53: Hacker DNA with Gummo

This episode has been automatically transcribed by AI, please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Chris: I’m here with Gummo, a retired blackhat hacker and blackhat reverse engineer who has utilized a special set of skills for many, many years. His abilities have allowed him to create for super computers, and mine more than 5.1 billion us dollars’ worth of Bitcoin. He has also created high-capacity ultra-secure system networks for trading and hedge funds that are currently used today within high frequency algorithmic trading platforms. He is the founder and host of the popular podcast, HACKERS, which is the number one hacking podcast with over 1.6 million subscribers.

He has a hell of a story to tell. And it’s beyond an honor and a privilege to have him join us today to share it along with his insights. Gummo, welcome sir!

Gummo: Thanks Chris. Thank you for having me and hi, Pete. It’s good to see you both again, after our two tries. So, this is our third try and it’s happy to be here. Thank you for having me on the barcode podcast.

Chris: Absolutely. Yes, Pete Klabe my amazing co-host as well. Pete, thanks for joining us once again. So Gummo first off. I know you don’t do interviews. So again, I just want to thank you for dedicating your time to speaking with us today.

Gummo: Sure Chris. Thank you for having me.

Chris: So, let’s get started. I want to talk about the origin of your story. If you can take me back, talk to me about talk to me about your upbringing and how you initially got introduced to computers, if you could describe that experience for me.

Gummo: Sure. So

 I was introduced to computers at a, at a local college here in Jacksonville where, when I was, when I was.

11 years old, I was going to the tennis courts to play tennis and to ride my bike and whatnot. And so, on the hot summer days at the campus, you could walk through a breezeway, which was. It was, it was shady and was cool. And so just one summer day in 1980/82 I was walking through the breezeway and there was a computer lab.

There were computers with reel-to-reel tapes and magnetic tapes, and there was a lab and. It was a, there was actually a professor in there wearing a white coat, like a genuine computer priest. And so, I was just riding my bike through there and it was just walking. It was really hot, and I was just dying of thirst.

And he said, hey, do you need some water? And, and yeah. And so, I put my bike down, went into the computer lab and, and he had known water found in the air and I, and, and I’m like, hey, what are these, you know, these computers? And he’s like, yeah, this is what they do. Right? And so, at the time they were running a flight simulation software for Northrop Grumman for the local, for the military here in north Florida.

And so, I got, I got privy to see that to actually sit in the cockpit mockup and actually have an opportunity to experience this type of technology in 1982. Which was, you know, mind blowing for, or you know, nine-year-old kid, you know, so, or 11-year-old kid. And so, it was just crazy. And so, yeah, that’s about the time about 1982.

And I, you know, I got to see all this cool stuff. They were there’s this thing called the ARPANET and, and it’s oh, wow. It talks to other universities and, and by the way, this is how it works. And so, every day I would go by and, you know, I had just, my mother had just given me up for adoption. And so, I was living with my adopted parents.

And so, you know, being confused, you’re getting, that’s how I discovered the college across the street from my adopted parents’ house. And I just, I was fascinated every day. I would go play. Yeah, my adoptive mom and dad thought that I was going to play and, you know, tennis at the tennis courts, which was true, but I also would go to the computer lab and hang out with the computer professors and get time on the computers.

And I discovered the ARPANET and what know transmission control protocol was. I was like 12 years old, you know, in the eighties, in the early. And so, I felt exceptionally privileged to be part of that. And so, I started meeting people, you know, like really interesting people from the military from the military, from Northern Grumman.

And they, and some of the people who I ran into are gone now, but. There was one character in specific. He had a, a, a citizen’s being radio, and I was really fascinated by citizens being radio. And now here I am playing with computers. And so, I see at this early age that there’s there there’s a correlation to these technologies.

And so it was, it was fascinating. Every day was fascinating. But this one gentleman who went by the CB handle bugs bunny, oddly enough. He had computers at his home, and he invited me over to his house and he lived right across the street from the college. And it opened my doors completely with computers.

