Dawn of the Code War #vahelpers

This text is excerpted from the book Dawn of the Code War: America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat, by John P. Carlin with Garrett M. Graff Copyright © 2018 by John P. Carlin with Garrett M. Graff. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Junaid Hussain originally wanted to be a rapper. As it turned out, the Pakistani kid in Birmingham, England, lived life instead on the internet, and at internet speed. In just a decade, from age 11 to 21, he went from gaming to hacking to killing, an arc the world had never seen before, unfolding faster than anyone might have imagined. For the first half of his digital life, the hacker operated with impunity, bragging in an interview that he was many steps ahead of the authorities: “One hundred percent certain they have nothing on me. I don’t exist to them, I’ve never used my real details online, I’ve never purchased anything. My real identity doesn’t exist online—and no, I don’t fear getting caught.”