The Crazy Story Behind Hornblasters' Rise | Matthew Heller DSH #1851

Summary

Digital Social Hour: The Crazy Story Behind Hornblasters' Rise | Matthew Heller DSH #1851

Release Date: April 23, 2025

In this riveting episode of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly sits down with Matthew Heller, the innovative mind behind Hornblasters. The conversation traverses Matthew's unconventional upbringing, his early forays into technology and hacking, his stint with the FBI, the birth and growth of Hornblasters, and his reflections on modern privacy and business challenges. Filled with candid anecdotes and insightful commentary, this episode offers listeners a deep dive into the life of a man who transformed his passions into a thriving business.

---

Early Life: A Clowning Upbringing

Matthew Heller's childhood was anything but ordinary. Raised by a single mother who was a professional clown, Matthew's early years were immersed in the vibrant and unpredictable world of entertainment.

Matthew Heller [01:03]: "A clown's world was what her company was called, and she was Rosie the Clown. I was a little kid clown... it was an interesting childhood, to say the least."

Living in South Florida, Matthew often accompanied his mother to company picnics and birthday parties. These gatherings were unconventional, as many of the clients were involved in the cocaine business, hiring Rosie to entertain their children while they indulged in their own activities.

Matthew Heller [01:32]: "Many of her customers were essentially in the cocaine business. They would hire the clown to entertain the kids while the parents would all do essentially at the party. That's crazy."

Despite the chaotic environment, Matthew credits his mother for doing the best she could under challenging circumstances.

---

A Self-Taught Tech Enthusiast

Matthew's interest in technology ignited during his youth, primarily out of necessity and curiosity. With limited access to computers, he ingeniously acquired and repurposed computers from Office Depot, dismantling them to salvage components.

Matthew Heller [02:32]: "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 all day."

His passion extended to gaming, where he immersed himself in titles like Runescape, Earthquake, Doom, and Wolfenstein. The advent of the Internet further fueled his enthusiasm, leading him to explore the burgeoning world of online communities and hacking.

---

From Gaming to Hacking: Navigating the Cyber Underworld

What began as a hobby soon evolved into more illicit activities. Matthew and his peers delved into hacking, exploiting vulnerabilities in websites to post political cartoons and create digital chaos.

Matthew Heller [03:14]: "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 on websites that had vulnerabilities."

This period of his life, however, was fraught with challenges. A high school incident led to an FBI investigation after a friend implicated him, resulting in Matthew's expulsion and eventual recruitment by the FBI as a cooperating witness.

Matthew Heller [04:52]: "They started investigating shortly after that. The FBI was out at my house the next week asking questions."

---

Serving with the FBI: A Brief Tenure

At just 10th grade, Matthew worked with the FBI, assisting in locating individuals involved in credit card fraud and other cybercrimes. His role was clandestine, and he was restricted from discussing his contributions for seven years.

Matthew Heller [06:02]: "They offered me a job... I worked with them from Florida for a bit and then they transferred me to Baton Rouge, Louisiana."

During his tenure, significant events unfolded, including the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which shifted the FBI's focus towards counter-terrorism.

Matthew Heller [06:02]: "I called the morning of 9/11... they said... we're trying to do this war on terror thing."

After seven years, Matthew was released from his position, returning to Tampa, Florida, with a wealth of knowledge yet barred from sharing his experiences.

---

Founding Hornblasters: From DIY Projects to a Thriving Business

Post-FBI, Matthew ventured into the business world, fueled by his passion for unique vehicle modifications. While working at Home Depot, he tinkered with his lowrider pickup truck, installing a train horn using materials from the store.

Matthew Heller [08:30]: "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."

This DIY project garnered attention, prompting him to create a rudimentary website, Hornblasters, in 2002 to sell these distinctive horns. The online presence flourished, aided by early YouTube videos showcasing the product in action.

Matthew Heller [09:43]: "I built a rudimentary website in 2002 called Horn Blasters where I started selling these horns."

Four years later, recognizing the potential of his venture, Matthew left his job at Home Depot to pursue Hornblasters full-time. Today, the company has thrived for over two decades, continually innovating in the realm of air horns.

Matthew Heller [09:31]: "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."

---

The Truck Incident: A Brush with Law Enforcement

In a notable incident from 2014, Matthew's promotional activities led to his truck being vandalized by the Tampa Police Department (TPD). After hosting a concert featuring Juicy J and Travis Scott, Matthew discovered his F650 truck had been severely damaged.

