The Godfather Of Dark Web (The Perfect Scam Podcats)

Godfather of dark web

[00:00:00] Will Johnson: Coming up this week on AARP – The Perfect Scam.
[00:00:03] There was one site that, where I think we saw 171,000 people registered to that site, and every one of those 171,000 people was there for some nefarious reason.
[00:00:12] I stole from people I knew, people that I never met and didn’t care. I was a despicable person then.
[00:00:21] Will Johnson: Welcome back to this week’s episode of AARP – The Perfect Scam podcast. I’m Will Johnson, I’m here with my cohost, the AARP’s Fraud Watch Network Ambassador, Frank Abagnale. Frank, how are you?
[00:00:30] Frank Abagnale: Great to be back, Will, thanks.
[00:00:32] Will Johnson: Frank, I’ve been thinking maybe there could be a sequel for “Catch Me If You Can. Have you thought about this at all or is it just me?
[00:00:39] Frank Abagnale: I haven’t thought about it, but…
[00:00:40] Will Johnson: You can do the other 40 years of your life.
[00:00:42] Frank Abagnale: Right.
[00:00:43] Will Johnson: Right? I don’t know who would play the role, but well I guess Leo could come back, Leonardo DiCaprio. Because our podcast is all about scams, we want to spend an episode talking about the Dark Web. The Dark Web is where cybercrime lives and flourishes, drugs, weapons, your Social Security number, you name it. AARP Fraud Watch Network expert, Doug Schadel went on a tour of the Dark Web to see it firsthand.
[00:01:10] Doug Schadel: The Dark Web started back in the early 2000s, it was actually invented by the US Navy. It was trying to get um, some communication channel for their operatives overseas to communicate anonymously. And so they developed this software called The Onion Router, TOR. T-O-R which is what you need to access the Dark Web, but early on, criminals started to see this, and being early adopters of that type of technology, they said, wait, we could communicate anonymously with each other? Let’s try that. That’s a good idea because we want to sell a lot of drugs. About 80 percent of the criminal activity on the Dark Web is drug trafficking. Every kind of drug you can imagine is for sale on the Dark Web. There is also the buying and selling of digital goods. This is your digital identity and my digital identity, Will. What’s a digital identity? Things like your Social Security number, personal information.
[00:02:10] Will Johnson: To delve much deeper into the Dark Web, how it started, how it works, and how it got to where it is today, we went to the source, Brett Johnson. Many consider Brett the guy who made the Dark Web what it is today. These days, Brett’s life is transformed. He’s using his expertise for the good guys as a consultant with the FBI, the Secret Service, and private companies who are fighting cybercrime.
            I sat down with Brett and we chatted for 90 minutes or so, and I have to say it was a bit of a bizarre experience after talking to so many fraud victims over the course of many episodes of this show. But Brett has an incredible story, and he helps us get inside the mind of cybercriminals.
[00:02:50] MUSIC SEGUE
[00:02:50] Will Johnson: The Secret Service once dubbed you the Original Internet Godfather, right?
[00:02:53] Brett Johnson: They did. I’m not proud of that title, but that’s what they said.
[00:02:57] Will Johnson: Brett knows probably as much or more about the Dark Web than, than most people.
[00:03:04] Brett Johnson: Probably more about the Dark Web and online cybercrime than, than most anyone. There may be some people that are still locked up that might know more than I.
[00:03:13] Will Johnson: We’ll get to them, eventually. And the reason being is that you actually launched one of the first online stores, if I can call it that?
[00:03:21] Brett Johnson: Yeah, I…
[00:03:22] Will Johnson: Trafficking and, and bad stuff.
[00:03:23] Brett Johnson: Right, I built the first online, the first organized cybercrime community. It was called Shadow Crew, it was the precursor to today’s Dark Net markets and it laid the foundation for the way that modern cybercrime channels still operate today.