The Crazy Story Behind Hornblasters' Rise | Matthew Heller DSH #1351

Summary

Digital Social Hour – Episode Summary

Episode: "The Crazy Story Behind Hornblasters' Rise"

Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Matthew Heller (Founder, HornBlasters)
Date: April 23, 2025

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Main Theme / Purpose

In this episode, Sean Kelly interviews Matthew Heller, the colorful founder of HornBlasters, about his unique journey from a wild tech-infused childhood, through brushes with law enforcement (both as a target and a collaborator), to building and clownishly marketing an enduringly successful company. The conversation dives into hacking exploits, government surveillance, wild stories from Tampa, and the raw realities of being a disruptive entrepreneur in America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Unconventional Upbringing (00:41–02:33)

• Raised by a Professional Clown: Heller’s parents split when he was three. His mother, Rosie the Clown, ran “A Clown’s World,” performing at events that, humorously and darkly, often included parents using drugs in the background.

  • “A lot of her customers were essentially in the cocaine business. And these parents would hire clown to come entertain the kids while the parents would all do drugs essentially at the party. That's crazy.” (02:12, Matthew Heller)

• Early Experiences with Tech: As an only child in restricted settings, Heller cobbled together computers by swapping out components before returning them within the refund window—an early sign of technical curiosity and hustler instincts.

  • “I was kind of gutting the computers on the inside, taking components out before she would return them. And I was eventually able to Frankenstein together a computer.” (03:12, Matthew Heller)

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2. Early Online Misadventures: Hacking and FBI Involvement (03:28–08:15)

• Script Kiddie Years: Heller discusses how he dabbled with basic hacking, including website defacements for “clout” and activism.
  • “We would try to take stuff down and then put up our own names and give ourselves like shout outs… We were just putting free Kevin Mitnick up everywhere.” (03:53, Matthew Heller)
• Brush with the Law: A friend turns Heller in to the cops. The FBI investigates, but instead offers him a job as a cooperating witness, leading to work on cybercrime (mainly credit card fraud) through his high school years.
  • “I got expelled from high school over that. Super low point in my life… about a week later the FBI came back...offered me a job.” (06:42, Matthew Heller)
  • “I worked with them from Florida for a bit and then they eventually transferred me to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where the district attorney there had a little more capacity.” (07:23, Matthew Heller)
• Secret Work, No Résumé: He worked for the FBI for years, paid cash, then post-9/11 everything stopped abruptly. For years, he couldn’t explain his gap in employment or discuss his unique skills.

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3. Scrappy Entrepreneurship: The Birth of HornBlasters (09:11–12:17)

• Unlikely Inspiration: While working at Home Depot, Heller (a fan of air suspension and car culture) installed a train horn to his pickup for self-defense and fun, sparking public interest.
  • “I found a train horn and I put it on my vehicle using some of the hardware from Home Depot and wired it all up. And then I was just… had this train horn on this little tiny pickup truck.” (09:10, Matthew Heller)
• First-Mover Online: Built a website in 2002 and shared prank horn videos before YouTube existed. HornBlasters became an early viral brand, eventually leading Heller to run the company full-time.
  • “We'd use these videos of us using the train horn…to help market the product. I was paying a ton for… hosting… then with the advent of YouTube, it was big blessing.” (11:47, Matthew Heller)

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4. Marketing, Networking, and Podcasting Connections (12:27–13:47)

• Early Podcast Sponsorships: HornBlasters was the first sponsor of Kill Tony, helping to propel Heller’s network across the comedy and podcast scenes.
  • “We were the first Hornblasters was the first sponsor of the Kill Tony podcast.” (12:30, Matthew Heller)
• Community & Media Connections: Tampa radio host Mike Calta boosted his visibility locally, and industry relationships have had a lasting impact.

