Len: Thank you for having me, Chris. Been looking forward to doing this one for a while.

Chris: Yeah, man, definitely since Vegas, when I saw you last.

Len: Dude, there’s a reason we only have, you know, hacker summer camp once a year, because I think if it was more than that, we would just die.

Chris: Yeah.

Len: You know, we’re there for a week, and it’s like a two month recovery.

Chris: Exactly.

Len: Mentally, physically, emotionally, ecumenically.

Chris: Yeah, I really focus on just going and networking. Unless it’s a talk that I’m really interested in, I’ve just determined that it’s. It’s overkill for me, the amount of information that I take. And the good thing is you can get those talks later. Now.

Len: Yeah. Honestly, I go with this for the same reasons. I mean, it’s. Honestly, for the last. I would say for the last three to five years, it’s just been so hard to actually get into talks. You know, just the population of the community has tripled over the last couple of years. And, I mean, I remember when you could just bounce from one talk directly into another session. And you could just do that all day. Now you gotta wait in line like you’re waiting for the concert tickets back in the eighties.

Chris: That’s true, man. I’ve stood in lines at Defcon to the point where the talk was almost finished and I haven’t got in yet.

Len: Yeah. And it’s like, at that point, it’s no longer fun. So I’ll just wait, and I’ll watch them on the recordings and get the information that way and spend the time, you know, interfacing with, you know, awesome dudes like you.

Chris: Well, and also, if you’re presenting, like, you, you really can’t be late. That’s one talk you have to be in. So, did you present it all this year?

Len: No, honestly, I have never managed to score DefCOn yet. I mean, I’ve done every other major conference around the world. I mean, I’ve done RSA sector. I’ve done Jitex in Dubai, it web in South Africa, the one conference at the Hague, you know, but DEfCon is, like, my red herring. I just can’t seem to get it. You know? I mean, to be honest, what I’m doing, you know, I’m not doing anything that a lot of other augmented people have done before me. I’m just the first guy that’s actually decided to really try to find a way to repetitive.

Len: Repeatedly weaponize it and actually find a way to expose it to the masses in such a way that they can’t be ignored anymore. But the biohacking village has been around forever.

Chris: Yeah, yeah. And I definitely want to get into that. But let’s. I want to level set first for our listeners, if you don’t mind talking to your origin story, man. Like, where are you from? What do you feel has helped shape you as a human being?

Len: That’s really a complicated question. Where did I come from? I was born and raised on the west side of Detroit, in a suburb of Detroit. My father was an auto mechanic. My mom cleaned houses. So I’m very much a blue collar brat. But I love talking about this stuff, especially today, because you and I are from a different generation, you know, and trying to explain what it was like to grow up as a Gen xer to, you know, the modern generations.

Len: I swear to God, they think, you know, we were like, all lord of the flies, you know, we’re out there, you know, living in. Living in the woods and only coming home. But, I mean, you remember what it was like, you know, we were basically left to do whatever we wanted to do.

Chris: Yeah.

Len: And I started out very, very young with this constant questioning of how and why. If it was mechanical, if it was electrical, it was like, okay, look at a tv. How does this actually work? I know I’ve got this big tube thing, but how do pictures come out of it? And how do they get to my house? Over the signals. I’ve just been that curiosity kind of a person since as young as I can remember, you know, and I.

Len: God, loved the days, you know, in Gen X, where we can just, oh, dad’s got a toolbox out there, there’s some screwdrivers. I think I’m just going to take whatever the heck this thing is apart and see if I can figure out how it works. And it was a lot of trial and error back in the day, you know, building gadgets, you know, just screwing around, you know. And I think I was very, very fortunate because my father was one of those types of people where he loved having the latest, coolest, you know, geeky stuff.

Len: You know, he went through the, you know, the remote control car phase where, you know, those $7800 little rc cars and stuff. And I remember he brought home this, this device, it was called a Magnavox Odyssey two. And yes, if you want to go look this up on Wikipedia, this was like one of the original set top model kind of game systems, you know, and you can, you know, play simple games on it. You know, it was even before the Atari systems, and this was back in the day, you know, and I know the modern listeners will.

Len: Are going to think we are so archaic, you know, you remember the good old days before the Internet, or the ability to wirelessly transmit data between people, where you’d actually have to, like, go to a store and actually buy a cartridge, because it was the only way you could get things.

Chris: Yeah, wirelessly transmit. That’s like, you know, writing a letter to someone and sending it in the mail.

Len: Yeah. I mean, everybody calls, you know, it’s snail mail. But back in when we were growing up, that was basically all you had. Yeah, but my dad would go out every month or so, and he’d bring home a new cartridge for this, this gaming system. And he came home one day with this cartridge called computer basics. And, you know, it wasn’t a racing game. It didn’t have pictures of cool things on the cartridge. It had like a bunch of funky math symbols. And the manual for this thing was over 100 pages long.

Len: This was like schoolwork. Yeah, not interested.

Chris: This is not a game.

Len: This is not a game. What it did was it turned the console system into a very, very rudimentary computer. And, you know, it had one of those, you know, if you look up the picture of this thing, or if you look in my book, there’s a picture of it. It was basically a console, but it had like, a membrane keyboard on it. So you did have basic input, output, and it was faked. It really was, because that cartridge sat for a long, long time, you know, and I have no idea why it was. The manual was on the floor when I was going through the living room that day.

Len: But, you know, you got it. I looked down, I’m like, I got to pick this thing up. And it was just open to this page where it said, you know, this cartridge may not help you chart a spacecraft to the moon, but it can introduce you to the same concepts. And it went from being, wait a minute. This is something that is not schoolwork. This is something different. And from there, it was writing basic routines, learning about registers, and that was my absolute introduction to computers.

