WEBVTT 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:03.850 JACK: [MUSIC] Psst. 00:00:03.850 --> 00:00:07.410 Hey you, I got a story for you but it’s a secret one. 00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:13.190 It’s about a mission, a plan that’s so confidential that nobody is allowed to know 00:00:13.190 --> 00:00:14.190 about it. 00:00:14.190 --> 00:00:18.760 The secrecy of the plan is even more important than the safety of executing the plan itself. 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:20.760 Are you ready for it? 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:25.940 What would you do if you had a few million dollars and were convinced that inter-continental 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:29.550 missiles were soon going to be hurdling towards your city? 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:33.320 You could pack up and run but these might be nuclear warheads. 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:35.350 Running might not help. 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:39.440 It’s best to shelter in place but your house is no match for missiles. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:44.010 You need to go underground into a bunker, a bomb shelter. 00:00:44.010 --> 00:00:48.969 You search online and see some bomb shelters you can buy. 00:00:48.969 --> 00:00:50.899 They’re not too crazy expensive. 00:00:50.899 --> 00:00:53.469 You can afford it; you’re a millionaire. 00:00:53.469 --> 00:00:55.530 But remember, secrecy first. 00:00:55.530 --> 00:01:00.370 If you buy a bomb shelter and deliver it to your house, everyone will know your place 00:01:00.370 --> 00:01:03.229 is the place to go to during an attack. 00:01:03.229 --> 00:01:05.570 Yeah, that won’t work. 00:01:05.570 --> 00:01:10.909 There’s gotta be a better solution to this, one where nobody would ever know about, but 00:01:10.909 --> 00:01:15.110 also one that when you put safety second, you risk human life. 00:01:15.110 --> 00:01:24.070 JACK (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of the internet. 00:01:24.070 --> 00:01:28.670 I’m Jack Rhysider. 00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:33.110 This is Darknet Diaries. 00:01:33.110 --> 00:01:43.010 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:01:43.010 --> 00:01:51.030 JACK: A quick warning up front here, this episode is graphic, rated R. It has bad language 00:01:51.030 --> 00:01:52.650 and strong violent imagery. 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:57.149 In fact, two listeners have wrote to me saying I need to put a stronger warning here so consider 00:01:57.149 --> 00:01:58.369 yourself warned. 00:01:58.369 --> 00:02:00.560 This one might be too much for some audiences. 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:03.729 This story is about a young man named Daniel Beckwitt. 00:02:03.729 --> 00:02:05.689 He grew up in a house in Bethesda, Maryland. 00:02:05.689 --> 00:02:10.890 Actually, it was 5212 Danbury Road and he was fascinated with electronics growing up 00:02:10.890 --> 00:02:15.090 and decided to go for an electrical engineering degree from University of Illinois. 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:19.420 He got a place to stay right on campus and was studying for his undergraduate degree. 00:02:19.420 --> 00:02:21.130 This was around 2011. 00:02:21.130 --> 00:02:25.250 He was fascinated with tech at a young age and as a teenager he loved to play with phone 00:02:25.250 --> 00:02:26.250 phreaking. 00:02:26.250 --> 00:02:28.330 This is basically hacking phones. 00:02:28.330 --> 00:02:33.660 But while at university he learned about a magical internet money called Bitcoin. 00:02:33.660 --> 00:02:38.690 [MUSIC] Back in 2011, Bitcoin was practically brand-new. 00:02:38.690 --> 00:02:43.320 It had only been around for a year or two but still at that time, you could buy it and 00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:44.860 sell it and mine it. 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:46.900 Daniel started mining Bitcoin. 00:02:46.900 --> 00:02:50.530 This is where you get some graphics cards together and have them run computations and 00:02:50.530 --> 00:02:53.050 calculations to keep the Bitcoin network up. 00:02:53.050 --> 00:02:56.600 In exchange for doing this you get to keep some Bitcoin for helping. 00:02:56.600 --> 00:02:58.930 Daniel had an interesting way of seeing the world. 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:02.770 He was a little fearful of the government and because the government regulated money, 00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:05.730 he liked the idea of a decentralized currency. 00:03:05.730 --> 00:03:13.140 He believed this was the money of the future so he got more and more into Bitcoins. 00:03:13.140 --> 00:03:17.660 Once he mined enough of it, he started trading it like stocks to try to get more; selling 00:03:17.660 --> 00:03:19.150 high, buying low. 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:20.440 You know what? 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:22.240 He got pretty good at this. 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:26.740 By the summer of 2011 he felt confident enough about his knowledge of Bitcoin to travel to 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:32.120 Las Vegas, Nevada and give a talk about Bitcoin at Defcon, the largest hacking conference 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:33.260 in the world. 00:03:33.260 --> 00:03:36.540 DANIEL: First I’d just like to thank everyone for coming out and making this great [00:05:00] 00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:37.540 Defcon. 00:03:37.540 --> 00:03:39.640 This has been my first Defcon and I’ve really enjoyed it. 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:44.730 Had a lot of great speakers here and it’s been fabulous attending and just hope speaking 00:03:44.730 --> 00:03:46.110 is half as fun. 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:51.340 Anyway, my handle’s Skunkworks and today I’m gonna be talking to you about hacking 00:03:51.340 --> 00:03:55.660 global economy with GPUs or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bitcoin. 00:03:55.660 --> 00:03:57.220 JACK: [BACKGROUND CONV.] 00:03:57.220 --> 00:04:01.390 In this talk he’s wearing a pair of sunglasses either to look cool or as a disguise. 00:04:01.390 --> 00:04:03.650 He’s got short hair and a black shirt. 00:04:03.650 --> 00:04:05.840 He didn’t call himself Daniel, of course. 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:08.170 His speaker name was Skunkworks. 00:04:08.170 --> 00:04:12.640 Back at the time of that talk, the price of Bitcoin was fluctuating between $8 and $30. 00:04:12.640 --> 00:04:17.720 Jeez, if I only had the vision that Daniel had and bought up a ton of Bitcoin then, I’d 00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:19.180 be in a Lamborghini right now. 00:04:19.180 --> 00:04:20.880 Anyway, the talk was good. 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:25.740 He explained Bitcoin pretty well and he did a good job for his first presentation at Defcon. 00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:30.440 At the same Defcon conference, an entirely different group of guys also gave a talk. 00:04:30.440 --> 00:04:34.340 SHANE: This is a story about how we lost an eye. 00:04:34.340 --> 00:04:37.060 Just to be clear, that’s me with a microscope. 00:04:37.060 --> 00:04:40.620 The sun’s in the air and I’m looking at a hard drive platter which happens to be very 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:41.620 shiny. 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:44.260 It’s really fucking bright. 00:04:44.260 --> 00:04:48.480 Anyway, that joke fell flat so we’re gonna keep on trucking. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:49.480 [LAUGHTER] 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:50.480 JACK: [BACKGROUND CONV.] 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:54.360 This one was presented by Shane Lawson, Bruce Potter, and Deviant Olaf, three veteran speakers 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:57.230 of hacker conferences, so they packed the room. 00:04:57.230 --> 00:05:02.420 This talk had a premise; they wanted a way to destroy a hard drive remotely. 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.420 They wanted to know the best way to do that. 00:05:04.420 --> 00:05:09.639 SHANE: What we’d really like to do is have a way to remotely destroy a drive, just make 00:05:09.639 --> 00:05:11.490 the drive go away. 00:05:11.490 --> 00:05:16.610 We wanted complete goddamn drive destruction, like a pile of slag. 00:05:16.610 --> 00:05:18.310 Our first thought was thermite. 00:05:18.310 --> 00:05:22.880 JACK: This guy’s also talked a little about Bitcoin too, but made fun of it. 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:26.150 SHANE: Someone explained Bitcoins to me the other night in a bar and I thought it was 00:05:26.150 --> 00:05:27.150 a joke. 00:05:27.150 --> 00:05:30.540 JACK: Anyway, they created a little challenge with the goal of destroying a hard drive. 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:34.090 SHANE: The rules of the game that we were trying to do up in Anchorage is destroying 00:05:34.090 --> 00:05:37.980 a drive in the following fashion; one, you have a 1U server. 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:41.740 You have 1U above and below to install whatever the hell you want in the rack. 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:44.840 When you fire the hard drive, you have sixty seconds to destroy it. 00:05:44.840 --> 00:05:49.660 You must not set off fire suppression, smoke sensors, seismic sensors ‘cause we’re 00:05:49.660 --> 00:05:55.430 near banks, must not harm other systems in the rack, and you must not harm the humans 00:05:55.430 --> 00:05:59.580 that happen to be nearby when you’re lighting off your thermite or magnesium or something 00:05:59.580 --> 00:06:00.580 like that. 00:06:00.580 --> 00:06:03.380 JACK: [BACKGROUND CONV.] Sure, they could destroy a hard drive by using some kind of 00:06:03.380 --> 00:06:06.810 wiper virus on it or just deleting everything, or encrypting it. 00:06:06.810 --> 00:06:10.889 But there was something more fun about taking on the challenge of physically destroying 00:06:10.889 --> 00:06:12.740 a hard drive remotely. 