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5. The Infamous Truck Search Incident (13:54–17:44)

• Police Damage, Media Erasure: After a company promotion event, Heller’s custom truck was ransacked by police for suspected drugs (none found). The search caused significant personal loss, and media about the incident was later scrubbed from the internet.
  • “There was nothing found in the vehicle. There was nothing in the vehicle, but they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart. And… all there was a ton of press about that at the time, and it all got pulled off the Internet for the most part.” (16:32, Matthew Heller)
• On Civil Liberties: The ease of government searches post-Patriot Act shocked both guests.
  • “There really is no protection. It's fully constitutional. There's no privacy. And, you know, folks, you know, your vehicle, your cell phones, everything could be intercepted at all times. Pretty much.” (17:44, Matthew Heller)

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6. Surveillance State Realities (18:22–20:16)

• Carnivore & NSA: Heller describes work on government programs intercepting Internet data, mass surveillance, and lasting impacts on privacy.
  • “The program was called Carnivore that I was working on, and it would just gather all the data…” (18:32, Matthew Heller)
  • “All digital pocket litter receipts, traffic cameras, everything's all aggregated, I guess, in Utah.” (19:20, Matthew Heller)
• Modern Tech Dangers: Snowden’s leaks and today’s total phone compromise are discussed.
  • “You could turn the microphones on. There's six or seven microphones on an iPhone. You could turn that on and hot mic everything.” (19:31, Matthew Heller)

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7. Cybercrime and Digital Vulnerability (20:25–22:44)

• Selling Credit Cards, Internet Crime: Buying and selling credit cards, the prevalence of illicit online content, and the risks of social engineering hacks are reviewed.
  • “People are just selling credit cards on chat rooms…by thousands at a time.” (20:51, Podcast Host)
• Modern Hacking: Heller is no longer active in hacking but remarks on the persistence of vulnerabilities.

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8. Business Challenges Today (23:28–24:45)

• Tariffs and Supply Chain Shocks: Heller laments the impact of recent US-China tariffs on his electronics sourcing.
  • “These tariffs are really messing my business up personally. The past couple of weeks, a lot of our stuff is made here in the USA… some of our more complex electronics regrettably come from China.” (23:28, Matthew Heller)
  • “I'm hearing 245% now and stuff like that.” (23:51, Matthew Heller)

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9. Streaming & Culture (24:47–27:37)

• Embracing New Media: Heller is experimenting with live streaming on Kick and discusses his VR gaming addiction.
• Colorful Friends: The "Sausage Castle," a wild adult party mansion owned by his friend Mike Busey, is described.
  • “Mike owns the wildest house in America. It's called the Sausage Castle… It's an 88 acre adult playground…an adult Disney World, essentially.” (26:24, Matthew Heller)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I was just raised by her, essentially. A clown's world is what her. Her company was called, and she was Rosie the Clown. I was a little kid clown.” (01:42, Matthew Heller)
• “If you want all the cool toys, you know, there just is no privacy, you know?” (20:16, Matthew Heller)
• “No one's going after the air horn guys. All right.” (23:08, Matthew Heller, on being targeted by hackers)
• “He had one on New Year's. It was kind of hard to talk the girlfriend into, hey, we're doing this on New Year's, you know… but, yeah, it's incredible what they've grown that into. And. Yeah, it's just a monster now.” (13:32, Matthew Heller, on Kill Tony at Madison Square Garden)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:41 – Matthew Heller recounts his clown-filled childhood
• 03:53–05:39 – Early hacking, getting caught, and the FBI's offer
• 06:42–08:47 – Secret life as a cybercrime cooperating witness
• 09:10–12:17 – Inspiration and viral beginnings of HornBlasters
• 12:27–13:47 – Early ties to Kill Tony and building a network
• 13:54–17:44 – Tampa police truck search, government overreach, erased press
• 18:22–20:16 – Inside government surveillance (Carnivore, NSA)
• 20:25–22:44 – Cybercrime mechanics and hacking landscape
• 23:28–24:45 – Economic threats: tariffs and supply chain
• 24:47–27:37 – Streaming, VR gaming, and Sausage Castle stories
• 28:06–28:23 – Where to find Matthew and HornBlasters

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Guest Socials

• HornBlasters: hornblasters.com | @hornblasters on all platforms
• Matthew Heller: Matt from HornBlasters (social handles)

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Tone and Vibe

The episode is filled with raw, humorous, and sometimes jaw-dropping storytelling, blending nostalgia for the early internet with a knowing cynicism about government overreach. Heller is candid, self-deprecating, and clearly enjoys both the chaos and the lessons from his adventures. Sean Kelly matches Heller’s curiosity with friendly, fascinated energy, keeping the conversation moving through wild anecdotes and sobering realities.

