48.120)
We're just using the biometrics
Lex Fridman (3:36:49.360)
and the sites they're visiting and things like that.
Lex Fridman (3:36:51.560)
That's identity.
Brett Johnson (3:36:53.120)
You can still ping that one unique individual
Lex Fridman (3:36:55.640)
out of all, using that information.
Brett Johnson (3:36:57.160)
Stripping out the PII,
Lex Fridman (3:36:58.680)
you can still ping who that individual is.
Lex Fridman (3:37:00.880)
So having lived a life of crime for many years,
Lex Fridman (3:37:05.040)
I'm sure you've connected indirectly
Brett Johnson (3:37:08.220)
to a large number of very dangerous people.
Lex Fridman (3:37:11.600)
Directly and directly.
Brett Johnson (3:37:12.760)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:37:14.160)
But the network indirectly is even larger, right?
Brett Johnson (3:37:17.680)
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:37:18.520)
Are you, and I apologize for this question,
Lex Fridman (3:37:22.800)
are you ever worried for your life, for your wellbeing?
Lex Fridman (3:37:27.000)
Like having seen a world that's really dangerous
Brett Johnson (3:37:30.320)
in ways that's not, that operates in the shadows.
Lex Fridman (3:37:38.600)
Like I said, when we started Shadow Crew
Lex Fridman (3:37:41.320)
and started that initial cybercrime business, that world,
Lex Fridman (3:37:46.480)
violence wasn't there.
Brett Johnson (3:37:47.800)
It came in later.
Lex Fridman (3:37:49.000)
Now violence is inherent in the system,
Brett Johnson (3:37:51.560)
to do the Monty Python bit.
Lex Fridman (3:37:52.880)
It's part of it.
Brett Johnson (3:37:55.920)
Yeah, the mob, the mafia are now part of this whole thing.
Lex Fridman (3:37:58.800)
Cartels are part of it.
Brett Johnson (3:38:00.000)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:38:00.840)
Drugs are inherently intertwined in cybercrime marketplaces
Brett Johnson (3:38:05.120)
because of the profit potential.
Lex Fridman (3:38:06.600)
And with that comes a lot of violence as well.
Brett Johnson (3:38:08.840)
Yeah, the cartels already brought the violence
Lex Fridman (3:38:12.080)
that they're good at from the 20th century.
Brett Johnson (3:38:14.120)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (3:38:14.960)
Into the technology of the 21st century.
Lex Fridman (3:38:16.640)
Now, do I worry about that?
Lex Fridman (3:38:20.160)
It's interesting that my family worries about that.
Brett Johnson (3:38:25.720)
All right.
Lex Fridman (3:38:26.560)
I think I may be just too involved in it
Brett Johnson (3:38:28.480)
to appreciate that type of danger.
Lex Fridman (3:38:32.280)
But my family worries about that.
Brett Johnson (3:38:35.000)
They do.
Lex Fridman (3:38:36.040)
Do I think it's a possibility?
Brett Johnson (3:38:38.580)
I'm the guy that says what needs to be said.
Lex Fridman (3:38:41.200)
I've built my trust in this industry
Brett Johnson (3:38:45.320)
by not being scared of calling out companies and individuals
Lex Fridman (3:38:51.600)
and not being scared of targeting criminals
Brett Johnson (3:38:53.720)
or criminal groups.
Lex Fridman (3:38:54.840)
Your honesty as a human being emotionally
Lex Fridman (3:39:00.560)
and intellectually is really refreshing.
Lex Fridman (3:39:03.320)
It's a gift and thank you.
Brett Johnson (3:39:05.040)
Thank you for doing that.
Lex Fridman (3:39:06.640)
Is there a device you can give to young people today
Lex Fridman (3:39:11.640)
about life?
Lex Fridman (3:39:13.360)
You broke many rules, all the rules.
Brett Johnson (3:39:19.140)
Some rules should be broken.
Lex Fridman (3:39:21.640)
So if you look at somebody young today
Brett Johnson (3:39:23.200)
in high school and college,
Lex Fridman (3:39:24.960)
thinking how they can break the rules legally
Lex Fridman (3:39:30.000)
and live a life that's something they could be really proud
Lex Fridman (3:39:34.040)
of, what would you say?
Brett Johnson (3:39:35.840)
Biggest lesson I've learned.
Lex Fridman (3:39:39.280)
You want your life to be one where you're helping people
Lex Fridman (3:39:43.560)
and not hurting people.
Lex Fridman (3:39:45.440)
And that really hit me the first time I walked into Quantico.
Brett Johnson (3:39:49.920)
You see the brightest minds in the United States
Lex Fridman (3:39:54.440)
who give up a lot of money,
Brett Johnson (3:39:57.040)
the opportunities of a lot of money
Lex Fridman (3:39:58.680)
because they believe in helping people.
Brett Johnson (3:40:01.920)
Where I spent a career just hurting and harming individuals,
Lex Fridman (3:40:05.260)
that's a hell of a lesson.
Lex Fridman (3:40:07.860)
And I'm glad I'm there,
Lex Fridman (3:40:09.800)
but I would tell people out there,
Brett Johnson (3:40:12.160)
it's fine to want money.
Lex Fridman (3:40:13.780)
It's fine to do that.
Brett Johnson (3:40:14.620)
It's fine to test systems.
Lex Fridman (3:40:16.400)
It's fine to circumvent the rules
Brett Johnson (3:40:18.240)
if you're not breaking the law.
Lex Fridman (3:40:19.440)
It's fine to do all that.
Lex Fridman (3:40:20.280)
I like doing that, all right?
Lex Fridman (3:40:22.040)
But if you've got the mindset,
Brett Johnson (3:40:23.560)
if you can just adhere to the mindset of helping people
Lex Fridman (3:40:26.560)
and not hurting people,
Brett Johnson (3:40:28.320)
I think you'll be all right at the end of the day.
Lex Fridman (3:40:31.200)
What gives you, again, given the dark web,
Brett Johnson (3:40:35.120)
given all the dangers out there,
Lex Fridman (3:40:37.320)
what gives you hope about the future,
Lex Fridman (3:40:39.840)
looking into five, 10 years, 50 years?
Lex Fridman (3:40:43.080)
I mean, hope for human civilization.
