Hacker History sits down with Emily Fox. We hear about Emily's history in the US Federal Government where she got a start in technology. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from working in the public sector. Then on to Apple and finally landing at Red Hat. Emily does a ton of amazing […]

Hacker History sits down with Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda. Rob tells us all about how he created Slashdot back in the day. Rob's story is full of amazing twists and turns. He started one of the most influential websites ever created while in college and it grew into being an amazing community. Rob gives us a […]

Hacker History sits down with Kyle Rankin to hear his story. Kyle walks us through his journey into being an author of many technical books. We touch on early topics like Knoppix, DevOps, infosec, Linux Journal, and more. Then, in the most meta way possible, Kyle has written a book about writing technical books. It's […]

Hacker History sits down with signal9 and talk about his story. He starts out learning computers in the 80's then takes a massive detour into the world of log cabin building (not a metaphor). Eventually he finds his way back into helpdesk, then developing, and then security. All while keeping the hacker mindset in tow. […]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hacker History sits down with Robert Reif or winxp5421 to hear his story. Robert got a start on some old gear, left tech for a while, and now runs password cracking villages and participates in password cracking contests. The conversation is a fascinating view into the world of competitive password cracking with some advice and […]

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

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

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

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

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