Hacker History Podcast

The history of Ela Jan 29, 2025

Ela grew up in East Germany during the 1980s, where they were introduced to computers and electronics at a young age. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ela became deeply involved in the hacker scene, joining the Chaos Computer Club, attending early DEFCONs, and witnessing the merging of East and West German hacker cultures. […]

The history of Marc Boorshtein Jan 16, 2025

Hacker History sits down with Marc Boorshtein, we learn of his journey from tinkering with Doom shareware as a kid and getting free hardware from his Dad. Marc tells us about the early days of LDAP and Kerberos to modern Kubernetes, he shares war stories about managing critical infrastructure and accidentally shutting down a company's […]

The history of Cyberpunk Librarian Jan 06, 2025

Hacker History sits down with Cyberpunk Librarian. We hear about his early years of Commodore 64 and BBS, the usual getting in trouble in school and making computers do whatever they want. We then get to learn about the journey of Cyberpunk Librarian as an actual librarian. You're going to learn more about how libraries […]

The history of Johnny Xmas Dec 18, 2024

Hacker History sits down with Johnny Xmas. Johnny tells us about his journey into the world of hacking and tech, starting from his childhood, he discusses taking things apart (like a wall outlet), putting them back together, typewriters, libraries and getting into plenty of trouble in high school, and finally landing in music school. It's […]

The history of The Gibson Sep 18, 2024

Hacker History sits down with The Gibson. We cover how Gibson got to where he is today. We start out hearing of Gibson's early hacker days, then he decides to get out of the hacker scene for a while. But Gibson is drawn back in, and start doing some amazing world changing work. We hear […]

The history of Wade Wells Sep 05, 2024

Hacker History sits down with Wade Wells. Wade sits on the board of BSides San Diego and has an amazing journey that got him there. Wade recounts how he started out at In-N-Out Burgers and made his way into security. Every step of the way he leveled up and now is an amazing community member […]

The history of Dana Morrison Aug 28, 2024

Hacker History sits down with Dana Morrison and hears his story into tech. Dana starts out with a Commodore 64 and writes a war dialer as one of the first projects. He starts out with a BBS and eventually hacks into his school's BBS system. Dana goes to college as a theology major and ends […]

The history of Jindrich Karasek Jun 26, 2024

Hacker History sits down with Jindrich Krasek. We hear about how Jindrich's journey started out as a medical researcher. He had to hack a machine he was using to make it work in new ways, and that experience hooked him as a hacker. He starts out with social engineering to get his foot in the […]

The history of HD Moore Jun 05, 2024

Hacker History sits down with HD Moore. We hear about his story when he was young and making hardware work that probably shouldn't have worked. His shenanigans in the days of IRC and warez, and how that led its way into the Metasploit project. The impact of Metasploit cannot be understated. The world in the […]

The history of Paul Asadoorian May 29, 2024

Hacker History sits down with Paul Asadoorian and learn about his journey. Paul starts out with an Apple II, BASIC, and Pascal as a youth, then finds himself picking up UNIX and Linux, working at a university on amazing projects, and find himself in the world of security. We hear about Paul's days at Tenable, […]

The history of Emily Fox Apr 24, 2024

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 […]

The history of Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda Oct 25, 2023

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 […]

The history of Kyle Rankin Oct 18, 2023

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 […]

The history of signal9 Jun 05, 2023

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. […]

The history of Harish Pillay May 03, 2023

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 […]

The history of Abe Mar 21, 2023

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 […]

The history of Lars Wirzenius Feb 22, 2023

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 […]

The history of Shecky Jan 18, 2023

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 […]

The history of EvilMog Jan 05, 2023

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 […]

The history of Jarrod Coulter Oct 11, 2022

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 […]

The history of Hash Sep 20, 2022

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 […]

The history of Investigator Chic Jun 15, 2022

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 […]

The history of wirefall Jun 03, 2022

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 […]

The history of Shannon Fritz May 26, 2022

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 […]

The history of Robert Reif May 20, 2022

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 […]

The history of Bryan Mcaninch May 11, 2022

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 […]

The history of Jonathan Leitschuh Apr 13, 2022

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 […]

The history of Casey Ellis Mar 22, 2022

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 […]

The history of Brian Proffitt Dec 08, 2021

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 […]

The history of Dick Morrell Nov 03, 2021

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 […]

The history of Gianluca Varisco Oct 13, 2021

Hacker History sits down with Gianluca Varisco and learns about his story. He started out in 90s working on micro computers. We learn how he got into security, started an ISP. Learned about Linux and open source. Eventually lands at Red Hat, gets into encrypted VOIP in the very early days. Gianluca spends time in […]

The history of Greg Ferro Sep 29, 2021

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

The history of Chloé Messdaghi Sep 15, 2021

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

The history of InfoSecSherpa Sep 02, 2021

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

The history of Larry Cashdollar Aug 25, 2021

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

The history of Mike Goetzman Aug 05, 2021

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

The history of Steve Ragan Jun 30, 2021

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

The history of Melanie Ensign Jun 15, 2021

Hacker History sits down with Melanie Ensign and learn about how she got started programming church hymns into the home computer. Melanie's journey begins as wanting to study sharks and ends up doing hacker public relations. The interview has fantastic background noises from Melanie's home in Mexico. Come for the story, stay for the birds! […]

The History of Wolfgang Goerlich May 26, 2021

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

The history of Bitterman May 14, 2021

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

The history of Simple Nomad Apr 28, 2021

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

The history of Paul Wouters Apr 14, 2021

Hacker History sits down with Paul to discuss his hacker story. It starts with a home built Apple II clone in the Netherlands. We talk about some shenanigans during the university led to lessons about showing compassion to our fellow hackers. Paul even tells about the time he stood up to Scientology while running an […]

The history of Carfucar Mar 31, 2021

Hacker History sits down with Carfucar to talk about the history of car hacking. Carfucar was the co-founder of the Car Hacking Village and was one of the pioneers in the world of car hacking. We talk about how Carfucar got into hacking cars, what the early days looked like, and what car hacking looks […]

The history of Bill Degnan Mar 08, 2021

Hacker History sits down with Bill Degnan to talk about how he got into computers. Bill started out as as an ice cream man and ended up owning a vintage computer museum. Come for the ice cream, stay for the stories! Show Notes Bill Degnan Degnan Co. Consulting Kennett Classic vintagecomputer.net

The history of D1g1t4l_T3mpl4r Mar 01, 2021

Hacker History sits down with D1g1t4l_T3mpl4r to discuss his hacker story. We learn about how D1g1t4l_T3mpl4r got into hacking, what it was like for a Midwestern hacker in the late 80s and early 90s. We discuss phreaking, hacking, hardware, phones, culture, a message for the newest hackers among us, and more. Cyphercon presentation

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