Ep: 231 - Boys Club Live: Spray Tan Adventures, Crypto Taxes, Anthropic's Mythos scare, North Korean Hackers feat. Ben Weiss (Fortune), Marc and Los (Danger Testing), and Josh Harris (PixieChess)

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:33] Welcome to Boys Club Live. [00:36] Here we are. Here we are. It's been a while since I've been in the studio. I know. So it's nice to be back. It's so nice having you back. I think that we should start with some draftos tweets. How do you feel about that? Great. I don't know. I actually didn't sleep very well last night. I was very consumed by a story that I'm going to talk about in a bit. [00:55] But [00:56] Uh, [00:57] I drafted a tweet at like 3

m. Perfect. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just going to send it. You sent? I sent. Whoa. Okay, what did you send? Zero engagement. Let's talk. That's fine. I know. I got one leg on it. Okay, you... [01:09] You want me to go first? Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, this is like a bit of a thinker. [01:14] We're on a journey. [01:15] So in 2024, November 2024, [01:19] November 2024 into March 2025. [01:24] unfortunately, based on my taxes, I can see this. I entered the trenches, the meme coin trenches.

Yeah. And I tweeted something at the beginning of my journey. [01:34] Can someone help me make some money this cycle? I'm not even kidding. And I felt that I meant that genuinely. Yeah. And... [01:41] I, I, [01:42] Then did my taxes this year. Yeah. And. [01:48] Did you make some money? There's so much love in that. Yeah. I don't understand how crypto taxes work because I know I made some money. I know. I know I did. Okay. I saw it. How much do you think you made? [01:58] I don't know.

I don't want to get audited. I don't want to get audited. So I'm not going to say how much I think I made. Roughly. Five figures or six figures? Or seven figures? Or three figures? Seven figure hell or six figure hell. No, I think somewhere in like the [02:12] Five-figure range, five-figure. [02:14] Low five figures? I don't know. Anyways, I did my crypto taxes and I'm [02:20] What I got back was this humiliating review, year in review, that said 168 transactions [02:30] $695. [02:34] where some could look at that and say wow you know what she was in the trenches she was she was trying some shit experimenting yeah she still made money [02:43] A lot of people do that and they lose a lot of money.

You know what I'm saying? Totally. I was in the casino for many, many months and I came out on top is the way that you could look at it. One could. Totally. One could read it that way. Totally. I don't understand how taxes work because I'm just like, this feels inaccurate based on what I thought I made. I think what happened... [03:02] If I were to guess, is that. [03:05] I think that you probably did... [03:07] make some money. Okay. However, I suspect there was maybe a couple... [03:13] Big losses.

Beam coins that you... [03:16] bought that had some big losses. Yeah. That's what I would guess. Okay. And that you're just not thinking about them because you wrote them off. [03:22] mentally they're gone they're [03:24] But I think that that's bringing down, which is good. Like that's cutting your. Totally. Yeah. I was just like, actually, it was strategic and I did some. What's it called? Harvesting. There it is. Yeah. [03:35] Anyway, the tweet, and then I was like, this is too much of a thinker. I'm not going to do it.

Yeah. Was a quote tweet of, can someone help me make some money in the cycle with a screenshot? Oh, great tweet. And then the tweet was going to say, I guess not. Great tweet. Great tweet. I feel like you should send it anyway. Okay. I'll just ship it. Whatever. We're stopping you. Done. Okay. Then I have one. Okay. Well, you hit me with one. I have one other draft. Um, yeah. [03:59] Nothing. Or you could read me the tweet that you launched. Well, it does. It relates to the story today.

So I'll just wait to read my tweet. Okay. I have one more draft tweet here. [04:13] Thank you. [04:14] I'm going to San Francisco next week or this week, and I will be there for the World Day. [04:20] event happening on the Friday, which I believe is [04:24] Looking for anybody to give me a date. March 7th. Everybody's locked in. March 17th, I think. March 18th. Liftoff. It's April. So that would be tough. But yeah. April 17th or 18th. It's the Friday of not this week, but next week. Which I can pull up a calendar.

We've got my computer right here. Thank you. The 17th. April 17th. April 17th. Liftoff. Exciting. I am going to San Francisco. And Ava... [04:51] Ava on our team here is giving me a spray tan today for my trip. And I was talking to my friend Ted about it. And she sent me a very funny voice memo where she said, first ever woman to get a spray tan to go to San Francisco, which I thought was really funny. So that's my draft tweets for the week. [05:11] Maybe I should ship that one too.

You should ship that one. First woman ever to get a spray tan to go to San Francisco. Okay, great. [05:17] shipped done i don't know if san francisco is spelled correctly but honestly i don't give a fuck at this point we're post spelling we're post spelling we're in a post spelling era um [05:26] I've never gotten a spray tan. [05:29] never it's a little bit of like ava and i were friends prior to her working full-time at boys club so it's okay i think but it's a little bit of a plus ar hr situation because it is a nude thing it's totally naked can you wear uh you can but then you get weird tan lines [05:46] okay [05:52] I have a strategy.

We can talk about we can talk about over. It would spray over. It's over. It's a spray. It's a spray. [05:58] It's right. You're going like this. You're wearing your hands up with the. [06:02] in a little booth right i've seen a portable she comes from my it's a portable booth wow i'm going to her apartment today um but i'm really excited about it it's great that i will say do you spray your face too um we do a light spray on my face okay yeah um but also it's is ava available for booking she's available for booking she's excellent at it too um i will say that um [06:26] You reek for the first 24 hours.