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:16.210 Because however it gets destroyed, it’s probably going to be fun to watch. 00:06:16.210 --> 00:06:18.240 It’s gotta be a spectacle. 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:22.371 Their goal was to take a computer, mount it in a server rack, and somehow physically destroy 00:06:22.371 --> 00:06:23.960 the hard drive remotely. 00:06:23.960 --> 00:06:26.560 Okay, but this isn’t so easy. 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:30.290 Deviant Olaf, one of the speakers at this presentation, went over a few ways to blow 00:06:30.290 --> 00:06:32.960 up a hard drive using gun powder and thermite. 00:06:32.960 --> 00:06:37.180 But he explained all kinds of limitations this would bring, one being you need a big 00:06:37.180 --> 00:06:41.450 blast to trigger some of these explosives and thermite is hard to work with because 00:06:41.450 --> 00:06:44.880 it just melts through everything and can potentially cause explosions. 00:06:44.880 --> 00:06:48.400 DEVIANT: What have we learned today, kids? 00:06:48.400 --> 00:06:53.949 We have learned that it’s possible to do incendiary things, or boomiary things to your 00:06:53.949 --> 00:06:54.949 drives. 00:06:54.949 --> 00:06:57.300 You do not want the emergency crews to come out. 00:06:57.300 --> 00:07:00.550 We do not want you going home and burning shit down. 00:07:00.550 --> 00:07:02.990 We do not want you sent to a frickin’ ER. 00:07:02.990 --> 00:07:05.230 We do not want you making new friends. 00:07:05.230 --> 00:07:08.720 [LAUGHTER] At least not if you’re gonna blame us for it. 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:13.810 If you really think this is up your fucking alley, there are plenty of resources online 00:07:13.810 --> 00:07:15.030 if you want to be stupid. 00:07:15.030 --> 00:07:16.030 JACK: [BACKGROUND CONV.] 00:07:16.030 --> 00:07:19.830 They tried burning the drives, grinding the drives, used chemicals to somehow melt the 00:07:19.830 --> 00:07:25.010 drives or other incendiary attempts but most of these tests were unsuccessful. 00:07:25.010 --> 00:07:29.620 Hard drives are hard and they didn’t want any leftover data on the drive because even 00:07:29.620 --> 00:07:34.520 if a few bytes of data were left over, that could be the password to something important 00:07:34.520 --> 00:07:35.720 like your Bitcoin wallet. 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:40.260 But they did find that fire would actually burn the hard drives fairly effectively. 00:07:40.260 --> 00:07:46.840 SHANE: The idea that we came up with was affixing a glow plug for a motorbike to the end of 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:52.890 a propane torch and then use a servo to open said propane torch and then lighting the propane 00:07:52.890 --> 00:07:56.199 torch remotely with an Arduino and an Ethernet connection. 00:07:56.199 --> 00:07:59.670 DEVIANT: By god, the most difficult way ever to light a propane torch. 00:07:59.670 --> 00:08:01.670 SHANE: YEAH. [LAUGHTER] 00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:03.700 JACK: But they just couldn’t figure out how to do this. 00:08:03.700 --> 00:08:06.750 SHANE: Here’s the kicker; we failed. 00:08:06.750 --> 00:08:08.400 We failed in a big gnarly, nasty way. 00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:11.320 You sat through forty-five minutes of fucking failure. 00:08:11.320 --> 00:08:13.690 Here’s the deal though. 00:08:13.690 --> 00:08:18.320 The first person that makes a device that meets the challenge requirements that we have 00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:25.630 and does not harm themselves or sue us will get free access to Shmoocon 2012. 00:08:25.630 --> 00:08:30.500 JACK: [MUSIC] Daniel Beckwitt, the guy who gave the talk on Bitcoin, was in the audience 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:34.579 at this talk, watching it and feeling inspired by the challenge. 00:08:34.579 --> 00:08:38.279 He thought for sure he could destroy a [00:10:00] hard drive better than these guys did because 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:42.769 he was fascinated with chemistry and explosives and electronics and he had some ideas on how 00:08:42.769 --> 00:08:44.159 to do this. 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:47.540 On top of that he wanted to win the prize that was free Shmoocon tickets. 00:08:47.540 --> 00:08:52.249 Which by the way, Shmoocon is a hacker conference in Washington, DC not too far from where he 00:08:52.249 --> 00:08:53.249 grew up. 00:08:53.249 --> 00:08:55.509 He went back home and tried a few different things. 00:08:55.509 --> 00:08:59.600 First, he tried lye and to try to do a chemical burn on the hard drives. 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:00.980 This didn’t quite work. 00:09:00.980 --> 00:09:04.749 Then he tried to use high-voltage electrical shock on it. 00:09:04.749 --> 00:09:07.329 He used pieces from a microwave to do this. 00:09:07.329 --> 00:09:10.829 Remember, he was an electrical engineering student so he knew his way around this kind 00:09:10.829 --> 00:09:11.829 of stuff. 00:09:11.829 --> 00:09:15.259 This would destroy the platters of the hard drive but when it was in the hard drive case 00:09:15.259 --> 00:09:19.829 itself, it didn’t destroy it the way he wanted. 00:09:19.829 --> 00:09:22.180 He decided to see what he could do with thermite. 00:09:22.180 --> 00:09:26.720 Thermite’s like a metal powder and if you apply enough heat to it, you can ignite it 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:30.309 and it’ll burn so hot that it’ll melt certain metals. 00:09:30.309 --> 00:09:32.970 It burns at like, 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit or more. 00:09:32.970 --> 00:09:37.199 It’s sometimes used to weld train tracks together because it can heat up a metal to 00:09:37.199 --> 00:09:40.709 become molten and then fit right in between the cracks of the tracks. 00:09:40.709 --> 00:09:42.760 Then when it cools, it bonds it together. 00:09:42.760 --> 00:09:47.160 Since a hard drive is made of metal, the theory is that thermite would simply melt the metal 00:09:47.160 --> 00:09:50.649 and then leave just a puddle behind of where the hard drive was. 00:09:50.649 --> 00:09:55.209 Daniel found an article on Hackaday of someone doing this and decided to try to follow the 00:09:55.209 --> 00:09:56.629 instructions. 00:09:56.629 --> 00:09:57.629 Safety first, though. 00:09:57.629 --> 00:10:01.529 Daniel purchased a full fire proximity suit from eBay and a pair of gloves that were rated 00:10:01.529 --> 00:10:04.350 to withstand 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 00:10:04.350 --> 00:10:08.990 For about 170 bucks he had all the PPE or Personal Protective Equipment required to 00:10:08.990 --> 00:10:10.429 do something like this. 00:10:10.429 --> 00:10:14.470 He also pulled out his chemistry book from freshman year and started to review what exothermic 00:10:14.470 --> 00:10:16.440 reactions are and that kind of stuff. 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:19.079 Then he went online and purchased some thermite. 00:10:19.079 --> 00:10:23.499 But when the thermite arrived, so did company. 00:10:23.499 --> 00:10:28.839 The campus police somehow got word that this student was purchasing thermite and paid Daniel 00:10:28.839 --> 00:10:29.839 a visit. 00:10:29.839 --> 00:10:34.129 Daniel showed the police the Shmoocon challenge and that he was only trying to win the challenge. 00:10:34.129 --> 00:10:38.610 The police saw that the challenge was real and since owning thermite wasn’t actually 00:10:38.610 --> 00:10:41.069 illegal, the police let him carry on. 00:10:41.069 --> 00:10:45.230 He wanted to be safe with this experiment and was concerned about fire and explosions 00:10:45.230 --> 00:10:46.899 and things getting out of hand. 00:10:46.899 --> 00:10:51.199 He decided to dig a pit in his back yard to do his experiments in. 00:10:51.199 --> 00:10:54.959 This was a four-foot-deep pit about two feet wide. 00:10:54.959 --> 00:10:58.209 He also kept multiple fire extinguishers nearby. 00:10:58.209 --> 00:11:02.190 With everything ready he placed the hard drive in the dug-out pit, added the thermite on 00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:05.940 top of it, put on his PPE, and he was all ready. 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:08.070 Three, two, one. 00:11:08.070 --> 00:11:09.070 Ignition. 00:11:09.070 --> 00:11:11.620 [MUSIC] Sparks shot everywhere. 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:13.750 Flames leapt up. 00:11:13.750 --> 00:11:19.430 The iron in the thermite turned molten and grew so hot that it melted right through the 00:11:19.430 --> 00:11:21.540 hard drive underneath it. 00:11:21.540 --> 00:11:26.069 It was amazing to watch and absolutely obliterated the hard drive. 00:11:26.069 --> 00:11:28.959 This was really cool and Daniel wanted to improve this. 00:11:28.959 --> 00:11:33.420 He kept trying it over and over to make it more effective. 00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:37.189 After a few attempts he found that the perfect amount of thermite to destroy a hard drive 00:11:37.189 --> 00:11:38.890 was one kilogram’s worth. 00:11:38.890 --> 00:11:39.890 Great. 00:11:39.890 --> 00:11:43.949 That’s working very effectively but it didn’t quite work within the bounds of the challenge 00:11:43.949 --> 00:11:47.920 which was to not set off smoke alarms or destroy anything else in the rack. 00:11:47.920 --> 00:11:52.629 The thermite reaction produced a lot of smoke so he began getting deeper into chemistry 00:11:52.629 --> 00:11:57.329 and exothermic reactions to try to figure out how to burn something as hot as thermite 00:11:57.329 --> 00:11:58.889 but keeping it contained. 