← The Epstein Chronicles
The Epstein Chronicles
From Wall Street to DEF CON: How Epstein Sought Access to Cybersecurity’s Inner Circle
00:19:25
Documents released by the U.S. Justice Department show that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein spent years corresponding with figures in the cybersecurity community and repeatedly tried to involve himself with two of the world’s biggest hacker...
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What's up, everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. Whenever the topic of Jeffrey Epstein comes up, obviously the first thing people think about is the horrible sexual abuse and the human trafficking, and rightfully so. But you have to understand that there are levels to this. And Jeffrey Epstein and his circle were not only engaging in human trafficking crimes, they were engaging in a whole host of of financial crimes as well. And at Jeffrey Epstein's core, that's what he was, a bundler, a middleman, a guy that knew how to get things from A to B and knew the exact people to talk to to get that done. And that's why you see Epstein with all these relationships and all these connections to very powerful people. And what's one of the best ways to collect information on people digitally? Right. Well, Jeffrey Epstein had a fascination with cyber security and hacking. And in this episode, we have an article from Politico and the headline, jeffrey Epstein spent years building ties to well known hackers. This article was authored by Maggie Miller. Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for years communicated with experts in the cyber security community and expressed interest in attending two of the largest hacker conventions in the world, according to documents released by the Justice Department. Well, we knew that he had all kinds of in the works, and we know that he had Al Stel, who was married to one of Maxwell's sisters, working on scrubbing his profile from the Internet. Oh, and by the way, Al Secel had a very unfortunate fall off of a cliff, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right? Like every other death surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, it's unclear if Epstein ever attended either DEFCON or Black Hat, where thousands of hackers and researchers gather annually in Las Vegas to discuss the latest cyber vulnerabilities and trends. According to his emails with several prominent researchers and and business people. His interest in cyber security and cryptography appear to be widespread, ranging from discussions about removing information about himself from online search engines to network security. Well, yeah, if you want to move in the shadows, you want to be opaque, then controlling your online profile seems like a pretty good way to go. I mean, look at the shooter from Las Vegas, right? Paddock. No social media profile whatsoever or footprint, at least according to the government. But if you're gonna do something crazy and you're going to get involved in something like, oh, I don't know, human trafficking and gun running and bundling money for the most powerful people in the world, probably a good idea to have some hackers involved. At the very least have access to them so that you can get their help for whatever kind of crazy you're up to. So it certainly makes sense that Jeffrey Epstein would want to attend DEFCON and maybe meet some new hackers or people that he could add to the fold. We all know that he loved to collect people. Jeff Moss, founder of both the Black Hat and defcon conferences, told Politico in his statement that it's unlikely Epstein actually made it to the conference. As far as we can tell, he wanted to attend but never did. Moss said of Epstein. It looks like there were a lot of plans, and I'm just waiting for some sort of evidence that he followed through on them. All right, well, I don't know one way or the other if he went to Black Hat or defcon. I mean, but it definitely tracks and it wouldn't be shocking to me if he didn't go there, that he was recruiting people anyway who might have been attending, certainly within his capacity and certainly within his sphere. Right. And when you understand that information acts like currency to people like this, then it certainly shouldn't be a shock to anybody that they'd be looking to add some hackers to their team. According to the released emails, Epstein first made plans to attend DEFCON for a few hours in August of 2013 to meet with Pablo's Holman, who at the time worked on various tech and cyber projects at private equity company Intellectual Ventures. It's unclear whether Epstein and almost a dozen of his guests obtained tickets for DEF CON or if Epstein attended. It appears that Epstein and Holman had been in touch since 2010. According to emails, Epstein in 2010 emailed cryptography researcher Ian Goldberg and said Holman suggested we speak. Holman also planned to stay in Epstein's apartment while visiting New York City in 2013 and advised Epstein on how to bury negative stuff online. A hell of a guy, huh? Let's help a convicted child abuser bury stuff online. What kind of disgusting, degenerate derelict do you have to be? Oh, I'll help somebody like Jeffrey Epstein directly into a helicopter for a trip to a volcano to throw his ass in. That's about as far as that help goes. A spokesperson for the University of Waterloo, where Goldberg works within the School of Computer Science, confirmed to Politico that Goldberg turned down the offer from Epstein in 2010 to fund his work at the university. Holman, who currently serves as a general partner at venture capital group Deep Future, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. And that's what they're going to do. They're going to try and wait it out once again because that's the tried and true strategy for these people. Just wait for the next disaster to roll in. If we just keep our head down, if we just ignore people asking questions, oh, we'll be fine. Everything