Brett Johnson (3:40:45.480)
If we do all right, if we make it out of this century,
Lex Fridman (3:40:53.660)
what do you think would be the reason?
Brett Johnson (3:40:57.920)
That's a damn good question.
Lex Fridman (3:40:59.160)
Because I mean, we've got a lot of bad stuff going on.
Brett Johnson (3:41:01.360)
We've got a lot of reasons.
Lex Fridman (3:41:03.280)
If I asked you the other question of
Lex Fridman (3:41:05.840)
how do you think human civilization would destroy itself,
Lex Fridman (3:41:08.280)
I'm sure you have a lot of answers.
Brett Johnson (3:41:10.680)
You know what gives me hope is
Lex Fridman (3:41:12.520)
that you see people working together.
Brett Johnson (3:41:16.960)
The COVIDs have been a little bit different
Lex Fridman (3:41:19.200)
because I think too many people
Brett Johnson (3:41:20.520)
wanted to play politics with it.
Lex Fridman (3:41:22.240)
That's been the heartbreaking thing about COVID
Brett Johnson (3:41:24.000)
is it's in many ways pulled people apart.
Lex Fridman (3:41:26.920)
I mean, because a virus involves
Brett Johnson (3:41:29.760)
kind of being afraid of each other
Lex Fridman (3:41:33.840)
because I mean, that was a scary thing.
Brett Johnson (3:41:35.780)
People talk about pandemics in that way
Lex Fridman (3:41:38.240)
that you're afraid of other humans.
Brett Johnson (3:41:40.120)
That is the most terrifying thing.
Lex Fridman (3:41:41.660)
It's not the destructive nature of what it does to your body.
Brett Johnson (3:41:44.480)
It's just that it pulls people apart.
Lex Fridman (3:41:46.760)
And then you realize how fundamental
Brett Johnson (3:41:49.280)
that human connection is to human civilization.
Lex Fridman (3:41:51.240)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (3:41:53.080)
But you know, as human beings,
Lex Fridman (3:41:55.460)
we do, when things really get bad,
Brett Johnson (3:41:59.440)
when things really get bad,
Lex Fridman (3:42:00.500)
we do tend to respond and group together.
Brett Johnson (3:42:03.680)
We do that.
Lex Fridman (3:42:04.520)
When there's injustice, we see it, we rise up.
Brett Johnson (3:42:09.520)
I wake up every morning and I watch Fox News and CNN
Lex Fridman (3:42:15.440)
so I can be pissed off at everyone.
Brett Johnson (3:42:17.520)
All right, so the division, the outrage,
Lex Fridman (3:42:21.440)
they're really feeding.
Brett Johnson (3:42:22.600)
They want you, they want you to be angry.
Lex Fridman (3:42:25.120)
Yeah, that's what causes me to spare
Lex Fridman (3:42:27.880)
and what I think that, you know, we just need to.
Lex Fridman (3:42:30.720)
Elizabeth was very good.
Brett Johnson (3:42:32.640)
She taught me one hell of a lesson
Lex Fridman (3:42:34.000)
because before I met her, I was a news hound.
Brett Johnson (3:42:37.440)
News would be on all the time.
Lex Fridman (3:42:38.840)
A couple of channels of it.
Lex Fridman (3:42:40.120)
And she was the woman who didn't watch the news at all.
Lex Fridman (3:42:45.620)
And I didn't understand that back then, man.
Lex Fridman (3:42:48.360)
But now I do.
Lex Fridman (3:42:49.520)
You know, now I'm like, it's pretty smart, you know?
Brett Johnson (3:42:52.480)
Don't need to listen to that bullshit as it is.
Lex Fridman (3:42:55.560)
That's why I love reading history books.
Brett Johnson (3:42:59.280)
I just, I feel like that's the right perspective
Lex Fridman (3:43:03.920)
on take on modern times.
Brett Johnson (3:43:05.600)
You know, how will this time be written about
Lex Fridman (3:43:07.600)
in the history books and react to that?
Brett Johnson (3:43:10.440)
Don't the daily ups and downs of the outrages,
Lex Fridman (3:43:15.640)
which is getting worse and worse
Brett Johnson (3:43:17.280)
in terms of how quick the turnaround is
Lex Fridman (3:43:19.440)
in terms of the news.
Brett Johnson (3:43:20.800)
I'll tell you what, I'm sitting here.
Lex Fridman (3:43:22.920)
I appreciate you talking to me.
Brett Johnson (3:43:24.840)
I do, because, you know, I talk about that relationship
Lex Fridman (3:43:28.440)
and everything.
Brett Johnson (3:43:29.280)
It's really been this kind of realization
Lex Fridman (3:43:32.080)
for me on a lot of things.
Lex Fridman (3:43:33.000)
So I really appreciate you asking those questions
Lex Fridman (3:43:34.960)
and everything, maybe be able to talk about that.
Brett Johnson (3:43:36.760)
I love it that you value, first of all,
Lex Fridman (3:43:41.920)
you're self aware how important love
Brett Johnson (3:43:43.720)
is in a human being's life.
Lex Fridman (3:43:46.640)
It can make you do some of the best
Lex Fridman (3:43:48.200)
and some of the worst things in this world.
Lex Fridman (3:43:50.240)
And it's good to think about that.
Brett Johnson (3:43:51.640)
It's good to think about that.
Lex Fridman (3:43:53.240)
That is what makes us human, is that connection
Lex Fridman (3:43:55.280)
and that love for each other.
Lex Fridman (3:44:00.120)
What do you think is the meaning of life?
Brett Johnson (3:44:01.880)
This big, ridiculous question.
Lex Fridman (3:44:03.240)
Why the hell, what are we all here for?
Brett Johnson (3:44:05.240)
I don't think it is ridiculous, man.
Lex Fridman (3:44:07.720)
To me, that meaning of life is finding out
Brett Johnson (3:44:09.760)
that lesson that we need to help each other.
Lex Fridman (3:44:13.440)
If you talk, you ask about security,
Lex Fridman (3:44:15.160)
how do you get to say that?
Lex Fridman (3:44:16.000)
But, you know, everybody's worried about themselves.
Brett Johnson (3:44:19.520)
The way you solve that security problem
Lex Fridman (3:44:21.840)
is it takes everybody looking out for everyone else.
Brett Johnson (3:44:26.440)
That's how you solve that problem.