00:11:58.889 --> 00:12:03.579 He found another version of thermite which was made up of a chemical compound calcium 00:12:03.579 --> 00:12:04.699 sulfate. 00:12:04.699 --> 00:12:07.470 This burned just as hot as thermite but with less smoke. 00:12:07.470 --> 00:12:11.360 He purchased some of it and took it to his test pit and tried to burn a hard drive. 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:16.509 But this wasn’t as effective since it didn’t create enough slag as the metal-based thermite 00:12:16.509 --> 00:12:20.639 and it’s the slag that was turning the hard drive into molten metal. 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:25.339 He started making his own thermite mixtures to try to find something that would be effective. 00:12:25.339 --> 00:12:27.899 He added various oxidizers and fuels. 00:12:27.899 --> 00:12:31.600 He would add little bits to see if it helped at melting the hard drive and if so, he would 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:32.950 add a little bit more of that. 00:12:32.950 --> 00:12:37.769 He actually did around three hundred different tests to find a perfect solution. 00:12:37.769 --> 00:12:45.899 What he found was a mixture of 37% thermite, 37% calcium sulfate thermite, and 25% potassium 00:12:45.899 --> 00:12:46.899 nitrate. 00:12:46.899 --> 00:12:50.449 This mixture would be the best he could find that had an easy way to ignite, it burned 00:12:50.449 --> 00:12:54.510 hot enough, it created enough slag, and didn’t cause a lot of smoke. 00:12:54.510 --> 00:12:55.510 Excellent. 00:12:55.510 --> 00:12:59.670 But the challenge is still to be able to set this off in a data center without burning 00:12:59.670 --> 00:13:01.019 down the whole data center. 00:13:01.019 --> 00:13:04.500 He did some experiments with fire-rated drywall. 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:08.759 He built a box of this drywall that would fit in a server rack and on the box, he added 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:11.379 a HEPA filter which filtered out the smoke. 00:13:11.379 --> 00:13:13.850 After a few attempts he got it work. 00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:18.160 Within this small box he was able to set off a thermite reaction and burn a hard drive 00:13:18.160 --> 00:13:23.209 without producing any smoke or setting anything else on fire in the rack. 00:13:23.209 --> 00:13:27.110 This satisfied all the requirements of the challenge so Daniel presented his research 00:13:27.110 --> 00:13:29.879 to the three guys who laid down this challenge. 00:13:29.879 --> 00:13:32.499 Sure enough, he won the prize; free tickets to Shmoocon. 00:13:32.499 --> 00:13:34.499 Yes! Daniel felt good. 00:13:34.499 --> 00:13:38.189 On top of that, he got to present [00:15:00] his entire experimentation process on how 00:13:38.189 --> 00:13:39.779 he did it at Shmoocon 2012. 00:13:39.779 --> 00:13:44.179 DANIEL: My pseudo name is Skunkworks and today I’m going to be talking to you about hard 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:45.179 drive anti-forensics. 00:13:45.179 --> 00:13:49.939 My talk’s entitled And That’s How I Didn’t Lose an Eye: Emergency Data Destruction. 00:13:49.939 --> 00:13:56.050 First, a little bit about me; I’m an undergrad in electrical engineering at a major US research 00:13:56.050 --> 00:13:57.050 university. 00:13:57.050 --> 00:14:01.689 I do a lot of, well, an insane amount of my own R and D outside of school in my basement 00:14:01.689 --> 00:14:03.050 in suburban Maryland. 00:14:03.050 --> 00:14:07.079 I’m experienced in basically everything from non-destructive entry to Kuda VoIPed 00:14:07.079 --> 00:14:08.079 Tesla coils. 00:14:08.079 --> 00:14:09.079 I’m just a tinkerer. 00:14:09.079 --> 00:14:10.350 I love building stuff. 00:14:10.350 --> 00:14:14.709 That’s why I took on the Shmoo group’s hard drive Data Destruction Challenge and 00:14:14.709 --> 00:14:15.929 succeeded in it. 00:14:15.929 --> 00:14:17.049 I’m cutting class to speak at Shmoocon, actually. 00:14:17.049 --> 00:14:22.089 I had to cut Friday double-E class to make the flight out. 00:14:22.089 --> 00:14:25.929 JACK: Thermite is exciting and Daniel was excited to give this talk and get recognized 00:14:25.929 --> 00:14:32.059 for his R and D. Again, he wore the same outfit on stage; dark sunglasses, short hair, black 00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:33.139 shirt. 00:14:33.139 --> 00:14:37.209 After the conference he went back to school, all the way to University of Illinois. 00:14:37.209 --> 00:14:39.319 He took more classes there and was studying hard. 00:14:39.319 --> 00:14:41.360 He was twenty years old back in 2012. 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:47.009 I don’t know why but he allegedly caused destruction to school’s property. 00:14:47.009 --> 00:14:53.350 He was taking a course, ECE329 which stood for Electrical and Computer Engineering. 00:14:53.350 --> 00:14:56.420 He put a key-logger on the professor’s computer. 00:14:56.420 --> 00:14:59.579 This is a little physical device that you put in between the keyboard and the computer 00:14:59.579 --> 00:15:02.050 and it records every keystroke that computer makes. 00:15:02.050 --> 00:15:06.160 It saves them in a file and Daniel could then retrieve the device later. 00:15:06.160 --> 00:15:08.899 This gave Daniel access to the professor’s e-mail. 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:15.290 Sifting through the e-mails, he found the final exam as an attachment. 00:15:15.290 --> 00:15:19.149 Daniel tried to jump on this opportunity to make some cash. 00:15:19.149 --> 00:15:22.569 Using the professor’s e-mail, he sent an e-mail to all the students in the class saying 00:15:22.569 --> 00:15:26.040 quote, “ECE329 exam for sale. 00:15:26.040 --> 00:15:30.519 Sale ends at 6 p.m. tonight and you will be refunded if some white knight snitches to 00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:31.519 the damn professors. 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:34.060 But we can all cooperate, am I right?” 00:15:34.060 --> 00:15:35.060 End quote. 00:15:35.060 --> 00:15:37.249 Signed the ECE Hacker. 00:15:37.249 --> 00:15:43.230 Next, for some bizarre reason that I still don’t understand, Daniel allegedly put superglue 00:15:43.230 --> 00:15:49.189 and metal chips into the locks of the science lab and in the i-card readers, rendering them 00:15:49.189 --> 00:15:50.720 completely unusable. 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:55.299 Maybe he was trying to buy some time or keep someone out of there, or maybe make it so 00:15:55.299 --> 00:15:59.499 the locks wouldn’t shut the door anymore so he could go in whenever he wanted. 00:15:59.499 --> 00:16:01.569 I don’t know. 00:16:01.569 --> 00:16:05.269 At this point the professor noticed these e-mails that were sent from his account, but 00:16:05.269 --> 00:16:06.769 he didn’t write them. 00:16:06.769 --> 00:16:09.290 He contacted the campus police. 00:16:09.290 --> 00:16:14.040 [MUSIC] The police investigated and found several posts on Reddit by someone calling 00:16:14.040 --> 00:16:16.589 themselves ECE Hacker. 00:16:16.589 --> 00:16:19.999 As they investigated, they found three more computers in the lab that had key-loggers 00:16:19.999 --> 00:16:21.049 on them. 00:16:21.049 --> 00:16:25.709 The ECE Hacker post led them to a blog of a person called Skunkworks. 00:16:25.709 --> 00:16:30.869 The blog listed hacking into schools as one of his hobbies and had a picture of Daniel 00:16:30.869 --> 00:16:31.970 on it. 00:16:31.970 --> 00:16:35.970 From here the police were able to identify Daniel and issue a search warrant for his 00:16:35.970 --> 00:16:37.699 apartment. 00:16:37.699 --> 00:16:41.880 The search revealed many more key-logging devices and they found superglue and metal 00:16:41.880 --> 00:16:43.429 bits. 00:16:43.429 --> 00:16:46.790 Daniel was arrested January 2013. 00:16:46.790 --> 00:16:51.759 He was charged with criminal damage to government-supported property, computer fraud, and forgery. 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:53.639 Seven different charges in all. 00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:57.790 For a twenty-one-year-old as he was at the time, these were some pretty serious and scary 00:16:57.790 --> 00:16:58.790 consequences. 00:16:58.790 --> 00:17:03.139 He accepted a plea deal and agreeing to plead guilty to computer fraud to have the other 00:17:03.139 --> 00:17:04.809 charges dropped. 00:17:04.809 --> 00:17:09.059 This got him a conviction of two year’s probation so he avoided a prison sentence 00:17:09.059 --> 00:17:10.459 this time. 00:17:10.459 --> 00:17:17.209 In 2013, fresh from his computer fraud conviction in Illinois and now on probation, Daniel moved 00:17:17.209 --> 00:17:23.100 back to Bethesda in Maryland and to the house where he grew up at 5212 Danbury Road. 00:17:23.100 --> 00:17:26.910 Still owned by his father, Daniel lived there alone and it seemed like he had his head down 00:17:26.910 --> 00:17:31.120 and out of any hacking activity while serving his probation period. 00:17:31.120 --> 00:17:34.940 Back in 2013, Bitcoin was hovering at around $100. 00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:36.890 It was still a new and weird idea. 00:17:36.890 --> 00:17:38.740 Only crazy people were buying it then. 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:42.309 Who would ever pay $100 for some fake internet money? 00:17:42.309 --> 00:17:46.460 [MUSIC] Well, Daniel would and he was still heavy into Bitcoin; mining it, and buying 00:17:46.460 --> 00:17:49.600 it, and selling it, and trading it, and making a profit. 00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:53.299 When it was on the rise, he held it and when it was going down, he sold it. 00:17:53.299 --> 00:17:58.480 For those who remember, 2013 was actually a stellar year for Bitcoin. 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:04.450 Between August and December of that year, Bitcoin rose from $100 to $1,000, gaining 00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:08.910 in value of ten times in just four months. 