will be great. That's how they think. And it's unfortunate, but that strategy has worked time and time again for these people since the beginning of time Joy Ito, the current president of Japan's Chiba Institute of Technology and former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, appears to have introduced entrepreneur and researcher Vincenzo Iazo via email to Epstein in 2014. According to emails, Ito stepped down from his role at MIT in 2019 when previous disclosures revealed Ito had accepted about $1.7 million from Epstein for the lab and his own investment funds. Spokespersons for Chiba Institute of Technology did not respond to a request for comment on Ito's connections to Epstein. Ito previously apologized for his association with Epstein and stressed that he was never involved, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of. Well, no. No idea. No idea that a convicted sex offender is a sex offender. The smartest people in the room sure are stupid, aren't they? All these MIT people, all these high IQ individuals. What a bunch of jerk offs. Either you're liars or you're not as smart as you make yourselves out to be. Which one is it? According to the emails, Iazo, who currently serves as CEO of Identity Management Company ID, discussed obtaining tickets for Epstein to attend DEFCON conferences in Vegas in 2016 and 2018. Iazo previously served in roles at cyber security company CrowdStrike and as a board member for the annual Black hat conference. Now, CrowdStrike is interesting, especially considering their role when it comes to the whole Entire Russia gate. So when you see these tentacles connect, it really starts to make sense, right? All of this is connected. And all these people, they're all connected, too. And so we know that the tentacles are there. The only question is, how far do they reach? And where do they go? He also planned to meet with Epstein at his New York City home on at least five occasions in 2014, 15, 16, 17, and 18. Remember in the Sopranos when Vito got caught at the gay bar and he says to Sal, what? It was a joke. I was here. I'm waiting for that excuse from these people that were around Epstein. What? It was a joke. I was here. I mean, come on. Or maybe they'll just show up with a doctor's note. Remember when Vito said to Tony, oh, I can get a note from my doctor? I mean, that's the kind of absurdity we're dealing with here. Oh, I had no idea. I never met the guy. What are you talking about, bro? You were scheduled to go there five separate times. You mean to tell me you never went? Not once. So if you're lying about the little things, I automatically assume that you're lying about the big things. And I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Notice I haven't been talking about people's names that have been revealed, like by Roana and Thomas Massie. That's because I couldn't verify those names. So I only talk about the things that I feel like we can verify. But I find it very hard to believe, very hard to believe that Jeffrey Epstein and Mr. Iazo hardly knew each other. One email sent by Epstein to Iazzo ahead of the 2016 conference noted he wanted to bring guests, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, American billionaire Tom Pritzker, and four girls. It's not clear if Epstein attended the conference that year or I met with Barack Pritzker or Aazo. Well, we all know that Pritzker was credibly accused by Virginia Roberts of abusing her. So not only hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, you're hanging out with somebody that's allegedly taken part in the abuse. Hell of a squad, huh? Oh, and by the way, we're gonna bring four girls. Oh, and also by the way, I'll be bringing Prime Minister Ehud Barack with me. Another person who was credibly accused of abusing Virginia Roberts. Hell of a conference you guys got here. A spokesperson for Barack told Politico that the former prime minister did not attend DEFCON in 2016 and further noted that Epstein never asked him to attend the spokesperson stressed that Barack has repeatedly and publicly stated that he deeply regrets having any association with Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, shut the up. Save the did you deeply regret it when you were making dough with Carbine software? Or how about Promise software? Or how about any of the other nonsense the two of you were up to? Did you profit from that? Pretty sure you did. Separate spokespersons for Hyatt Hotel, where Pritzker serves as executive chairman of the Board of Directors, and for the Pritzker organization did not respond to a request for comment. Epstein again discussed attending Defcon in 2018, which IAZO also offered to procure tickets for. According to the emails ahead of the 2018 convention, Epstein requested to meet with founder of Black Hat, but Iazo wrote in an email that this person turned down the meeting due to what's out there online about Epstein. Whoever that person is, kudos to them. Imagine Epstein trying to show up to any event you're at, no matter who you are, and try and cozy up to you. Talk about gross and talk about catching a charge because I'm punching them directly in the face without a question. Not even a question. Not a discussion, not a question. On site, it's all fun and games until you get punched directly in the mouth. The founder, however, was happy to provide Epstein with tickets to the event, iazo wrote. It's unclear if Epstein was referring to Moss or someone else. Moss told Politico in a statement that he turned down Vincenzo's badge request for Epstein and advised Vincenzo to stay clear of the disgraced financier. Moss noted that it's possible Iazo bought passes to the conference. Everly yo like everything else, it's opaque, right? It's ambiguous. All we have is circumstantial evidence and we have to try and put the pieces together. Did he go or didn't he go? An FBI file released by the Justice Department, first reported by TechCrunch, suggested that Epstein