Lex Fridman (3:44:29.440)
And however you take, whatever journey you take
Brett Johnson (3:44:32.400)
to discovering that point.
Lex Fridman (3:44:34.000)
Yeah, I mean, with me, I've been asked a few times,
Lex Fridman (3:44:37.680)
do you regret anything?
Lex Fridman (3:44:38.520)
Would you change anything?
Brett Johnson (3:44:40.000)
I've done a shitload of despicable things in my life.
Lex Fridman (3:44:46.480)
But I'm at a point in my life where I like who I am.
Lex Fridman (3:44:50.240)
And I know that I am doing exactly
Lex Fridman (3:44:51.960)
what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
Lex Fridman (3:44:53.680)
So, would I change anything?
Lex Fridman (3:44:55.600)
As bad as a lot of that shit has been, I wouldn't.
Brett Johnson (3:44:59.440)
It made you who you are.
Lex Fridman (3:45:00.880)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (3:45:01.960)
The whole of it, the whole mess.
Lex Fridman (3:45:03.240)
That's trite to say that, but it's true.
Brett Johnson (3:45:05.640)
That's the weird thing, it's true.
Lex Fridman (3:45:09.160)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (3:45:10.000)
Also, you mentioned that you're thinking of launching a show.
Lex Fridman (3:45:13.640)
What's it gonna be called?
Brett Johnson (3:45:14.520)
Cause you've done a couple of podcasts.
Lex Fridman (3:45:16.440)
You're incredibly good at this.
Brett Johnson (3:45:17.840)
You're so good at this.
Lex Fridman (3:45:18.960)
I've done a couple.
Brett Johnson (3:45:19.800)
I'm on a lot of podcasts and everything like that.
Lex Fridman (3:45:22.480)
I had the fraud cast with a friend of mine,
Brett Johnson (3:45:25.880)
Carice Hendrick.
Lex Fridman (3:45:26.720)
And that ended because of a difference of opinion.
Brett Johnson (3:45:29.240)
Depending on who you ask, one of us was an asshole.
Lex Fridman (3:45:34.320)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (3:45:35.160)
And it may have been me.
Lex Fridman (3:45:36.000)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:45:36.840)
But then I did the Anglerfish podcast,
Lex Fridman (3:45:38.520)
which that was, I gotta be honest with you, Lex,
Brett Johnson (3:45:40.160)
it was completely directionless.
Lex Fridman (3:45:41.920)
And it was Brett Johnson getting lazy.
Brett Johnson (3:45:43.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:45:45.000)
So I ended that.
Brett Johnson (3:45:46.840)
The Brett Johnson show is launching.
Lex Fridman (3:45:50.080)
That's the new one.
Brett Johnson (3:45:50.920)
That's the new one.
Lex Fridman (3:45:51.760)
That's what the new one's called.
Brett Johnson (3:45:52.600)
And, you know, I.
Lex Fridman (3:45:53.800)
What do you think I'm doing with it?
Brett Johnson (3:45:56.800)
Making a difference, for one thing.
Lex Fridman (3:45:58.360)
But it's gonna be talking about cyber crime security,
Brett Johnson (3:46:00.960)
helping people.
Lex Fridman (3:46:03.120)
Interviews.
Brett Johnson (3:46:03.960)
Interviews.
Lex Fridman (3:46:04.800)
A lot of it's gonna be solo.
Brett Johnson (3:46:06.480)
Now I'm calling it the Brett Johnson show.
Lex Fridman (3:46:08.080)
I mean, because it's gonna handle crime,
Brett Johnson (3:46:10.240)
talk to criminals and how they turn their lives around
Lex Fridman (3:46:12.200)
to a degree as well.
Lex Fridman (3:46:13.360)
But there's some shit I wanna bitch about too.
Lex Fridman (3:46:15.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:46:16.080)
So figure it out.
Lex Fridman (3:46:16.920)
I can tell you're good at this.
Brett Johnson (3:46:17.740)
I'm a fan already.
Lex Fridman (3:46:18.580)
I wanna listen.
Brett Johnson (3:46:19.420)
I wanna subscribe.
Lex Fridman (3:46:20.240)
You should too.
Brett Johnson (3:46:21.080)
You're launching it soon.
Lex Fridman (3:46:22.600)
Soon.
Brett Johnson (3:46:23.440)
Next week.
Lex Fridman (3:46:24.680)
Brett, you're an incredible human being.
Brett Johnson (3:46:26.360)
The honesty, the love.
Lex Fridman (3:46:29.920)
I could just see how much of yourself you put out there.
Brett Johnson (3:46:33.280)
One of the best public speakers I've ever heard.
Lex Fridman (3:46:36.480)
Definitely you should be in a Scorsese film
Brett Johnson (3:46:38.440)
about cyber crime.
Lex Fridman (3:46:41.320)
100%, I could tell you're a good actor.
Brett Johnson (3:46:43.840)
It makes perfect sense.
Lex Fridman (3:46:45.360)
Anyway, I really, I'm deeply honored
Brett Johnson (3:46:47.280)
that you'll spend your time with me today.
Lex Fridman (3:46:48.960)
I am, actually.
Brett Johnson (3:46:49.800)
Thank you.
Lex Fridman (3:46:50.640)
It was amazing.
Brett Johnson (3:46:51.460)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Lex Fridman (3:46:52.880)
with Brett Johnson.
Brett Johnson (3:46:53.960)
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
Lex Fridman (3:46:56.400)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (3:46:57.800)
And now, let me leave you with some words
Lex Fridman (3:46:59.640)
from George R.R. Martin, from A Clash of Kings.
Brett Johnson (3:47:04.500)
A good act does not wash out the bad,
Lex Fridman (3:47:07.680)
nor a bad act the good.
Brett Johnson (3:47:10.240)
Each should have its own reward.
Lex Fridman (3:47:12.280)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (40:00.420)
so she had a whole collection of these things,
Lex Fridman (40:02.620)
like, I don't know, 80, 90 pounds of this stuff,
Lex Fridman (40:05.580)
and I'm a very good social engineer.
Lex Fridman (40:10.420)
So, convinced her that I was a legitimate person,
Brett Johnson (40:13.780)
that, you know, hey, send it to COD,
Lex Fridman (40:16.060)
you can use my FedEx account to do that
Brett Johnson (40:18.700)
or my UPS account to do that.