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Final Thoughts

Listeners hear a true “only in America” entrepreneurial journey: equal parts comic, cautionary, and inspirational. Whether recounting hacker days, building a brand with viral “train horn pranks,” or navigating modern geopolitics and digital privacy, Heller delivers memorable stories and practical warnings for anyone interested in technology, business, or just plain weird Americana.

Transcript

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[Matthew Heller]

Was an active investigation just from yesterday. But again, there was nothing found in the vehicle. There was nothing in the vehicle, but they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart. And that was a real bummer. And it was kind of an egg on the face of the police department. The chief of police is actually, ironically, now the mayor of Tampa.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Foreign.

Okay, guys, Matthew Heller. One of the craziest stories I think I've ever seen. So thanks for joining us today, man.

[Matthew Heller]

Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, it's great to be here.

[Podcast Host]

You're out here in Vegas, which isn't. It isn't a common thing for you, is it? It's.

[Matthew Heller]

You know, I've been here so many times over the years. My company, Horn Blasters, is super involved with the SEMA show, so we're here, like, every November, and I was on the board planning that. I really don't love Vegas. I don't like to gamble. I don't pay for sex, and I rarely drink, so there's just nothing out here for me. Uh, but I'm so happy that we got to link up and. And do this. So. Super excited about that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Well, you were raised by a single mother who was a professional clown. I want to talk about that.

[Matthew Heller]

Yes, sir.

[Podcast Host]

That is a very unique childhood.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, my parents split when I was three. My parents were from Detroit. They moved to Florida in search of a better life. My mom and father, they created a mobile dunk tank, and they used to set that up at the flea market. My dad was like a stilt man. And then my mom was a professional clown. Once they split, I was just raised by her, essentially. A clown's world is what her. Her company was called, and she was Rosie the Clown. I was a little kid clown. And that was. It was an interesting childhood, to say the least.

[Podcast Host]

That's super interesting.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, that was down in South Florida. We did a lot of, like, company picnics and birthday parties and stuff like that. A Lot of her customers were essentially in the cocaine business. And these parents would hire clown to come entertain the kids while the parents would all do drugs essentially at the party. That's crazy. But yeah, it was a really, really interesting upbringing. And shout out to mom Rosie for.

[Podcast Host]

Doing the best she can to mama Rosie.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

When did you start getting into tech technology?

[Matthew Heller]

Just as. As a only child raised by the clown after the divorce. My mom got very little from the divorce. Even though they had accumulated a huge fortune. She was kind of afraid of my dad because he was getting into drugs. So they split ways. I was living in like a senior community. It was a 55 and up community. I really wasn't supposed to be outside or playing at any time. Mom didn't really have the means for a computer. So we would buy one from like Office Depot on the credit card. I'd have it for 30 days or whatever their return policy was, and we'd kind of flip them and I'd get new computers every 30 days or so.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

She didn't know it at the time, but I was kind of gutting the computers on the inside, taking components out before she would return them. And I was eventually able to Frankenstein together a computer that I was able to just play on that thing.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, humble beginnings.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, just big, big computer nerd.

[Podcast Host]

So you were a big gamer back in the day?

[Matthew Heller]

A little bit. The games weren't quite what they are now, but. Runescape, yeah, Runescape, Doom, Wolfenstein, all the super old stuff. Leisure Suit Larry and yeah, it's come a long way. And then with the advent of the Internet, you know, I was on America Online and using different ISPs to get online and.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, so started off with gaming and then kind of delved into the hacking.

[Matthew Heller]

World, just tinkering around. And I was in a group of other fellow computer nerds and we would try to take stuff down and then put up our own names and give ourselves like shout outs and put post like political cartoons and just like different things on different websites that had vulnerabilities. I was kind of more like a script kiddie at the time. Not like, you know, super formal hacking, but there was just a lot of vulnerabilities on the Internet back then.

[Podcast Host]

So how did that work? You would. Was that the. When you flooded a bunch of traffic to a site, shut it down?

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, you, you could, you could SMT or ping bomb, people like that. That would work. It would be like a DDoS attack. I, I was just, I found like a send mail exploit with Some of my friends on NASA.gov it was actually spacelink.NASA.gov and we, we put some stuff up there, just again, some political cartoons free. There was a hacker named Kevin Mitnick who was being held without a trial back in the day. So that was the big thing. We were just putting free Kevin Mitnick up everywhere.