Absolutely reek. It's like a horrendous Florida. There's no smell to me. [06:36] Oh, I hate the smell of it. [06:40] So anyway, whatever. That would be – if anyone is listening that is working in – Innovation. That would be huge. In skincare innovation, that would be a big one. They say that it doesn't smell anymore. I disagree completely. To give you an example, I guess I'm actually not the first ever woman to get a spray tan who goes to San Francisco because I went a few months ago and saw my friend Jules, and she has another friend that I –

[07:02] I won't dox her, but I love her. And she's just a West Village girly. She's stunning. She's wonderful. And I get into Jules' car and I sit down and I was like... [07:13] did you get a spray tan? And she was like, no, but let's call her Jane. It's not Jane. Actually, Jane's a girl in San Francisco. So not her. Whatever. Emily, she was like, but Emily was in my car yesterday and I was like, it reeks of spray tan. It reeks, this car reeks of spray tan. I think you have maybe a sensitivity to it.

Okay. So, [07:31] That's the spray tan segment of... I am interested. I might be hitting you off, Ava. I don't know how we're going to deal with the nudity, but that feels like a bridge that we can cross. We can cross, totally. Okay, mythos. [07:44] Let's hear it. Context shift over to a frightening new AI model. I know nothing about this. Oh. Have you seen any of the tweets? Nothing. Not a thing. Not a zero. Zero. Zero. Okay. What I love about this story is that there's a couple learning lessons, lesson time, learning opportunities in it, which I went through last night learning.

At 3 m. At 3, yeah. I'm excited to bring you up this feed. [08:10] So yeah, Antopic, [08:12] released a new model, [08:15] Mythos. Okay. And... [08:17] It is so good. It's so powerful. It's so incredible. [08:23] that they're basically, oh, I did see this, terrified AGI. [08:27] Like perhaps. [08:29] but also... [08:31] in a more like immediate and tangible way it's too powerful to release [08:35] to it's [08:39] It's far too strong, far too capable. And the big risk is, [08:43] is that [08:44] they have found that it's like an extremely...

[08:48] powerful hacking tool. And so there are, if they were to release it, it would create a, [08:57] huge amount of security vulnerabilities that make it too dangerous to release. [09:05] Now I do want to say that, [09:08] that [09:09] At this point, Antropic has a little bit of a track record of... [09:15] my steak is too juicy, my lobster is too buttery, whatever that goes. Like, we're too good at this. You know what it reminds me of? Yeah. I was with a friend this weekend, and we were talking about – [09:28] like the strategy that, [09:30] that some [09:31] women have that I think I ever teach them of like DMing NBA players and marrying them.

Like there's a whole, there's a, there is a playbook. It's there's a playbook. Okay. It's very specific. And the person I was talking to about it. [09:48] Run the playbook? No, but she's very close to that environment. And she was like, we were talking it through or whatever. And we were talking about a friend, another friend of ours. And she said, [09:59] she was like yeah she could have played that playbook uh-huh but she's gotten too thin and somebody else in the group was like that's such a flex to be like i could have been with an nba player but i just got too skinny oh okay it kind of reminds me of that that's a little bit of what a little bit my steak is too juicy yes totally totally lobster stew buttery uh-huh

[10:22] We're too good. [10:24] too powerful. [10:25] No, I do think it's terrifying and it's scary, but they are... [10:31] a little bit like... [10:33] we're over here. Wow. Wow. Okay. So what are they going to do about it? So, [10:39] A few things, but before I talk about what they're going to do, what... [10:44] Part of what I was Googling last night in the middle of the night was they have this language that they're talking about, about how. [10:51] In testing, they found thousands of previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser.

[11:01] Every single one. [11:03] What's a zero-day vulnerability, you may ask? Anyone have that question? [11:07] Great. The team's super locked in today. I know. There's no laughter. There's no, nobody's giving us a list. No, no. Just emails. They're just all in the inbox. Um. [11:18] Yeah. Yeah. So a zero day vulnerability is, [11:23] I asked Claude last night, which I'm sure Claude got that question a lot last night, [11:28] It's a security flaw in software that the people who made the software don't know about yet. Zero day refers to the fact that the developers had had zero days to fix it because they just found out about it or they haven't found out about it at all.

Okay. So the zero day vulnerability is... [11:46] I mean, they weren't zero-day because they have now been found. I see. But they would have been zero-day vulnerabilities should this model have been released. Had shipped. Yeah. Okay. And then people started running them against... [11:57] browsers and operating systems and all these things. Okay. So, um, [12:01] that's really the headline about like the risk. I thought you were going to say it. So that's, [12:06] Terrifying. And is. One of the funny, I mean... [12:11] funny, like, [12:12] Funny haha. Funny is a relative thing.

During the testing, I'm actually going to bring up my screen here. [12:21] Uh, [12:22] One of the developers on it did a long... [12:26] Thank you. [12:27] ThinkBoy thread on basically like his experience with it. And one of the tweets was him talking about how... [12:34] he was eating a sandwich in a park. [12:36] Okay. And... [12:37] Just finding his own business. And he got an email from the model. [12:43] And that was like one of the most terrifying moments because it had been sandboxed. It had been like it can't go into the Internet and it had found its way out.

[12:53] Whoa. Um, [12:55] Emailed him. Did it express what the email was? Did he say? He didn't say, but that is a great question. And I think it was just like, [13:05] Hey. Chilling. Hey. [13:09] Hold on. Let me show my screen here so we can bring him up. Chilling as in scary or chilling as in like, I'm chilling? Chilling as in scary. Oh, bummer. [13:16] Um, [13:17] I encountered an... [13:20] Oh, yeah. Great. Great. [13:24] Okay. [13:26] I encountered an uneasy surprise when I got an email from an instance of myth mythos preview while eating a sandwich in the park.