Matthew Heller [13:14]: "When I got out of the concert, I walked out there and the truck had been all ripped apart."

A cryptic note suggested the police had searched his vehicle for marijuana, though nothing was found. This event not only caused significant financial strain due to the custom modifications on his truck but also highlighted issues of police overreach and media suppression.

Matthew Heller [14:52]: "There was nothing found in the vehicle, but they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart. And that was a real bummer."

He later received compensation, albeit insufficient to cover the extensive damages, and observed that most media coverage of the event had been systematically removed from the internet.

---

Reflections on Privacy and Surveillance

Matthew delves into his views on modern privacy concerns, drawing from his experiences both as a hacker and as an FBI informant. He discusses the pervasive surveillance enabled by laws like the Patriot Act and the technological advancements that erode individual privacy.

Matthew Heller [16:28]: "There's no protection. It's fully constitutional. There's no privacy."

He warns of the dangers of unchecked surveillance, emphasizing the ease with which personal information can be accessed and exploited.

Matthew Heller [17:17]: "That's terrifying, right? Yeah, yeah, terrifying."

---

Business Challenges: Navigating Tariffs and Supply Chains

Matthew shares the impact of recent tariffs on his business, Hornblasters. With a significant portion of their electronics sourced from China, the increased costs have strained his operations, particularly after launching new products.

Matthew Heller [23:08]: "I'm hearing 245% now and stuff like that. That would ruin your business."

He reflects on the long-term economic implications, expressing uncertainty about the future stability of supply chains and the broader economy.

---

Embracing New Ventures: Streaming and Community Engagement

Beyond Hornblasters, Matthew has ventured into the world of streaming, utilizing platforms like Kick to engage with his audience through IRL (In Real Life) content. His enthusiasm for virtual reality (VR) games also marks a shift from his early interests in traditional gaming.

Matthew Heller [24:08]: "I started kicking recently... this is kind of fun."

He shares personal anecdotes about his interactions and friendships within the streaming and local communities, highlighting the importance of social connections in his journey.

---

Building Relationships: Networking and Collaborations

Throughout his career, Matthew has cultivated valuable relationships, collaborating with influential figures in the entertainment and tech industries. His early sponsorship of the "Kill Tony" podcast and friendships with prominent personalities have been instrumental in Hornblasters' growth.

Matthew Heller [12:05]: "Hornblasters was the first sponsor of the Kill Tony podcast."

He also speaks fondly of his friend Mike Busey, owner of the whimsical Sausage Castle, underscoring the diverse and supportive network that surrounds him.

---

Looking Ahead: Future Plans and Innovations

When asked about future endeavors, Matthew hints at potential expansions and innovations within Hornblasters, despite the current challenges posed by international trade policies.

Matthew Heller [22:44]: "It's causing hiccups in the supply chain, and I hear there's, like, empty trains now and the freight. It's Going to ripple through."

His resilience and adaptability suggest that Hornblasters will continue to evolve, leveraging his technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit to navigate the ever-changing business landscape.

---

Conclusion

Matthew Heller's journey from a clown-filled childhood to tech-savvy hacker, and eventually to a successful entrepreneur with Hornblasters, is a testament to his ingenuity and perseverance. This episode of Digital Social Hour offers a comprehensive look into the challenges and triumphs that have shaped his path, providing listeners with valuable insights into the intersections of technology, privacy, and business.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Matthew Heller [01:03]: "A clown's world was what her company was called, and she was Rosie the Clown."

• Matthew Heller [03:14]: "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 on websites that had vulnerabilities."

• Matthew Heller [06:02]: "We worked in Baton Rouge at the time. I called my superior, I said, hey, are we working today? And she said we're not."

• Matthew Heller [16:28]: "There's no protection. It's fully constitutional. There's no privacy."

• Matthew Heller [23:08]: "I'm hearing 245% now and stuff like that. That would ruin your business."

---

For more engaging stories and unfiltered conversations, subscribe to Digital Social Hour and follow Hornblasters across all social media platforms at hornblasters.com.

Transcript

[Matthew Heller]

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.

[Unknown Host]

Whoa.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

It's. 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 do this.

[Unknown Host]

So.

[Matthew Heller]

Super excited about that.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

That is a very unique childhood.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, my. 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.

[Unknown Host]

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 the clown to come entertain the kids while the parents would all do essentially at the party. That's crazy. But, yeah, it was a really, really interesting upbringing. And shout out to mom Rosie for doing the best she can.

[Unknown Host]

Shout out to mama Rosie.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown 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 computers. So we were. 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.