Lex Fridman (40:20.580)
I'll pay with a cashier's check,
Brett Johnson (40:23.460)
you can take it in, same as cash.
Lex Fridman (40:25.740)
She believed that, she was, even on the ad,
Lex Fridman (40:28.740)
and we talked on the phone and everything else,
Lex Fridman (40:30.460)
she had told me that she was a single parent,
Lex Fridman (40:33.340)
and it was the only money that she had
Lex Fridman (40:34.940)
to put a roof on the house for her and her kids,
Lex Fridman (40:39.460)
and I didn't give a damn.
Lex Fridman (40:41.460)
I didn't give a damn.
Lex Fridman (40:42.300)
What was more important was me at that point.
Lex Fridman (40:44.420)
Can I ask you a question about the social engineering aspect?
Lex Fridman (40:46.380)
So maybe specifics like the methodology,
Lex Fridman (40:50.820)
email, you said phone,
Brett Johnson (40:52.900)
maybe you could discuss this process
Lex Fridman (40:57.980)
from a bigger philosophical perspective
Brett Johnson (41:00.300)
of what is it about human beings
Lex Fridman (41:03.540)
that makes it possible to be social engineer,
Lex Fridman (41:06.580)
to be victims of fraud?
Lex Fridman (41:09.780)
So, first let me say that I became a social engineer
Brett Johnson (41:15.020)
as a child, all right, because the adults in my environment,
Lex Fridman (41:20.020)
as a child, I had to know exactly what they were thinking
Lex Fridman (41:23.300)
and be able to try to manipulate that for survival.
Lex Fridman (41:26.340)
So I became a social engineer for survival initially,
Brett Johnson (41:30.740)
all right, and one of the things that I've seen
Lex Fridman (41:32.500)
with a lot of cyber criminals is the exact same thing.
Brett Johnson (41:35.100)
They're really expert ones.
Lex Fridman (41:37.300)
They become a social engineer as a child,
Brett Johnson (41:38.980)
then later on, they use those tools to victimize others.
Lex Fridman (41:42.940)
Which is fascinating because you're,
Brett Johnson (41:44.740)
in order to understand what others are thinking,
Lex Fridman (41:46.780)
you have to be extremely good at empathy.
Lex Fridman (41:49.020)
So you have to like really put yourself
Lex Fridman (41:51.500)
in the shoes of the other person.
Lex Fridman (41:53.300)
And yet, in order to do cyber crime,
Lex Fridman (41:56.540)
you have to not care about the pain
Brett Johnson (42:00.740)
that might cause them once you manipulate them.
Lex Fridman (42:03.100)
So you have to empathize and yet not care.
Brett Johnson (42:06.860)
Exactly, and I would argue,
Lex Fridman (42:08.420)
I would argue that that is not a sociopath
Brett Johnson (42:11.260)
because a cyber criminal, and I was no different,
Lex Fridman (42:13.500)
most cyber criminals justify those actions.
Lex Fridman (42:15.860)
So the justification becomes what's important.
Lex Fridman (42:18.540)
With me, the justification was why I did it for my family,
Brett Johnson (42:21.380)
did it for my wife, did it for my stripper girlfriend.
Lex Fridman (42:24.060)
So, and I believe those justifications.
Brett Johnson (42:25.380)
That's a good story, I heard that one.
Lex Fridman (42:26.220)
Yeah, so.
Brett Johnson (42:27.060)
I like that, because I care about love a lot.
Lex Fridman (42:28.660)
Yeah, so the big picture of that is trust.
Lex Fridman (42:35.220)
How do you establish trust with a potential victim?
Lex Fridman (42:40.220)
All right, now I would argue online
Brett Johnson (42:42.540)
that that trust is established through a combination
Lex Fridman (42:44.860)
of technology, tools, social engineering.
Brett Johnson (42:47.780)
All right, so we trust our tech.
Lex Fridman (42:50.580)
We trust our cell phones, we trust our laptops.
Brett Johnson (42:53.340)
A lot of times we don't understand how they operate,
Lex Fridman (42:55.020)
but we trust the news that comes across the line.
Brett Johnson (42:56.980)
We trust the phone numbers that show up.
Lex Fridman (42:59.420)
We trust IP addresses if we're advanced enough
Brett Johnson (43:02.340)
to look at an IP address or a domain
Lex Fridman (43:04.060)
or anything else like that.
Brett Johnson (43:05.460)
Criminals use tools to manipulate that,
Lex Fridman (43:07.580)
spoof phone numbers, spoof browser fingerprints,
Brett Johnson (43:11.500)
whatever that may be, whatever the tool may be.
Lex Fridman (43:14.060)
Then that lays a base level of trust.
Brett Johnson (43:16.540)
At that point, you shoot in with the social engineering
Lex Fridman (43:19.820)
and lay whatever story that is in order to manipulate
Brett Johnson (43:22.420)
that victim to act not out of reason,
Lex Fridman (43:25.060)
but out of emotion all of a sudden.
Brett Johnson (43:27.740)
This is fascinating about the way humans interact
Lex Fridman (43:31.540)
with the world, which is you're almost too afraid
Brett Johnson (43:34.620)
to not trust the world.
Lex Fridman (43:35.460)
You have to find a balance.
Brett Johnson (43:36.420)
You have a lot of conspiracy theories now
Lex Fridman (43:40.380)
about distrusting institutions and thinking
Brett Johnson (43:42.620)
like everything around us.
Lex Fridman (43:44.060)
It's like I've been listening to people
Brett Johnson (43:46.300)
who believe the earth is flat.
Lex Fridman (43:48.300)
And that conspiracy theory is fascinating to me
Brett Johnson (43:52.020)
because it basically says that you can't trust anybody.
Lex Fridman (43:57.740)
Like everything you hear is a lie.
Lex Fridman (44:00.460)
So that's one, you can live that life
Lex Fridman (44:03.300)
or you can live a life
Brett Johnson (44:04.340)
where you're just naively trusting everything.
Lex Fridman (44:06.820)
And we as humans have to,
Brett Johnson (44:08.220)
because that life is kind of full of happiness
Lex Fridman (44:11.660)
if nobody screws you over.
Brett Johnson (44:13.260)
Cause you meet people with the joyful heart
Lex Fridman (44:16.620)
and you get excited and all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (44:18.780)
But if you do that too much, you're gonna get burned.