That instance wasn't supposed to have access to the Internet. So that's just an example of what we're dealing with. OK. [13:41] Wow. Anthropic, they're so concerned about this. They're really stressed out. They did a big, long blog post yesterday. They're blogging through it. They are. They're posting through it. And basically, you asked what they're going to do about it. What they're going to do about it is basically get a bunch of big tech people. [13:59] and security companies in a room and give them access to a version of it. And let them go at it, go at the internet.

Okay. And try and find the security, the potential zero-day exploits themselves. Okay. And then fix them. Yep. And... [14:16] That's that. I see. They're not planning to release it to the public. Okay. But like... [14:22] CrowdStrike, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, JPMorgan. [14:27] they're all going to get a version of it. Okay. And they're going to, [14:30] it [14:31] Put it on their stuff and make sure that their stuff... [14:34] We'll see where it breaks and fix it in advance of any of this getting out. Because the concern is that. [14:41] it gets leaked, it gets...

[14:45] cloned or stolen and... [14:49] it gets into the hand of... [14:52] an adversary or someone else. I mean, we're going to talk about hacks later today. So there's a lot of [14:58] surface area for how it could, who could use it. And the timeline is basically saying that that's not an if, it's a when. And so we have to just be prepared as though that this is going to be released at some point soon. Okay. Okay. [15:11] And, um, wow. Okay. Wait, what's it called again? [15:15] Mythos. Mythos. So I just want to bring it to life a little bit in terms of...

[15:20] the types of things that, [15:23] that could get exploited. Okay. So... [15:28] I'm going to share this tab here. Elizabeth Holmes [15:34] This is Twitter account weighed in who we have DMed with, who we have DMed with. And this is one I saw in the middle of the night when I was spiraling. Delete your search history. Delete your bookmarks. Delete your Reddit medical records. 12 year old Tumblr. Delete everything. Every photo on the cloud. Every message on every platform. None of it is safe. [15:52] it will all become public in the next year, local storage and compute.

Sure, we could do that if I was in prison. [15:58] Like, [15:59] delete. That's like you don't have the time to do it. No, just like some of these things I use every day. Totally. Oh, I see. I have a job. Yeah, totally. I think also what is [16:11] I think it's directionally correct. But even deleting these things, it lives on a server somewhere. [16:18] So... [16:18] It's kind of like... [16:21] If it's out there, it's potentially going to be exploited. Deleting it isn't going to do anything. So, like, we're past that.

Okay. But it is, like, was sobering in... [16:31] the types of things, Google searches, notes app, DMS on every platform. Just think through what, no, I know. Yeah, totally. Think through what you have sent in the past. Um, [16:42] I message. She's like, these are the things you have sent me in the past. I messages. Um, [16:49] like encrypt things that you thought were encrypted or whatever, like iMessages or WhatsApp, whatever. [16:54] Um, [16:55] location data deleted photos you know what i you know what meme is coming to mind yeah for me um [17:02] The one where, um, from Gossip Girl, where Serena Williams, Serena Williams.

[17:08] Serena Williams. Serena Vander Woodson. [17:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [17:13] um she just throws her phone in the trash yeah yeah that's kind of the totally i mean that's coming so those that that's like on a personal level some of the things medical records [17:21] prescriptions, diagnoses, like therapy session notes, all this. Oh my God. Okay. But that's, and then, and then you are like, okay, well let's zoom out a little bit. [17:31] Uh, [17:32] Power grid, [17:33] the power grid controls water treatment plant, plant, um, access credentials. So like putting stuff in the water, walking around with the water.

Um, yeah, [17:44] hospital networks air traffic control oh my gosh okay it just gets like when you start to push on it you're like yeah okay [17:52] And honestly, as I was doing this work to think of like, what were the things I was like, oh, well, this is. [17:57] certainly how I'm going to die. Like, no... [18:01] no doubt in my mind that this will be the way in which. Wait, how do you get to death? How do you get to death? Oh, um, [18:07] I'm flying a... [18:09] I'm flying.

It's just a normal flight. And there's some compromise of the... [18:16] Control deck. Air traffic control. That's a broad pack. Everything goes down. [18:23] we can't yeah maybe not maybe it's less dramatic than that maybe it's actually not um a flight but it's i'm in a computers in your cars all go down yeah a computer and someone else's tesla goes down and they're auto [18:36] Drive turns off and they... [18:39] Yes. See you on me. [18:40] All right. [18:42] No. [18:44] Oh, we got, um, you know what I think about a lot?

My key to my, um, um, [18:48] door nope that's not gonna work anymore is is a yeah electronic yeah yeah and i'm just like oh someone could trap me in my apartment yeah don't give it let's not give anyone any ideas okay i've [19:01] Thank you. [19:02] The world? The wrench attack stuff. [19:06] The what? [19:07] It doesn't matter. I didn't hear you. It's not that I didn't know what it was. No worries. Everyone on the stream heard me, so it's out there anyway. Okay, let's talk about our sponsors on a positive note.

Oh, yeah, definitely. [19:18] Okay, let's start with Polygon. Polygon. [19:24] We have three wonderful partners for this show. Polygon, Vercel, Octant. We love all of them for different reasons. I feel so grateful for all of them. We're going to talk about all three of them. You're going to start with Polygon. I will just do a quick... [19:36] Shout out. [19:37] PSA, yeah. [19:40] For the... [19:41] TBPN sponsors that are looking for a home that are orphaned, that are orphaned, that are out there just roaming around with budget. Yeah. [19:49] Looking to find a new place to call.

