The Crazy Story Behind Hornblasters' Rise | Matthew Heller DSH #1351
🎙️ Join Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour as Matthew reveals his journey through tech innovations, building a brand, and even navigating wild PR moments like his infamous truck incident. Plus, hear how Hornblasters became one of the first brands to go viral on YouTube and why it’s still going strong after 23 years! 🚛🎺
Don't miss out on this inspiring and entertaining story that proves success can come from the most unexpected places. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀
📢 Join the conversation in the comments below—what shocked you the most about Matthew’s journey? Let’s hear it! 👇
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:56 - Growing Up with a Single Mother, Professional Clown
01:55 - Getting Into Technology and Innovation
02:45 - Early Hacking Days and Experiences
03:39 - FBI Job Offer and Career Opportunities
05:59 - Today's Sponsor: Kinsta Free Month
08:08 - Early Jobs After FBI Experience
09:58 - Exploring Notion and Productivity Tools
14:58 - Aires: Insights and Impact
17:34 - Understanding the Patriot Act
18:53 - Dropping Out: Risks and Rewards
20:00 - FBI: Inside Perspectives
21:30 - Hacking: Skills and Ethics
22:45 - Tariffs: Economic Implications
24:04 - Kik: Messaging App Overview
24:56 - Five Nights at Freddy’s: Game Analysis
25:35 - Mike Busey: Influencer Insights
26:58 - Tattoos: Personal Stories and Meaning
27:22 - Where to Find Matthew Online
APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application
BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com
GUEST: Matthew Heller
https://www.instagram.com/mattfromhornblasters/
SPONSORS:
AIRES TECH: https://airestech.com/
NOTION: https://www.notion.com/
LISTEN ON:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759
Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
The views and opinions expressed by guests on Digital Social Hour are solely those of the individuals appearing on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, Sean Kelly, or the Digital Social Hour team.
While we encourage open and honest conversations, Sean Kelly is not legally responsible for any statements, claims, or opinions made by guests during the show. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and consult professionals for advice where appropriate.
Content on this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, financial, or professional advice.
#hornblastersstory #businessideas #trainhorn #businessenglish #personalgrowth
Press play and read along
Transcript
Speaker 1 Everybody knows Instacart helps deliver holiday gifts, groceries, and decor stress-free in as fast as 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 But what they don't know is that you'll get a $10 credit with your first order of $75 or more.
Speaker 3 Another thing people don't know?
Speaker 1 I'm a charismatic kitty cat ornament.
Speaker 2 Wearing head-to-toe leather.
Speaker 1
Download the Instacart app to get a little magic delivered today. Must order within 7 days of sign-up.
Credit is good for 14 days. Terms apply.
Speaker 4
This is Marshawn Beast Mode Lynch. Prize Pick is making sports season even more fun.
On Prize Picks, whether you're a football fan, a basketball fan, it always feels good to be right.
Speaker 4 Right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5.
Speaker 4
The app is simple to use. Pick two or more players.
Pick more or less on their stat projections. Anything from touchdown to threes.
And if you're right, you can win big.
Speaker 4 Mix and match players from any sport on Prize Picks, America's number one daily fantasy sports app. PrizePicks is available in 40 plus states, including California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.
Speaker 4 Most importantly, all the transactions on the app are fast, safe, and secure.
Speaker 3 Download the Prize Picks app today and use code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.
Speaker 3
Prize Picks, it's good to be right. Must be present in certain states.
Visit PrizePicks.com for restrictions and details.
Speaker 2 On it because it was an active investigation just from yesterday.
Speaker 2
But again, there was nothing found in the vehicle. There was nothing in the vehicle.
But they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart. And that was a real bummer.
Speaker 2 And it was kind of an egg on the face of the police department.
Speaker 2 The chief of police is actually, ironically, now the mayor of Tampa. Whoa.
Speaker 5 Okay, guys, Matthew Heller, one of the craziest stories I think I've ever seen. So thanks for joining us today, man.
