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I'm a Convicted Hacker and Ex Prisoner - Ask Me Anything

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Reply 20

cascadingstylez

Original post by xsindy

On a scale of 1-10, how big of a troll are you? :biggrin:

PS. NOT implying that you're trolling using this thread!

I enjoy trolling sometimes. I blame 4chan for that. These days though, I'd say a 3. Pre 2011, easily a 10.

Reply 21

ArrheniusZwei

How did you get caught (how did the grass suss u out)?

Reply 22

The_Dragonborn

Original post by cascadingstylez

Difficult at first. Being ripped out of life and locked away for 23 hours a day was a struggle. I got through it by reading a lot of books. I read the entire Lee Child collection in prison. Once I got a job in prison time went pretty fast. Being moved to an open prison made it easier as I was able to work outside the prison for 12 hours a day.

The hardest thing in prison was missing my family, and girlfriend.

Apart from that though prison got easier, met some great people, and learnt a lot about myself.

You know how, on the outside, a lot of people think prison, is, well, a bit of a doss. Would you say this is true?

Reply 23

cascadingstylez

Original post by Hibzish

what are you doing now?

Working hard maintaining my online business and reading some programming books. Currently reading "Dependancy Injection" and "Code Complete 2". Also revising for my Microsoft C# exam in 2 weeks.

Reply 24

Pennyarcade

Where did you learn to hack and become so good at it?

Reply 25

cascadingstylez

Original post by ArrheniusZwei

How did you get caught (how did the grass suss u out)?

He was aware of what I was doing. I guess he wanted less time on his sentence. Facing 124 years will make anyone turn grass I suppose. He was a grass at the time of the activities although I wasn't aware.

Reply 26

cascadingstylez

Original post by The_Dragonborn

You know how, on the outside, a lot of people think prison, is, well, a bit of a doss. Would you say this is true?

If you're a drug addict with no family, and responsibilities, then I guess it could be considered a doss. I didn't think it was. Prison is horrible. In the high security prisons you're locked up for 23 hours a day, I'm not sure how that's considered enjoyable lol.

Serving time is easy, you have no choice. It's all you can do. I'd much rather shovel **** for 23 hours a day than spend 23 hours locked behind a door in a cold room.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 27

cascadingstylez

Original post by Pennyarcade

Where did you learn to hack and become so good at it?

I started life as a web developer, so I got to understand where a lot of vulnerabilities and weaknesses lie in websites. I had an unhealthy obsession with hacking at one point and would read lots of books, and watch a lot of videos. I studied a course with offensive-security.com and used to toy about a lot online. It wasn't until I got involved with Anonymous that I took things to a different level.

prove it

Original post by JAJC

prove it

Prove what?

Reply 30

benplumley

Original post by cascadingstylez

If you're a drug addict with no family, and responsibilities, then I guess it could be considered a doss. I didn't think it was. Prison is horrible. In the high security prisons you're locked up for 23 hours a day, I'm not sure how that's considered enjoyable lol.

Serving time is easy, you have no choice. It's all you can do. I'd much rather shovel sh*t for 23 hours a day than spend 23 hours locked behind a door in a cold room.

Why on earth were you in a high security prison?! Or were you just using that as an example?

Reply 31

pjm600

Original post by cascadingstylez

This seems like a cool thing to do that a lot of people are doing. I get asked questions constantly about the topic title, so to heck with it. Here goes.

Some background info on me:

I'm 29 years old.
I'm a software developer.
I work with Facebook as an Ethical Hacker.
I spent 12 months in prison.
Studied 2 years at uni (Software Engineering).

Ask me anything at all. I'll answer with complete honesty.

The article says 'you' were caught via IP tracing, did you use ToR or any methods to conceal your ip?

Reply 32

cascadingstylez

Original post by benplumley

Why on earth were you in a high security prison?! Or were you just using that as an example?

Everyone who is remanded in custody, or sentenced at court, starts life in a high security prison. Usually a B Cat prison, but if you're sentenced at the Old Bailey sadly you end up at Belmarsh (even if your crime is petty). If you're remanded, you remain at the high security prison until sentenced. Once sentenced you come back to the high security prison and within a few weeks your risk is assessed. This risk assessment is based on your crime, your likelihood of planned or unplanned escape, your behaviour etc.

Once your risk assessed you either remain where you are, or you get "shipped out" to a lower security prison. I was classified as a low security prisoner which meant I could go straight to an open jail. The problem is the prison I was at - HMP Wandsworth - didn't ship out to D Cat prisons (D Cat prisons are open prisons). So I had to go to a C Cat prison for a few months and be shipped to a D Cat from there.

There's 4 types of prison classifications A, B, C and D. A being the highest security.

Because I was in a B Cat, which is still high security, it meant I was amongst murderers and serious criminals. My 2nd cell mate was in for murder, although he was one of the most down to earth guys I've met. Always helped me out with smokes and food.

I was on the same wing as Kweku Adoboli, he was a very genuine guy. I enjoyed many good conversations with him. Very clever guy.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 33

cascadingstylez

Original post by pjm600

The article says 'you' were caught via IP tracing, did you use ToR or any methods to conceal your ip?

The report for the media was written by the arresting officer from the MET e-Crime Unit. I was standing next to him when he write it on the computer. The media were unable to mention I was grassed up incase it implicated the case of Hector Monsegur who is still awaiting sentencing. Although a few media outlets did. The Register was one of them.

I concealed myself with a number of methods. Tor isn't completely safe, but yes I used Tor to connect to offshore VPNs.

Reply 34

StarvingAutist

Original post by cascadingstylez

How many programming languages do you know?

Reply 35

JaiiStarh

This must be the most interesting 'ask me anything' thread I've read.
If you think he's trolling and you don't believe him, **** off.

Everyone's pretty much asked all the questions I wanted to ask :frown:

Reply 36

cascadingstylez

Original post by StarvingAutist

How many programming languages do you know?

Whilst I understand some of those mentioned below are not strictly languages they are:

C#/.NET 4.5/WPF, Java, C++, C, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, R, MySQL and NoSQL, Bash Scripting, Python, Perl.

Also numerous frameworks and libraries such as jQuery, NodeJS, AngularJS, Symfony, Laravel.

Really to many to mention. But if you ask for my strong points, over the past 2 years I've worked a lot with C#, .NET, WPF, R, and JavaScript. I'm proficient in all of those mentioned above except C++ because I rarely use it in my real world projects.

Reply 37

cascadingstylez

Original post by JaiiStarh

I get asked some pretty obscure questions. I think there's loads more to come :tongue:

Reply 38

johnh1983

I've only taken one network/telecom class, so I don't know much at all but I did find it to be very interesting. What's the least expensive way to learn about networking and network security?