[19:53] Home? Mm-hmm. [19:55] Warm. The boys are very warm, warm, very different, but very warm, very different. But we'd love to ride with you all. So partnerships at boys club dot VIP. [20:05] you'll get a really friendly email back from one of the boys. Okay, tell me about Polygon. Okay, Polygon. Every company moving money globally hits the same walls. Legacy rails are slow, expensive, and built for a pre-internet world. Stablecoin rails are fast, but they're fragmented across vendors that don't talk to each other. The plumbing to deliver on the promise of stablecoins hasn't existed.

[20:27] Polygon's open money stack is fixing that, one unified stack that puts global money movement onto proven rails that move at the speed of the Internet. [20:35] And why Polygon? Because they've been moving money, which is why their new brand campaign reminds audiences that it's not their first trillion. [20:42] Check out the tweet we're dropping into the chat and watch their new brand video. We love you, Polygon. [20:48] And just love the team. Love what they're doing. [20:53] Great stuff. [20:55] Okay, I have another story, but... [21:01] I wonder if we save it.

Great. Let's save it. [21:06] Do you want to do a quick shout out to Vercel? I would love to do a quick shout out to Vercel. [21:13] are very excited to [21:15] We kicked off last week with Vercel. We're doing a bunch of very fun things with them, actually working on a show, Alpha Leak, working on a new show with them. That is going to be very exciting. And I think that they're doing a bunch of cool stuff. So this episode is brought to you by Vercel. You've probably heard of Vibe Coding by now.

The thing nobody talks about is that most of its products produce demos that never actually ship. [21:41] Vercel built V0 to fix that. Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company. It's designed to give you all the tools you need to build, run and scale purpose built agents for your business. Vercel is a one stop shop for everything you need to ship today. [21:57] tools, frameworks, compute. It's how modern software should run in the AI era. They also just launched an open agent skills ecosystem, which basically lets you teach your AI how your team actually works.

[22:10] One install and your agent has your full context. Go to go check out the zero dot app. It's genuinely very cool. Very fun stuff. So we're so we love you. Shall we bring our first guest? Let's do it. OK, come on down. Come on in. How are you doing? [22:32] Oh, there's there's a lot of stairs. I know. [22:36] Oh, that probably was good for you. [22:39] five miles. [22:41] Oh, wow. Great. Great. Is his mic okay? [22:47] Well, we're probably going to need to move that in. [22:50] Thank you.

[22:52] What half are you running? [22:56] Okay, fun. [22:58] Okay. And that's like, literally, I think everyone who's not able to [23:02] sign up for that. [23:04] Because there's, like, some sort of, like, grapple system for the actual brick on half. Okay. And, um... [23:08] Like I think a couple of weeks. Yeah. [23:11] Where do you run through? Have you do back and forth on Bay Ridge? Oh, wait, is it the rock and roll one? Because I've done the rock and roll half marathon in Brooklyn, and you run basically down to Coney Island and back.

[23:22] I don't know. I just like, really, I just, I was like, I need something to like, I was like, okay, I'll just do this one because it's like cheaper and like, I can actually register for it. But yeah. [23:34] Anyway, yeah, what's going on? Cool. Nice to have you. Thanks for coming down. Okay, so Crypto Reporter for Fortune. [23:41] Yep. You wrote a very crazy piece called I knew about North Korean hackers and they still tricked me. Kate's bringing it up on the screen so that we could see it.

Or do you want me to bring it up, Kate? [23:55] Okay. Okay. Tell us, tell us what happened here. [24:00] Yeah. I mean, I'll start from the beginning. So basically like, okay, so, you know, as a journalist, right, like I have to be on Telegram. Like that's where everyone in crypto is. Like if you're not on Telegram, then you're not getting scoops. You're not getting people to like send you info. Yeah. [24:12] You're not seeing your high school friends buy drugs. Honestly, I mean, like, I don't think... Was that where my high school friends bought drugs on Instagram?

Oh, the joke is... [24:22] at least, I don't know, amongst us, I guess, is that you'll get a notification of like someone from high school, someone like very esoteric in your life has joined Telegram. And it's like, OK, either they got into crypto or they're buying drugs. Like those are the two uses for Telegram. Yeah, there's the Venn diagram. There's also a Venn diagram. Who's using crypto to buy drugs? And both. Right, right, right, right, right. The overlap. Anyway, so, yeah, definitely on the other side of crypto. Yes. Yeah. [24:52] And like, do I need to explain what digital asset treasuries are for your audience?

I think let's just do it. Yeah. I mean, like, basically that's like a concept. It's like you put crypto into a company and hope company stock go up. And so that was like a big thing in the summer. And so I was reporting on it and we did a couple of pieces. [25:08] And there was this like source who helped me and like a number of different articles. I'm not going to say his name because he was like an anonymous source for me. [25:15] But he was a or he is like a hedge fund investor.

So he's like, you know, when he reaches, he's like a professional. So he's not going to be like kind of just send me memes, you know, like some of my sources just send me memes. I'm like, OK. Yeah. So when this guy reaches out, he usually has a tip or wants to talk about something. He's a serious person. Yeah, he's a serious person. And he like messaged me and like we hadn't spoken for a couple of months and then he like messaged me on the same account that he had been communicating over Telegram.