Len: And from there, my father being the man that he is. I’ve had a 386. I’ve had a 486. I had a 486 DX two. We’ve had a TRS 80 at one point. I have basically had every iteration of computers since day one. I remember working on token rings. I’ve got history with, working on prime Lundy mainframes with light pens. My first hack was on an isolated single room network in my high school. You know, the whole school wasn’t even networked at that point.

Len: And I was in a drafting class. Yes, believe it or not, my original career was. I was going to be drawing pictures. I was going to be making blueprints. But, yeah, I’ve been around for basically the entire computer revolution. And I think one of the reasons that I’m able to see a lot of the attacks and things that I do is because I don’t see any difference, really, between what we’re doing today and what we were doing, you know, 20 years ago, except for all the bells and whistles and the fact that we have completely complicated the hell out of it.

Len: I mean, some of my favorite attack vectors are still some of the old tried and trues, you know. I mean, I’m a big fan of beef, you know, let’s hook browsers, you know, come on, let’s have some fun, you know?

Chris: Yeah. Now, where did you learn to use those type of tools? Did you ever take any type of formulated training, or would you just consider yourself self taught?

Len: Well, the funny part is most, I spent most of my life as a black hat or a gray hat. I’ve only been in the security space now for just over a decade. I’m a retired one percenter outlaw motorcycle member. And the way that I actually explain to people is I learned I got most of my experience through practical application. So to answer your question, I was doing a lot of this stuff far before I ever decided to come to security.

Len: And I’ve actually gotten more formal training since I came into the security space than I ever had before. You know, everything before that. If you think back, we didn’t have things like the Sans institutions when we were coming up. It was a lot of time on the darknet, it was a lot of time in message boards, on IRC ICQ back in the day, but it was a lot of community effort, you know, in those original kind of hacking communities.

Len: And I got involved in those very early and I just basically stayed there my whole life.

Chris: Yeah. So for you, it seems like curiosity was the primary driver for your practical experience.

Len: Yeah. You know, and to be honest, being somebody who’s very technical in that kind of a lifestyle, I’m not going to say it doesn’t happen, but it’s not, it’s the exception, it’s not the rule, you know, and when you can do so, when you have a very unique set of skills that leads credence to potentially nefarious activities, you know, it can provide a very interesting life. You know, and we’ve all heard the story that there’s two ways to come to security. You can either go to college and spend a lot of time and a lot of money, or you can be a criminal for a while and then wake up one day and try to find a way out of it and utilize those same skills we spend. How much time as security practitioners trying to teach the art of thinking like an attacker?

Len: I don’t have to think like an attacker. I just have to think because that’s my normal state of being. You know, if I walk into a room, I’m sizing the room up, even though I’m not doing anything anymore. You know, where are the security cameras? Where are the exits? What are the potential things that could go wrong? I don’t sit with my back to a yemenite adore, you know, and that’s just normal life for me.

Len: And these are the same practices that we as practitioners are trying to instill in our clients and our customers. To have those same kinds of paranoias and see those same things that the bad guys are seeing.

Chris: You mentioned that you’re an ex black hat. So I’m curious, what forced you away from that criminal lifestyle?

Len: You know, that that’s really a very personal question and I have no problem answering it. It’s in the book. You know, I’m an open book when it comes to this stuff. You can’t really get to the me that I am today without understanding how I got here, you know, on so many levels. I mean, it’s not something that you do. You just wake up on Tuesday morning and decide, you know what? Today I’m going to start shoving microchips and computers in my body.

Len: You know, this is an evolution of an identity that’s taken me almost 50 years to become. But the truth is, it was the birth of my grandchild. And, you know, I know this is really hard for people to understand, but, you know, in my warped sense of reality, I had justified the lifestyle that I was living and how it could potentially be affecting my own children. But for some reason, I didn’t see the direct connection. It was like, these are my kids.

Len: They grew up with me, you know, and they know me. But for some reason, when they handed my granddaughter to me and I looked down all of the bad choices that I had made in my life, you know, I just came flooding right into my consciousness. And it’s like you have a choice to make. You’re either going to have to change some of your behaviors and the way that you’re living and to pull. This is not my quote, but I think it’s relevant.

Len: The only things that were really facing me, if I kept going down the road I was going was going to be either jails, institutions, or death. And I wanted to get to know this, this beautiful little girl in my hands. So I decided that, you know, I had to change everything. So I made my peace with the clubs. I was able to get out on good standings. I mean, a lot of people have a lot of questions around the club lifestyle, but, you know, and depending on what they are, I can answer some things, but I won’t answer others, you know, but I was able to leave in such a way that, you know, my.

Len: In good standings with my, my former associates, they. They’re happy that I’ve moved on. I don’t owe them anything, and I don’t regret that part of my life, but I’m not trying to glorify it either.

Chris: Yeah. And I can’t imagine that was an easy process for you.

Len: No, no. Oh, gosh, no. I mean, it was a change of everything. I mean, my entire identity was tied to my writing name, which was just hacker, you know? And the funny thing is, to this day, I mean, I’ve been apart from that life for over a decade now. And there are still people that knew me then that don’t even call me Len. You know, I’m just hacker. Including my in laws, you know, my mother in law still, you know, the last time I spoke to her was, you know, hey, hacker, how you doing? And I’m like, I’m doing fine, mother in law.

Len: So, I mean, it was a part. It was my identity for a long, long time.

Chris: Yeah. And you’re okay with being referred to as hacker?

Len: Yeah, I mean, we all have our hacker names. I’m just Hacker 213.

Chris: I need one, bro. I don’t have one.