00:18:08.910 --> 00:18:12.649 Anyone who was holding during those four months made out big-time. 00:18:12.649 --> 00:18:17.070 Daniel was holding but then Bitcoin crashed again, but Daniel would focus on this a lot 00:18:17.070 --> 00:18:21.539 so when it went down, he pulled out and then he would buy when it started to come up again. 00:18:21.539 --> 00:18:25.620 Over the next two years he became a pretty skilled Bitcoin day-trader. 00:18:25.620 --> 00:18:29.710 He amassed himself a Bitcoin collection equal to one million dollars. 00:18:29.710 --> 00:18:34.269 Daniel, at just twenty-five years old, was a Bitcoin millionaire. 00:18:34.269 --> 00:18:39.059 Around this time Daniel changed his [00:20:00] hacker name from Skunkworks to 3 Alarm Lamp 00:18:39.059 --> 00:18:43.130 Scooter which is an obscure reference from a Neal Stephenson novel. 00:18:43.130 --> 00:18:48.200 But he clearly didn’t forget and move on from the Shmoocon Data Destruction Contest. 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:53.420 In 2016 he presented his second talk at Shmoocon convention in Washington, DC, this time as 00:18:53.420 --> 00:18:55.070 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter. 00:18:55.070 --> 00:18:56.830 Again, not using his real name. 00:18:56.830 --> 00:19:00.830 When he came on stage, he wasn’t wearing the usual sunglasses and black shirt. 00:19:00.830 --> 00:19:06.590 He came onstage wearing his full fire proximity suit, including a face visor, a hood, gloves, 00:19:06.590 --> 00:19:08.631 and it was all shimmering and quite a spectacle. 00:19:08.631 --> 00:19:13.870 His talk was titled This Message Will Self-Destruct in 10 Seconds. 00:19:13.870 --> 00:19:17.630 He discussed once again effective ways of destroying hard drives. 00:19:17.630 --> 00:19:28.720 DANIEL: Okay, so why are you all intently staring at some weird dude in a fire proximity 00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:32.490 suit out to deliver a talk entitled This Message Will Self-Destruct in 10 Seconds: Avoiding 00:19:32.490 --> 00:19:33.490 Bilateral Nucleation? 00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:34.490 Well, the short answer is the Shmoo works in mysterious ways. 00:19:34.490 --> 00:19:36.440 JACK: His talks is full of humor and chemistry but it’s a little dry and in the weeds. 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:39.410 Daniel sounds really smart but is losing the audience. 00:19:39.410 --> 00:19:40.741 Here, see if you can follow him. 00:19:40.741 --> 00:19:41.741 DANIEL: Anyways, reactions proceeding faster in the fuel burning with only atmospheric 00:19:41.741 --> 00:19:42.741 oxygen required or only their own supply of an oxidizer, and the reaction energies maximized 00:19:42.741 --> 00:19:47.720 for a given amount of reactants when the fuel to oxidize a ratio is totally cumetric and 00:19:47.720 --> 00:19:51.770 there isn’t a limiting reactant. 00:19:51.770 --> 00:20:00.970 Well, how are we going to take non-volatile memory and turn it quite literally into volatile 00:20:00.970 --> 00:20:01.970 memory? 00:20:01.970 --> 00:20:03.970 Everything becomes volatile if you heat it up enough. 00:20:03.970 --> 00:20:11.669 JACK: The audience doesn’t appear too taken with Daniel but they do liven up when he does 00:20:11.669 --> 00:20:14.330 give some demonstrations and videos near the end. 00:20:14.330 --> 00:20:18.890 But what’s interesting about these demonstrations, other than blowing up hard drives with homemade 00:20:18.890 --> 00:20:22.519 thermite, is where these controlled fires were filmed. 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:26.830 This wasn’t the same two-foot-wide pit in his backyard from a few years earlier. 00:20:26.830 --> 00:20:29.380 This appears to be filmed in a tunnel of some kind. 00:20:29.380 --> 00:20:34.110 The walls were about five or six feet high and there was dirt all around. 00:20:34.110 --> 00:20:39.610 He’s obviously been very busy creating more exothermic reactions and has a new location 00:20:39.610 --> 00:20:40.649 where he’s doing this. 00:20:40.649 --> 00:20:44.920 During this time, Daniel started becoming more concerned about the future; with the 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:49.419 new president in office and the rising political climate, he was beginning to think that some 00:20:49.419 --> 00:20:53.900 kind of catastrophic attack against the US might be inevitable. 00:20:53.900 --> 00:20:58.140 Maybe North Korea or China was going to attack with nuclear weapons. 00:20:58.140 --> 00:21:00.840 Maybe a terrorist attack would unleash an EMP. 00:21:00.840 --> 00:21:05.340 For some reason, Daniel could not get these thoughts out of his mind and his fear and 00:21:05.340 --> 00:21:08.610 paranoia grew along with his Bitcoin fortune. 00:21:08.610 --> 00:21:14.160 DANIEL: Anyways, I think we’re about done on time now so I’ll turn it over to the 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:23.419 EFF so that they can let you know about the latest legislative groupings by our misguided 00:21:23.419 --> 00:21:27.610 government toward the Orwellian tyranny of a global panopticon powered by signals intelligence. 00:21:27.610 --> 00:21:28.610 Alright? 00:21:28.610 --> 00:21:30.980 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter out. 00:21:30.980 --> 00:21:31.980 [APPLAUSE] 00:21:31.980 --> 00:21:35.850 JACK: Someone close to him told me that Daniel had a lot of knowledge about pharmaceuticals. 00:21:35.850 --> 00:21:41.070 If you say a drug, he could tell you what company makes that drug or what chemical compound 00:21:41.070 --> 00:21:42.070 was in it. 00:21:42.070 --> 00:21:46.309 I don’t know what this means but I found it interesting that he has these deep wells 00:21:46.309 --> 00:21:48.440 of information. 00:21:48.440 --> 00:21:52.390 He came back to Defcon in August 2016 to give another talk. 00:21:52.390 --> 00:21:57.019 Again, he used 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter as his name and showed up on stage wearing the hood 00:21:57.019 --> 00:22:00.990 of his fire proximity suit, completely obscuring how he looks. 00:22:00.990 --> 00:22:02.029 You can’t recognize him at all. 00:22:02.029 --> 00:22:06.240 DANIEL: I’m 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter and today I’m giving a talk on DIY nuke-proofing. 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:07.389 JACK: Okay. 00:22:07.389 --> 00:22:12.400 He’s about to give a talk on how to create a DIY nuclear shelter. 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:15.910 DANIEL: There’s more fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding nuclear weapons than 00:22:15.910 --> 00:22:20.860 perhaps any other technology out there, especially their hypothetical capabilities in electronic 00:22:20.860 --> 00:22:21.860 warfare. 00:22:21.860 --> 00:22:27.270 To really grasp the assault of nuclear weapons and the threat landscape that has been there 00:22:27.270 --> 00:22:32.140 in the past, we have to go back to a quick remedial physic lesson. 00:22:32.140 --> 00:22:35.140 We’ve got two different isotopes of uranium that are important to all this. 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:36.950 One of them is Uranium 235. 00:22:36.950 --> 00:22:38.460 The other is Uranium 238. 00:22:38.460 --> 00:22:42.500 They differ by three neutrons and that is why they have differing mass. 00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:46.330 The real short version of this – I had a lot more prepared, but you can use what’s 00:22:46.330 --> 00:22:51.080 called the Kinetic Isotope Effect to separate the lighter from the heavier uranium. 00:22:51.080 --> 00:22:54.850 The lighter uranium, 235, actually is what’s called fissile material. 00:22:54.850 --> 00:23:00.630 If you hit it with a neutron it can sustain a nuclear reaction if it’s enriched above 00:23:00.630 --> 00:23:02.009 around 5%, usually. 00:23:02.009 --> 00:23:04.330 JACK: What the heck is he talking about? 00:23:04.330 --> 00:23:09.470 I’ve taken physics classes and chemistry classes and this is way over my head. 00:23:09.470 --> 00:23:13.830 Daniel has apparently been very busy studying nuclear weapons and its capabilities. 00:23:13.830 --> 00:23:16.100 He’s now showing us pictures of different bombs. 00:23:16.100 --> 00:23:18.690 DANIEL: The device on the right there is called Fat Man. 00:23:18.690 --> 00:23:20.830 That was a plutonium implosion-style device. 00:23:20.830 --> 00:23:24.900 Again, you need a nuclear reactor to build that; pretty difficult to come up with the 00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:25.900 plutonium. 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:30.010 JACK: He then starts talking about what countries have nukes and giving us a full history lesson 00:23:30.010 --> 00:23:31.010 on nuclear weapons. 00:23:31.010 --> 00:23:34.220 DANIEL: There was the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, etc. 00:23:34.220 --> 00:23:37.840 [00:25:00] I kind of call them all the Nuclear Also Rans. 00:23:37.840 --> 00:23:41.049 Most of them didn’t do anything too necessarily innovative. 00:23:41.049 --> 00:23:45.929 JACK: He even goes on to talk about what scientists made these weapons. 00:23:45.929 --> 00:23:47.120 The talk goes on and on. 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:51.100 He starts talking about EMP, and lasers, and other weapons that countries have. 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:55.330 DANIEL: As much as I hate to agree with Donald Trump on the issue of nuclear arms control, 00:23:55.330 --> 00:24:01.270 I think the totality of the evidence may point to being up shit creek, for lack of a better 00:24:01.270 --> 00:24:02.270 term. 00:24:02.270 --> 00:24:04.789 JACK: It’s hard to hear but he just said that we’re up shit creek regarding countries 00:24:04.789 --> 00:24:05.789 having WMDs. 00:24:05.789 --> 00:24:09.649 Finally, towards the end of his talk, he starts telling us about ways to protect yourself. 00:24:09.649 --> 00:24:13.651 DANIEL: Believe it or not, something like a trash can can give you forty or fifty decibels 00:24:13.651 --> 00:24:16.139 of shielding if you tape it up properly so it doesn’t act as a slot antenna. 