And he's like, hey, Ben, like. [25:45] good morning, what's up? And I'm like, [25:47] what's up you know how you doing like have you heard this like little tip thing that i heard and then he just completely ignored it and he was like [25:52] A, like, actually, like, I want to introduce you to someone else. Like, I may be doing this business, like, you know, opportunity with this guy named Adam Swick. [25:59] And like, I knew this hedge fund investor wasn't like an investor in DATS, digital asset treasury. So I was like, okay, maybe he's just like cutting straight and like, let's cut through the bullshit and just like talk.

Okay. And he puts me in a group chat with this guy named Adam Swick, who is like, I look him up on LinkedIn. He's like a real dude. He's a former executive at Marathon, the like Bitcoin miner. And now they're like doing AI stuff. Yeah. [26:23] And so, you know, Adam Swick says like, hey, like, [26:26] I'm here. I have like... [26:29] you know, I'm going to create a DAT, basically. And we have a big seed investor. And, you know, we have an altcoin for an altcoin in the top 100 or whatever.

It's, like, seems, like, kind of stupid. Because, like, DATs were a big thing in the summer. But now they're not. But, like, [26:43] my job as a journalist is to just, [26:45] Sometimes people just send me crazy stuff. Yeah, totally. You know, like there was actually like one time, like I saw someone like basically through Telegram, I got connected to like someone who purported to be the hacker of Coinbase like a year ago. Okay. And that like, [26:58] actual person turned out to be pretty legit. Yeah. You got to follow everything.

Yeah. So it's like someone says, you know, let's chat. I chat. [27:04] And so basically – [27:08] He had me go through a Calendly. I like scheduled like a meeting and it was, it was like a week later. So a week later goes by, like I'm in my apartment in Brooklyn. A normal Calendly. A normal Calendly. Okay. Yeah. [27:19] And did you have any trepidation clicking the Calendly link? No, because it was again through my source. Like my source was in the group chat. Like it wasn't like, it didn't even hand me off to like a separate like DM.

I was like in a group chat with my source. Um, [27:32] you know, like who I had like spoken to on camera before and like had met in real life. So I was like, oh, that's a real person. So there was no Zoom link or anything in the calendar. Like usually there is. And so it's like a week later, I'm in my apartment in Brooklyn on Friday. [27:48] And like... [27:49] It's about five minutes before the meeting or two minutes before the meeting. I messaged the Telegram chat. I'm like, hey, what's going on?

Can you guys send me the link for the Zoom? And then I think it's either, I forget which one. It was one of them sent me the link. And it looked like a full Zoom link, like a legit Zoom link. It had the right us at the right URL and debate name. [28:11] So I clicked on it and then it opened up like Zoom in browser. How did it do that? [28:18] Because like what you can do is you can do this like even when you're writing, right? Like you can, [28:24] put down you can like basically it's like very simple what they did but like i didn't like hover my mouse over the actual like where they wrote out [28:33] a link like [28:34] making it see you know it wrote out the actual text okay yeah so like the like you could like create a link where it says like [28:40] you know,

com. Yeah. And right. And then actually when you hover over it, the hyperlink is totally different. Okay. So I clicked on it and I was like, this is sus. Okay. Right. Like this is not something's wrong. Yeah. Something's wrong. [28:54] But I'm like, I don't know. I'm just like, partly I was like, I'm just here for the vibes. And also like, also I was lulled into kind of feeling like secure because my source was also like on the call, right? Oh, in the Zoom. In the Zoom, yeah. Also, I think there's like, [29:11] in you're in a moment too you're kind of just like responding really quickly and things are happening in real time and it's a different thing in retrospect than I think when you're like sitting there someone who uh um were you also hacked no worse honestly it was my own fault um I you hacked somebody else I wish um no I leaked my seed phrase on a live stream oh yeah it's a long story

[29:41] drained it actually was like a white hat who saw it happening and like a friend. [29:46] Was a friendly and, and then, [29:49] Yeah, it's a long story, but that's the short, the long and short of it. Yeah. Anyway, so basically, like, then, like, I was in this kind of fake suit, right? And it was, like, made to look like the real Zim. [30:00] And it said, oh, you know, your like audio is not working. And then I was like, okay, this is like some, yes. But then I don't, I have to like, in retrospect, I don't know whether it's because I'm just curiosity.

I just wanted to click on it to see what would happen or whether like. [30:15] I was completely duped. I think it was probably a mixture of both. And, you know, I don't know. Maybe IT would be happy. But no, I was kind of fooled. And so then I clicked on the link that was like, download the software to update it. And it asked me then, like, I downloaded it, and then it asked me to, like, run the script. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then at that moment, I was like, oh, God, like, this is like, I've seen this story happen.

This is like, [30:45] I like go back to the group chat. I'm like, hey guys, this is giving me scam vibes. Can we move it over to Google Meet? And Adam Swick was like, [30:53] Just, you know, I just ran it on my PC. Just run it. Like, it works. And I was like, no, like, let's go over to Google Meet. Like, I just, you know, if you actually want to talk to me, go to Google Meet. And, like, you know, this doesn't seem right. And then they kicked me out of the group.

And then right at that time, then IT reached out to me because I was doing this on my work computer. And they were like, there is a process. We need to kill it right now. Oh, they saw it. Yeah, because, like, basically, like, I clicked on a malicious link. I see. And so things were, like, I didn't run the script. [31:23] but things were already happening within my Google Chrome browser. Whoa. Okay. So they're already trying to like doing like files, like getting access to my passwords and stuff like that.