Len: Oh, oh. You see, it’s kind of like, that’s one thing I’ve noticed about, about Hacker moniker. You know, and that’s one of the few parallels that I will say to, you know, my club life is, you know, you don’t get. You don’t give yourself a name. It’s bestowed upon you, and if it works, it catches, and if it doesn’t, you know, they try something else. And most of the time it comes from more of a mistake than anything else.

Len: I might have to start thinking. I’m gonna start thinking for you, brother.

Chris: All right, start thinking for me. So let’s transition to the topic of transhumanism.

Len: Absolutely.

Chris: Please define exactly what transhumanism is.

Len: Well, transhumanism is a philosophy. And honestly, there’s two distinct tracks to this philosophy. The first is basically medical compensation for deficiencies in the human body. And this was the philosophy that was actually coined by a gentleman by the name of Doctor Julian Huxley back in 1956. So, you know, most people may not have heard the term transhumanism, but I guarantee you everyone listening knows someone who is one.

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Len: Anytime you’ve seen somebody with, like, a continuous glucose meter, an insulin pump, a hearing aid, anytime you have any type of medical technology integrated into the human body, that is a transhuman. And by Doctor Huxley’s philosophy, we should be using technology to address any type of deficiency within the human body. So this is where you lose an arm. We can give you a prosthetic replacement, but it should stop.

Len: So that at the point where everybody that out there is still equal, you know, you’re not giving somebody superpowers and you’re just basically maintaining the status quo. There’s another gentleman who coined a different philosophy around transhumanism, whose name is FM 2030 now. Real name. Thank you very much for changing your name to FM 2030, because I could not pronounce this guy’s name to save my life.

Len: And most people are not familiar with who he is, but everyone is familiar with what his work was. FM was actually one of the founding fathers of cryogenics.

Chris: Interesting.

Len: Yeah, he is actually frozen currently with the hopes of being able to be one day brought out of cryostasis and brought back to life. His philosophy was, any type of technology that can enhance the human condition should be fair game. So from his philosophy, there was spawned a subgroup called Grinders. And you live in there, in Pittsburgh, if I am correct, there was a group called Grindhouse Wetware. Back around 2015, 2016, these guys were the originals.

Len: They started producing actual consumer grade implantable technologies. One of their members actually had an implant installed, I believe it was in Germany. The thing was about the size of a deck of cards. It was called the Circadia. And this was like the original Fitbit. This thing was going to take all of his bio stats, and it was going to be able to Bluetooth, transmit to an app on a mobile device.

Len: And this was back around 2015, 2016. And when it comes to that situation, the thing that I found absolutely hilarious, you know, is he goes from the United States to Germany, has a surgical procedure where literally it looks like he has a deck of cards under his skin sticking up at least a half an inch, and gets on a plane in Germany and flies all the way back to the United States and doesn’t have a problem.

Len: I get singled out for random checks every time. But, I mean, seriously, these were some of the first people that started actually doing self experimentation. And these are the pioneers that laid the foundations of the road that I’m walking today. They were taking and dissolving RFID chips out of cards because we didn’t have the access to buy implantable technology, just the RFID NFC chips. Back then, they were melting them out of access cards, encasing them in two part epoxy, and then using an exacto knife in their garage and implanting these devices in their bodies.

Len: There’s a gentleman by the name of Rich Lee. This. In my opinion, this guy is the ultimate do it yourself cyborg. Aside from, you know, the magnets and the fingers that, you know, a lot of us have, or a simple rFID chip, he actually implanted very small magnets in the targuses of his ears, and all he has to do is put a coil around his neck, and he has implanted in ear earphones.

Chris: That’s insane.

Len: He actually went so far as to surgically implant foam tubes between the dermal layer of his shins and his actual shin bones to act as built in shin guards. He was talking about doing an experiment, and this one, to this day, still fascinates me beyond belief. He was actually talking about having a surgical procedure to have wire lattice basically woven around his torso, going up to two embedded capacitors with the hopes that it would make him impervious to tasers.

Len: You got to think about it. If you’ve got a wire mesh in your torso or anywhere that electricity can go to with an easier path, it’s going to jump from the flesh to the wires, which are going to go right up into a capacitor and basically store that voltage so you can get shot by a Taser and just keep walking. You think that’s crazy? I don’t know how safe for your podcast this is, but I mean, it’s in the book and this is fact.

Chris: We have zero governance.

Len: Rock on. Because if you think that’s crazy, the same guy, Rich Lee, actually created a. And I believe he got a patent for this. Don’t quote me on that, but you can look it up. He created a device called the Lovetron 9000. And, you know, we’re going to a really bad place. When I start off like this, it’s a little haptic vibrator, you know, not much bigger than like, the bottom knuckle of your pinky.

Len: And the intention was it would be implanted at the base of the penis, and then it would basically enhance some type of sexual performance.

Chris: Okay.

Len: Yep. I’m giving you a minute to process that one.

Chris: I don’t know if I do that.

Len: Well, you might want to start with a magnet or.

Chris: Yeah, they’re not doing that in the biohacking village at DEFCON yet.

Len: We’re not doing that one at DEf Con. We’re definitely not doing that one at Defcon. And for me personally, I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ve gone beyond what you can commercially buy. And I’m going into the do it yourself biohacking as well. Up until this point, everything that I have personally implanted was purchased directly off of a website. It’s dangerousthings.com. and, you know, up until this point, everything is inductive powered. So I’m very.

Len: I pulled off some really amazing types of attack vectors with these types of implants, but I’m limited in scope of what I can do. So I’m. My next project is I’ve been working on designing a single board computer about the same footprint as a PI zero w. But this is going to be specifically for the purposes of being implanted and it’s for offensive security. So we’re building it with dual Bluetooth receivers. We’re building it with dual Wi Fi on it.