[Unknown 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 all day. Wow.

[Unknown Host]

Humble beginnings.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, just big, big computer nerd.

[Unknown 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, Earthquake, 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, it was on America Online and using different isps to get online and. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

So it 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.

[Unknown 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, 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.

[Unknown Host]

Did he get freed eventually?

[Matthew Heller]

Did. 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.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

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. 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 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.

[Unknown 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 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.

[Unknown 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 kind of 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. Rip.

[Unknown Host]

Blockbuster.

[Matthew Heller]

RIP 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Host]

What a journey too, to go from hacking into that much more innocent, right?

[Matthew Heller]

Yes, sir.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

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.

[Unknown Host]

Good timing, right?

[Matthew Heller]

Yes, sir.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

We're one of the first YouTubers to have over a million views on. On a video.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

That's a flex.

[Matthew Heller]

Super cool. 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.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

I love it.

[Matthew Heller]

That's what I'm super excited about.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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, Dude, I'd be honored.

[Unknown Host]

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. 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. 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, you know, 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Host]

You know, that is interesting.

[Matthew Heller]

Wow.

[Unknown 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. Right. 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.

[Unknown Host]

That's good to know, though.

[Matthew Heller]

Terrifying.

[Unknown Host]

Thanks for letting me know that.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Sponsor]

I mean, I've been pulled over when.

[Unknown Host]

I was younger, and they just say, oh, your car smells like weed. And they search the car.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

People are passing you.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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. 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.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

All digital pocket litter receipts, traffic cameras. Everything's all aggregated, I guess, in. In Utah.

[Unknown Host]

That's nuts.

[Matthew Heller]

Big Brother is watching.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

Sure. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. And what, you're plugging into everything?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah. The outlet. Right.

[Matthew Heller]

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.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

Turn all the cameras on. And. 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?

[Unknown 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.

[Matthew Heller]

Terrifying, right? Yeah, yeah, terrifying.

[Unknown 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, 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.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Host]

People are just selling credit cards on chat rooms.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. By thousands at a time.

[Unknown Host]

That's so wild.

[Matthew Heller]

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. And.

[Unknown Host]

Wow.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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're kind of. Kind of, you know. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Imagine trying to rob an FBI agent.

[Matthew Heller]

Totally. It was.

[Unknown Host]

I love seeing those police body cams when they're trying to arrest an undercover FBI agent.

[Matthew Heller]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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, uh, yeah, I'm totally, totally out of it.

[Unknown 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. 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. Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

There's some clever ones. There's some clever hacks. I got SIM hack that sucked.

[Matthew Heller]

Wow.

[Unknown Host]

I couldn't do anything about it.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Host]

Called my carrier, pretended 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.

[Unknown Host]

Switched my phone to his phone.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

Just social engineering. That's crazy.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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 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, and it's killing me now.

[Unknown 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.

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

[Unknown Host]

We'll see long term how it plays out.

[Matthew Heller]

Interesting times, right? Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. 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? Sure, sure. 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. You know, it's. It's Going to ripple through. I don't know what this is going to do to the economy. We'll see. All the best. I mean, I know something has to give. Just wild times we're living in. It always is, I suppose.

[Unknown Host]

Well, you started streaming too.

[Matthew Heller]

I started kicking recently.

[Unknown Host]

Kicking?

[Matthew Heller]

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.

[Unknown Host]

Nice.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Matthew Heller]

So I found 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

No.

[Unknown 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. What? 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 Five Nights at Freddy's thing is based on.

[Unknown Sponsor]

Wow.

[Unknown Host]

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 McDonald. He's interesting guy. You got to Google Mike Busey, I think.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown 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. He's. 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

He's great, and just a really, really swee 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.

[Unknown 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. Just. Just a really nice cat.

[Unknown Host]

That's cool.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. Absolutely. Great guy.

[Unknown Host]

Shout out.

[Matthew Heller]

Shout out, Mike.

[Unknown 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 to the same. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Hasn't called me yet.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I kind of like being clean, though, too.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

It's.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

That's how it is. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

It's a slippery slope, and you got a sleeve, and you got to do the legs.

[Matthew Heller]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Never ends.

[Matthew Heller]

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

[Unknown 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.

[Unknown Host]

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

[Matthew Heller]

We can put one under the table.

[Unknown Host]

That'd be hilarious to scare the guests.

[Matthew Heller]

Absolutely.

[Unknown Host]

Let's do it, man. Check them out, guys. I'll see you next time.