Speaker 2 Thanks for having me, man. It's great to be here.
Speaker 5 You're out here in Vegas, which isn't, it isn't a common thing for you, is it?
Speaker 2
It's, you know, I've been here so many times over the years. My company, Hornblasters, is super involved with the SEMA show.
So we're here like every November, and I was on the board planning that.
Speaker 2 I really don't love Vegas.
Speaker 2
I don't like to gamble. I don't pay for sex and I rarely drink.
So there's just nothing out here for me. But I'm so happy that we got to link up and do this.
So super excited about that.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Well, you were raised by a single mother who was a professional clown.
I want to talk about that. Yes, sir.
That is a very unique childhood.
Speaker 2
Yeah. My parents split when I was three.
My parents were from Detroit. They moved to Florida in search of a better life.
Speaker 2 My mom and father, they created a mobile dunk tank and they used to set that up at the flea market. My dad was like a stilt man and then my mom was a professional clown.
Speaker 2 Once they split, I was just raised by her essentially. Wow.
Speaker 2
A clown's world is what her company was called. And she was Rosie the clown.
I was a little kid clown. And that was an interesting childhood to say the least.
Speaker 5 That's super interesting.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that was down in South Florida. We did a lot of like company picnics and birthday parties and stuff like that.
A lot of her customers were essentially in the cocaine business.
Speaker 2 And these parents would hire the clown to come entertain the kids while the parents would all do drugs, essentially, at the party. That's crazy.
Speaker 2 But yeah, it was a really, really interesting upbringing. And shout out to mom, Rosie, for doing the best she can.
Speaker 5
Shout out to Mama Rosie. Yeah, yeah.
When did you start getting into tech technology?
Speaker 2 Just as uh as a only child raised by the clown um after the divorce my mom got very little from the divorce even though they had uh accumulated a huge fortune uh she was kind of afraid of my dad because he was getting into drugs so they split ways i was living in like a senior community it was a 55 and up community i really wasn't supposed to be outside or playing at any time uh mom didn't really have the means for computer so we were we would buy one from like office depot on the credit card i'd have it for 30 days or whatever their return policy was and we'd kind of flip them and I'd get new computers every 30 days or so.
Speaker 2 Wow. She didn't know it at the time, but I was kind of gutting the computers on the inside, taking components out before she would return them.
Speaker 2 And I was eventually able to Frankenstein together a computer that I was able to just play on that thing all
Speaker 2 humble beginnings. Yeah, just big, big computer nerd.
Speaker 5 So you were a big gamer back in the day.
Speaker 2 A little bit.
Speaker 2 The games weren't quite what they are now.
Speaker 5 RuneScape.
Speaker 2 Yeah, RuneScape, Quake, Doom, Wolfenstein, all the super old stuff, Leisure Suit Larry.
Speaker 2
And yeah, it's come a long way. And then with the advent of the internet, you know, I was on America Online and using different ISPs to get online.
And
Speaker 2 yeah.
Speaker 5 So started off with gaming and then kind of delve into the hacking world.
Speaker 2
Just tinkering around. And I was in a group of other fellow computer nerds.
And we would try to take stuff down and then.
Speaker 2 put up our own names and give ourselves like shout outs and put post like political cartoons and just like different things on different websites that had vulnerabilities uh i was kind of more like a script kiddie at the time not like you know super formal hacking but there was just a lot of vulnerabilities uh on the internet back then so how did that work you would was that the uh when you flooded a bunch of traffic to a site shut it down you yeah you you could you could uh smt or ping bomb people like that yeah that that would work it would be like a ddos attack um i i was just i found like a send mail exploit with some of my friends on nasa.gov it was actually spacelink.nasa.gov And we put some stuff up there.
Speaker 2 Just again, some political cartoons.
Speaker 2
There was a hacker named Kevin Mitnick who was being held without a trial back in the day. So that was the big thing.
And we were just putting free Kevin Mitnick up everywhere. Did he get freed?
