Adrian Lamo

Inverview taken on: 1/12/01

What are your current AIM screen names? Line Trace
What is your e-mail address? adrian@adrian.org
Do you have a web site? inside-aol.com, terrorists.net, securid.org
What is your real name? Adrian Lamo. . if you want to be technical, its the Doctor Reverend Adrian A. Lamo, Ph.D . . Doctor of Divinity and minister through the Universal Life Church, the grandma of all diploma mills everywhere. . .i don’t take those seriously, and don’t expect anyone else to, but i put them on my resume and my business cards to make a point of my disdain for the certification and educational process.
Where do you live? i move around alot .. i like to travel, and have lived on both coasts, and spent a couple years in south america. . i’m in transit right now. . but am based out of San Francisco.
How old are you? 19
What are your hobbies? i like to break and explore. breaking things is integral to the progression of technology. . people accuse me of being directionless, but i think its important to drop dynamite into the pond sometimes, to see what floats up. in my copious free time, i like to explore abandoned buildings and sewer systems, as well as exploring occupied buildings – its amazing how many security guards will escort you up to the roof of a skyscraper if you only ask, or won’t even stop you if you look like you know where you’re going. . urban exploration is definitely a big passtime. one of the reasons i like to travel, too., i used to be involved in local activism and whatnot. . worked with the city government, stuff like that. . i’m massively disinterested in politics now though.
How would you describe your physical appearance? scrawny geek ; )
What do you hope to do as a profession? same as i do now. . short term, interesting contracts for worthwhile places. i’ve been working since i was 16, and have run through a pretty big variety of jobs and contracts. . most of them designed to be short term .. i did a 3 month security audit for a fortune 500 company once, that was probably the most interesting. . but i’ve worked for everything from nonprofits to law firms to private investigation firms. . i set up a Netzero account for one of kevin mitnick’s former attorneys at one of them, of all the ironic things. . thats the sort of thing i want to keep doing. i don’t want to be stuck behind the same desk all my life, working at the same place until i have too much invested in what i’m doing to be able to do anything to risk it.
How long have you been on AOL? used the service briefly when i was younger, when it was known as Quantum Link, and i was playing around with my commodore 64. . but i didn’t start to really use it til the mid-90’s. . i used AOL 1.6 for DOS/GeoWorks for the longest time, and actively resisted going over to the Windows version until they started disabling features one by one. .they eventually sunsetted it altogether in June of 1999. So. .something like 7 or 8 years now.
How much time do you think you spend online each day? it varies. . .depending on where i am and what i’m doing. sometimes, if i’m interested in something, i’ll spend days online nonstop. . sometimes i’ll spend days without touching a computer. on a really average day, anywhere between 4 and 12 hours ;x
What programming languages are you familiar with? i don’t really program. the only languages i’ve worked with are x86 assembler and OPL for the EPOC16 palmtop OS.
What do you spend most of your time online doing? breaking and exploring -=)
Who are your good friends online? They know who they are.

Adrian Lamo is currently most well known for snitching out Wikileaks source Bradley Manning.

Adrian Lamo was previously most well known for breaking into The New York Times internal computer network in February 2002, adding his name to confidential databases of expert sources, and using the paper’s LexisNexis account to conduct research on high-profile subjects, although his first published activities involved operating AOL watchdog site Inside-AOL.com. The Times filed a complaint and a warrant for Lamo’s arrest was issued in August 2003 following a 15 month investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. At 10:15 AM on September 9, after spending a few days in hiding, he surrendered to the US Marshals in Sacramento, California. He re-surrendered to the FBI in New York City on September 11, and plead guilty to one count of computer crimes against Microsoft, Lexis-Nexis and The New York Times on January 8, 2004.

Later in 2004, Lamo was sentenced to six months detention at his parent’s home plus two years probation, and was ordered to pay roughly $65,000 in restitution. He was convicted of compromising security at The New York Times and Microsoft, and is alleged to have admitted to exploiting security weaknesses at Excite@Home,Yahoo!, MCI WorldCom, Ameritech, Cingular and has allegedly violated network security at AOL Time Warner, Bank of America, Citigroup, McDonald’s and Sun Microsystems. Companies sometimes use proxies to allow their employees access to the internet, without giving the internet access to their internal network. However, when these proxies are improperly configured, they can allow access to the company’s internal network. Lamo often exploited this, sometimes using a tool called ProxyHunter. One of the things that made him unique is that he did all of his intrusion without any programming.