He had a ground plane antenna on his roof, and he was a ham radio operator. He taught me ham, you know, radio RF, I’m learning RF at the age of 11 and 12 and DXE and how to tune a ground plane antenna, or a, or, or dynamic stick antenna. And so, these are the things, these are the, these are the things that spun me off into you know, a life of working with computers on and off throughout my life.

Yeah. Back in the day.

Chris: Yeah. So, so it really aligned for you. I mean, it really aligned perfectly for you where you were at the right place at the right time, you got hooked day one, it sounds like. And then you associated yourself with people that had the knowledge that could pass down to you. Cause at that time, I can’t imagine there were too many books written or too many classes that you could take. You’re really forced to either know someone in the field or teach yourself.

Gummo: Yeah, that’s correct. And to, to learn by not asking questions, but by, through trial and error through literally figuring things out. And, and one of the things that I discovered was the fact that I didn’t, you know, when, when Daryl was speaking to me and saying, hey, you know, don’t you see this? You know, when we were, when he was doing straight in computer code in.

I said, no, I don’t, I don’t see what you’re talking about. What does this mean? And I see like this in, in a, and you know, in my interpretation, a computer code is vastly different from others as I don’t see, I don’t see things on a computer screen is ones and zeros and squiggly lines. Which I do, but my interpretation is I see them as colors, extremes of colors.

And that’s so explaining that to him, he thought I was just kidding around. So, I had to learn how to program the way traditional, like you do, like Pete does, you know, traditionally understanding bits and binary. But as soon as I figured things out, I scrapped that method.

Chris: That’s a gift. That’s a gift man and to be honest with you, that’s the first time I’ve heard of that.

Gummo: It’s a condition called synthesis.

Chris: It’s a new perspective, right? It’s a perspective that allowed you to possibly have an edge over everyone else in that position.

Gummo: It did. It gave me a quite a vast advantage over. The pilots in their training or some of the people working for NRO that were in their training.

And these are highly skilled scientists and engineers that, like I said, worked for NRO, you know, the Navy, you know, every, every aspect, everything you can think was there. Right. And. I’m learning right alongside of them as a kid, you know, there’s a little chubby kid with a Coke in his hand, and I’m really, I really didn’t think of the seriousness of it until I became older, but I was like, you know, the fat kid hanging out, watching this stuff and learning all the, all the while learning.

My home life was so terrible that I didn’t want to go home. So, I hung out learn these things. And I did that for about two years. Just solidly hung out there. I learned things back then that were quite shocking to me as a child, right. 13, 12, 13 years old. About technology, you know, like what governments use and how it’s used and, and what, what the future, what, what, what the future is going to be, what the masses are using.

And I had, I had access to that information and not realizing its value or potential because my motives were never monetarily driven. They were just out of curiosity.

Pete: That opportunity is so great. And, and you can find that today that does not exist. You can’t be a 12-year-old going to a college campus and say Hey, let me get access to your computer system.

Gummo: No, and you know, the fact that my grandfather was, you know, highly respect, he spent like 40 years in the Navy in, and, and so I had access to Naval intelligence, and then I had. Through Naval intelligence. I had access to NRO and through NRO, it just goes on and on. And so again, I’m a kid, you know, playing around with these, these computers and technologies and foundations that are still used today.

Quite surprisingly. Yeah. And so, yeah, so. I, and I feel like, you know, as you know, my mother was an alcoholic, she gave me up for adoption at this time. And so, this was my, this is what I found as a kid, you know, instead of sitting around crying, you know, I was hanging out with computers

Chris: It was therapeutic for you.

Gummo: Yeah, it was, it was very therapeutic.

Chris: Did you ever have any intention of going down that route of what you were saying, going down the government route going down sort of the path that you were first introduced to, or when did it start turning into you wanting to do more hacking or do more of what you ultimately wanted to pursue as an industry?

Gummo: You know that’s a great question. You know, the, the fund funded last long, right. You know, I would, as I mentioned, my mother was not a good, there were, there were hard difficulties as a kid. And so I went to Lou, my brother got me kicked out of school in the seventh grade. And so. And went back to juvie, right?

I mean because my brother took a gun to school. And so, I’m in juvie because of something my brother did. And now here I am. I’m 13 years old. I’ve been yanked out of that environment. And now I’m in juvie. What happens? My, my, so my birth mother comes to get me out of juvenile hall and. Takes me home and text my brother home and she’s not well, right.