Len: And then once it’s done, you know, I’m currently looking into some different power options because the passive option is good if you want to do drive by style attacks like I’m doing, but I want the access to a complete embedded offensive OS. You know, I want to be able to do low energy bluetooth sweeps. I want to be able to do auto pwns. I want to be able to use distributed DN, not DNS but distributed USB capabilities. To where maybe I can just plug the antenna that you use for mouse jacking the little drone copter thing. Maybe I can find a way to power that through my cell phone and through a USB sharing application.

Len: I could be sitting around doing jacket style attacks. I could be doing war driving while I’m presenting. And ultimately I can actually take embedded technology into technology restricted locations let alone the ability for me to exfiltrate data.

Chris: So I’m curious man, what was the deciding factor that ultimately led you to physically insert embedded technology?

Len: Well, I followed the guys in grindhouse for years but they had never really put out something that had input output. It was very, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with this but it was very self serving from the standpoint of it’s like, look at me, I’m different. You know, it was a lot of leds glowing under your skin kind of looking like Iron man. They even had a tritium gas implant that they used for a while where you could, you would implant this little vial of tritium gas and you would have this green glow coming out of your skin, you know, and, you know, that’s great if you want to go to a rave and you want to show the world that you’re different. I, you know, and I completely, 100% understand and I respect that.

Len: But for what I was doing, that was during my black hat times. You know, it was nothing that was going to give me anything new. It wasn’t going to add a new tool to my arsenal. And honestly it would probably make me stand out a hell of a lot more if I’m walking around in my hands. Glow?

Chris: Yeah.

Len: Yeah. When obfuscation is actually the number one priority. I mean, everybody talks about pulling off a hack. Anybody can hack somebody. The trick is doing it in such a way that you can get away with it.

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You know, there’s a lot in digital forensics and incident response, so it just wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t until around 2020, 2021. At time, I was actually in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam doing a conference, and, you know, I saw a really funny article on LinkedIn today about laptop stickers. Yay or nay? And I am 100% yay. Laptop stickers, you know, and I would typically, I’ll go to, like, the tattoo parlors and get stickers from tattoo parlors for my laptops, you know, kind of my thing.

Len: And there was a guy in one of the tattoo parlors in Amsterdam that was talking about a different shop, one more stop down the railway in the next town over in Utrecht, who was doing body piercings, and they had RFID and NFC implants that they were doing. And it was. My head snapped around, like, what? You know, okay, now we’re talking about something that actually has weaponization potential. So I went in, talked to the guy. I’m like, what’s the name of the shop?

Len: How can I get ahold of these people? Was able to make a couple of phone calls and things, but wasn’t actually able to make it to that shop during that trip. But I can tell you, on the flight back, before I ever even landed, I had discovered dangerous things. I was already starting to go look through their forums, and, you know, I decided before going all out, you know, cyborg, I needed to kind of test the attack vectors.

Len: So I started with wearables.

Chris: Okay.

Len: I started with NFC rings, you know, and I would basically try the attack in terms of, can I social engineer somebody to give me a NFC enabled device? Well, yeah, I found out it wasn’t that difficult. I would spin the ring. So the NFC chip was on the inside of my hand. You know, I learned about, you know, how the antennas work, the orientations. And once I figured out that, then it was. I had to figure out, is it legal to do?

Len: And, you know, I learned some amazing things during the research of the book when it comes to implants, how they’re viewed by regulatory agencies, as well as protections around medical devices, period. So, for starters, subdermal microchip implants are looked at with the exact same scrutiny as any other dermal body piercing, period. There’s no difference. Even though these specific devices have to comply with rules of the FCC.

Len: So it’s kind of like they understand that they’re microchips but I don’t think that the general public at large realizes what type of capabilities these types of implants can provide secondarily. Just to finish that last point, you know, when we talk about making sure things are safe to be put inside the human body, we all defer to what the FDA did. You know that the FDA does not have a single pen tester, red teamer, any of the types of people that you would want testing medical devices. They don’t have any of them on staff.

Chris: I believe it.

Len: The companies themselves that are developing these products are running their own supposedly independent tests and then just submitting those results to the FDA. But there’s no real FDA red team that’s making sure any of us are safe.

Chris: Do you pen test your own technology?

Len: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s to the point where, you know, one thing that I, and this goes for me as a grinder just as much as it does for people who are utilizing medical devices for, you know, their, their personal health. Anytime we put technology into our bodies, we are, we are assuming the same vulnerabilities as those technologies. Period. It becomes part of us. So in my case, all of the chips are, you know, we’re going to take another trip in the wayback machine for a minute.

Len: But you remember the good old days of rewritable cds?

Chris: Oh, yeah.

Len: All of the chips that are currently available in the consumer market follow that same kind of a premise. They’re rewritable, but they’re also closable. Interesting, you know, so you can actually take these implants, write data to them, flip the, you know, read protection or the write protection block on it, and it’s done, it’s closed. So knowing that, and knowing that people are aware of the fact that I have these types of devices inside my body, I actually have my own Faraday gloves that I had a seamstress make for me.

Len: So when I go to places like Defcon, if I feel like, you know, if I’m going to be in a space where I’m a little nervous, I’ll actually pull out gloves that go up almost to my elbows, like gauntlets, but they’re lined with radio transmission resistive fabric on the inside to protect myself. And I go after myself with flippers, with proxmarks. I have to make sure that I’m safe.

Chris: Yeah. What about physical side effects of having implanted devices? Is there any resistance from your body to the technology that you have inside?

Len: Doctor Justin, I’ve only had one medical complication out of any of the ten implants that I’ve done so far. And that was on the large flex next, which is the combination RFID NFC chip that I have on the top of my hand here. So this thing is bigger than a silver doll. And my body mechanic, being a very wise and knowledgeable person, said, you know, before you come in and get this procedure, you need to get on some anti inflammatories.