[Podcast Host]

Did he get freed eventually? Did.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was being held forever. So, yeah, I was just kind of a computer nerd. Did that got in trouble at high school. They didn't have any proof per se. One of my media aid friends got pulled over for speeding and he dropped the dime on me to the cop who was just, he was afraid to lose his driving privileges. So he just kind of confessed to the cop and said, hey, I know this guy that hacked NASA. And the cop is like, what are you talking about? I'm just, I'm just writing you a speeding ticket or whatever. But they started investigating that shortly after that. The FBI was out at my house the next week asking questions. Wow. They wanted to see my computer. The parents would not let him in the house. Oh. My mom got remarried when I was 15. I had, I had a stepfather then.

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[Matthew Heller]

So yeah, they weren't allowed on the computer. I got expelled from high school over that. Super low point in my life. Didn't really know what I was going to do. This is my 10th grade year. And then about a week later the FBI came back to the house and they offered me a job. They said, hey, we know you're not really doing anything with your life. Which would you like to come help us? We're kind of behind the power curve when it comes to where we should be with technology and prosecuting some of, some of these different cases and stuff. I had nothing else going on. I worked with them from Florida for a bit and then they eventually transferred me to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where the district attorney there had a little more capacity to pursue these types of cases. So was just going after locating people who were doing like credit card fraud, buying and selling credit card numbers in bulk and different hacks and stuff like that, trying to, trying to locate people and help them with probable cause. I was essentially a cooperating witness. I didn't have a gun or a badge or anything like that. Was, it was told I wasn't allowed to talk about it for seven years or so because there was a bunch of open investigations that I was a part of. 911 happened. I was working for them in Baton Rouge at the time. I called the morning of 9 11. I called my, my superior, my officer that I reported to and I said, hey, are we working today? And she said we're not. Just kind of hang tight, well we'll talk to you next week. So I, I sat there for a little bit and the next week they said, hey, we're not, we're not doing any of these investigations anymore. We're trying to do this war on terror thing. Here's, here's your last money. They paid me in cash. It wasn't, I didn't get checks or anything.

[Podcast Host]

It was cash the whole time.

[Matthew Heller]

The whole time. And then they were also paying me like a per diem for housing. I kind of forged the receipts and it was just living in my truck at the time, pocketing that money. And I'm so happy that happened because if I did sign a lease I would still be stuck in Louisiana. So they released me and I went back to Tampa, Florida where now I had this couple years of no resume, no experience, and I wasn't allowed to say what I was doing. I had all this esoteric knowledge of how these things worked, but again wasn't allowed to talk about anything.

[Podcast Host]

Dang, that must have been a tough seven year period then.

[Matthew Heller]

It was a bummer to find work. Well, I just got a bunch of part time jobs. I, I was Kind of like the grim reaper of death for a lot of these companies. I worked. Everywhere I worked, I got like 22 W2s that year, just getting hired and fired. I was at Blockbuster Video and Service Merchandise, Kmart. All these places just kind of closed up as I was working at them.

[Podcast Host]

RIP Blockbuster, rv.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. But then I got a job at Home Depot, and that was really fun. I enjoyed that. I had a lowrider pickup truck, and it went up and down. It had air suspension on it. I'm from South Florida, and I always thought, you know, lowrider culture was super cool. And I'm like, man, if I just had a truck that went up and down, I could probably meet a chick or something like that. So I was working at Home Depot, had this air suspension, and not everyone enjoyed those. Those little pickup trucks. So I felt like I was getting run off the road all the time and being always into trains. As a kid, I found a train horn and I put it on my vehicle using some of the hardware from Home Depot and wired it all up. And then I was just. Had this train horn on this little tiny pickup truck. And then folks were always asking, hey, where'd you get that? That's kind of cool. I built a rudimentary website in 2002 called Horn Blasters, where I started selling these horns. And after about four years, I had to leave Home Depot and pursue the company full time. And here we are now, 23 years later and still selling air horns.

[Podcast Host]

Well done. Not a lot of companies lost that long.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah. I'm amazed. Super blessed.

[Podcast Host]

What a journey, too, to go from hacking into that.

[Matthew Heller]

Much more innocent, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. So, yeah, we just make these obnoxious horns. This was 2002. I started putting videos on my website. This was before YouTube, and we'd kind of use these videos of us using the train horn honking at people to help market the product. I was paying a ton for, like.

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[Matthew Heller]

And the website hosting and whatnot for the videos. And then with the advent of YouTube, it was big blessing that we were able to finally share that content.