00:24:16.139 --> 00:24:18.789 High-altitude electromagnetic pulse projection – oh, we got time? 00:24:18.789 --> 00:24:20.769 MOD: Alright, how are we doing? 00:24:20.769 --> 00:24:21.769 We’re done. 00:24:21.769 --> 00:24:22.769 DANIEL: Okay, shoot. 00:24:22.769 --> 00:24:24.769 MOD: Okay. Thank you. 00:24:24.769 --> 00:24:25.769 DANIEL: Okay. 00:24:25.769 --> 00:24:27.769 Thanks a lot. [APPLAUSE] 00:24:27.769 --> 00:24:28.769 JACK: Wait, what? 00:24:28.769 --> 00:24:31.330 The moderator at Defcon just came onstage and cut him off, saying his time was over. 00:24:31.330 --> 00:24:35.269 He spent this whole talk explaining about the dangers of nuclear weapons but just when 00:24:35.269 --> 00:24:38.919 he was about to tell us how to build a bunker, they took him offstage. 00:24:38.919 --> 00:24:43.529 They took him offstage specifically because he was out of time but his slide did say The 00:24:43.529 --> 00:24:49.080 Only Winning Move is to Dig Deeper. 00:24:49.080 --> 00:25:02.649 [MUSIC] Turns out, Daniel had been very busy working on a new project. 00:25:02.649 --> 00:25:07.559 He obviously did a lot of research to prepare for this presentation. 00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:10.210 He studied a lot about nuclear weapons and EMPs. 00:25:10.210 --> 00:25:16.220 He was very knowledgeable about this but somewhere in the process of all this he started figuring 00:25:16.220 --> 00:25:18.460 out ways to protect against it. 00:25:18.460 --> 00:25:25.159 He started reading things like the Army Technical Manual 5-858-6 which has a full section on 00:25:25.159 --> 00:25:28.340 underground nuclear tunnel experiments. 00:25:28.340 --> 00:25:32.350 He went on to study what the different layers of soil are and what different soil types 00:25:32.350 --> 00:25:35.100 there are and he studied more about excavation. 00:25:35.100 --> 00:25:38.279 Specifically, how to make tunnels and how to fortify their walls. 00:25:38.279 --> 00:25:42.519 He found research papers from the University of Washington that went over various kinds 00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:44.250 of earth-retaining structures. 00:25:44.250 --> 00:25:48.470 He examined the field manuals on how to dig through certain kinds of soils and he started 00:25:48.470 --> 00:25:52.000 learning about the difference between laterite, humus, and sub-soils. 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:57.179 He looked up where the water table was and how deep the bedrock was where he was living. 00:25:57.179 --> 00:26:02.110 When Daniel combined his fear of major attacks happening to his city and his knowledge of 00:26:02.110 --> 00:26:04.870 digging, he came up with a new plan. 00:26:04.870 --> 00:26:10.389 While living alone at his father’s house in 5212 Danbury Road in Bethesda, Maryland, 00:26:10.389 --> 00:26:15.150 he was gonna turn his house into a nuclear bunker. 00:26:15.150 --> 00:26:21.000 Either Daniel or his father or probably both of them were collectors. 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:25.710 When they acquired pretty much anything, they kept it; buckets, chairs, toys, pots, pans, 00:26:25.710 --> 00:26:30.050 clothes, building materials, tools, light fixtures, paintings, hoses, computers, trash, 00:26:30.050 --> 00:26:31.050 you name it. 00:26:31.050 --> 00:26:33.730 This was all stuff that you would find at Daniel’s house. 00:26:33.730 --> 00:26:37.679 Upstairs in the house, downstairs in the house, in the basement, piles of this stuff were 00:26:37.679 --> 00:26:41.299 everywhere; sometimes five feet high, sometimes all the way up to the ceiling. 00:26:41.299 --> 00:26:43.770 A lot of it was just trash, too. 00:26:43.770 --> 00:26:47.440 If you saw the photos of his house you might even say a hoarder lives there. 00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:53.059 He began collecting even more stuff to prepare for a disaster, like food and survival gear. 00:26:53.059 --> 00:26:56.399 He loaded all this into his basement but this wasn’t enough. 00:26:56.399 --> 00:27:00.509 He wanted something that could withstand a blast and protect him in the event of a major 00:27:00.509 --> 00:27:03.220 nuclear incident or an EMP blast. 00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:08.100 To make a bomb shelter he decided he needed to go underground and not just in his basement. 00:27:08.100 --> 00:27:12.210 I don’t know for sure what happened but I did look at a lot of pictures and I can 00:27:12.210 --> 00:27:15.620 take a pretty good guess at what I think happened down in his basement. 00:27:15.620 --> 00:27:19.720 I think to start, he went to a far corner of his basement and brought a jackhammer or 00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:25.330 some sort of concrete saw or something with him and began chinking out a hole in the concrete 00:27:25.330 --> 00:27:26.730 foundation. 00:27:26.730 --> 00:27:32.129 It looks like he knocked out about a three-foot by three-foot square into the basement floor. 00:27:32.129 --> 00:27:36.889 Under the concrete floor of the basement was dirt so he started digging it up, filling 00:27:36.889 --> 00:27:41.549 bucket after bucket with dirt and bringing it outside, dumping it out, and then going 00:27:41.549 --> 00:27:43.389 in and digging up more. 00:27:43.389 --> 00:27:47.350 This had to be a very slow and painstaking process that would tire him out. 00:27:47.350 --> 00:27:53.019 [MUSIC] By October of 2016 Daniel was most definitely in full-swing of building this 00:27:53.019 --> 00:27:54.440 secret tunnel. 00:27:54.440 --> 00:27:58.529 To Daniel this needed to be extremely secret. 00:27:58.529 --> 00:28:04.230 Nobody would be allowed to know what was going on here, not any neighbors or friends. 00:28:04.230 --> 00:28:09.090 He would take extra precautions to make sure no one was aware of his operation, probably 00:28:09.090 --> 00:28:12.940 doing things like dumping buckets of dirt out at night and buying tools with cash and 00:28:12.940 --> 00:28:15.169 unloading equipment in the dark. 00:28:15.169 --> 00:28:19.139 As Daniel dug up the tunnel, it started to go deeper and deeper underground. 00:28:19.139 --> 00:28:23.259 At first a light in the basement was all he needed to see what he was doing but as the 00:28:23.259 --> 00:28:26.640 hole got deeper, he needed to shine the light further down there. 00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:31.269 He had to get an extension cord and lower a light down into the hole. 00:28:31.269 --> 00:28:34.460 But as the hole grew deeper, the air down there got worse. 00:28:34.460 --> 00:28:38.120 But because digging is one thing; yeah, you get [00:30:00] dusty, but I bet sometimes 00:28:38.120 --> 00:28:42.360 he’d hit a solid rock and I’ve seen what happens when you try to break through rock. 00:28:42.360 --> 00:28:47.509 There’s a lot of dust so Daniel rigged up some ventilation ducts, perhaps one to push 00:28:47.509 --> 00:28:52.140 fresh air down in there and one maybe to suck that dusty air out. 00:28:52.140 --> 00:28:57.419 Eventually he dug the hole deep enough, around fifteen feet down, and two or three feet wide, 00:28:57.419 --> 00:29:00.340 just enough to fit a ladder and himself to get down in there. 00:29:00.340 --> 00:29:04.570 But this would just be the entry though; from here he made a turn. 00:29:04.570 --> 00:29:08.840 Instead of going down he started digging in another direction, probably still filling 00:29:08.840 --> 00:29:13.399 bucket after bucket, hoisting them up into the basement with ropes and pulleys and then 00:29:13.399 --> 00:29:17.220 probably emptying it out in the yard and then coming back down for more. 00:29:17.220 --> 00:29:21.720 This process was slow and painstaking but he was making progress. 00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:26.340 Before long he had two branches to the tunnel down there, and one was big enough to make 00:29:26.340 --> 00:29:27.820 into a livable space. 00:29:27.820 --> 00:29:32.259 He dragged a bedroll down there and brought some food and water and tested to see if he 00:29:32.259 --> 00:29:33.789 could live down there. 00:29:33.789 --> 00:29:38.259 He had clean air, extension cords bringing him electricity, and food and water down there. 00:29:38.259 --> 00:29:41.100 It was rough at first so Daniel improved it. 00:29:41.100 --> 00:29:43.950 He rigged it up with WiFi and brought a TV down there. 00:29:43.950 --> 00:29:47.600 He even added a door to one arm of the tunnel for privacy. 00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:51.019 He brought some extra blankets to be warm and eventually it became a comfortable enough 00:29:51.019 --> 00:29:55.230 living space, something that would suit him in case there was a major attack. 00:29:55.230 --> 00:29:57.280 He was becoming happy with it. 00:29:57.280 --> 00:30:01.940 It was a good start and the vision was starting to take shape but Daniel wanted something 00:30:01.940 --> 00:30:02.990 bigger. 00:30:02.990 --> 00:30:08.700 [MUSIC] I imagine this process was agonizingly slow. 00:30:08.700 --> 00:30:13.970 If he had help digging it would go a lot faster so he decided to hire someone to help him 00:30:13.970 --> 00:30:18.399 but he was very fearful that whoever he hired would then know the location of this bomb 00:30:18.399 --> 00:30:21.650 shelter and in a disaster, he didn’t want them coming over. 00:30:21.650 --> 00:30:26.490 But Daniel really didn’t want anyone to know about this so he hired a guy named Douglas 00:30:26.490 --> 00:30:30.769 to come help do some digging and somehow blindfolded him so he wouldn’t know where the tunnels 00:30:30.769 --> 00:30:31.769 were. 00:30:31.769 --> 00:30:35.919 Douglas was a twenty-year old guy and had an old dog and agreed to help dig the tunnels 00:30:35.919 --> 00:30:37.980 if he could bring his dog with. 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:44.350 In the fall of 2016, Douglas and his dog worked down in the tunnels, digging out more space 00:30:44.350 --> 00:30:47.740 and expanding their reach for about six months. 00:30:47.740 --> 00:30:53.500 Douglas liked Daniel and thought he was clever and smart, but by April 2017 Douglas had enough. 