Lex Fridman (44:21.980)
So you have to find some kind of balance
Brett Johnson (44:23.780)
in terms of optimizing happiness where you trust,
Lex Fridman (44:28.740)
I mean, but verify and on the internet
Brett Johnson (44:32.020)
that becomes really tricky.
Lex Fridman (44:34.300)
You're almost too afraid to distrust everything
Brett Johnson (44:36.020)
cause you'll never get anything done on the internet.
Lex Fridman (44:38.820)
But then if you trust too much, you can get screwed over.
Lex Fridman (44:41.220)
And so the social engineering comes in where you're like,
Lex Fridman (44:45.100)
I'm not sure if I should trust this.
Brett Johnson (44:47.620)
You kind of help them build the narrative
Lex Fridman (44:50.620)
where it's like, it's good.
Brett Johnson (44:51.620)
It's good.
Lex Fridman (44:52.460)
It's good.
Lex Fridman (44:53.300)
So in a lot of the times that social engineering
Lex Fridman (44:55.660)
is just feeding into what the victim wants to believe.
Brett Johnson (45:00.740)
All right.
Lex Fridman (45:01.580)
It's not really coming up with a brand new story at all.
Brett Johnson (45:03.620)
It's just knowing what that victim is,
Lex Fridman (45:05.380)
what the motivations of that victim is
Brett Johnson (45:07.420)
feeding into it at that point.
Lex Fridman (45:08.940)
So you have to, again,
Brett Johnson (45:10.220)
that social engineer has to almost immediately know
Lex Fridman (45:14.060)
what's driving that person that they're talking about.
Brett Johnson (45:16.300)
If I'm working on a phone,
Lex Fridman (45:18.060)
talking to someone over the phone,
Brett Johnson (45:19.380)
I have to know within seconds what I need to say,
Lex Fridman (45:22.300)
how I need to act to interact
Brett Johnson (45:23.820)
with that customer service agent
Lex Fridman (45:25.820)
or whoever I'm talking to on the other end of the line.
Lex Fridman (45:28.100)
So fascinating because you truly are empathizing
Lex Fridman (45:31.220)
with the other person.
Brett Johnson (45:32.220)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (45:33.300)
Who is it?
Brett Johnson (45:34.140)
This business man, Steven Schwarzman.
Lex Fridman (45:36.580)
And I've talked to a few times.
Brett Johnson (45:40.380)
He mentioned this thing that,
Lex Fridman (45:44.020)
the way you build deep relationships
Brett Johnson (45:45.780)
is you really kind of notice
Lex Fridman (45:49.020)
the things that people are telling you.
Brett Johnson (45:51.220)
Like what they want and what they're bothered by,
Lex Fridman (45:56.140)
what are their big problems in their lives?
Brett Johnson (45:58.300)
Because everybody's saying that all the time
Lex Fridman (46:00.900)
and most of us are just ignoring it.
Brett Johnson (46:02.540)
Right.
Lex Fridman (46:03.380)
But if you take the time to listen,
Brett Johnson (46:05.420)
you know somebody at that point.
Lex Fridman (46:07.060)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (46:07.900)
Absolutely you do.
Lex Fridman (46:08.740)
Then you have to be able to dismiss it.
Brett Johnson (46:10.820)
You have to dismiss it after.
Lex Fridman (46:12.780)
You're looking for that just to see
Lex Fridman (46:14.020)
how I can manipulate that is what you're trying to do.
Lex Fridman (46:17.020)
So the lady was one story,
Brett Johnson (46:20.340)
another truly despicable story.
Lex Fridman (46:22.020)
We'll get to script in a second.
Lex Fridman (46:23.900)
But another truly despicable story.
Lex Fridman (46:25.700)
We were one of the really first groups
Brett Johnson (46:28.900)
that started phishing attacks.
Lex Fridman (46:30.700)
What's phishing?
Lex Fridman (46:31.540)
So that is a social engineering attack.
Lex Fridman (46:33.580)
PH by the way.
Brett Johnson (46:34.580)
Yeah, PH.
Lex Fridman (46:35.420)
That's another social engineering attack.
Brett Johnson (46:36.780)
That's sending that fake email out
Lex Fridman (46:38.900)
that looks like it's coming from a website
Brett Johnson (46:40.580)
or your financial organization or whatever
Lex Fridman (46:42.380)
and saying, hey, we've got a security problem.
Brett Johnson (46:44.340)
We need you to update your account information.
Lex Fridman (46:46.980)
Well, back then no one had ever seen a phishing attack.
Lex Fridman (46:50.540)
So you could ask for all the information.
Lex Fridman (46:53.280)
You were getting just complete identity profiles
Brett Johnson (46:56.240)
on a phishing email.
Lex Fridman (46:57.380)
Nowadays you can't do that.
Brett Johnson (46:58.340)
Nowadays you look for basically credentials
Lex Fridman (47:00.160)
because everyone is aware of phishing.
Lex Fridman (47:02.020)
But back then it was complete information.
Lex Fridman (47:03.860)
We had phished out, I don't know, 200,000 eTrade accounts.
Brett Johnson (47:08.420)
That's what we had the login credentials for.
Lex Fridman (47:10.060)
The login password, yeah.
Brett Johnson (47:11.180)
Login password, complete social, date of birth,
Lex Fridman (47:13.900)
mother's maiden account information, everything else.
Lex Fridman (47:17.740)
So we had access to those eTrade accounts.
Lex Fridman (47:20.380)
eTrade initially had no security in place.
Lex Fridman (47:24.180)
So you could cash out the account,
Lex Fridman (47:26.180)
ACH the money out to whatever account you wanted to,
Brett Johnson (47:29.940)
went through just fine.
Lex Fridman (47:31.540)
Made them alive on that for four to six months.
Brett Johnson (47:34.900)
eTrade got to the point where you couldn't
Lex Fridman (47:38.380)
do any ACH coming out.
Brett Johnson (47:41.260)
They locked everything down.
Lex Fridman (47:42.780)
Well, you're still sitting on thousands of eTrade accounts.
Lex Fridman (47:46.380)
How do you make money on that?
Lex Fridman (47:50.540)
That's a good question.