She’s very sick. And, and so then she passes away. And then there I am. I’m 12 years old, 12, man, you know, I’m 12, 13 years old… it’s December 1985. I don’t know what the hell to do. You know, my mom just died and my dad he’s in prison.

Chris: That’s a pivotal moment for any kid at that age. But then, you know, just to add on what you’re going through at that point in time, I can’t imagine.

Gummo: Yeah. And so, what do you do? Like you, you know, like I, I figured through. The, the, the, the hard pain that I went through was I needed somewhere to go with that. And so I went, I found my soul is with computers and the people who taught me computers were. Yeah, they were, they were really amazing people.

They, they helped me out. The you know, there was no one, my mom’s gone and, you know, and so what did I do? I, I, I had some dial up members and I, I had, I had an old computer. That I got back from my adoptive parents, and I connected into the phone line, and I learn how to become a hacker. I never learned right away. I learned what I needed to do to survive in my first experience. Being on your own at 13 is to survive and you have to do what you have to do to survive. And so, I learned how to card, right? I learned about credit cards. My mother left she left her wallet by then.

So, in her wallet there was cash, but my brothers took it and left the credit cards. I’ve I noticed when my mom would use them, that they would swipe home or when she would go to an ATM, she would. And so, I was quite simple. I took I was going to school, and they were using these things called language masters.

And you would put a card in and say that cow jumped over a fence, or the house is brown. And so, I figured out, well now wonder if this can read, you know, if this can read a credit card and sure enough, it did, it could. And so, then I began understanding that and the language master would give it out as tones.

Like, and then I learned, you know, I wanted to know how that works. So, I taught myself how to play piano, to understand the tones that it was generating. And so, as I was generating those tones, I understood that each tone minutes, a specific piece of information on their cart. And so, I was able to mimic that and manipulate the tones long story short, and I was able to card at 13 years old, I was able to actually go to a bank and do a cash transaction and obtain cash for myself.

And I was terrified. I was quite terrified. Yeah. I didn’t know if the cops would come or, you know, if this was it, if they’re going to ship me out to the boys, Ranch in Mariana, I didn’t know. And it was just terrifying, but the cops never came. I went to go live back with my adopted parents who had previously, you know, was living with them before I got kicked out of school and sent to juvenile hall.

And then my mom died. So, I went back to live with them. And again, it was just like, you know, who they’re just shaved my adopted mom. She was in her late sixties and in my adopted father was just some weird guy from the seventies. And so, I never was involved with them. And so, I would go to school and get it, get suspended on purpose because I didn’t need to go to school.

I had my own gig. Right. Yeah. I knew what I needed to do. And so, I rented an apartment. I got an apartment, and I had an apartment, and I had my computer set up there and then I set up turntables and, you know, I wanted to be a DJ scratching and all of that back there. And so, I had an apartment I, that I was paying for while you know, still living with my adopted parents and.

Yeah, that’s that, that I got off the ground at 14. And so that’s how I survived. I’m not, yeah, I would change barcodes. I would print my own barcodes and put stickers on things that I wanted. If it was. A laptop or a computer from radio shack. I would print out my own barcodes or bribe the salesperson at a radio shack with a few hundred dollars that I took out of an ATM for some equipment.

And so, it was just, it was literally in, in, it was not like I felt good about that either, because literally I wanted to be the. Riding his bike playing with the other normal kids, but I was not that fortunate. So, I had to do these things and technology for me was the avenue was the route to do that. And then the hackers that helped me were not just criminals.

They taught me the technology for me to use as a criminal for, to survive. So. There’s a big difference in what I mentioned on how I was mentored by the people who did that back in those days, because they were quite honestly the most wonderful caring people you could ever imagine. I had met many of them in their families as they were very warm people with families, and they were grandfathers and grandmothers eventually. It was a journey back then.

Pete: And so, what you described, like that hacker mentality, like, I love that because that’s something that I think that brings a lot of us together. Like you described how you were able to identify tones from a card reader, using piano, you’re able to like successfully print a barcode and just, I think, reverse engineering those things and figuring out how it works.