00:30:53.500 --> 00:30:58.039 He was bored of the work and was getting concerned for the health of his elderly dog. 00:30:58.039 --> 00:31:02.090 He parted from Daniel and the tunnels on friendly terms. 00:31:02.090 --> 00:31:05.799 This left Daniel with a problem; he needed a new tunnel digger. 00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:08.639 He went online and found a helper willing to dig tunnels. 00:31:08.639 --> 00:31:12.000 A twenty-year old man named Askia Khafra. 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.690 [MUSIC] Askia had dreams. 00:31:14.690 --> 00:31:19.129 He had a great idea to start an online business and needed some cash to get it going. 00:31:19.129 --> 00:31:24.529 Daniel agreed to invest $5,000 into his online business if he would help dig the tunnels. 00:31:24.529 --> 00:31:28.299 This was on top of some kind of daily pay but there was a catch. 00:31:28.299 --> 00:31:32.309 Because Daniel was so paranoid about anyone knowing about the underground bunker, he went 00:31:32.309 --> 00:31:35.210 to great lengths to keep the location secret from Askia. 00:31:35.210 --> 00:31:39.809 First of all, Askia only lived four miles away from Daniel’s house where the tunnels 00:31:39.809 --> 00:31:42.879 were being dug but Daniel wouldn’t just give him the address. 00:31:42.879 --> 00:31:46.029 Instead he’d drive him over blindfolded. 00:31:46.029 --> 00:31:49.980 But Daniel knew that if he blindfolded someone and just drove them four miles that person 00:31:49.980 --> 00:31:54.909 would know the tunnels are nearby and might even be able to sense the exact location based 00:31:54.909 --> 00:31:56.549 on the turns. 00:31:56.549 --> 00:31:58.240 Daniel had a trick. 00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:02.769 Daniel would pick Askia up from his home four miles away and drive him out to Manassas in 00:32:02.769 --> 00:32:04.679 Virginia, thirty-nine miles away. 00:32:04.679 --> 00:32:09.139 Once there Daniel would then give Askia a pair of blacked-out goggles which he was to 00:32:09.139 --> 00:32:11.059 put on for the rest of the journey. 00:32:11.059 --> 00:32:15.250 With Askia wearing these he couldn’t see anything or where they were driving and Daniel 00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:19.909 would then drive Askia almost right back to where they started at his house in Bethesda. 00:32:19.909 --> 00:32:25.240 He would then take Askia out of the car, lead him into the house, and down into the basement. 00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:27.799 Only then he could take the goggles off. 00:32:27.799 --> 00:32:29.880 By this point the tunnels were even more elaborate. 00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:33.750 First, they’d go down and below Daniel’s house about twenty feet and then they’d 00:32:33.750 --> 00:32:35.529 stretch out in different directions like arms. 00:32:35.529 --> 00:32:40.389 There were a few different corridors, and passageways, and rooms, basically. 00:32:40.389 --> 00:32:45.350 Inside the tunnels was lighting, heating, air circulation, and there was a couple dedicated 00:32:45.350 --> 00:32:52.749 spaces for a fridge, a bed, a TV, a microwave, a computer, video game consoles, WiFi systems. 00:32:52.749 --> 00:32:56.690 Some areas were even locked and kept secret and there were different levels that had floors 00:32:56.690 --> 00:32:58.999 that could be raised or dropped down. 00:32:58.999 --> 00:33:02.669 The tunnels were so long at this point, to get proper lighting and electrical tools down 00:33:02.669 --> 00:33:06.669 in there, they had to daisy-chain some extension cords to make them reach. 00:33:06.669 --> 00:33:11.019 With all the refrigerators and TVs down there, this put a big load on the cables. 00:33:11.019 --> 00:33:14.649 He sent Askia down there and showed him the ropes, literally. 00:33:14.649 --> 00:33:19.629 You had to practically rappel down into the tunnel to get to know how the operation worked. 00:33:19.629 --> 00:33:22.899 Dirt and rocks were likely filled up in buckets and then Daniel would empty those and bring 00:33:22.899 --> 00:33:23.899 them back. 00:33:23.899 --> 00:33:28.750 Oh, and one more thing; Daniel took even more steps to hide the location from Askia. 00:33:28.750 --> 00:33:32.649 Askia had a phone but it didn’t work so well underground like that so Daniel provided 00:33:32.649 --> 00:33:38.340 WiFi but he set the WiFi up with a VPN which made [00:35:00] Askia believe he was in Virginia. 00:33:38.340 --> 00:33:41.299 With the hours of driving to get there, this seemed logical. 00:33:41.299 --> 00:33:43.970 Askia thought he was in Virginia. 00:33:43.970 --> 00:33:47.419 Askia got to work digging and he thought it was okay work. 00:33:47.419 --> 00:33:51.049 Every now and then he’d snap a photo and post it to Facebook or send it to his girlfriend 00:33:51.049 --> 00:33:52.049 of him down there. 00:33:52.049 --> 00:33:54.850 In these photos he’s wearing full protective equipment. 00:33:54.850 --> 00:33:59.230 [MUSIC] He’s got a helmet on, a respirator to keep the dust out, eye protection, hearing 00:33:59.230 --> 00:34:00.799 protection, and gloves. 00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:04.669 I think he went down there and worked for a few days at a time. 00:34:04.669 --> 00:34:09.220 I think he slept down there, ate down there, watched TV down there, played video games, 00:34:09.220 --> 00:34:14.800 and when he had to go to the bathroom there was a bucket system for that because he was 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:18.440 absolutely not allowed to come upstairs to the regular bathroom. 00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:21.810 Daniel’s paranoia was just too much for that. 00:34:21.810 --> 00:34:26.460 After a few days of digging, Daniel would put the blacked-out goggles back on and drive 00:34:26.460 --> 00:34:27.980 him back home. 00:34:27.980 --> 00:34:32.160 Askia’s parents and girlfriend knew what he was doing for Daniel but were not that 00:34:32.160 --> 00:34:33.390 keen on it. 00:34:33.390 --> 00:34:37.390 Askia’s parents tried to persuade him to stop seeing Daniel and stop working in the 00:34:37.390 --> 00:34:38.390 tunnels. 00:34:38.390 --> 00:34:41.950 They didn’t like the strange routine that Daniel kept carrying out with Askia to get 00:34:41.950 --> 00:34:44.760 him there and that he had to live down there. 00:34:44.760 --> 00:34:49.860 Askia described the tunnels to his girlfriend as one hundred feet long and fifteen feet 00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:50.860 deep. 00:34:50.860 --> 00:34:55.230 He said there was areas that were locked and he wasn’t allowed to go in but Askia kept 00:34:55.230 --> 00:34:57.140 going back to help Daniel dig. 00:34:57.140 --> 00:35:02.250 The earth that far deep was in some places very rocky, if not solid rock, and this likely 00:35:02.250 --> 00:35:04.450 meant that the tunnel was fairly secure. 00:35:04.450 --> 00:35:09.330 It was a huge pain in the neck to break the rock to dig so Askia didn’t think that the 00:35:09.330 --> 00:35:11.360 tunnel would probably collapse. 00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:15.260 Because Daniel provided good personal protection equipment and there was decent entertainment 00:35:15.260 --> 00:35:22.530 and food down there, it was good enough for the now twenty-one-year old Askia. 00:35:22.530 --> 00:35:28.730 On September 10th, 2017 at about 2:00 p.m. Askia was working in the tunnels while Daniel 00:35:28.730 --> 00:35:30.870 was upstairs in the house. 00:35:30.870 --> 00:35:36.330 Askia smelled smoke in the tunnels and sent Daniel a text message telling him about it. 00:35:36.330 --> 00:35:38.890 Daniel came downstairs into the basement and looked around. 00:35:38.890 --> 00:35:42.810 He saw that a circuit had tripped in the electrical box. 00:35:42.810 --> 00:35:46.590 This made the tunnels dark and Askia couldn’t see what he was doing down there. 00:35:46.590 --> 00:35:51.540 Daniel inspected the wiring and tried to find the source of the smoke but remember, Daniel’s 00:35:51.540 --> 00:35:54.250 house and basement is a bit cluttered you could say. 00:35:54.250 --> 00:35:57.890 Stuff was piled everywhere and it wasn’t easy to move things around and inspect the 00:35:57.890 --> 00:35:58.930 job site. 00:35:58.930 --> 00:36:03.120 It’s unclear and I’m not exactly sure but I think Daniel couldn’t locate the problem 00:36:03.120 --> 00:36:07.470 and just switched the circuit breaker back on and went upstairs. 00:36:07.470 --> 00:36:13.640 About two hours later, now 4:30 in the afternoon, Daniel smelled smoke again and went back down 00:36:13.640 --> 00:36:14.640 to look. 00:36:14.640 --> 00:36:19.800 This time a fire had erupted in the basement and the piles of stuff all over the basement 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:22.890 and other things started catching fire. 00:36:22.890 --> 00:36:28.320 [MUSIC] Daniel tried to put the fire out but it already had grown too large to manage it. 00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:30.480 He tried to get Askia out but it was too much. 00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:31.480 It was too hot. 00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:32.910 There was too much smoke. 00:36:32.910 --> 00:36:34.690 Daniel was choking on the smoke. 00:36:34.690 --> 00:36:36.110 He was coughing and gagging. 00:36:36.110 --> 00:36:37.490 His lungs were burning. 00:36:37.490 --> 00:36:40.770 He tried to get down low but this didn’t help much. 00:36:40.770 --> 00:36:42.450 Maybe he should just get out of there. 00:36:42.450 --> 00:36:44.160 He shouted for Askia. 00:36:44.160 --> 00:36:50.740 When the smoke just grew too much, Daniel ran out of there and called 911. 00:36:50.740 --> 00:36:55.630 I think at this time Askia was down in the tunnels washing up after a long day of work 00:36:55.630 --> 00:36:59.380 and so he had taken his clothes off and he was in the middle of putting new clothes back 00:36:59.380 --> 00:37:04.320 on when he heard Daniel shouting out that there’s a fire. 00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:07.990 [MUSIC] Askia ran to the tunnel entrance and looked up into the basement. 