Len: So before I get too deep into this, let me explain. There’s two basic types of implants that are available out there. You have what are called bioglass and then flex membrane. So the bioglass is about 2 mm diameter, and it’s just a little bit bigger than a piece of long grain rice. They come preloaded in a syringe style applicator. And it’s the size of like a body piercing needle, but it’s a very, very quick process.

Len: You pinch and tent the skin, insert the needle, push the plunger down, pull the needle out, put some skin glue and a band aid on, you’re out the door in less than two minutes. The flex membranes, especially when you start getting into the larger ones, these are more akin to like an actual surgical procedure. There’s a scalpel that’s used to basically cut deep enough to where you’re through the dermis layer of the skin and you’re down to the muscle tissue.

Len: Then they use tools, which are called dermal elevators, and they closely resemble medieval torture devices. They’re basically blunt instruments that they use to basically separate the skin layer from the muscle tissue layer because they have to make a pocket that’s big enough to accept the implant that’s going into. Once that’s done, you basically skin glue up, put a band aid on it, and out the door you go.

Len: Keep in mind, one very important point to mention is it is illegal to administer any type of novocaine or numbing agent through any type of injection without having a minimum of a nursing certificate within the United States. So everything that I have just described is done straight up raw. There’s no numbing agents, and it’s grit your teeth and just get through it.

Chris: How long does it take?

Len: It depends. Like, you know, the small magnet required a similar process on the end of my finger, and that took, you know, three to five minutes. The large one on the top of my hand, probably about 20 to 25. And unfortunately, by not getting on anti inflammatories prior to having the large one put in the top of my hand, I woke up the next morning with what looked like about a quarter of a softball growing out of the top, and it was just all the pressure and the fluid from the swelling.

Len: I went to the doctors, and I was like, I need some prescription strength motrin. And they took one look at me and were like, we need to get you into. We need to get you into surgery and get that out of there. I was like, you guys don’t understand. I just spent a lot of money to put that in there. I’m not taking it out. And I wound up just having to go to the intake double doses of over the counter motrin for about a week and a half.

Len: But aside from that, I’ve had no physical ramifications. But, you know, to the point of, you know, taking it with, you know, painkillers. I also do flesh hook suspensions for fun.

Chris: So you have no issue with pain?

Len: I’m not unfamiliar with pain.

Chris: I guess you have to be, man. So I was not aware of that anesthesia restriction either.

Len: Yeah, one loophole. Because, like I said, I’m a black cat, always at heart. So I always see the loopholes and the vulnerabilities. It’s against the law for anyone without a nursing certificate to administer any type of anesthetic. But you can shoot yourself, and that’s legal.

Chris: But how do you get it?

Len: Is the problem that therein lies the other problem. So it’s. There’s always a loophole. There’s always a way around the rule. But then they hit you on actually finding the stuff.

Chris: So how did you find your body mechanic?

Len: I got lucky. I actually, in my departure from Detroit, I decided to settle here in the Austin, Texas area. And on the dangerous things forum, there is actually a section for installing, and it’s a global map where they have people that are understanding of the technology, what the processes are. And I happen to live in the one place where the world’s greatest mechanic happens to own two shops. His name is Pineapple Tangora, and he is the owner of shaman Modification in Austin, Texas.

Len: You know, there’s a difference between a body mechanic and a body piercer. Mechanics are the people that you would also go to if you wanted to split your tongue, if you wanted to gauge your ears, you know, if you wanted any real type of extreme modification. Pineapple was actually the very first person that ever implanted a Tesla car key into a human being. He actually made Newsweek. I want to say it was back around 2018, you know, and he did that in his shop right here in Austin. So I happened to pick the perfect place, you know, and honestly, that that initial conversation, you know, it was a trip.

Len: You know, I, I called up the shop. You know, I was like, yeah, I’d like to speak to the, you know, pineapple. And I, it was like I’ve had, I’ve had less scrutiny in a darknet chat room. I really have, you know, it was like instantly, okay, why do you want to talk to him? You know, you, you want implants. Okay, do you have them or do you expect us to. Oh, you have them. You do know these are not just, you know, standard dermal implants?

Len: Yeah. Oh, okay. We’ll have him call you, you know, but I mean, seriously, I’ve gone into darknet chat rooms where they were friendlier, but, but once we finally connected, you know, it was like this brotherhood was there. He got a, the, the vision that I was looking for and, you know, he’s been my, my guide and my shaman ever since. So he’s going to be the one that’s going to be putting in the single board computer when I get it.

Len: You know, he’s an amazing guy. And, you know, in my opinion, anytime somebody’s looking for one of these types of modifications, if you can make it to Austin, there are other places you can go. But, but pineapple is the one that’s been doing it the longest.

Chris: And I noticed you said when you get it. So you’re not done yet.

Len: We’re still in development.

Chris: Still in development, but you currently have ten. So if you don’t mind, could you run down that list and explain their functionality?

Len: Sure. I have a bioglass next, which is a combination RFId NFC, and that was actually the very first implant I ever got. The large implant in the top of my hand is the flex next. This is basically the upgraded version of the next chip. And the reason I had to get that larger one is in order to hold a cell phone in its natural orientation to perform any type of mobile attacks. The coil on the bioglass, it just wasn’t big enough.

Len: So I have a flex EM, which is an EM 4000 RFID chip that can be used for physical access. I have an HID chip, so I can actually interface to hid one, two and three. And this one actually has my electronic badge to get into my offices back in Boston. I have a flex desfire, which is an eight k desfire chip. I have a flex m one. So this will give you your, my fare classic. Along with Prox, Diamond, Andala pyramid and all of those other physical access protocols, I have what is called a titan biomagnet. In the tip of my left pinky, which provides magnetic vision, so I can actually feel electromagnetic fields and pulses and currents.