It’s such a light bulb moment.

And we love to pursue that. It feels so good regardless of the ethics behind it. Right. So, it’s not, we’re not talking about ethical or unethical hacking here, it’s just figuring out how things work and seeing if we can change the system.

Gummo: Yeah. You know, and the fact that I had to do criminal things too, with technology to survive that debt did not bolster who I was.

I mean, on the contrary. I felt like a horrible, I felt horrible, and I can only now after so many decades feel comfortable speaking about these things as it was, it was just so dramatically wrong, the way society views it. But again, Pete, you, you spoke of the hacker mentality. That’s literally the mentality is the eliminate of survival.

And where are your limits and how, what do you need to survive? And that’s, that’s how I think. And that’s who I am even every day. Now, when I’m even out surfing, I’m counting the rocks on the shore or identifying how many people are around me for pattern analysis. And so. It’s it becomes who you are and that all in, from my realization, it came from just being, being, having a means to survive.

And so that was my take on things back then.

Pete: I don’t think that was wrong at all. I think you’re being really hard on yourself. I don’t, I don’t see anything wrong with, with the things that you did from a survival perspective.

Chris: Yes. Survival perspective. And. I’m sure that you realized at that point in time that you were gifted in a sense. Right. So, did you ultimately share the fact that you had those abilities, you know, with your, with your inner circle of friends or did you keep that primarily to yourself?

Gummo: I kept everything to myself. My. The one thing that, I mean, you know, a lot of people don’t know this about me, and I’ll share it for the first time with a world.

But when I was a child, my goal was to be a priest and to I wanted to be a man of the cloth, me and I, my religion, my religion was lost and my faith was lost in the passing of my mother, but I never lost that focus and perspective.

Chris: That was a shift for you at that point in time.

Gummo: It was. And the, the, the shift was that not only that, but. I soon met my soon to be wife. I was 17 and I met her at 17 years old. And so, things changed very drastically at that point. For me, I, I stopped using computers for about three years and I fell in love, and I was modeling for model houses. I was modeling doing underwear ads in, on the modeling circuit in Europe for a few years after I’ve met my soon to be wife. And so, then she made me get a job at the supermarket. And so that took a break from computers for about five years. As I wanted to do, I want it to be like anybody else, I wanted to go work a job.

I wanted, I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to go work a job. I wanted to see what I felt like, and it didn’t take long. Right. I went to work in a supermarket. And I started figuring out the registers and the computers that ran them. And then I started taking money from these, you know, some like shit. And then they found out that I was good with computers and then that money’s missing that they can never connect the dots.

Chris: So, then it didn’t take you long to rediscover your passion.

Gummo: The passion was always there. It was the criminal intent that overtook the passion and Chris. And so, I came really close to getting in trouble.

Chris: And you’re a legal adult at this point too.

Yeah, I’m 19, right. I’m 19 years old and I’m, I’m, you know I figured out really simple that the registers that they were using at the, at the supermarket.

It was using code built in the seventies and it was super easy to go into the. The server room and override some things and then set five registers on training mode while groceries were being scanned and transactions were being accounted for. And then take them out of take all of those registers out of training mode and then balance their registers out.

And then that extra balance in cash. Yeah, it was. And so, these things were quite trivial and that’s, you know, that’s what my wife at the time found out, you know, she’s like, wait a minute, you know, you’re supposed to be making a five 50 an hour and you’re buying a $10,000 Sony Vega TVs. Do you know where, what are you…

Chris: Putting in some overtime!

Gummo: Yeah, it’s it was, it was, it was. The understanding of going living a righteous life was certainly met through my wife’s persistence. So, I mean, not fucking it up. And so, I, I didn’t, I, I did not want to anger her and, you know, I had a young child at the time. My daughter was two or three years old.

And so, it was all about. Taking care of my FA my, my daughter, my, my wife, and feeling the feeling, experience the feeling of going to work and coming home, watching television, and doing it all over again and doing it over and over again, while I took a break in a new look at life from that perspective. And so it was, it was it, it sucked.

Chris: You had that opportunity though, and it’s what you envisioned yourself doing. Right? So, you acted on it.