[Podcast Host]

Good timing right out there.

[Matthew Heller]

Yes, sir. Yeah, we're one of the first YouTubers to have over a million views on. On a video.

[Podcast Host]

That was a big deal back in the day.

[Matthew Heller]

It was. I should have stuck with that momentum. I. We're now publishing more long content on YouTube but took a long hiatus there for a minute.

[Podcast Host]

You'll need a, A pod, a Horn Blasters podcast.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah, I've, we, we thought about that. Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

Blasting horns, the whole pod.

[Matthew Heller]

That's. That's what folks want to see. I always thought it was kind of unsavory myself, but it really is. What drives the most traffic to the website is, you know, people just want to see that.

[Podcast Host]

You built some amazing relationships throughout this process too.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, I've been real lucky to work with a lot of folks. I was in the right place at the right time between Joe Rogan and Red Band. I met them real early on. We were the first Hornblasters was the first sponsor of the Kill Tony podcast. No way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's a flex. Super cool.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, I had no. I'm so proud of everything that Tony and Brian have turned that into. But yeah, I made just a lot of friends along the way. I've had some instrumental folks along the way in Tampa. We would get some like newspaper press from time to time. And then one of the local radio guys there, Mike Calta, he did me a real solid and kind of brought me into his ecosystem and introduced me to a lot of his other friends and comedians and it's just kind of parlayed from there.

[Podcast Host]

I love that, man. That's so cool. Are you going to go to the Kill Tony show this week?

[Matthew Heller]

I am, yeah. Yeah. That was the. Being able to do your podcast and to go. Go see my friends.

[Podcast Host]

I love it.

[Matthew Heller]

That's what I'm super excited about.

[Podcast Host]

I want to go to one of those these days. It looks so fun.

[Matthew Heller]

It's incredible. Yeah, it's a great show.

[Podcast Host]

His Madison Square Garden one looked great. Crazy.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, that was. I wanted to go to that one. He had one on New Year's. I just. It was kind of hard to talk the girlfriend into, hey, we're doing this on New Year's, you know, but, yeah, it's incredible what, what they've grown that into. And. Yeah, it's just a monster now. And I'd love to bring you on Sunday if you want to come.

[Podcast Host]

Dude, I'd be honored. Thanks so much. Your truck got destroyed. I wanted to talk about this because there's a whole PR article about this. What exactly happened?

[Matthew Heller]

So a lot of this got scrubbed from the Internet. Surprisingly, there's only one page left, and that's the daily mail. In 2014, my company, Hornblasters, we threw a concert to try to promote the company a little more. We hired Juicy J and this young upcoming rapper from Texas named Travis Scott. So it was $5,000 and we got him to perform this concert. It was in Ybor City, which is like our historic, like a Bourbon street slash historic cigar rolling, cigar factory district of Tampa. That's where all the nightclubs are and stuff like that. I have this big F650. At the time, I used it for promotions of my company. I had that parked in. In Ybor City in a parking lot. And when I got out of the concert, I walked out there and the truck had been all ripped apart. I had thought I got broken into. When I did get in there, I found just a little note. No business cards, but on a small piece of loose leaf paper, it was like, dear sir, your vehicle was searched by the TPD K9 for the alleged scent of marijuana on the passenger side. Any questions? Call Corporal Fanning with a phone number. Well, I mentioned that FM radio friend of mine, Mike Calta, I was telling him the story shortly after, and he's like, your truck got broken into a parked truck. I said, yeah, well, Mike, the next day called that corporal live on the air. And of course the corporal wasn't allowed to comment on it because it was an active investigation just from yesterday. But again, there was. There was nothing found in the vehicle. There was nothing in the vehicle, but they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart. And that was a real bummer. And it was kind of an egg on the face of the police department. The chief of police is actually ironically now the mayor of Tampa.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

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[Matthew Heller]

They you can't just sue the government for damages. You have to kind of give them notice that you intend on filing something. Yeah, they eventually settled and paid me for the damages, but it didn't really reflect what actually got broken because it was a lot of custom work and I just kind of had like all my life savings tied up in this vehicle at the time. And I had a real big car show that weekend, so it really set me back. But what's super scary is all there was a ton of press about that at the time, and it all got pulled off the Internet for the most part. It's not in any of the archives. Like I said, it's only on Daily Mail and some of the overseas things.