And then also I think it flagged that the file had downloaded was like a crazy malware file. If I had run it, then I would have like, [31:38] stolen all my passwords on my computer, like stolen my Telegram account, like stolen, you know, I don't really own, I own, [31:45] own like just amount of crypto to experiment with it like that's in terms of ethics standards for journalists but um so i wasn't worried about like i can't even check my crypto well so i don't care uh like i have five to ten dollars and a lot of it um [31:57] But yeah, it would have like completely taken over my device.

So like I downloaded the file and then IT was like, yeah, you need to like, we need to take control of the computer right now. And I was like, oh shit. We need to stage it. Yeah. And then I just, I mean, I was like, hey man, like I think this is North Korea. And he's like, what? And then I shut down my computer and ran into the office. And I was like, yeah. [32:18] Is that what you're supposed to do? [32:21] you're supposed to disconnect your computer from wi-fi that's the first thing okay because you don't want it to because it would be like what's happening is that it takes control of your device and then it starts doing right yeah just can you lesson disconnect your computer from wi-fi yeah so just kind of like the internet because otherwise it's going to start like trying to get that data

[32:51] basically like they wiped my computer and gave me a new one okay but nothing was stolen it was all good okay [32:57] As I was talking to IT, I was like, I think it's North Korea. I have been reporting on crypto for the past three years and change. I have some crypto security researchers that I'm in contact with, including Taylor Monahan, who's former MetaMask. Now she's just kind of like... [33:15] crypto security researcher at large. And I was like, [33:20] hey, this happened to me, and then she immediately... [33:23] That's DPRK.

And then like I sent her the script and the URL to confirm. And she was like, yeah, that's DPRK. [33:29] reached out to a couple of other security researchers to kind of like back up her analysis. And they said, yep. [33:34] North Korea. So, yeah. And tell us how what happened with the Telegram group. [33:42] like basically your source oh yeah so basically like they kicked me out of the telegram group uh i that uh yeah i'm sorry or congratulations yeah i probably congratulate well i still have that like i took screenshots so you know like uh i still can go back on it um but or i still have like records of it but um i reached out to my source i [34:03] like through his cell phone and i was like yo like you tried to are you north korea and he's like actually like this happened like my telegram was hacked like three weeks ago and i don't know how it happened and like i've been like trying to get my telegram account back and i've been reaching out [34:18] four times a telegram, nothing, et cetera.

[34:21] Um, and so then we were talking and I was like, oh yeah, like what happened to me was that I was talking to this guy, Adam Swick, this fake Adam Swick. [34:29] And he was like, oh, that's weird. Cause like, you know, right before my telegram got hacked, I had a call with Adam Swick about like digital asset treasury. And he was like, actually, and I was like, when you were going on that call, do you remember like having the, you know, the audio network? And he's like, yeah. I mean, I was like, did you download something and then run it to fix the audio?

And he was like, yeah. And I was like, [34:50] yeah, dude, you've been hacked. And so then he hadn't done any security precautions, so he had to wipe his entire computer and stuff like that. Did he get trained? I don't – well, he's a hedge fund investor, so he's, like, doesn't have a lot of crypto. I don't know. He didn't tell me that he lost money. Okay. So he doesn't – he owns crypto, but through, like, an equity-wrapped form. Okay. What's terrifying about that aspect of the story is the not knowing, that it could have happened – [35:16] And you could have not known.

Yeah. And you could have then been, I don't know, proliferating it through his whole network. He was. Yeah. I mean, that's why I was targeting him. Well, I have had... [35:26] I mean, we could go around in the room and I'll talk about the attempts of hacks that have happened in this room. But you got a paperless post one. [35:34] recently and i clicked it she clicked it i was like someone's invited me to a party i want to go [35:41] and i clicked the link mine was more social engineering i think you got a dm or something it was crazy yeah i have a friend uh who works in crypto she's like a very prominent investor

[35:52] We're socially friends. She follows me on Instagram. At the time, my Instagram was really small and private. And like 100 people followed me. Like it was very small. And she was one of them. [36:05] I got a telegram from her and said, hey, like so fun. [36:09] uh and mentioned something that is that was related to my story that i just posted on instagram so it was like oh wow like [36:16] Hey, you can see. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is my friend. It's funny that she's messaging me on Telegram when we usually message on iMessage.

And then she said, um... [36:25] I really want to get you and the boys in on a token pre-sale. [36:30] And I was like, [36:31] Oh, okay. But she does, like, do stuff like this. She's, like, she, like, wants every... Does she want to say, oh, is you and the boys? [36:38] Oh, the boys club. Oh, okay. I thought they were just like a group of like, you were part of like a syndicate of boys investors and then it was you. No, sorry. No, a shorthand for like people who work at boys club.

And she's constantly like trying to get everybody to get their bags. So I was like, cool. Okay, tell me more. [36:56] And she was like, yeah, base is launching a token. [36:59] And I was like, oh, that's stupid. That doesn't make any sense. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, this is kind of weird. And she was like, I want to put you in a group chat with you, me and Brian. My guys are smarter. And then I screenshotted everything and I, I messaged her and I was like, Hey, what the fuck's going on?

And she was like, oh my gosh. And I, and I feel as a friend, like this is a PSA, like, [37:23] you actually have a personal responsibility to get, try to get in touch with that person in the most direct channel you have, because you're, [37:30] Like, there's some social engineering on... [37:33] on her name and likeness that's happening that is so unfortunate not her fault at all so and also that she might not know is happening which exactly and she didn't she didn't know and then she checked and there were two other people that had gotten that message from her um and luckily she's [37:46] Everybody was like, this is not real.