Gummo: yeah, I did. And I don’t feel like I have any complaints from my daughter. She she’s continued to provide guidance as far as, you know.

Chris: Keeping you in line.

Gummo: Mostly.

Pete: Even though you took that break from technology. You still maintain that mentality, which was, it was just really interesting, like figuring out how the registers worked, figuring out how the people worked and still seeing. What you could do, and it’s not like good or bad, it’s just, what could you get away with? What could you cause to happen? And kids are expensive. So, I think that still gets back to survivability two-year-old daughters. I mean, they’re not cheap.

Gummo: Yeah, I’ve got my kid she’s in, you know, she’s going to private school and I’m the assistant manager in a grocery store. I mean,

Pete: Five fifty an hour isn’t much.

Gummo: Yeah. Right. Things should, you know, so yeah. So, things were literally not adding up.

Pete: Is there a use to that you think Gummo like, so for example, like you, you described some of the things that you did, again, being hard on yourself, but like, you know, from, in your teens all the, up to 19, and there’s those early there’s very young years describing them as like bad things as what society views them. But now if, if you are established in your, in your career and you don’t need to do these things anymore, but you’re still doing them, you know, objectively. I think the intense way worse at the time I don’t see a lot of harm, but do you, do you see, is, does, does age have a, have a role to play here?

Gummo: Yeah, absolutely.

It does. You know, when you’re young, you want everything you want to drive. You want to drive the fast car you want the fast car and the pretty girl. You want everything, like what the fancy singers on television and the radio are singing about. And so those, these things drive mostly young men and women to that.

And hackers are no different, you know, they it’s, it’s quite obvious throughout the years is watching the accesses of people like Gonzales and et cetera, or the rebel guys getting bounced with all of that cash. And these are the things that they’re driven by. They want the drive, the hurricanes, and again, have the pretty girl and the big mansion, but you know, it, it doesn’t last forever, and it eventually comes crashing down.

Very few of the young, young people that are driven by that motivation, actually they can in advance of how to perhaps invest their ill-gotten proceeds. But yes, PE mostly the young mindset is driven by entirely financial consequences, whether intended or.

Chris: If you don’t mind, I’d love to get into some of your knowledge around cryptocurrency.

I know that’s one of your many areas of focus and your one of the early handlers of Bitcoin and getting to understand Bitcoin when we’re all starting to just understand the meaning of crypto. Talk to me a little bit about that and how you got introduced to Bitcoin and crypto.

Gummo: Sure.

So, it was around 2009/ 2008 when I arrived in Chicago to work on some projects. I was living in Indiana and so I arrived in, in about 2008. I was working on a, a fiber line for the CME back then. And I was working for media company as well in Chicago. And so. I moved in; we moved the entire operations of this media company.

It was a business-to-business company. They were based out of the UK and then they needed all kinds of connectivity from Chicago to UK to Oceana to all over the globe. And so, they needed someone. Who could facilitate these communications and necessitate them for their organization.

Gummo: And so, day, you know, here I am. And so there I begin to move their operations into the AON building. The AON center is the, at the time it was it’s the white, super tall building in Chicago that said there’s only like three or four super tall. And so, it was on the 70th floor of the AON building. We, at the time I was working with an IT director, and we were working with a company, XO Communications in Chicago.

And we brought up we brought fiber all the way up 70 floors and it was kind of really ridiculous because back then it was just too wide for all the Cobbs back then. And Coke, corporate infrastructures is ISD and all that crap. And so, we were in fiber of 70 floors and I’m like, Ooh, What so under the building.

And so, then that’s when I got a tour I had, again, I just felt lucky, right? To having access to the buildings engineer who had access to the MCI engineers who had access to the internet routers about three stories under. Oh, really? The internet is under here Yes, there’s literally an internet backbone router underneath the building.

I’m sitting on top of it with a gigabit fiber line plugged in. And so, I began thinking like, what can I use this for? Like literally, what can I purpose this for? I mean, clearly, you know, I’d set up. So, for the company upstairs, right? While I’m scheming in my mind for the thing that I want to use.