[Podcast Host]

And knowing what you know, you know that's intentional. Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

Whoever's got that power to rewrite history and pull specific news articles down, I mean, that's terrifying.

[Podcast Host]

You know, that is interesting.

[Matthew Heller]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know police could search your car, first of all, without you in there.

[Matthew Heller]

So after. It's all part of the Patriot act, which we just renewed. I mean, after 9, 11, we. We passed so much stuff that I think it's within 85 or 75 miles of an international boundary, which is where like 92% of the country lives, essentially the entire state of Florida, because 10 miles offshore is international waters. So then 10 miles and 75 in the entire peninsula.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Matthew Heller]

So there really is no protection. It's fully constitutional. There's no privacy. And you know, folks, you know, your vehicle, your cell phones, everything could be intercepted at all times. Pretty much.

[Podcast Host]

That's good to know, though.

[Matthew Heller]

Terrifying.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks for letting me know that.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's that Patriot act for us.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, I've been pulled over When I was younger, and they just say, oh, your car smells like weed. And they search the car.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

It's embarrassing. Like, you're on the side of a highway, like they're searching your vehicle. Yeah. People are passing you.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. Terrifying stuff. But we voted for it and. And then we renewed it, so.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's crazy. I'm sure you saw some wild stuff when you were on the inside.

[Matthew Heller]

It was. It was. It was crazy what they were doing even then. This was like 1998, 99, 2000. And I mean, they had computers that.

Sorry. Devices on networks have like a Mac address on them, and they had computers that had no Mac addresses on their network cards. So they could just install these at an Internet service provider, and then they would hook up like these. I. There's a company called Iomega. They made these things called, like, Zip drives, and they would put these zip drives on there to just capture all of the data that's going through the Internet service provider. The program was called Carnivore that I was working on, and it would just gather all the data. They're doing that now with the large scale with the Utah Data center and the nsa. You know, it captures all forms of, you know, communication. Wow. All digital pocket litter receipts, traffic cameras. Everything's all aggregated, I guess, in. In Utah.

[Podcast Host]

That's nuts.

[Matthew Heller]

Big Brother is watching.

[Podcast Host]

You got to be careful what public WI FI networks you join. I just found out.

[Matthew Heller]

Sure.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I used to use the ones at the airport, but now I don't.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. And what you're plugging into everything. I mean.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, the outlet.

[Matthew Heller]

Right. You're super vulnerable. Part of the Edward Snowden stuff from. I think it was 2011 or 2012, there was an NSA program called Dropout Jeep and that was formed by an Israeli company that allowed you to see everything on iOS. You could push, pull, send files. You could read the contacts, edit the contacts, read the messages, send the messages. You could turn the microphones on. There's six or seven microphones on an iPhone. You could turn that on and hot mic everything. Wow. Turn all the cameras on. And this was stuff, you know, that Snowden was warning about, warning us about from, you know, almost two decades ago now. So who knows, you know, what there is now. But that's the price you pay if you want all the cool toys, you know, there just is no privacy, you know?

[Podcast Host]

You know, it's scary because if you are an enemy in the government's eyes, they could just plant something on you, like some blackmail or some child Pee or whatever, and you're done. Terrifying, right?

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah, terrifying.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, that's super scary.

[Matthew Heller]

There's a lot of child pee out there too. It was. It was amazing. We didn't. When I was working with them, I didn't have too much with that, but they would have us locate people that they were investigating and trying to find folks. I mainly sat on like. Like Internet relay chat and was trying to buy and sell credit cards, but a lot of it was trying to find those nefarious folks as well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

And there's just so many of them. It's way more common than people realize. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

People are just selling credit cards on chat rooms.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. By thousands at a time. That's so wild. We were soliciting to purchase them. We'd go to Western Union in the middle of the night. When we'd find someone that was interested, that was advertising that they had stuff, we'd go to Western Union, send them the money. Sometimes they were just bluffing and they'd get to keep the money. Sometimes they'd send the stuff, and then from there we'd have the probable cause to go after them.

[Podcast Host]

And. Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

It was a wild, wild time. Which should have been my high school years.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. That is crazy. Any times you felt unsafe where, like, an investigation went south?