Speaker 2 He eventually did. Yeah.
Speaker 2 He was being held forever.
Speaker 2 So yeah, I was just kind of a computer nerd. Did that.
Speaker 2 Got in trouble at high school. They didn't have any proof per se.
Speaker 2 One of my media aide friends got pulled over for speeding and he dropped the dime on me to the cop who was just, he was afraid to lose his driving privileges.
Speaker 2 So he just kind of confessed to the cop and said, hey, I know this guy that hacked NASA. And the cop is like, what are you talking about? I'm just, I'm just writing you a speeding ticket or whatever.
Speaker 2 But they started investigating that.
Speaker 2
Shortly after that, the FBI was out at my house the next week. asking questions.
Wow. They wanted to see my computer.
The parents would not let them in the house.
Speaker 2 Oh, my mom got remarried when I was 15.
Speaker 2 I had a stepfather.
Speaker 5 uh shout out to kinsta today's sponsor you know when we first started building our brand online i had to teach myself everything from marketing to monetization but one of the biggest pain points hosting it felt like i needed a computer science degree just to keep our site running smoothly that's why we switched to kinsta and honestly it's been a game changer Kinsta managed WordPress hosting takes all the stress off your plate.
Speaker 5 You get blazing speed, enterprise level security, and a dashboard that's actually fun to use. No outdated clutter, just clean, intuitive control.
Speaker 5 And let me tell you, when things go sideways, I don't want to deal with a chat bot or some copy-pasted script.
Speaker 5 With Kinsta, I get real, knowledgeable humans available 24-7 who actually solve problems fast. We've had sudden traffic spikes and zero downtime.
Speaker 5 Our SEO has improved with the speed boost, and it's a huge relief knowing our site's protected with the best security out there.
Speaker 5
If you're ready for hosting that works, visit kinsta.com/slash dsh to get your first month free. And yes, they'll migrate your site for free too.
That's k-in-n-st-t-a.com/slash dsh.
Speaker 2 Shout out Spiro.
Speaker 2 So yeah, they weren't allowed on the computer. I got expelled from high school over that.
Speaker 2
Super low point in my life. Didn't really know what I was going to do.
This is my 10th grade year.
Speaker 2
And then about a week later, the FBI came back to the house and they offered me a job. They said, hey, we know you're not really doing anything with your life.
Would you like to come help us?
Speaker 2 We're kind of behind the power curve when it comes to where we should be with technology and prosecuting some of these different cases and stuff. I had nothing else going on.
Speaker 2 I worked with them from Florida for a bit, and then they eventually transferred me to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the district attorney there had a little more capacity to pursue these types of cases.
Speaker 2 So I was just going after locating people who were doing like credit card fraud, buying and selling credit card numbers in bulk and different hacks and stuff like that,
Speaker 2
trying to locate people and help them with probable cause. I was essentially a cooperating witness.
I didn't have a gun or a badge or anything like that.
Speaker 2 I was told I wasn't allowed to talk about it for seven years or so
Speaker 2 because there was a bunch of open investigations that I was a part of.
Speaker 2
9-11 happened. I was working for them in Baton Rouge at the time.
I called the morning of 9-11. I called my superior, my officer that I reported to and I said, hey, are we working today?
Speaker 2
And she said, we're not, just kind of hanging tight. Well, we'll talk to you next week.
So I sat there for a little bit.
Speaker 2 And the next week they said, hey, we're not doing any of these investigations anymore. We're trying to do this war on terror thing.
Speaker 2
Here's, here's your last money. They paid me in cash.
It wasn't, I didn't get checks or anything.
Speaker 5 It was cash the whole time?
Speaker 2 The whole time.
Speaker 2 And then they were also paying me like a per diem for housing. I kind of forged the receipts and was just living in my truck at the time, pocketing that money.
Speaker 2 And I'm so happy that happened because if I did sign a lease, I would still be stuck in Louisiana.
