Videos

By Roadtrip Nation

Samy Kamkar

Milestones

My road in life has been direct.
When he was a child, his mom bought him a home computer, and he started hanging out in chat rooms.
One day, someone in a chatroom made his computer crash; after he was done freaking out, he thought, “That was so cool!” and became obsessed with hacking.
When he was 15, he dropped out of high school and his mom made him get a job; he started writing and selling software from home.
When that job no longer interested him, he left to co-found his own company, Fonality—he was 17 years old.
Two years later, he wrote the infamous “Samy worm”; the worm spread to over one million Myspace users in 20 hours, making it the fastest-spreading virus of all time.
The Secret Service raided his home and confiscated his electronics; a court banned him from technology for three years.
Says he never wanted to be malicious about hacking; he was more interested in finding and using computer vulnerabilities in new ways.
He now alerts companies to any vulnerabilities that he finds in their products so that they can fix them and improve consumer safety.
Keep following my journey

Career

Hacker / Security Research

I create original research, tools and videos around hacking, technology and security.

Career Roadmap

Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Entrepreneurship
Technology
Working Independently

Interviewed By

Code Trip

Code Trip

Increasing representation in the world of coding