[Matthew Heller]

No, not at all. And I didn't really have any, like, face to face with any of. Any of the folks we were investigating. Some of the agents I was working with, though, they were wild. I mean, we would. We would pull out cash for the Western Union from these accounts. Accounts at the ATM in these sketchy neighborhoods in the middle of the night. I just remember one. One of the guys I worked under, you know, he. All these guys carried a lot of weapons, of course. And they'd pull the money out of the ATM and then they're just driving outside with their hand out the window with fistfuls of cash. Come on, someone rob us. So they were kind of. Kind of, you know. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Imagine trying to rob an FBI agent. Totally. It was. I love seeing those police body cams when they're trying to arrest an undercover FBI agent.

[Matthew Heller]

Oh, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Have you seen those?

[Matthew Heller]

I've seen those. And the ones who claim that they're FBI or not, you know, like the stolen valor kind of thing. Yeah, folks, the security guards. So much great body cam footage out there now.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So are you pretty removed from the hacking community these days?

[Matthew Heller]

Fully, yeah. And even then I knew stuff. I knew enough to get in trouble, but I wasn't, you know, that Bleeding edge with the technology or anything like that. Now I'm a rusty. I don't know if I'm a boomer. I'm 43, but, yeah, I'm totally, totally out of it.

[Podcast Host]

Do you feel like it's way harder now to hack stuff?

[Matthew Heller]

I don't know. There's tons of zero day exploits all the time, and there's tons of vulnerabilities, and, you know, folks that just have a lot of spare time to poke and prod and try to get into things, you know, there's. There's definitely. There's things that can be done out there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there's some clever ones. There's some clever hacks. I got SIM hacked. That sucked. Wow. I couldn't do anything about it.

[Matthew Heller]

Oh, man, that's. They just. They clone your number, and then they.

[Podcast Host]

Called my carrier, pretending to be me. They must have bought my Social Security number off the dark Web, because I heard you could do that. So they must have gave them that information, maybe got a fake ID somehow of me. And then. Yeah, they switched it to his phone.

[Matthew Heller]

No bueno.

[Podcast Host]

Switched my phone to his phone.

[Matthew Heller]

Oh, gosh, man. Yeah, luckily, no one's going after the air horn guys. All right.

[Podcast Host]

But, yeah, social engineering hacks, though. I remember MGM and Caesars got hacked a few years ago. Did you see that one?

[Matthew Heller]

Yes, sir.

[Podcast Host]

Just social engineering. That's crazy.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah. Lots of ways to get the bag out there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Well, dude, what's. What's next for you? What do you got planned this year, man?

[Matthew Heller]

These. You know, I. I wouldn't say I'm a Trump supporter, but I am a Trump voter, and I have always had his back with stuff. But these tariffs are really messing my business up personally. The past couple of weeks, a lot of our stuff is made here in the usa, so I'm not worried about most of it. But some of our more complex electronics regrettably come from China.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[Matthew Heller]

And that's killing me now.

[Podcast Host]

How much did those. What percent increase? Did it go up?

[Matthew Heller]

It's a lot. I'm hearing, you know, it's over. I'm hearing 245% now and stuff like that.

[Podcast Host]

That would ruin your business.

[Matthew Heller]

It's a bummer. Especially since I just launched a whole bunch of new products. And he warned us, though, in his. During his first administration, he said, you know, if you're doing business with China, reevaluate.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

And I kind of took that with a grain of salt and through caution to the wind. So here we are.

[Podcast Host]

We'll see Long term, how it plays out.

[Matthew Heller]

Interesting times, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Like, if you're being objective, it makes sense. If they're tariffing us, why can't we have 50% or sometimes 100% of what they're charging us?

[Matthew Heller]

Sure, sure.

[Podcast Host]

But I guess the immediate effects are obviously catastrophic.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. And I'm just seeing how it's. It's causing hiccups in the supply chain. And I hear there's like empty trains now and the freight. Freight ships and all that's. It's going to ripple through. I don't know what this is going to do to the economy.

[Podcast Host]

We'll see.

[Matthew Heller]

All the best. I mean, I know something has to give. Just wild times we're living in. It always is, I suppose.

[Podcast Host]

Well, you started streaming too.

[Matthew Heller]

I started kicking recently. Kicking? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the new movement we're on all the socials. Kick was the only new one for me. And I'm like, this is kind of fun. I was hanging out with my buddy Tyler Yahweh last week.

[Podcast Host]

Nice.