00:37:07.990 --> 00:37:11.110 There he could see the smoke and he could hear the fire. 00:37:11.110 --> 00:37:15.540 He didn’t want to be trapped in the tunnel with a fire going on so he climbed up the 00:37:15.540 --> 00:37:18.640 fifteen-foot-tall ladder and into the basement. 00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:21.850 Naked, he almost immediately started coughing. 00:37:21.850 --> 00:37:23.470 The smoke was thick. 00:37:23.470 --> 00:37:27.620 He had seen this basement before to get down in the tunnels but the smoke and fire and 00:37:27.620 --> 00:37:29.990 junk everywhere just disoriented him. 00:37:29.990 --> 00:37:35.110 He didn’t know exactly how to get out and now he’s in a smoke-filled room that’s 00:37:35.110 --> 00:37:36.390 on fire. 00:37:36.390 --> 00:37:41.420 It’s full of garbage and trash and old bicycles and clothes, and just a ton of junk. 00:37:41.420 --> 00:37:43.400 There’s no windows in this place. 00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:47.770 He tried to make his way out of the basement but he was lost and he had to jump through 00:37:47.770 --> 00:37:51.910 flames to make it to the other side of the room which would just scorch his body. 00:37:51.910 --> 00:37:54.310 It wasn’t easy to get around. 00:37:54.310 --> 00:37:57.020 He started to panic and the smoke grew thicker. 00:37:57.020 --> 00:37:59.670 It was dense, ugly smoke. 00:37:59.670 --> 00:38:01.070 Askia was coughing hard. 00:38:01.070 --> 00:38:04.980 The heat was intense; his lungs were burning. 00:38:04.980 --> 00:38:12.330 Askia kept looking for a way out through the maze of burning junk and trash in the basement. 00:38:12.330 --> 00:38:18.450 One of the neighbors was named Bruce Leshan and he happened to be a news reporter for 00:38:18.450 --> 00:38:22.400 WUSA9 and saw the smoke and ran over. 00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:23.470 He tells us his story. 00:38:23.470 --> 00:38:27.200 BRUCE: I was the first person on the scene of the fire. 00:38:27.200 --> 00:38:34.290 I tried to get into the burning house to rescue Khafra but it was just too dangerous and when 00:38:34.290 --> 00:38:37.310 I yelled in [00:40:00] ‘are you in there? 00:38:37.310 --> 00:38:38.670 Is anybody in there?’ 00:38:38.670 --> 00:38:39.810 There was no response. 00:38:39.810 --> 00:38:44.110 JACK: When the fire department arrived, they found Daniel outside breathless and panicked. 00:38:44.110 --> 00:38:47.520 He was telling them there’s someone inside who I couldn’t get out. 00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:51.130 Daniel was suffering from smoke inhalation and some skin burns. 00:38:51.130 --> 00:38:55.340 The fire crews frantically made their way into the burning house, looking for Askia. 00:38:55.340 --> 00:38:59.600 They went down into the basement and just feet from the exit, they found his naked body 00:38:59.600 --> 00:39:00.770 laying there. 00:39:00.770 --> 00:39:04.510 The fire fighters tried to help Askia but it was too late. 00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:10.810 The smoke and fire was all too much for him and he died just minutes before the fire fighters 00:39:10.810 --> 00:39:14.350 found him. 00:39:14.350 --> 00:39:23.750 [MUSIC] Days after the fire, the county came to the house and boarded it up and put a notice 00:39:23.750 --> 00:39:27.160 on the door that said This Building is Unsafe to Enter. 00:39:27.160 --> 00:39:30.380 The tunnels were believed to be two hundred feet long at this point so the neighbors were 00:39:30.380 --> 00:39:32.760 concerned that the tunnels were under their house. 00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:35.140 The city was concerned the tunnel was under the road. 00:39:35.140 --> 00:39:38.130 But it was too risky to go down there and map it out. 00:39:38.130 --> 00:39:45.180 I imagine Daniel felt terrible that this electrical accident caused young Askia to die. 00:39:45.180 --> 00:39:49.400 But after all, it was just an accident so what more can you do? 00:39:49.400 --> 00:39:54.170 Askia’s parents didn’t accept that though, and they pressed charges against Daniel. 00:39:54.170 --> 00:39:59.850 Eight months after the fire, on May 25th, 2018, Daniel was arrested and charged with 00:39:59.850 --> 00:40:05.920 second-degree depraved-heart murder and involuntary manslaughter. 00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:08.220 Depraved-heart is an unusual charge. 00:40:08.220 --> 00:40:12.190 A second-degree murder is a murder that is not premeditated or deliberate. 00:40:12.190 --> 00:40:17.520 A depraved-heart murder falls under this second-degree charge, but to be found guilty of a depraved-heart 00:40:17.520 --> 00:40:22.590 murder means you have had to take an extreme risk with someone else’s life, taking a 00:40:22.590 --> 00:40:25.900 risk you are aware of that could result in injury or death. 00:40:25.900 --> 00:40:31.330 If that risk you are aware of is extreme enough and someone dies from that, then you could 00:40:31.330 --> 00:40:34.380 be found guilty of a depraved-heart murder. 00:40:34.380 --> 00:40:36.740 This is what Daniel was faced with. 00:40:36.740 --> 00:40:41.360 Was he aware that the conditions he made Askia work under were extremely risky? 00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:44.370 Was Daniel showing reckless disregard for human life? 00:40:44.370 --> 00:40:47.930 The jury would have to decide. 00:40:47.930 --> 00:40:53.430 A month later and Daniel secured a bond for $100,000. 00:40:53.430 --> 00:40:58.350 His defense attorney said the fire was a tragic accident and not a criminal act and that Askia 00:40:58.350 --> 00:41:00.120 was not forced into the tunnels. 00:41:00.120 --> 00:41:01.120 Here’s his attorney. 00:41:01.120 --> 00:41:03.120 ATT’N: He was not held against his will. 00:41:03.120 --> 00:41:10.150 That guy posted pictures of him in the tunnels in his garb and shared with his friends on 00:41:10.150 --> 00:41:11.530 Twitter and Facebook. 00:41:11.530 --> 00:41:12.530 Look at those things. 00:41:12.530 --> 00:41:15.450 JACK: I’ve looked over some of the presentations Daniel put together. 00:41:15.450 --> 00:41:19.310 Specifically, the one on DIY nuke-proofing was really impressive. 00:41:19.310 --> 00:41:24.060 In this presentation Daniel listed a lot of safety precautions that must be considered 00:41:24.060 --> 00:41:28.560 such as what kind of soil types need support and what kind of support works best, and that 00:41:28.560 --> 00:41:31.550 egg-shaped tunnels have the least likely chance of collapsing. 00:41:31.550 --> 00:41:35.720 He mentioned that you have to constantly be checking for any deformations on the ground 00:41:35.720 --> 00:41:40.130 above where the tunnels are and always be looking for cracks in walls and add support 00:41:40.130 --> 00:41:41.680 whenever you see one. 00:41:41.680 --> 00:41:45.240 He talked about what kind of ventilation you need, especially when running gas engines 00:41:45.240 --> 00:41:49.240 down there, and what kind of water pumps are required in case of flooding. 00:41:49.240 --> 00:41:53.540 He even mentioned in his research that it’s highly recommended that you call 811 to get 00:41:53.540 --> 00:41:57.150 someone from the city to come show you where the gas lines are on your property because 00:41:57.150 --> 00:42:00.480 digging into one of these will probably kill you. 00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:04.140 It’s really impressive how much safety precautions Daniel was aware of. 00:42:04.140 --> 00:42:08.150 I can’t say for sure how much of this was put into practice but I feel like he probably 00:42:08.150 --> 00:42:11.660 did most of it since he didn’t want any tunnels to collapse himself. 00:42:11.660 --> 00:42:15.190 At the same time Daniel faced a wave of further legal action. 00:42:15.190 --> 00:42:19.790 Montgomery County filed a lawsuit to get the tunnels filled in and the house demolished. 00:42:19.790 --> 00:42:24.480 Askia’s parents filed a Civil Wrongful Death Lawsuit, blaming Daniel for his actions for 00:42:24.480 --> 00:42:26.200 the death of their son. 00:42:26.200 --> 00:42:31.060 The lawsuit filed by the county revealed some pretty interesting information about the tunnels. 00:42:31.060 --> 00:42:34.700 Not only does the county believe the tunnels extend beyond the edge of Daniel’s property, 00:42:34.700 --> 00:42:38.010 but they fear the tunnels reach under the public road. 00:42:38.010 --> 00:42:41.790 How far did they go towards neighboring houses, they’re asking? 00:42:41.790 --> 00:42:45.220 Investigators still felt it was too dangerous to investigate the tunnels. 00:42:45.220 --> 00:42:48.630 They just can’t get themselves in there properly to take a look. 00:42:48.630 --> 00:42:53.690 Really, no one but Daniel knows how deep and long these tunnels are. 00:42:53.690 --> 00:42:58.380 State Attorney John McCarthy called these tunnels a danger to life and limb and he said 00:42:58.380 --> 00:43:01.620 that even robots can’t be used to explore them because the tunnels were designed on 00:43:01.620 --> 00:43:03.300 different levels. 00:43:03.300 --> 00:43:06.150 Robots need a nice, level surface to roll on. 00:43:06.150 --> 00:43:10.180 Montgomery County, desperate to know the state of the tunnels, wants Daniel to employ an 00:43:10.180 --> 00:43:13.070 experienced structural engineer to assess them. 00:43:13.070 --> 00:43:18.090 They want a 3-D model made to show the extent of the tunnels and they want markers put above 00:43:18.090 --> 00:43:22.590 the ground to highlight exactly how far the tunnels go, and a clear plan to get them safely 00:43:22.590 --> 00:43:26.020 filled and the house torn down. 00:43:26.020 --> 00:43:31.300 On April 10th of this year, 2019, eighteen months after the fire killed Askia, Daniel 00:43:31.300 --> 00:43:32.680 went on trial. 00:43:32.680 --> 00:43:36.500 Twelve jurors listened to seven days of the prosecution’s case. 00:43:36.500 --> 00:43:40.740 [00:45:00] The State Prosecution alleged that Daniel’s tunnels, hoarding, and haphazard 00:43:40.740 --> 00:43:43.960 electrical chain providing power to the tunnels, were all to blame. 