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Known as the ‘homeless hacker’ (“I have a laptop in Pittsburgh, a change of clothes in DC), Adrian Lamo was fond of finding flaws in security software and exploiting those flaws before apprising his victim companies of their Achilles’ Heels.  While it’s true that some company hire white hat hackers to do this ‘penetration testing’, they don’t look for volunteers like Lamos to compromise their security.

No matter to him that his laptop was in Pittsburgh, Lamo used computers at Kinko’s, coffee shops, and libraries to hack into companies the likes of The New York Times, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Cingular. 

Lamo’s February, 2002 trespass on The New York Times’ intranet was his undoing.  During that escapade, he placed his name in a database of expert sources, which allowed him access to personal and confidential information on contributors.  He also used The Times’ LexisNexis for “research” purposes. 

That New York Times hack job cost him about $65,000 in restitution, six month of home confinement, and two years of probation, which ended this past January.  According to the court record, Lamo’s comment at his sentencing was, "I want to answer for what I have done and do better with my life”. 

By all accounts, Adrian Lamo is doing better with his life. Studying at American River College, he’s had writing, photography, and editorial/collaboration works published in, among others, Network World, Mobile Magazine, 2600 Magazine, The American River Current, and XY Magazine. 

He was a panelist at the Information Security In the Age of Terrorism conference, as well as a keynote speaker in 2005 with Bruce Schneier at a government security conference.  Some of his interviews were with John Ashcroft and Oliver Stone.