had a personal hacker who developed offensive cyber tools that were sold to several unnamed governments. It's unclear if the information provided by the unnamed informant to the FBI is accurate. Look, take everything with a grain of salt. There's a lot of wild accusations right now, a lot of things that I've never even heard. Now, does that mean they're not true? Of course not. I'm not the be all, end all. I'm still learning every day. There's a lot to, you know, dive into and there's a lot of pieces to put together, but there's certainly a lot of claims out there that I had Never heard. Ever. And like I said from the jump, a lot of that is by design. Remember the way they dump those documents? They wanted it to be confusing. They know the vast majority of people don't know what to look for. They don't know what to key in on. So they're going to look for salacious information. And when that information starts becoming popular or it starts getting shared, you'll have people like Todd blanch point at it and say, look, it's all a big conspiracy theory. This is all crazy. And that was by design. And that's why I told you, don't fall for the salacious, the side quests and instead stay focused on what we know or at least what the circumstantial evidence is showing us. And there's plenty of people to pursue. How about we start with Sarah Kellen Vickers and Leslie Groff and Adriana Ross and Nadia Marcinkova and anybody else who might have been recruiting and procuring girls for Jeffrey Epstein that was over the age of 18. Pretty simple, right? Doesn't seem hard to me. Now, of course, there's always circumstances. If somebody was groomed as a child, you have to look at the whole entire picture. Right now if you came in and you were over 18 and you are bringing other girls to Jeffrey Epstein, especially underage girls, there's a dark pit in hell for you too. But we have to be very careful when we're talking about that. There's a lot of confusion and a lot of conflation about who's what and who isn't what. And that's why it's crucial that these emails are all unsealed. Anyone that was sending emails to Jeffrey Epstein, anybody, that email should be unsealed. If there were over 18, that email should be unsealed. That way we can get rid of the confusion. Right, get rid of the confusion. Because there sure is a lot of it. And it's rather obvious that there's a ham fisted attempt as we speak to try and reframe this story and gaslight people into thinking that these women, the vast majority of them, were involved. And that is certainly not the case. And that's why I'm saying unseal the emails. Do you really think Girls that were 14 from Florida kept a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? I highly doubt it, folks. And what about the girls with no names? Should we forget about them? Girls from South America, girls from Russia, girls from Ukraine? What? Because they're not American? I shouldn't give a. Sorry, I give a. And every last person that was preyed upon by Jeffrey Epstein and his disgusting friends. They all deserve justice, and there's no amount of gaslighting that's ever going to change that. Iazzo said that he did not provide Epstein with exclusive access to the DEFCON and Black Hat conferences and did not know if Epstein actually attended either event. I unfortunately knew Epstein for professional reasons. Iazo said, I wish I did not. We were introduced by people whom I trusted and admired when I was 25, fundraising for my startup in 2014. Because of this, I failed to ask the right questions. Questions that, in retrospect, seem obvious. I foolishly accepted the narrative that was presented to me by others that greatly minimized the magnitude of his horrific crimes. That's bullshit. He went in with his eyes wide open. All these people did. Oh, I had no idea the magnitude of his crime. Yo, procuring a minor for prostitution is a small crime. Now, listen, if he got a regular prostitution charge, solicitation, I'd be like, look, degenerate dude, but nothing to see here. That's not what this is. And the people that try to make this into that are some of the most devious pieces of out there. Look, I have no problem with people digging for the truth. That's what we should all be doing. But I do have a problem with people who are intentionally trying to muddy the waters. I regret the past association and take full responsibility for not exercising greater judgment at the time, he added. Epstein's interest in Black Hat and defcon conventions began years after he had been convicted of and jailed for soliciting sex from minors in 2008. Following his incarceration, Epstein reportedly took steps to scrub references to his conviction for from the Internet with the help of cyber professionals. Yeah, Al Secel, who is now dead, by the way. Like I was saying earlier, an unfortunate fall from a cliff. Ah, no big deal. Just another coincidence, folks. It's time to move on. Like, do these people even listen to themselves? Epstein was again arrested and charged with sex trafficking minors in 2019, though the federal case was was formally dismissed in August 2019 following his death by suicide, allegedly in jail while awaiting trial. I love how they're just like, by suicide. Oh, okay, cool. You got those facts for us? Let's see them. And I don't mean the OIG report. And what's wild is you have people who spent the last eight years, last six years, complaining about the government being corrupt, who all of a sudden, well, now they believe the FBI and they believe the government. The government can do no wrong, folks. Be very, very cautious of people who only rage against the Machine when the other, quote, unquote team is in power. Because I got news for you. The Machine doesn't give a about you, your kids, or your life, no matter who the president is. And the sooner that we all understand that nobody's coming to save us, the better off we're all going to be. All of the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.