Unbelievable connection for in 2008, 2009, they are upstairs I’ve completed it for the company. I’ve completed their K a band KU band connections. So, they could have secure, encrypted, satellite communication for their company and all the meanwhile I’ve got this gigabit connection and I really want to find a good purpose for it.

And so. If I have one when I have to. And so, I had another one run up to the seventh floor. So, at this point I have two gigabit internet. There are two gigabit internet pipes going up to the 70th floor of the AI building in Chicago and it’s 2008. So, I started looking around at things and. One of the things that have one of the things that grabbed my attention early on was I was part of a mailing list from the CCC chaos computer club.

And on the mailing list was this interesting article about Bitcoin and I’m bored. I’m smoking weed, I’m in the office. You know, I may have. And I’m reading this paper about Bitcoin and I’m looking at the equations and I’m understanding the equation quite significantly.

Chris: You could understand it really. At first glance.

Gummo: I truly understood the, the mathematics at first glance. I, at the first glance, I. Completely. It only took me 45 seconds to figure out the math and the code. And I was instantly, it was a Eureka moment for me that, and I’m like, holy shit, holy shit. And I begin mining about. The six days later after I read the paper in 2010.

So out 2010, I began mining right there in the Aon building with a gigabit connection and a couple Mac. What were they? The Mac pros with the holes in them, the IMacs. And so, you know, I had that started with one. And so, I had, you know, like 5,000 Bitcoins and I’m like, okay, cool.

You know, oh, this is really cool. And so, then the memory would exhaust on the computer and sunlight shit as I just began to, because more nodes were joining the network. And so, I’m like, what is shit? This is becoming more challenging because the co you know, it would take the computer two days now to solve the problem that it could solve in a day.

And so, Well, this sucks. And so, I, I bought, I didn’t buy, but I obtained through the company, another one and the same thing, I, you know, got another 5,000 Bitcoin. And so, I have two computers. And so, I realized early the potential was the more computing power you put into this. Of course, the more you are able to extrapolate out.

Chris: And so, did you have any idea then, or did you envision it to to go in the direction it did?

Gummo: No, I thought it was just going to be, I thought it was just going to be like monopoly money, nerd money. Right. And I felt like, well, you know, if there’s going to be nerd money, I should have quite a bit of it.

So, I got, you know, hundreds of thousands of them and I was able to keep them, and I started realizing the importance of mining them as efficiently and as quickly as possible. And so, I was mining on those four rigs and then the company went out of business. So, I’m like, you know, all right.

Chris: There goes my CPU power!

Gummo: No, I own the contrary by that time I was. Personally, I was in a bad place, you know, I’m out of shape. I’m almost a hundred pounds overweight. It’s things, you know, and there’s things breaking down on my body. And so, I took a break for a year. The when the company closed down, I was very thankful for that.

Now I was like, okay, this is great. I get a chance to heal and rest and get back into. And then, you know, during that cycle, my brother passed away. And so, you know, the solace that I was finding in exercising only was increased, right. Where I didn’t really want to be online that often. And so, I went a window into mind, those Bitcoins.

Up until I went onto my Bitcoin in one capacity or another, whether or not it was a supercomputer that a bill or on a laptop, I mind them from 2010 to the October of 2014. And so. That was satisfied with the amount that I had, as I realize the efforts by the time that I had built the super computers at the CME, they were trading for $200 a coin.

And so, it was a, to me that was the race to get it as fast as possible. And so, there were thefts back then the Mt. Gox thefts, and they they’re continued to beat this today. Surrounding the cryptocurrencies in one fashion or another. And so, I wanted to obtain mine as quickly as possible, and I was able to do that.

And about that time, we saw the emergence of Russ Ulrich and the Silk Road and Bitcoin really becoming a thing. And so that’s when, you know, I started to consider it’s time for me to move on to other, other things. Yeah. And so that’s what I did. I continued, I shut down my money operations about then,

Pete: Did you ever feel targeted mining so many coins? Like you were just focusing on mining so much, it’s just, you become a high value target and you got a lot of assets to protect.

Gummo: No, I was, I was, no one knew what I was doing at, you know I’ve got a son that I’m putting through high school. I’m working on my personal goals and I; you know, you keep your mouth closed, especially in a place like Chicago.