Len: If the shielding in your electrical isn’t the best, I can actually trace the electrical wires in your building by running my hands over the walls. I have what is called a wallet mower. This was, in my opinion, one of the coolest microchips I ever got. It was a credit card. It was basically a prepaid credit card, and I could actually tap to pay with my hand, which you get a lot of attention when you do that. You really do.

Len: Unfortunately, that company has since gone back bankrupt, so I’m going to be removing that chip and replacing it with a different one. And I have two crypto bionic security chips. So these are actually tied to apps on my phone, and they’re not used as offensive security, but they’re actually used to secure me. So I actually use a triple factor authentication to get to my OTP codes. I have to have my biometric to log in or a password.

Len: I have to have a specific app that’s already been paired with my implant, and I have to be able to scan that implant. Then and only then, will it give me access to my OTP codes. And as an added form of security, after that 62nd time down, you actually have to scan the implant again to get a new code. But this also takes care of my Bip 32 crypto wallet key. I can do sha 256. It will do all kinds of different things, even up to and including. If you have a Tesla, you can actually put your valet key on the implant and just get in your Tesla and drive around with it.

Len: Damn.

Chris: So these are all proprietary chips with.

Len: Single use functionality, essentially reusable single use functionality. But one of the things that I’ve recently discovered is a way to try and start piggybacking multiple microchips in a single attack. You know, I came up with an amazing new attack, actually, two of them. And, you know, I think you’re going to love these. I go into a lot more detail in the book around this, along with a lot all of the other different attack vectors.

Len: But let’s start off with. Let’s start off with phishing. We’re all pretty familiar with phishing attacks, right?

Chris: Yep.

Len: What is the hardest part for the adversary? When. When pulling off a fish?

Chris: Well, getting the user to click.

Len: Bingo. So I found a way that I can basically make sure that that’s not a problem. So let’s set up a quick little situation. And, you know, we all love the cyber distortion guys, and, you know, they’re going to be listening to this. So. So pick one of them to be a victim today.

Chris: I’ll say Kevin.

Len: All right, so let’s say Kevin is my real target. I’m not going to go after Kevin. I’m going to go after you because, you know, Kevin. And this will work for both, either a fish or a Smish. I can program a message, either a text message or an email, including hyperlinks, into an NFC trigger. So. Hey, Chris, you know, let me see your phone for a second. I got this amazing video I want to show you on LinkedIn.

Len: The minute my phone can trigger that NFC, if it’s a text message, it’s going to be coming from your actual phone number. If it’s coming from an email, it’s going to pull up your default email carrier. If you’re on iPhone, that would be mail. If you’re on Android, it’s going to be Gmail. And realistically, who looks at their sentence messages in emails? And by the time Kevin figures out that this is not you, he’s probably already clicked on the link that I sent him.

Chris: Yeah, because I’m a trusted entity.

Len: Exactly. So I’ve removed that artificial first step and made it real. The other attack that I came up with recently, and this one is just a monster, is I’m using a little raspberry bi zero w two running Ubuntu 2404 and man in the middle proxy. I’m gonna let that sink in for half a second because you know what I’m using. But now I gotta show you how I make it work. So this takes two different implants.

Len: The first is a URL redirection to the certificate for the proxy. The second is an NFC trigger to actually connect you to the hotspot that’s running on that Ubuntu 2404 and proxying that information through the man in the middle and then coming out through my cell phone.

Chris: Interesting.

Len: I pulled this off in less than 15 seconds. Now, there are some protections on the mobile devices iPhone, a heck of a lot more than the Android, but I’ve actually flashed out both, both processes. Once I can pull this off, as long as we’re in, I’m in range of you. Even if we’re just sitting down eating lunch, everything that your phone is doing, all those background processes are going to be coming across my proxy in clear.

Chris: Text with zero interaction, for me, none.

Len: And the scary thing is, even if I’m assuming you’re like me, extremely paranoid, you know, when I leave my house, the first thing I do is shut off my wifi. You know, I don’t want somebody with a Wi Fi pineapple pulling some kind of drive by attack. But one of the features of the NFC trigger, even if you have your Wi Fi disabled, it will turn it back on and connect it to the predefined SSID and password.

Len: And the problem is, we are pushing so much more of our, our processes into wanting to use contactless payments. You know, we want to be able to just have that convenience, you know, but we need to start looking at things from a different perspective. I love this, and I wish the listeners could actually see your face when I’m about to ask you this question. Hey, Chris, the next time we get together, would you hand me your wallet and let me look through it?

Chris: Negative.

Len: But you’ll hand your phone to somebody. You know, we are containing exponentially more data and Pii on our mobile devices, but yet we’re still more concerned about what’s in our wallets. Yeah, if you wouldn’t give your wallet to somebody, don’t give your mobile device to somebody.

Chris: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

Len: When we think about it, most people don’t know these types of attacks even happened. And I’m hoping that by exposing this, the scary part is with bring your own device. The ability for me to potentially ride one of those dedicated connections and apps back into an enterprise, it’s there. If you don’t have your application isolation configured correctly, that’s an expressway for me as the adversary to get right into your corporate network.

Chris: Oh, yeah, yeah. So I know you mentioned this, but would you mind explaining how your devices are powered?

Len: Induction. They get their power from the receivers, not from the devices themselves. Currently, the only thing that has any type of internal power has to be FDA certified or homemade, which is why I’m going the way I’m going with the implant, with the SVC, because I want that ability to connect to via SSh from my cell phone. Basically set up a bash RC file that’s just gonna. Next time it powers up, it’s gonna actually just run some routine.

