A former blackhat hacker who goes by the identify Gummo on-line claims to have amassed round $7 billion value of Bitcoin (BTC).
Regardless of a flood of constructive comments and posts regarding his interviews with the Comfortable White Underbelly YouTube channel — which has 3.18 million subscribers — details about Gummo is scarce elsewhere, which may both be by design or recommend that a big pinch of salt could also be required when listening to his extravagant claims.
He stated that he has been working within the discipline for greater than 30 years, and whereas he began hacking for illicit causes and acquired caught by authorities, he has since turned to doing good work — due to the assist and counsel of his spouse — comparable to risk searching, cybersecurity and developer consulting.
The newest feedback got here as a part of a observe up interview printed on March 12, after the preliminary dialogue occurred in late 2020. Throughout the first video, Gummo acknowledged that he constructed 4 supercomputers to mine Bitcoin when it was priced at round $200-300 again in 2013, and generated greater than 80,000 BTC inside a 12 months and half.
In accordance with his claims, he has now amassed roughly 179,000 BTC. If his holdings are calculated at present costs that might rank him at across the 369th richest particular person globally in line with Forbes’ 2021 world’s billionaires list:
“I’m fairly rich. Yeah, I do not need to work if I don’t select to. I’ve over seven billion {dollars} value of Bitcoin. ”
nothing will impede the simplicity & decentralized future #Bitcoin
.
🙂— Gummo (@GummoXXX) March 8, 2022
Gummo acknowledged that his present work in hacking just isn’t motivated by the need to have a job or cash, however by serving to the little man, as he emphasised the significance of selecting to do the fitting factor and shield individuals from on-line evil.
“Understanding that I am stopping somebody’s grandmother from being a sufferer of some kind of cyber extortion scheme, that’s the factor I rise up for every day and people are the issues that inspire me at present,” he stated.
Talking on the darkish facet of technological development, Gummo warned that the hacking has rapidly advanced from “having infinite javascript pop-ups” humorously spam PCs to the weaponization of information and software against people:
“The panorama is rising darker and extra sinister as extra individuals want to search their wealth. Whether or not it’s cryptocurrency theft or conventional theft of banking methods.”
“The truth that governments now are eager to start a struggle on simply the concept of software program being deployed is kind of scary and sadly that will likely be society’s new actuality,” he added.
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Trying on the response to the each interviews, it seems Gummo is quick changing into a beloved determine as a result of his again story which features a tough upbringing, the lack of family members and a major shift from the darkish facet of hacking to serving to individuals on-line.
The newest video has 14,000 likes to date and there’s an nearly infinite quantity of constructive suggestions for the determine, whereas the primary video has 144,000 likes and the identical sentiment within the feedback.
“This man has impressed me to pursue cyber safety with good intent. I am a broke trainer, LOVE instructing as a result of it helps college students so by no means centered on the paycheck. Now too previous to show. Thought-about cyber safety as a brand new profession to pay the payments, however Gummo has given extra which means to this profession, will now pursue the profession to make the world a greater place too. Thanks Gummo,” wrote YouTube consumer “Zim Petrichor.”
Consumer “quicklern818” acknowledged that: “I do not assume we’re ever going to see this man once more, and in a manner, I really feel that is applicable — he is like a guardian angel, working behind the scenes and at all times watching. Sending like to him and his household, and a thanks for all of his exhausting work.”