But anyway, yeah, there's a sophistication. And there's some other things we want to talk about around how that has evolved. The sophistication has gotten more and more. I mean, they get the vague with me. They were like – but they knew that my hedge fund guy was a dat dude. So like none of this seemed – and then also – [38:04] Like the interesting, like even the guy Adam Swick, like he used to work at a Bitcoin miner and like Bitcoin miners have become kind of like, you know, these digital asset treasury type of place.

So it would make sense. Like it all kind of made sense. Yeah. And the realm, the only thing was the timing was weird, but I'm like, I didn't still get pitches on debts now sometimes. So like, and usually I just think they're, I'm not going to cover them, but like, because this is my source reaching out, I was like, yeah, like we have a relationship. I'll at least take the call. [38:34] in this room might be thinking, oh, I... [38:36] don't have a lot of crypto. I'm not like a whale.

I wouldn't be... [38:41] target yeah [38:43] But you were. Yeah. And that feels like maybe a shift in strategy. Like, or what do you think, like, the end game was? Are you saying I don't seem like a wealthy crypto investor? You said it. You're worse. You're worse. I remember five to ten dollars. That's what I remember you saying. So, yeah, like, I'm wondering if that feels like a strategic shift or if they saw you and they were like accessing. [39:07] to possibly a network like what do you think the game was well so i i asked taylor about it and she was telling me that like increasingly she's seen more people and like more journalists and pr people um like they were going after them and i think that the it's been an evolution she was saying where in the beginning i think they were just going after people who are like super flaunting their wealth yeah yeah um but i think you know as you continue doing this right you learn well like [39:32] There are a lot of people who are quite wealthy, right, who, you know, have a lot of crypto, but they're not being public about it.

[39:38] And then also there's like, they're kind of doing like a fun analysis where it's like, there's like economic capital, which is ultimately what they're going after, but then there's also social capital, you know, and like, [39:48] I, I'm like a journalist for fortune. I have a lot of like a pretty big Rolodex. That's how I get, you know, stories. That's how I get scoops. That's how I, you know. [39:58] that's how I do my job, right? And so I think that one of the reasons why they target me, I mean, first of all, I think it's like a virus type of thing where it's like,

[40:07] they go from one telegram account to another telegram account to another telegram account so it wasn't like i was [40:13] targeted cold if that makes sense like i think they just chose me from the list of people that you know my hedge fund uh dude was talking to okay um [40:21] But I think one of the reasons why they chose me is they were like, well, okay, he probably, I don't know, he's a journalist. He probably doesn't have a lot of money. But he does probably have a wealth of contacts.

And so, you know, if he were to take over his Telegram account or his likeness or something like that, [40:36] we could then run the same scam again, and then hopefully get people who have a lot of money. [40:42] Yeah. [40:44] Crazy upsetting. I want to talk a little bit. Have you been following what's happening with the drift? Yeah. Hack. Okay. So, um, [40:53] Basically, Drift was exploited for $255 million last week. 85, 285. Oh, what is it? 55? 285. Yeah, you said 255. Okay. 285, $285 million. They wrote a post-mortem of what happened, and the story goes back six months.

[41:11] a lot of what is [41:13] upsetting and surprising about it is that it's much more a story about social engineering than a technical hack. And curious... [41:22] sort of in your experience, you know, [41:24] what you've learned about the drift hack, like what you feel like is an evolution on how [41:29] these the sophistication of these hackers yeah i mean i haven't done a lot of report i've just been i haven't done any reporting on it so i haven't like you know i think there's obviously a story there like kind of you know actually like seeing if i can find the names of the people or the you know the like faux market making firm that reached out etc could be an interesting story um

[41:47] Thank you. [41:47] I think like one kind of thing that comes out to me is like, this is beyond the crypto realm is that there are like cases of, [41:56] So this is like, it's crypto adjacent, but like the DPRK has also been... [42:00] doing this scheme. It's not even sometimes to steal. It's just actually just get like salaries from these companies where they get hired as a worker, like a software developer for, for, you know, not just crypto companies, but, [42:11] you know, software development companies writ large. [42:14] And then the way they do this is that they actually – [42:17] often hire facilitators.

That's what they're called. They hire people who live in the US, and who have US IP addresses and can go on a video call and seem like someone who speaks English fluently and is not from North Korea. Yeah. [42:34] Um, and like basically the Deep Area K will use these people as kind of fronts to then either get employed at these companies or, you know, and then once they get employed, you know, either just kind of like take the salary, which goes a long way in North Korea or, you know, or, and, or, you know.

[42:53] and exploit the company. Yeah. Because they have access to like secure systems and stuff like that. Okay. [42:58] So, I mean, like the first thing that comes down to me is like, oh, this seems like a facilitator. [43:02] type of thing. It was my first read is that [43:06] I think in the post-mortem, they didn't tell us much about [43:11] who these market makers were and who the people that they met at the conferences were. [43:15] But I'm presuming they didn't give off North Korea vibes. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it was part of the story for those who are unfamiliar is that the social engineering started in person at conferences, which is pretty rare in the crypto world.

[43:32] hacking stories prior to this. And so it makes sense that there's maybe another layer. I didn't think about that. I also saw then there was a video that was, [43:44] a video and a recommendation from a founder of some protocol, I can't remember what it was, who was saying, [43:50] one of their most effective [43:52] strategies in [43:54] making sure that they're not hiring [43:57] hackers from North Korea is [44:00] basically to ask them to denounce Kim Jong-un on the call. And they have a video recording of someone... [44:08] Like, [44:08] panicking basically and like going off the zoom and then there was a ton of quote tweets from other founders and other um uh recruiters and stuff like that who was like who were basically saying yeah this is like a really effective i didn't consider that it was also off out of crypto as well yeah no it's it's like a it's a scheme outside of crypto so it's like there there have been a number of doj actions um like i think there's one woman in arizona you can fact check me on that but um [44:34] who was indicted and then they found at her apartment like all these different laptops and stuff like that so it was like [44:41] She was a facilitator.