Lex Fridman (47:51.580)
So what you do is you find some fat cat that's
Lex Fridman (47:53.580)
got his retirement invested in blue chips.
Brett Johnson (47:57.220)
Same time you find a penny stock,
Lex Fridman (47:59.420)
you open up a brand new account, buy into that penny stock,
Brett Johnson (48:03.060)
cash the fat cat out, buy into that same penny stock,
Lex Fridman (48:06.460)
bump and dump schemes all of a sudden.
Lex Fridman (48:08.140)
So you're destroying people's retirement accounts
Lex Fridman (48:11.020)
for just a few thousand dollars.
Brett Johnson (48:12.940)
Bam, bam, bam.
Lex Fridman (48:14.020)
And of course, eTrade's response is, not our problem.
Brett Johnson (48:17.620)
It's your problem.
Lex Fridman (48:18.500)
You shouldn't give up your password
Brett Johnson (48:19.900)
or what have you at that point.
Lex Fridman (48:21.500)
And you still see that issue today with Zelle scams
Lex Fridman (48:24.020)
and things like that.
Lex Fridman (48:25.380)
Which scam?
Brett Johnson (48:26.300)
Zelle.
Lex Fridman (48:26.940)
So you know, the instant payment that they have.
Lex Fridman (48:28.620)
So it's the same kind of operation,
Lex Fridman (48:29.900)
same type of difference with different payment mechanisms.
Brett Johnson (48:32.300)
You find an easy way to exploit a system,
Lex Fridman (48:35.460)
and typically the financial organization, not our problem.
Brett Johnson (48:39.100)
Our system's secure, it's the humans, it's their errors.
Lex Fridman (48:41.780)
Well, not really.
Brett Johnson (48:43.780)
You know, you've got some culpability in that,
Lex Fridman (48:45.940)
and you're just trying to avoid paying the part of the bill
Brett Johnson (48:49.380)
is what's going on.
Lex Fridman (48:50.220)
One of the things, just to stand fishing for a bit,
Brett Johnson (48:52.500)
is it really makes me sad because there's been people
Lex Fridman (48:57.420)
on all kinds of platforms, including YouTube comments,
Lex Fridman (49:00.660)
but emails too.
Lex Fridman (49:02.220)
They figured out emails somehow.
Lex Fridman (49:04.660)
So people are now seeing the followers
Lex Fridman (49:11.620)
of this particular podcast who are fans,
Brett Johnson (49:13.940)
they're finding them on platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube
Lex Fridman (49:18.060)
and so on, and they are figuring out
Brett Johnson (49:20.820)
ways to get to those people by another channel, which
Lex Fridman (49:24.980)
I suppose seems more authentic to those people.
Lex Fridman (49:29.620)
So they send them an email from what looks like me,
Lex Fridman (49:34.700)
and with this kind of loving message.
Brett Johnson (49:37.980)
The interesting thing, the emails
Lex Fridman (49:39.780)
sound like something I would write.
Lex Fridman (49:41.900)
So these aren't even, at this stage, it's not even,
Lex Fridman (49:44.580)
it doesn't feel automated.
Brett Johnson (49:46.180)
Or if it's automated, there's a human in the loop
Lex Fridman (49:49.900)
that's really fine tuning it to a specific,
Brett Johnson (49:52.540)
or maybe I'm very predictable.
Lex Fridman (49:53.980)
But it's very loving in the way I would write that message.
Lex Fridman (49:58.340)
So think about that, all right?
Lex Fridman (49:59.900)
So when Phishing first comes out,
Brett Johnson (50:02.100)
you could look at the language of the text or the website
Lex Fridman (50:04.740)
and say, eh, if you were paying attention, that's so OK.
Lex Fridman (50:07.940)
So that's not an English speaker who wrote that, typically.
Lex Fridman (50:11.340)
But as time has went on, as the awareness of what a Phishing
Brett Johnson (50:15.060)
attack looks like, we have people
Lex Fridman (50:17.500)
that are sitting down now and making sure
Brett Johnson (50:19.380)
that the language is proper.
Lex Fridman (50:20.740)
It gets worse than that, though.
Brett Johnson (50:22.060)
If you look at business email compromise,
Lex Fridman (50:24.260)
so the way a business email compromise typically works
Brett Johnson (50:26.820)
is the attacker will find a payroll person, find a CEO.
Lex Fridman (50:31.580)
He will fashion a spear phishing email, which
Brett Johnson (50:34.300)
is that's a Phishing attack that's targeting
Lex Fridman (50:36.700)
one specific individual.
Lex Fridman (50:38.980)
So he'll fashion a spear phishing email.
Lex Fridman (50:40.740)
And the way he does that is he pulls all the information
Brett Johnson (50:43.860)
he possibly can on that person, that CEO.
Lex Fridman (50:49.180)
Maybe he'll spear that CEO just to get their login credentials
Brett Johnson (50:55.940)
to their email, just to read the emails.
Lex Fridman (50:58.180)
And he'll go in there, and he'll start
Brett Johnson (50:59.700)
reading all these emails.
Lex Fridman (51:01.220)
He'll specifically read the emails to the payroll
Brett Johnson (51:04.340)
department, see what that relationship is.
Lex Fridman (51:06.140)
Are they talking about their kids,
Lex Fridman (51:07.580)
talking about relationships, talking about vacation?
Lex Fridman (51:09.500)
What are they talking about?
Lex Fridman (51:10.500)
How are they talking?
Lex Fridman (51:11.340)
Are they friendly?
Lex Fridman (51:12.300)
Are they sterile?
Lex Fridman (51:13.300)
What are they doing, all right?
Lex Fridman (51:15.060)
So then he decides, well, I'm going to go ahead
Lex Fridman (51:17.060)
and spear phish the payroll department as well.
Lex Fridman (51:20.020)
So then he spear phishes in, gets those credentials.
Lex Fridman (51:22.540)
At the same time, he creates a Unicode domain
Lex Fridman (51:25.700)
in whatever the company name is, all right?
Lex Fridman (51:27.740)
So instead of that English alphabet I,
Brett Johnson (51:29.780)
he's got that Russian letter that looks like an I
Lex Fridman (51:32.220)
but without the dot on top, all right?
