Interviewed- Joe “Kingpin” Grand

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We managed to grab Joe Grand for 5 minutes at the ITWeb security Summit. For those of you who do not know Joe he is a legendary hardware hacker and famously testified before senate as a part of the l0pht group in the 90’s that in a worst case scenario they could shut the internet down in 30 minutes.

1) Hi, could you just give us your name and what you do?

Hi, my name is Joe Grand and I am an electrical engineer and hardware hacker. I like to say that I am a product designer by day and hardware hacker at night; I like to analyse other people’s products and find security vulnerabilities in them and then educate people about the problem.

2) Can you enlighten us a little bit about l0pht and their beginnings?

l0pht was a hacker clubhouse in Boston which was formed in the early 1990’s. How it was originally formed was that Count Zero and Brian Oblivion were two hackers that lived near each other and needed an area to store all their computer equipment which they had gathered up over the years. So it just started out as a storage space but then other Boston area hackers started hanging out there and then over the course of 10 years turned into a group of close friends that really wanted to kind of change the face of the computer security industry and research and find vulnerabilities in products and then educate people and the companies and try to get the companies to fix those problems.

3)L0pht reforming again? Since we have seen the re-release of l0pht crack.

It is a little bit confusing because the group sort of dissolved and we all went our ways when we sold the company to @stake. Us going our own ways was a sort of anti-climatic ending to l0pht in the year 2000. We have not been really in touch but in the last year we have put together a mailing list and all of us from l0pht are talking but there is no formal stuff going on.

L0pht crack (which was recently re-released) is a separate entity which is held by Dilldog ,Weld Pond and Mudge and is a commercial entity which is not part of the l0pht group.

But the l0pht group I would not say is back but rather we are talking again.

4)Can you tell us a bit about Kingpin Empire?

Kingpin empire was a project that I started to give back to the community a little bit. At the time when I started it I was a co-host of a TV show called Prototype This wherein we were not allowed to where other peoples logos on our shirts during the show. So I decided to make my own clothing to wear with the hopes with the millions of viewers out there watching it would then go to my website and see that they could purchase a t-shirt, at which point Joe would go and donate the money to some charities. So the whole idea was that I would raise money and then donate it to charities for example the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is a digital rights group, but on a whole mostly technology related charities. I gave a talk in Malaysia and while there we donated money to the Parents Resource for Autism (PR4A) so all round just trying to raise money and give it back to useful organizations out there.

(For those out there that can afford to donate please do and try and your companies as it is all for a good cause)

5) How was Grand Idea Studio formed?

A company I started after leaving @stake in 2002. I was tired of working with other people and for other people and wanted to focus more on electrical engineering and things I thought were fun. So I basically build products whether they are electronics modules for hobbyists or whether they are consumer electronics products. I just do what I think is cool and basically want to educate people on electronics problems and hardware.

6) How has it been working on the Defcon badges for the last 4 years?

The Defcon badge has been a huge honour to work on. This is the fifth year I have been working on it and I continuously every year try to top what I did the previous year. When we originally started work on the Defcon badge it was a electronic badge that replaced all the other boring plastic and paper badges that other conferences have. With no idea what the response would be like we went ahead and people loved it. But every year I try to add in new circuitry and artistic elements and generally push the limit. It has been a real honour having the Defcon audience appreciate what I am designing because it is a hackable badge which they can really learn things from. But overall it is a learning experience for me as I learn new things whether it be the manufacturing process or a design feature, things that I can use in my own line of work. So albeit it being a very satisfying job it is very stressful one. But it is something I love doing. I currently have the Defcon 18 badge in my hotel room and busy working on the firmware for it.

7) What made you choose to go into hardware hacking versus software hacking?

I have been involved in electronics since I was 7 and was one of the things my older brother was into so being around computers and electronics something struck me about hardware about being able to physically modify something. where I think of something in my head and I know I can build it. It is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around intangible things like software. So I would say I just fell in love with electronics and I knew when I was that young (7 years old) I wanted to do that as a career.

8)If you had to choose between AMD or Intel?

I guess Intel, though I use Freescale as they are good for portable devices.

We thank Joe Grand for sitting with us and talking about himself and just all round giving us his time. Hopefully we will catch up with him later to tackle other issues going on in the industry.