A few of my friends in Chicago knew what I was doing. Yeah, but it, and when I say a few, I mean, two, two people knew what I was up to. Wow. You got to keep that close to the chest. You do even at $200 a coin, I knew the intrinsic value to how me versus how many I had. And, you know, I had. And then in, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of traders and a lot of people who are well connected in the financial systems of the world.

And so, the advice that I was able to get from them certainly made sure that I was able to put my assets in a very safe and comfortable place, even to this.

Chris: Absolutely. So really quick, I like to talk to you about where you think crypto and blockchain are headed now. So NFTs, I want to talk to you about NFTs cause that’s on everyone’s radar now and I’d love to get your thoughts and opinion on that. And you know, just where crypto as a whole is going.

Gummo: That’s a good question. I, and, well, you know, a lot of people who really don’t fully understand blockchain in its simplicity really are. And I don’t want to say people that don’t understand it, don’t champion it, champion it. And because that will not be fair to others, that truly don’t.

However, I feel that it is a very solid foundation for, for any type of computing system to be based off of as demonstrated its simplicity and openness. Show the world how safe and secure it is. And so, I see the world of digital crypto currencies expanding drastically as governments in banks, banking, traditional banking systems, try to discourage its use among the users and masses while trying to create their own, to replace their own currencies and abroad.

And so, the technology that powers the blockchain themselves, which has been demonstrated by the Ethereum founders and et cetera, have demonstrated their proficiency to be very safe and strengthened environments for the future of ours. Of the internet and the web, it’s specifically the web and its demonstrations of bringing information to everyone.

As we are all aware, there are deep fakes out there. Add information and videos even that are created to misguide people in the world. Well, the technology and foundation that would be based off of a blockchain driven application or, or even the technology itself or the idea could, could, and will eliminate those threats and issues that we currently face in society from users who don’t understand those threats.

The emergence of the cryptocurrencies within spaces, such as NFTs are interesting as for a matter of disclosure. I have a few on open seat. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it’s the fact that they NFTs exists are interesting as they are literally just. Tech contextual contracts between two people for a specific amount of that given cryptocurrency, which is interesting because it’s come up in coming alongside a technology that we now need to engage in, or that.

Silicon Valley once has all to engage in which is immersed reality products. The closer we become engaged with these interfaces, glasses, goggles, implants, Brighton, these ridiculous implants, and they will actually be a thing in the future where the people will use them. And that this will, how this will be the method that people interface with the internet.

And to fund these foundations, you’ll need a technology like a blockchain because unfortunately your, my SQL database will just be unwilling to provide that sort of flexibility if futureproofing for those foundations.

Chris: Yeah. Well, well put it’s something I need to, to educate myself on. I would love to build my own NFT. I actually looked at doing it. I haven’t had the time really to invest in doing it, but I would love to do it just to see the process and understand the process. If I don’t make 1 cent from it, I just want to understand how it’s done so I can help explain it to other people.

Gummo: I’m not going to sit here and be some proponent going, oh man. It’s so easy. It’s so red. It’s so cool. No, it’s, you know, it is what you make of it. Right. So, I was a smart ass and put one of my NFTs up for like $5 million. I put it on Oxford. I paid the gas fees and everything. Just like, yeah, nope. Yeah. I’m just going to be a.

And so, I’m like, okay, $5 million. And then the price of a theory I’m started to drop and then continue to drop. And then, so I’ve watched it drop it’s like and say, God, you know, at one point it went all the way down to like a million bucks. What the, you know, but I found it, I found it issuers, but yeah.

Chris: So, someone was going to get a deal at a million!

Gummo: Yeah. Well, you know, I did it as a Lark. If someone buys it, I’m just going to donate the money to homeless people. But the fact is that the, the, it shows the justification and that the dip in value and the volatility of cryptocurrencies inside. Governments want to erase that, you know, the us government wants to put that clearly under its wing as, as well as other countries.

And they’ve demonstrated that by simply outlying any type of cryptocurrency or mining the respectively.