Len: Whether it’s auto pwns, scans, war driving, whatever I want it to do, I can just basically set it up before I walk into a place, let it go, and, well, I mean, the idea of being able to take something like parrot sac into restricted locations within the federal government, you know, this is the kind of threat that this stuff actually poses.

Chris: Yeah. What do you think about the future of augmented humans? Will this become more common?

Len: Oh, absolutely.

Chris: And do you think that there will be regulation in place for it.

Len: Yes and no. Yes and no. Because, you know, if you look at it, there’s a law that actually allows for the ability to self explanatory experimentation. It’s built into medical doctrine. So the idea that you can tell somebody they can’t experiment on themselves is not something you can do. So in my vision, the way I see it, there’s going to have to be a lot done in terms of social acceptance, morality, moving the needles of what is considered socially acceptable.

Len: You know, one of the examples that I love to give is, let’s say you and I work in some factory somewhere, you know, where we’re dealing with high temperatures, we’re dealing with, you know, corrosive environments. If I was to walk into a position today and say, I’d like to cut my arm off and get a prosthetic because of what I do for a living, this is what I plan to do for the rest of my life. This would make me a more efficient worker, you know, I don’t have to worry.

Len: And this new prosthetic, maybe it can have up to 500 pounds of foot pressure, worth a grip by today’s standards, I would be looked at as having body dysmorphia. But in my opinion, the only reason we’re not having these discussions yet is prosthetic limbs have not gone beyond the functional capabilities of biological. Once we get to a point where prosthetics are superior, then I think these types of discussions are going to start happening much more frequently.

Len: Because if you think about it, you know, let’s say the future cybernetic arm, we’ve already proven that you can use with prosthetics today, that you can provide tactile response, you can provide temperature sensing. And they’re doing this by aligning sensors to where the nerve bundles are severed in the stumps so we can give feeling back to prosthetic limbs. What happens when they’re superior at this point, to me, it goes hand in hand with the ideas going on with brain computer interfaces and the future technical dreams of downloading consciousness.

Len: That’s a great story. We got a long way to go before we get there, you know, but in both sets of circumstances, the only people that this types of technology would be available to would be the most, you know, encumbered among our societies. It’s going to be people with, you know, health deficiencies, it’s going to be people who are shut ins, people with Parkinson’s, you know, it’s not going to be the Elon Musk’s and the Jeff Bezos and, you know, and the Bill Gates and the Chris Granlons and the Len knows, you know.

Len: So once we get to the point where things are superior, then there’s going to be the desire to actually have these types of devices. And until we get to that point, you know, this is all speculation, but as long as they’re still looked at as replacements for limbs as opposed to enhancements for limbs, I think we’re going to stay where we are.

Chris: I see. So if someone listening to this is interested in this field, they’re looking at evaluating whether they want to get a technology implant or not. What would your advice be to them and what would be the safest route for them to take moving forward?

Len: My advice to them would be, is if this is something that you find interesting and you think would enhance your life, go for it. There are so many different options available commercially at this point, and the companies have been around for years. So I would say, for starters, if this is something that you want to step into, I would avoid doing the do it yourself stuff right off the bat. Stick to stuff that’s commercially available in the United States, dangerousthings.com. if you’re in Europe, you have k sec based out of London.

Len: You know, these are the two major distributors for consumer grade implants globally. The second thing I would suggest is do your research first. Spend a lot of time on the dangerous things for them. Pretty much every question that somebody knew would be in need is in those forums. Thirdly, go to a reputable mechanic. And as I said before, there’s an entire section on the forums in terms of finding a mechanic or an installer.

Len: Don’t go to just any old body piercing shop, especially if they don’t have any type of understanding about this technologies. But this is by far, in my opinion, one of the greatest adventures that I have personally ever undertaken. And, you know, the one question people ask me all the time is, you know, why? Why? Why would you do this? And my honest answer is, why not? You know, if we’ve attached ourselves so much to that digital horizon with our mobile devices, simulations, you know, tactile response suits, you know, we want to be as close to, you know, like I’ve said to you at our event, I don’t find think that this, the singularity is going to be just the moment of sentient technology.

Len: I feel that the true singularity will be when that sentient technology integrates with the biological human as a single entity. We’re seeing more and more about neuralink. I brought up synchron around VCIS. This integration is not going to stop. And I’ve got a panel that I’m working on coming out with, and I’d love to get you involved with it where I want to. I’m sitting down with a medical doctor, a religious scholar, a genetic scientist, and someone around AI and self sovereign identity.

Len: And we’re going to talk about the human as it moves forward into this new future from not just the perspectives of what can we do, but also what will be the socioecological, geopolitical ramifications if these types of future come to pass.

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Chris: So, with that, let’s talk about your book for a second, because I definitely want to hit on this human hacked my life and lessons as the world’s first augmented ethical hacker. Tell us about this book and when we can get it.

Len: Well, the book is actually gonna be one of the more, in my opinion. I kind of took inspiration from FC, you know, freaky clown, you know, the way he wrote his book about, you know, how I rob banks. You know, I love the fact that he made it personal, and it was more like, you know, I’m just going to work, you know, so it. The book that I wrote is very autobiographical. In the beginning, you know, the idea of waking up and just starting to shove electronics in your body isn’t something that you just decide.

Len: This has been a progression of, you know, my identity for a long time. You know, I’ve been into the body modification scene, tattooing, piercings, even doing flesh hook suspensions and hanging from the ceiling for fun, you know, so it was more of bringing people along for the ride on what it would take for somebody to wake up and decide, this is the path forward for me and my. How I fit into the objective definition of being a human.

Len: I’ve also taken the opportunity to try and dispel a lot of different myths and fantasies about people like me. And, you know, I’m going to do one for you and the listeners. Now, the biggest time we’ve ever heard about implants was honestly back in around 20, 2021, when everybody was getting their Covid shots. I mean, you remember they’re putting trackers in us.