[Matthew Heller]

He was kicking and I said, man, that's kind of cool.

[Podcast Host]

So you're doing IRL kicks or are you doing gaming?

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, just irl.

I had a bunch of Facebook stock back in the day, so I bought the Meta Quest when it came out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

And man, I got super addicted to the VR games in there. And like, there's like first person shooter games, but it's come a long way since Doom and Quake that I used to play.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

So I find myself fully addicted to like these VR first person shooter games. I'm trying to stay off of that. I don't want to go that route. I've just been doing just IRL stuff and trying to show some of my friends and people that I hang out with day to day.

[Podcast Host]

That's cool. Did you try Five Nights at Freddy's on the Quest?

[Matthew Heller]

No.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my gosh. That game gives me nightmares. That's cool.

[Matthew Heller]

I met the in.

Showbiz pizza, I guess is what that was all based off that movie. Or the Five Nights at Freddy's, which eventually turned into Chuck E. Cheese.

[Podcast Host]

What?

[Matthew Heller]

Chuck E. Cheese was the pre. The. The. Yeah, the pre part for Chuck E. Cheese was.

Showbiz pizza. And that, I guess that's what Five Nights at Freddy's thing is based on.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. I didn't know that.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. My buddy Mike Busey in Orlando, he is a super Chuck E. Cheese fan as well as like, he's interesting guy. You got to Google Mike Busey, I think.

[Podcast Host]

Is he an Actor, or is that a different.

[Matthew Heller]

He does all kinds of stuff. His. His alleged uncle is Gary Busey.

[Podcast Host]

That's who I'm thinking of.

[Matthew Heller]

Mike owns the wildest house in America. It's called the sausage Castle. It's in central Florida. It's kind of the middle of nowhere. It's an 88 acre adult playground. Like an adult Disney World, essentially.

[Podcast Host]

Sausage castle.

[Matthew Heller]

Incredible guy. Incredible guy. One of my best friends for 20 years. Really sweet. Really, really sweet dude. We've worked together as much as we can share. Share the same friend groups, essentially. Shout out, Mike Busey.

[Podcast Host]

That's cool. I'm trying to think what a Sausage castle would entail. You got me thinking right now.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

He's.

[Matthew Heller]

He's big. He's like the most canceled man on the Internet, essentially. He's had 20 different YouTubes and Snapchats. Sometimes, you know, he just posts a little too much and it gets taken down. I think he'd be an excellent person for Kik, probably, now that I think about it.

[Podcast Host]

I love him on the show too. Sounds like an interesting person.

[Matthew Heller]

He's great and just a really, really guy. He wanted to be. He went to, like, a seminary school. He wanted to be a priest. And then he. He pierced his ear with a cross. And the. The president of the school said, you know, that's not very godlike. So then that kind of made him reconsider the path that he was going down.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

[Matthew Heller]

And now he's just. He's covered in tattoos, but they're all really cool, like American tattoos. Super patriotic guy.

[Podcast Host]

Just.

[Matthew Heller]

Just a really nice cat.

[Podcast Host]

That's cool.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. Absolutely. Great guy.

[Podcast Host]

Shout out.

[Matthew Heller]

Shout out, Mike.

[Podcast Host]

Shout out to Mike. You got any tattoos?

[Matthew Heller]

I don't, and I'm not against it. There's just nothing. I feel that compelled.

[Podcast Host]

I'm the same.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Hasn't called me yet.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I kind of like being clean, though, too.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. I think it's more rare to not have tattoos.

[Podcast Host]

Plus, once you get one, you're not stopping at one.

[Matthew Heller]

That's how it is. Yeah. It's a slippery slope.

[Podcast Host]

And you got a sleeve and you got to do the legs.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Never ends.

[Matthew Heller]

It sounds cool. Maybe one day, but. Yeah. So far, nothing. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Well, where can people find you, man? It's been fun.

[Matthew Heller]

Horn blasters on all social everywhere. Hornblasters.com and on every social media thing, it's just hornblasters. My personal one is Matt from Horn Blasters.

[Podcast Host]

Boom. Get yourself a horn, guys. I'm gonna get one for the studio.

[Matthew Heller]

We should. We can put one under the table.

[Podcast Host]

To scare the guests.

[Matthew Heller]

Absolutely. Let's do it, man.

[Podcast Host]

Check them out, guys. I'll see you next time.