Brett Johnson (51:35.260)
Comes back into the email, into the payroll email,
Lex Fridman (51:38.340)
blocks the real CEO's email, replaces that with the Unicode
Brett Johnson (51:42.780)
email that he's got, and then sends out a message
Lex Fridman (51:47.620)
using the correct language, the correct relationships,
Brett Johnson (51:50.340)
everything else, and says, hey, we're updating
Lex Fridman (51:52.700)
our account status, I need you to send this payment
Brett Johnson (51:55.140)
instead of over here, they've set up a new account,
Lex Fridman (51:58.100)
send all payments over here now.
Lex Fridman (51:59.860)
And that is business email compromise in a nutshell,
Lex Fridman (52:02.620)
all right, works great.
Brett Johnson (52:04.460)
Probably the larger the organization,
Lex Fridman (52:06.580)
the more susceptible to that kind of attack
Brett Johnson (52:10.140)
because there's like a distribution of responsibility
Lex Fridman (52:14.820)
to where you're more likely to believe that,
Brett Johnson (52:16.900)
okay, this other person is responsible,
Lex Fridman (52:18.980)
I'm sure they secured everything.
Brett Johnson (52:21.420)
I'm okay listening to this.
Lex Fridman (52:24.260)
So that's business email compromise,
Lex Fridman (52:25.940)
and those crimes, and that's one of the things
Lex Fridman (52:27.780)
you see about cybercrime.
Brett Johnson (52:28.820)
Cybercrime's not really sophisticated.
Lex Fridman (52:30.820)
It's not, the attacks are not sophisticated.
Brett Johnson (52:32.900)
The stat is 90% of every single attack uses a known exploit.
Lex Fridman (52:37.900)
It's not zero day attacks, they're out there,
Lex Fridman (52:41.380)
but if you're a criminal waiting on a zero day to profit,
Lex Fridman (52:43.620)
you're gonna starve to death.
Brett Johnson (52:45.420)
The meat and potatoes are that 90%, known exploits.
Lex Fridman (52:50.460)
And then the rest is, well, you're saying it's,
Brett Johnson (52:54.020)
maybe you mean it's not technically sophisticated,
Lex Fridman (52:56.820)
but it's social engineering sophisticated.
Brett Johnson (52:59.060)
Very sophisticated on that end, very sophisticated.
Lex Fridman (53:01.340)
I mean, it's a fascinating study of that.
Brett Johnson (53:03.380)
That establishment of trust and then using that trust
Lex Fridman (53:06.780)
to defraud that victim.
Brett Johnson (53:09.460)
That is something.
Lex Fridman (53:11.300)
I wish, obviously, all of these folks
Brett Johnson (53:14.380)
are really good at hiding.
Lex Fridman (53:16.740)
I wish you could tell their stories in a way,
Brett Johnson (53:19.460)
which is why you're fascinating,
Lex Fridman (53:21.020)
is you're able to tell these stories now,
Brett Johnson (53:22.820)
because it is studying human nature by exploiting it,
Lex Fridman (53:28.180)
but you get to understand our weak points,
Brett Johnson (53:30.260)
our hope, our desire to trust others.
Lex Fridman (53:35.060)
Also, the weak points and the failures of digital systems
Lex Fridman (53:42.900)
and at scale, humans have to connect.
Lex Fridman (53:46.020)
It's fascinating.
Brett Johnson (53:46.860)
This is a weird question, asking for a friend.
Lex Fridman (53:52.700)
Is spear phishing itself illegal?
Lex Fridman (53:54.860)
What's the legality here?
Lex Fridman (53:56.260)
Oh, it's all illegal.
Brett Johnson (53:57.140)
Absolutely it is.
Lex Fridman (53:58.220)
Is it?
Brett Johnson (53:59.060)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (53:59.900)
So here's what, okay, let me construct an example.
Lex Fridman (54:02.460)
So if my friend were to spear phish like a CEO, right,
Lex Fridman (54:10.620)
and get their information and after they get control,
Brett Johnson (54:14.560)
say, of their Twitter account,
Lex Fridman (54:16.220)
they tweet something loving and positive, what's the crime?
Brett Johnson (54:21.900)
Unauthorized access of advice.
Lex Fridman (54:23.700)
What will be the punishment, do you think?
Brett Johnson (54:27.580)
That becomes questionable.
Lex Fridman (54:29.100)
So no monetary loss, or was there a monetary loss?
Lex Fridman (54:33.020)
Probably not, all right?
Lex Fridman (54:34.740)
So you have to figure out who the victim is
Brett Johnson (54:37.140)
before charges are pressed.
Lex Fridman (54:38.200)
Now, the crime would be unauthorized access, all right?
Lex Fridman (54:42.140)
But no real victim on that,
Lex Fridman (54:45.300)
unless the person whose account you took over
Brett Johnson (54:48.260)
takes exception to that.
Lex Fridman (54:51.860)
No monetary loss.
Lex Fridman (54:53.060)
So there's not really standard fines.
Lex Fridman (54:55.140)
Probably nothing's gonna happen, right.
Brett Johnson (54:56.880)
Right, right.
Lex Fridman (54:57.720)
So, I mean, that's kind of interesting,
Brett Johnson (54:59.900)
because it's, so when I got the ransomware,
Lex Fridman (55:04.280)
when I got the zero day attack on the QNAP mass,
Brett Johnson (55:09.920)
they basically say the criminal is QNAP, the company,
Lex Fridman (55:17.580)
for having so many security vulnerabilities.
Brett Johnson (55:20.720)
They're like, you are the victim of QNAP's incompetence.
Lex Fridman (55:25.720)
That's the way they kind of phrase it.
Lex Fridman (55:27.880)
And see, I don't agree with that.
Lex Fridman (55:30.080)
I don't agree with that at all.
Brett Johnson (55:31.920)
So, SolarWinds.
Lex Fridman (55:33.760)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (55:34.600)
Let's, so I've got 130 page class action lawsuit
Lex Fridman (55:41.200)
printed out at the house, I've been going through it,
Brett Johnson (55:43.120)
that catalogs how SolarWinds lied for years
Lex Fridman (55:47.200)
about their vulnerabilities, and they lied to investors.
Brett Johnson (55:49.760)
The people who came in, the honorees who they would hire,
Lex Fridman (55:53.720)
would, you know, they would not pay attention to them
Brett Johnson (55:57.040)
when they said, you know, you've got these issues,
Lex Fridman (55:58.600)
they would say, go away, shit like that for years,
Brett Johnson (56:01.560)
until SolarWinds, you know, the attacks become apparent.
