One of The Scariest Hackers I’ve Ever Met — Pablos Holman

Pablos Holman shares his unique perspective on hacking, innovation, and the need for humanity to focus on solving grand challenges, emphasizing energy and expanding beyond software.

• A hacker is defined not just by their computer skills, but by their creative problem-solving approach.

• Rodney Mullen is an example of an inventor who embodies creativity and imagination.

• The most important creative class is inventors, but they are underappreciated and not recognized.

Pablos Holman discusses his hacker background and his focus on applying the hacker mindset to broader global challenges. He highlights the importance of inventors, the need for a longer-term perspective when approaching technological problems, and the potential of hyperscalers to drive innovation in areas like nuclear energy, noting that global competition, particularly with China, requires a shift in focus towards building and solving fundamental issues like energy production to create a more sustainable and equitable future.

Hacker Definition

• 00:03:41 To Pablos Holman, a hacker is someone attracted to puzzles, particularly in computer security, and he is currently focused on hacking everything but computers, trying to apply the hacker mindset to larger problems. His early life involved reverse engineering a computer out of necessity in Alaska, which shaped his problem-solving approach. He argues that hackers are inventors and creative thinkers who elevate human capabilities by asking ‘what can I make this do?’ instead of ‘what does this do?’.

Rodney Mullen's Inventiveness

• 00:11:49 Holman uses Rodney Mullen, the godfather of street skating, as an example of an inventor, someone who imagines something never done before and then spends an immense amount of time making it happen. The contrast between invention and craft is that inventors do something for the first time that takes immense effort, whereas repeating it is simply craft. Holman highlights the importance of inventors as a creative class and laments the lack of recognition they receive, advocating for a cultural shift to value and support inventors more.

Hackerbot's impact

• 00:15:13 Holman and Eric Johansson built the hackerbot, a robot that drove around triangulating Wi-Fi users and displaying their passwords on a screen, to raise awareness about the insecurity of everything. The robot, while nefarious, was perceived as cute, which helped it gain media attention and educate people about computer security. The hackerbot demonstrated the importance of contextualizing lessons and raising alarms about security vulnerabilities in an accessible way.

Zero-Day Exploits Marketplace

• 00:20:08 According to Holman, zero-day exploits, particularly for iPhones, are the most valuable in the world and are sold to brokers with relationships to governments, who then use them sparingly to avoid detection. American hackers tend to avoid corporate espionage due to higher earnings in legitimate fields, whereas Romanian hackers may use exploits to steal Bitcoin wallets. Geographically, centers of technical excellence, such as Hungary for mathematics and Germany for early hacking, have contributed significantly, but Microsoft's import of hackers to Seattle in the early 2000s created a critical mass.

Future of Energy

• 00:33:17 Holman argues that the number one priority for global strategic advantage is energy, particularly fission reactors, and he urges for the aggressive deployment of nuclear reactors by streamlining the regulatory process to compete with China. A company has invented a deep fission reactor that can be made in a factory and buried a mile deep, eliminating the risk of radioactivity. Nuclear is necessary to solve the energy crisis, and solving energy issues would make solving carbon capture and recycling problems easier, whereas the current approach of scaling the wrong thing is not effective.