Pete: Are there any implementations of NFC or crypto that really work are very successful in that technology? Or, or are there any ones that you can think of? It doesn’t belong. You talked about how open it is, but it seems like NFTs are very polarizing depending on who you ask.

So great for supporting artists and podcasts like yourself, but, or, or do we need to NFTs in, in gaming or something like that?

Gummo: I mean, so that’s what I’ve been doing lately for the past several months is I’ve been playing a game called roadblocks. I’ve been it’s even on my Twitter feed and it’s, it’s fun as hell for one.

And you would never believe what your kids are up to second, the things that are available only in this environment. Are based off of technology, similar to NFTs, right? So, in the future, in the future, right when Chris gets his NFTs put up, he could, when he sells his NFT, that only means that now his NFT is that’s, that’s just something that’s available in the digital universe.

And so, you could take a picture of Chris from his early youth and trade that for value somewhere along the line, in the future with an NFT in the so-called meadow verse. I, I swear to God, I say that in the metaphors, that’s how it will work in FTS, digital cryptocurrencies, digital dollars, digital rupees, digital yen digital pounds, they will all be there in our future, in your future, in our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future. And that will be the reality. So, the things that you’re seeing now in the, the backlash that you see from people who don’t fully understand or embrace a Bitcoin, but blockchain technology.

You know, which are the foundations of NFT. These are the people that have yet to fully realize its potential. And they are, what’s interesting is that some of the people that have protested blockchain powered technology actually are avid investors in it, or they actually use are using it every day in their lives in technology that they don’t even know that they’re using it in.

The proliferation of blockchains will continue to increase. The values of cryptocurrencies will continue to continue to increase. And the usage of digital arts such as NFTs are just the beginning of what we are, are opening up for the digital universe of our lives to come.

Chris: It’s scary. But it’s fun, you know, it’s, it’s like it’s like you’re watching history in the making.

Gummo: We, we always are. We, as a society are always part of history each day that we rise to be part of this great thing that we call humanity. But the thing that we don’t always typically do is embrace the next thing that comes along. And so, if you see it as fun, rather than a challenge, I think that you will do just fine.

But if you see technology as a challenge or you find that you’ve grown attached to one typically specific piece of technology, and then you see it replaced or outdated, do you. That you are literally reacting on your own emotional bond between that piece of technology. And so, points to consider when you update your apple software.

Chris: That’s a great point. I’m hearing last call here. Gummo, do you have time for one more? If you opened a cybersecurity theme bar, what would the name be? And what would your signature drink be called?

Gummo: I would just name it Hackers Hangout. And the, my signature drink would be, I don’t know, we’ll call it the gum- oh, and it would just be some Sprite with a little splash of cherry Grenadine and a cherry on top. That would be my, get down, inhale my bar and it would be painted all black with black furniture, black for black lights. You have no reason because there won’t be any.

Chris: That’s great, man.

Real quick before you go would you mind just sharing where our listeners can find you online what your social media footprint is and where they can. You know, listen to you on that awesome podcast.

Gummo: Yeah. So, you can find me, you go find me online@twitter.com forward slash and “GUMMO” G U M M O X X X.

You can find me on my website, hackers.xxx, and also, I launched a new website. It’s part of hackers and it’s called neverrain.org. And you can search for hackers on any podcasting platform. And if you see the black hacker’s logo, that’s me and always doing something weird and wacky on the podcast, but…

Chris: Everyone listening to this has to listen to that. I would highly, highly advise that you do that. Awesome. Awesome show and yeah, definitely.

Gummo: It’s made from love.

Chris: And Pete, thanks again, man. For joining me. It was great seeing you as always

Pete: my pleasure.

Chris: And yeah, you guys both take care of Gummo hopefully you know, one day we’ll catch up and have a drink for real and.

Gummo: I’ll be at hope and defcon this year, Chris. So be shared to come and see us in the United States. So, I’ll be, I will hit you up. I’ll be a hope in New York city in in July. And I’ll be at Def con in Vegas, in August. So yeah, for sure. Let’s meet up and we can have a, have a Sprite.

Chris: Let’s do it, man. Alright. Thanks guys. Take care.

Pete: Thanks.

Gummo: Thanks Chris, thanks Pete.