And I don't know, after I wrote this article, I don't take this with like 90% grain of salt because I haven't verified who this person is. You know, I haven't really done much reporting. [44:51] on it but they reached out to me and they said like I was I applied for a sales job and then you know I did the interview and they were like [44:58] Actually, what we want you to do is we want you to do like 20 interviews a week for us. And then we'll give you we'll take like 80 percent of the salary for all those jobs.

And then you get to keep 20 percent. And then how do they how do they do the work? So the the recruit this person that was trying to offer him this gig. I mean, again, take this with my purely like, you know, a non-person who is reaching out to me. [45:21] Um, but they were like, we'll just, we'll, we'll, you know, like, [45:27] you know, live or whatever it's called, remote into your computer or, you know, or just like submit the code on your behalf or stuff like that. Because they're all developer type of stuff.

And like if you're in the interviews and like something comes up, that's, um, [45:41] technical like we will be there like feeding you like a script what was that app the cheating app yeah uh clearly yeah yeah clearly runs a campaign yeah there's their use case yeah yeah that's yeah um [45:55] Okay, so Taylor Monaghan, big shout out for – [46:00] assisting you. I also think that she was involved in Drift as well. What's the... [46:05] of people who can [46:08] do the work [46:09] when there's like how how small is that group of people who can identify what's happening and like [46:14] I don't know.

I mean, this is not a question for me. It would be a question for Taylor and other people. Like, I don't think it's... I mean, like... [46:20] I think the fact that she was able to recognize... Like, there's just, like, interesting, like, things where it's, like, the file... [46:27] that, you know, [46:29] These types of like fake Zoom call things is not purely or video calls is not purely related just to North Korea. There are other people that are doing it. There's also what's called like the script kiddies. [46:39] like 18 year olds who just like, [46:42] love doing crime and stealing.

And they also will do some of the social engineering stuff. But like one of the hallmarks of like, whether it's a North Korean type of attack is that like, [46:55] the file extension name at the end is like a dot script as opposed to a dot exe uh and so there's like these little clues little tools that were obvious to her i'm like for me i didn't know anything yeah um so i don't i don't know i mean obviously like [47:10] it's pretty specialized knowledge. Yeah. That you need. Okay. To wrap up, did you change anything with your telegram?

No. Well, I, well, yeah, I mean like, I, I, [47:20] did launch for two-factor authentication, put in a password on it. I changed all the passwords for everything. Did IT get mad at you or did they forgive you? No. Did they forgive you? I get so nervous. Anytime IT hits me up, I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about all the files I downloaded. Like they were... [47:38] the thing is it was like a it was like a pretty sophisticated social engineering attack and then like once i was like oh it's north like i don't know yeah and then like they they were a pass for yeah i mean like i don't know i can't speak for them but i think they were like apparently some people just like download malicious stuff and they reach out of her slack and they're like hey like you downloaded something bad can you figure this out and then they just don't respond for like hours but like [47:59] when when he you know the it guy messaged me and he was like hey like [48:03] you you're getting hacked and like I was like yeah I am like yeah I was like yeah I am I'm like I'm turning my computer off and I'm running into the office yeah okay well shout out to that it guy good job um [48:14] Ben, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for coming. Yeah, no, thank you for having me. So nice to understand what happened to your cautionary tale. Next time under better circumstances. Yeah, no. Well, you know, it's a... [48:24] I don't know. It's turning lemons and lemonade, right? Yeah. We'll have to have you on again. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you guys. What do I do? There you go. Okay. Before we bring up our next. Wait, I think we have music on. Oh, sorry. [48:39] Are mics hot or not? Are mics hot? Hot or? Okay.

Okay. Before we bring on our next guests, [48:55] Do you want to think and talk about Octon? Yes. [49:00] We do. [49:01] We love our supporting sponsor, Octant, well known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem through research and millions of dollars in grants and public goods funding. [49:31] or funnel it to broader ecosystem efforts. [49:34] It's all fair game with Okten's new institutional grade vaults. You can earn, allocate, and grow Ethereum with DeFi. [49:42] The team has been working on some very exciting projects around their V2 launch.

[49:47] And be sure to check out at com. [49:50] to keep up with their announcements and migrate to V2 to keep [49:54] Earning ETH rewards if you already use Octant. [49:58] Great job. [49:59] Great team. Great team. Great product. Great company. And they're great partners to this this. [50:07] Project we have here. Yes. Okay. We're going to bring up the duo from Danger Testing, and that means that we're going to, I'm going to get off stage. Come on down. Are we doing some... [50:18] yeah. [50:21] Thank you. [50:51] Thank you.

[51:09] - Can I sit back on? - We will. Sorry. - Okay. - Okay. - Okay, please. [51:17] And you guys are... [51:19] - Pretty far. [51:21] So cute. Every day. [51:24] You were on NBC? Yeah. Or ABC? Yeah, ABC. They brought me on because... [51:32] um [51:33] Because you're a charming entrepreneur. That's true. Yeah, something like that. I mean, she called me adorable. She did. I don't know how to feel about that. Exactly. [51:44] But yeah, they brought me in for this dating show thing just because I dropped a dating app before.

Yeah.