the people beyond the shell
Most podcasts make hackers sound like wizards. They're not. They're people who fight with their printer, miss their kid's recital, and spend three days on one CTF flag. Regular people doing extraordinary things every day, and you can too. This is what the day-to-day actually sounds like, told by them, not about them.
☎ Call the operator log +1 (___) ___-____ up to 10 min · anonymous optionMost podcasts about hackers are story arcs. A whole career compressed into a single episode. By the time the credits roll you walk away thinking these people are different from you. Built different. Some other species.
They're not.
The hackers you look up to are walking their dogs. Fighting with their printers. Half-finishing a project they swore they'd ship six months ago. They have bad days, kid stuff, shoulder injuries, partners who don't get what they do for a living. The narrative format hides all that. It collapses a life into a highlight reel and makes it look like a destination instead of a Tuesday.
Telling someone's life story is a completely different thing than hearing them talk about their day. We wanted the second one.
So this show features voicemails. Brain dumps from people in our world about whatever their actual day looks like. War stories from a con last weekend. The CTF flag that took three days. Cool projects. Boring projects. Things they're proud of. Things they're scared of. The vendor that won't return your emails. Family. Hobbies that have nothing to do with infosec. Roadtrips. Whatever you want.
Call the line. Talk for up to ten minutes. Record your handle and say what you do, or hit the option to stay anonymous and the line scrambles your voice. We pick the ones that feel right and put them out as episodes.
If you've ever heard a hacker on a stage and thought "I could never do that," listen in, I'm sure plenty of them thought that too and just did it scared. Listen in, learn, do cool stuff, and when you're ready......
Pick up the phone.