Lex Fridman (56:07.160)
My view on that is that the only person
Brett Johnson (56:10.960)
responsible for the crime are the criminals
Lex Fridman (56:14.040)
who did the attacking, the actual criminals, not SolarWinds.
Lex Fridman (56:18.000)
Now, does that mean that SolarWinds isn't all fucked up?
Lex Fridman (56:21.400)
They are, and there needs to be some accounting in place.
Lex Fridman (56:25.560)
But the only individual, the only people responsible
Lex Fridman (56:29.400)
for crime are the criminals, and that's either online,
Brett Johnson (56:33.680)
in the physical world, what have you.
Lex Fridman (56:36.520)
Being an idiot is not a crime.
Brett Johnson (56:39.800)
Not a crime.
Lex Fridman (56:40.640)
You know, being criminally negligent is,
Lex Fridman (56:45.200)
and I think that SolarWinds is certainly responsible,
Lex Fridman (56:48.640)
not responsible, they're culpable for what happened.
Lex Fridman (56:52.240)
Can you actually tell folks about SolarWinds?
Lex Fridman (56:55.360)
What is it, what are some interesting things
Lex Fridman (56:59.600)
that you're aware of?
Lex Fridman (57:00.440)
SolarWinds was very, it provided a backbone of security
Brett Johnson (57:05.760)
for hundreds, thousands of different companies.
Lex Fridman (57:12.360)
If you looked at, a lot of security companies
Brett Johnson (57:14.440)
were using SolarWinds that would allow you
Lex Fridman (57:16.360)
to get a snapshot of the entire system
Brett Johnson (57:19.040)
that they were working on.
Lex Fridman (57:20.400)
So what happens is, is you get a Russian group that comes in
Lex Fridman (57:24.400)
and they basically, they hack into SolarWinds
Lex Fridman (57:29.560)
and get access to it, and it allows them
Brett Johnson (57:31.680)
to view every single thing, I mean, every single thing
Lex Fridman (57:37.240)
about every single client that SolarWinds had at that point.
Lex Fridman (57:42.240)
So entire snapshots of all the IP that was going on,
Lex Fridman (57:46.000)
all the emails, all the communications,
Brett Johnson (57:47.920)
every single secret that was going on with those companies.
Lex Fridman (57:50.920)
If a company had software like Microsoft,
Brett Johnson (57:53.640)
it allowed them to look at the source code
Lex Fridman (57:55.720)
of everything that was going on.
Lex Fridman (57:57.240)
I mean, it's just a complete and total nightmare, all right?
Lex Fridman (58:01.080)
And something that you are not going to recover from.
Brett Johnson (58:05.960)
You're not.
Lex Fridman (58:07.280)
I mean, it's done at that point.
Brett Johnson (58:08.960)
You know, there's not been a lot of news lately about it,
Lex Fridman (58:12.480)
but the fact of the matter is, is that's the type of attack
Brett Johnson (58:15.120)
that's a catastrophic attack.
Lex Fridman (58:16.920)
So there's a huge amount of information
Brett Johnson (58:19.840)
that was read, saved elsewhere probably.
Lex Fridman (58:22.720)
Oh yeah.
Lex Fridman (58:23.560)
And so now there's people sitting on information.
Lex Fridman (58:26.280)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (58:27.120)
So think about one of the attack vectors
Lex Fridman (58:28.600)
has been Microsoft Outlook 365, things like that.
Brett Johnson (58:32.800)
This allowed the attackers to look
Lex Fridman (58:34.320)
at the source codes of that.
Lex Fridman (58:36.400)
So they have the source code now,
Lex Fridman (58:39.240)
so they go through it line by line.
Lex Fridman (58:41.520)
Where are the vulnerabilities?
Lex Fridman (58:42.560)
Let's find new vulnerabilities, new zero days.
Brett Johnson (58:44.600)
You know, I said zero days aren't common,
Lex Fridman (58:46.520)
but this opens up an entire new threat surface
Brett Johnson (58:49.000)
all of a sudden.
Lex Fridman (58:50.000)
So it's a completely catastrophic attack.
Brett Johnson (58:52.480)
Once all the chips are down, everything's tallied up,
Lex Fridman (58:54.800)
people are going to be like, yeah, we're done.
Brett Johnson (58:56.760)
We're done.
Lex Fridman (58:57.600)
Yeah.
Brett Johnson (58:58.440)
All right, this whole computer thing,
Lex Fridman (59:02.800)
we tried it and we're walking away.
Brett Johnson (59:04.840)
We're done.
Lex Fridman (59:05.680)
That's terrifying.
Lex Fridman (59:07.560)
So you're saying that there's not been obvious
Lex Fridman (59:11.680)
big negative impact from that yet.
Brett Johnson (59:14.720)
So, but like.
Lex Fridman (59:15.560)
There's been a lot of negative impact,
Lex Fridman (59:16.920)
but we're just starting.
Lex Fridman (59:18.320)
Right.
Lex Fridman (59:19.160)
So the capacity for destruction is huge here.
Lex Fridman (59:22.520)
How much involvement from nation states
Lex Fridman (59:24.600)
do you think there is on this?
Lex Fridman (59:26.640)
You know, it's interesting.
Lex Fridman (59:29.000)
So you've got Iran, you've got North Korea,
Lex Fridman (59:31.680)
China, Russia, you got the big four.
Brett Johnson (59:33.240)
You also got Brazil.
Lex Fridman (59:35.440)
You've got all these other countries
Brett Johnson (59:36.680)
that are interested in the United States as well.
Lex Fridman (59:40.600)
Nation states are interesting
Brett Johnson (59:42.120)
depending on who the nation state is.
Lex Fridman (59:44.440)
All right, so Russia is very good about working
Brett Johnson (59:46.240)
with the type of criminal that I used to be.
Lex Fridman (59:48.240)
You know, they'll enlist these guys
Lex Fridman (59:49.960)
and steal information or what have you,
Lex Fridman (59:51.880)
then Russia will take the information they want to,
Lex Fridman (59:54.080)
and they'll basically go off and sell whatever you want to
Lex Fridman (59:56.640)
and make some money.
Brett Johnson (59:58.280)
China's all about IP.
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