00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:48.600 As far as the prosecution was concerned, Daniel knew the risk and was fully aware of the dangerous 00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:50.510 situation in the tunnels. 00:43:50.510 --> 00:43:54.150 The situation that he had put Askia in but still didn’t do anything when it was clear 00:43:54.150 --> 00:43:55.370 that the danger was imminent. 00:43:55.370 --> 00:43:59.850 This, they said, made Daniel responsible for Askia’s death. 00:43:59.850 --> 00:44:04.740 Fire fighters who attended the scene described Daniel’s house as a hoarder’s paradise. 00:44:04.740 --> 00:44:08.600 County firefighter Don Boyd said that both the first and second floors were piled with 00:44:08.600 --> 00:44:11.470 three to four feet of items and debris. 00:44:11.470 --> 00:44:16.260 Down in the basement these piles rose to five to seven feet with narrow pathways which made 00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:19.090 moving difficult and doorways hidden. 00:44:19.090 --> 00:44:23.100 He told the jury it took over three weeks for a twenty-four-man team of firefighters 00:44:23.100 --> 00:44:25.090 to clear everything out. 00:44:25.090 --> 00:44:28.600 That says a lot about how much stuff was collected in that house. 00:44:28.600 --> 00:44:33.070 In trial, the prosecutors also pulled up Daniel’s talk at Shmoocon. 00:44:33.070 --> 00:44:37.160 They were especially keen to point out his descriptions on how to make thermite and destroy 00:44:37.160 --> 00:44:39.860 computer data that had been obtained by hacking. 00:44:39.860 --> 00:44:44.130 A lesson on how to get away with computer hacking, they said, all presented while wearing 00:44:44.130 --> 00:44:46.930 his full fire-retardant suit. 00:44:46.930 --> 00:44:51.010 After the fire, investigators found various materials; liquids and chemicals inside the 00:44:51.010 --> 00:44:52.010 house. 00:44:52.010 --> 00:44:55.760 Now, chances are a lot of that was used in his data destruction experiments for Shmoocon 00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:00.600 but the authorities, taken with Daniel’s past, were really wondering what Daniel was 00:45:00.600 --> 00:45:01.710 up to. 00:45:01.710 --> 00:45:04.690 The local media in Maryland really jumped all over this case. 00:45:04.690 --> 00:45:08.110 Throughout the two-week trial there were a ton of articles and they called Daniel a wealthy 00:45:08.110 --> 00:45:13.320 stock trader, a millionaire, a computer whiz, and a paranoid computer hacker. 00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:17.860 Even his own defense attorney, Robert Bonsib, described Daniel as being a very interesting 00:45:17.860 --> 00:45:18.860 person. 00:45:18.860 --> 00:45:22.430 He said quote, “Mr. Beckwitt is an unusual individual. 00:45:22.430 --> 00:45:26.910 He participates in online communities with interesting theories on world events. 00:45:26.910 --> 00:45:28.810 Some could call him conspiratorial.” 00:45:28.810 --> 00:45:30.450 End quote. 00:45:30.450 --> 00:45:34.040 The defense actually submitted a motion to the judge for Daniel to be acquitted and the 00:45:34.040 --> 00:45:35.640 trial be dismissed. 00:45:35.640 --> 00:45:39.350 The judge denied this immediately, saying this case was similar to employers who must 00:45:39.350 --> 00:45:42.420 provide a safe working environment for their employees. 00:45:42.420 --> 00:45:43.690 The trial continued. 00:45:43.690 --> 00:45:49.000 In explanation for building the tunnels, Daniel’s attorney said Daniel had concerns about inter-continental 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:53.320 ballistic missiles so he started this project to create a secure bunker. 00:45:53.320 --> 00:45:56.750 He compared Daniel’s vision to this nuclear bomb shelter similar to what people would 00:45:56.750 --> 00:45:59.750 build in their backyard during the Cold War. 00:45:59.750 --> 00:46:04.330 Douglas Hart, the guy who worked in the tunnels before Askia, testified for the defense. 00:46:04.330 --> 00:46:07.690 He revealed too, that he was led into the basement to the entrance of the tunnels wearing 00:46:07.690 --> 00:46:10.350 dark glasses with tape over the lenses. 00:46:10.350 --> 00:46:13.860 This was after being driven around in a car so he couldn’t identify the locations of 00:46:13.860 --> 00:46:15.090 the tunnels. 00:46:15.090 --> 00:46:19.340 But Daniel himself did not take the stand to testify and I’m quite sure the risks 00:46:19.340 --> 00:46:23.600 of what the prosecution would ask him while up there on the stand, considering his past 00:46:23.600 --> 00:46:26.620 and his paranoia, were just too high to be chancing. 00:46:26.620 --> 00:46:28.730 The defense kept their case pretty simple. 00:46:28.730 --> 00:46:33.760 They said these events were a terrible accident and they repeated that Daniel can not be held 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:36.850 criminally responsible for an accident. 00:46:36.850 --> 00:46:40.230 Montgomery County prosecutors, on the other hand, told the jury that Daniel’s behavior 00:46:40.230 --> 00:46:42.900 showed a total disregard for public safety. 00:46:42.900 --> 00:46:48.250 Not only that, but his actions created a death trap which he walked Askia right into. 00:46:48.250 --> 00:46:52.740 On April 23rd, 2019, the jury retired to deliberate. 00:46:52.740 --> 00:46:55.210 In just twenty-four hours they came back with their verdicts. 00:46:55.210 --> 00:47:03.690 They found Daniel guilty of both second-degree depraved-heart murder and involuntary manslaughter. 00:47:03.690 --> 00:47:11.460 [MUSIC] In June 2019, the judge sentenced Daniel Beckwitt to nine years in prison for 00:47:11.460 --> 00:47:15.680 the death of Askia. 00:47:15.680 --> 00:47:19.570 Now that the criminal trial is complete, the civil lawsuits filed by Montgomery County 00:47:19.570 --> 00:47:21.640 and Askia’s parents will move forward. 00:47:21.640 --> 00:47:25.550 They’re probably going to knock down his house and fill in those tunnels soon. 00:47:25.550 --> 00:47:29.060 Daniel has a few more legal battles to go. 00:47:29.060 --> 00:47:33.190 Looking over all the information I have, I still feel like something is missing. 00:47:33.190 --> 00:47:38.130 Hearing that the tunnels were dug just for a bomb shelter doesn’t feel like the whole 00:47:38.130 --> 00:47:39.130 story. 00:47:39.130 --> 00:47:42.500 I feel like there was something more to those tunnels and there’s still more secrets that 00:47:42.500 --> 00:47:44.090 Daniel is holding. 00:47:44.090 --> 00:47:48.680 I’ve been in a lot of tunnels myself and the pictures of this one remind me much more 00:47:48.680 --> 00:47:52.880 of the mines I’ve been in and less like bomb shelters. 00:47:52.880 --> 00:47:58.510 It just makes me think maybe Daniel was digging for something else down in the dirt, looking 00:47:58.510 --> 00:48:02.000 for something down there. 00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:04.520 Daniel has a lot of raw intelligence. 00:48:04.520 --> 00:48:07.320 It’s very impressive, actually. 00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:12.070 But fear and paranoia can bring down even the smartest and brightest among us. 00:48:12.070 --> 00:48:13.740 Fear divides us. 00:48:13.740 --> 00:48:17.050 It’s what makes our neighbors and friends enemies. 00:48:17.050 --> 00:48:21.820 Basing your beliefs because of fear, or finding friends because you share the same fears seems 00:48:21.820 --> 00:48:24.750 normal but it can tear us apart. 00:48:24.750 --> 00:48:29.320 Daniel built his tunnels based on fear and it was a lot of work. 00:48:29.320 --> 00:48:32.490 Imagine if he spent that energy on something positive and not out of fear. 00:48:32.490 --> 00:48:37.240 He could have made advancements in chemistry or helped hundreds of people [00:50:00] with 00:48:37.240 --> 00:48:38.240 something. 00:48:38.240 --> 00:48:39.790 Prepping for an emergency is a good idea. 00:48:39.790 --> 00:48:43.860 Everyone should be ready to handle a few weeks without water and power but Daniel took this 00:48:43.860 --> 00:48:45.490 prepping too far. 00:48:45.490 --> 00:48:48.910 If two hundred feet of tunnels weren’t enough, what was? 00:48:48.910 --> 00:48:54.930 If you keep building tunnels DIY style like this, eventually something will go terribly, 00:48:54.930 --> 00:48:55.930 terribly wrong. 00:48:55.930 --> 00:49:01.050 Daniel’s work, while under the influence of fear, ended up with him in prison and Askia 00:49:01.050 --> 00:49:02.050 dead. 00:49:02.050 --> 00:49:07.170 I like to quote the truth wherever I find it and here’s something that Master Yoda 00:49:07.170 --> 00:49:08.680 taught me about fear. 00:49:08.680 --> 00:49:11.990 YODA: Fear is the path to the dark side. 00:49:11.990 --> 00:49:12.990 Fear leads to anger. 00:49:12.990 --> 00:49:15.070 Anger leads to hate. 00:49:15.070 --> 00:49:16.750 Hate leads to suffering. 00:49:16.750 --> 00:49:22.270 JACK: Here’s another thing Buffalo Springfield taught me about paranoia and fear. 00:49:22.270 --> 00:49:26.720 BUFFALO: [MUSIC] Paranoia strikes deep. 00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:32.060 Into your life it will creep. 00:49:32.060 --> 00:49:33.060 Starts when you’re always afraid. 00:49:33.060 --> 00:49:38.750 Step out of line, the man come and take you away. 00:49:38.750 --> 00:49:41.580 We better stop. 00:49:41.580 --> 00:49:45.340 Hey, what’s that sound? 00:49:45.340 --> 00:49:51.880 JACK (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] You’ve been listening to Darknet Diaries. 00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:55.510 If you find this show valuable, please consider donating on Patreon. 00:49:55.510 --> 00:49:59.560 You can get an ad-free feed there and bonus episodes are starting to roll out. 00:49:59.560 --> 00:50:01.710 Donating there really helps this show a lot. 00:50:01.710 --> 00:50:05.930 This episode is created by me, your friendly ticket-jockey, Jack Rhysider. 00:50:05.930 --> 00:50:10.030 Research and writing help for this episode was by Fiona Guy; editing help by the dark 00:50:10.030 --> 00:50:11.200 Duchess Damien. 00:50:11.200 --> 00:50:15.800 Theme music was created by the head-bobbing Breakmaster Cylinder. 00:50:15.800 --> 00:50:24.250 See you in two weeks.