The good hacker: the wonderful life and strange death of Barnaby Jack

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/the-good-hacker-barnaby-jack/

By Donna Chisholm
@Donna_Chisholm
metromag.co.nz
March 18, 2014

 From schoolboy dropout to world-famous hacker, Auckland-born Barnaby Jack 
lived hard and died young. On the way, he changed the technological world.

The Jagermeister shot glasses are piling up along with the stories in the 
outside bar of Galbraith's in Mt Eden Rd. It's a stormswept Sunday in 
January, the six-month anniversary of the death of Barnaby Jack. A dozen 
of his friends are here to remember him in a pub he loved.

Tonight, to them, he's "Barnes", their mate, not Barnaby Jack, the man the 
world knew as the elite hacker who could make ATM machines spew money, 
insulin pumps inject a lethal dose and heart pacemakers explode at a 
single command from a laptop -- all stunts he pulled not to make trouble, 
or money, but to make the technology safer and more secure. In the 
infamously geeky community of computer hackers, Barnaby Jack was a rock 
star. The man who could party all night and brush his teeth in the carpark 
on the way to a flawless presentation at 9am.

It’s the first time they've gathered since the publication of an American 
medical examiner's report on January 4 put months of bullshit internet 
conspiracy theories to rest. How the mad stories flourished in that 
charged atmosphere after the suicide just months before of activist and 
fellow hacker Aaron Swartz, and the car-crash death of investigative 
journalist Michael Hastings.

But, no, Barnaby Jack wasn't murdered to derail the presentation of his 
latest research. And no, government officials hadn't spirited him away to 
work on secret projects. The truth was ineffably sadder. On a Thursday 
afternoon, alone in bed in his comfortable top-floor apartment, opposite 
The Ritz in San Francisco’s Nob Hill, Barnes died of an accidental 
overdose of heroin, cocaine and prescription medicines.

There are no judgments here among his friends who gather under a fug of 
cigarette smoke on the old wooden bench seats outside Galbraith's, where 
Barnes used to sit. The stories about him are warm and funny, to be told 
with a drink, about a guy who loved a drink. Many drinks. A guy who, when 
asked if he wanted another, would reply, "We’re not here to fuck spiders."

[...]

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