Chris: Yeah.

Len: Okay. This is the basics of it. A standard syringe. We all know what the needle looks like. That came into the room and we got our jab with. If they walked in with a needle that was the size of a ballpoint pen in diameter, I think we all would have noticed. And the truth is, nobody would have got that vaccine so, no, there is no gps trackers available on the consumer market. Secondarily, there’s no way to power them.

Len: You know, like I said, all of the implants are inductive power. So I don’t think I remember anybody after getting their vaccination, having to stand next to some kind of a device to charge some, you know, it just didn’t happen.

Chris: That’s true.

Len: The other things that I’ll tell you right now, I’ll give you my top two faqs. And as somebody with embedded technology, yes, I have my own frequently asked questions. Now, number one, is this the same technology that is in my dog or cat? It’s the same technology, not the same chip. Like I said, I can rewrite mine. All those chips that are going into our pets are, is an NSC chip with a single tag on it with a number that’s connected to a database.

Len: When you get the chip put into your animal, you register on the database. When your animal is found, they pull up the number and they, they look it up and go, oh, it belongs to Chris. Let’s give them a call and get fluffy back.

Chris: Right.

Len: Number two, how do I walk through airports? Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Most of the chips are silicone. They’re not metal. They’re not magnetic reactive. On top of that, everything that is considered inside your body is considered medical. So therefore, due to HIPAA laws and GDPR laws, security’s not even allowed to ask me. So this book explains this as well as all of the other factors that came into play in terms of my research into the legalities of doing things, the ability to continue traveling, any restrictions, you know, so it’s basically the journey of how I left humanity behind and embarked on this new journey as a transhuman and the ultimate goal of being the most robotic I can. By the time I end this life.

Chris: It’S truly an amazing journey. I can’t wait to read the book. When does it get released and how do we get it?

Len: We are releasing on October 29. We are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And I’d like to take this opportunity to invite both you as well as all the listeners. We are going to be having a virtual release party. It’s going to be on October 30. I will be post putting up information within the next couple of days. We’re just trying to finalize down the venue that we’re going to use up online and I will get you a copy of that to disperse to your listeners as well as posting it on my own. Social, and I hope to have everybody is there, and we should have an amazing time.

Chris: Yeah, man, I’ll definitely be there. I’m looking forward to it. So, lastly, I want to ask you about the Cyber Cognition podcast that you do with our good friend Hutch. Tell us about that program and where we can listen to that.

Len: Well, cyber cognition is kind of a collaboration between both myself and Justin Hutchins. And if anybody’s not familiar with Justin, he is probably one of the foremost experts on weaponizing AI out there right now. And our podcast is mainly focused at the future type of threats that are coming. A lot of it is based around predictions, you know, everything from transhumanism, integrations of biological technology.

Len: We got a couple of episodes coming up in the near future where we’re going to actually be going into some of the recent technological advancements around medical science. We’ve actually. I forgot which university is, but they’ve now found a way to turn the entire tensile strength of the human skin into a directional antenna.

Chris: Okay, interesting.

Len: And we’ve also got some research around some glucose, blood glucose power cells that might be able to be used to power internal medical devices just off of the sugar in our blood.

Chris: Interesting.

Len: So, yeah, Justin is keeping everybody up to date on what’s going on in the world of AI’s and LLMs, and I’m there to contribute my two cent in terms of what the future of humanity and technology holds and where that integration points actually going to hit. We are available on the ITSP podcast network and would love to see anybody want to come over and check us out.

Chris: Okay, cool. And I’ll get the links posted up as well. So, you often travel when you’re speaking at conferences worldwide. And I’m curious, was there ever a time when you walked into a truly unique bar, and if so, could you describe it for me?

Len: Yeah. Yeah, there was. I don’t remember if it was in Sweden or Norway, but it was up in one of the nordic countries. And the hotel we were staying at was actually a redesigned prison, and it still looked like a long cell block. They had the entire place decked out in, like, prison artwork, you know, old shackles and manacles. And your door to your room looked like a cell block door, and they carried that over into the bar area.

Len: And if you wanted, they left two actual cells as cells down in the basement. So you could actually go down there and, you know, see how the former occupants and residents of the establishment and what their amenities were compared to yours. So, yeah, I think that was one of the coolest places, and if that wasn’t it, the one that I would recommend to anyone, especially geek, is if you can ever get to Dubai, go up the elevator to the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa.

Chris: Okay.

Len: I’ll send you the video. The entire inside of the elevator are led screens, including the ceiling. So as you start to go up the elevator, it basically shows you what it would look like if the walls weren’t there.

Chris: That sounds insane.

Len: Absolutely. And then you go up through the. It goes above that, and you’re out. You’re up in the clouds, and the next thing you know, you look up and it looks like you’re docking in a space station and you’re going through space. It is the coolest thing I have honestly ever experienced in terms of, like, just being out and about.

Chris: Okay, Len, I just heard. Last call. You got time for one more?

Len: Yep.

Chris: If you opened a cybersecurity theme barred, what would the name be and what would your signature drink be called?

Len: I would name it RTFM.

Chris: Read the fucking manual.

Len: Read the fucking manual. It would be the name of the bar, and the signature drink would be the DDoS.

Chris: Nice.

Len: At which point it would be a combination play on the incredible hulk with some Hennessy, some hypnotic, with probably a little bit of. Oh, God, Amaretto thrown in just for some flavor. And you drink two of those and you will definitely be ddosed.

Chris: Love it, man. So thanks for stopping by, Lynn. Really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us, sharing your story with us, and. Yeah, looking forward to catching up with you soon.

Len: Yep, we definitely have some plans in the works.

Chris: I’ll see you. Take care.

Len: Take care.