Speaker 2 So they released me and I went back to Tampa, Florida, where now I had this couple years of no resume, no experience, and I wasn't allowed to say what I was doing.
Speaker 2 I had all this esoteric knowledge of how these things worked, but again, wasn't allowed to talk about anything.
Speaker 5 Dang, that must have been a tough seven-year period then.
Speaker 2
It was a bummer to find work. Well, I started, I just got a bunch of like part-time jobs.
I was kind of like the grim reaper of death for a lot of these companies. I worked everywhere I worked.
Speaker 2 I got like 22 W-2s that year, just kind of getting hired and fired. I was at Blockbuster Video and Service Merchandise, Kmart, all these places just kind of closed up as I was working at them.
Speaker 2
RIP Blockbuster. RIP, yeah.
But then I got a job at Home Depot and that was really fun. I enjoyed that.
I had a lowrider pickup truck and it went up and down. It had air suspension on it.
Speaker 2 I'm from South Florida and I always thought, you know, lowrider culture was super cool.
Speaker 2 And I'm like, man, if I just had a truck that went up and down, I could probably meet a chick or something like that.
Speaker 2
So I was working at Home Depot, had this air suspension. And not everyone enjoyed those little pickup trucks.
So I felt like I was getting run off the road all the time.
Speaker 2 And being always into trains as a kid, I found a train horn and I put it on my vehicle using some of the hardware from Home Depot and wired it all up.
Speaker 2 And then I was just had this train horn on this little tiny pickup truck. And then folks were always asking, hey, where'd you get that? That's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 I built a rudimentary website in 2002 called Horn Blasters, where I started selling these horns. And after about four years, I had to leave Home Depot and pursue the company full-time.
Speaker 2 And here we are now, 23 years later, later, and still selling air horns. Well done.
Speaker 5 Not a lot of companies lost that long.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I'm amazed.
Speaker 2 Super blessed.
Speaker 5 What a journey, too, to go from hacking into that. Much more innocent, right?
Speaker 2 Yes, sir. Yeah.
Speaker 2 So yeah, we just make these obnoxious horns.
Speaker 2
This was 2002. I started putting videos on my website.
This was before YouTube. And we'd kind of use these videos of us using the train horn honking at people to help market the product.
Speaker 2 And I was paying a ton for like hosting.
Speaker 6 Shout out to Notion, today's sponsor. Do you feel like you're spending more time managing your inbox than actually running your business? Yeah, same here.
Speaker 6 Email hasn't changed in decades, and it's become busy, tedious, and even stressful. But that's where Notion Mail comes in.
Speaker 6 It's a brand new inbox that thinks like you, automated, personalized, and finally flexible enough to work the way you work.
Speaker 6 With Notion AI, your inbox organizes itself, it learns what's important, sorts messages, labels them, even helps you draft replies, no manual work required. Want to stay focused?
Speaker 6 Split your inbox into custom views by topic, urgency, or sender, so you only see what matters, when it matters.
Speaker 6 Flying through repetitive emails, just use snippets, one-click templates for intros, follow-ups, or thank yous. Add attachments or scheduling links in a snap.
Speaker 6
And if you already use Notion, Notion Mail syncs with your docs for total integration. It's all in one place.
Get NotionMail free today at Notion.com slash DSH.
Speaker 6
That's Notion.com/slash DSH all lowercase. You're supporting the show when you you use our link.
Again, that's notion.com/slash DSH.
Speaker 2 And the website hosting and whatnot for the videos. Then, with the advent of YouTube, it was a big blessing that we were able to finally share that content.
Speaker 5 Good timing, right? Get it out there.
Speaker 2
Yes, sir. Yeah.
We were one of the first YouTubers to have over a million views on a video.
Speaker 5 That was a big deal back in the day.
Speaker 2 It was. I should have stuck with that momentum.
Speaker 2 We're now publishing more long-form content on YouTube, but it took a long hiatus there for a minute.
Speaker 5 You'll need a pod, a Hornblasters podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 We've thought about that.
Speaker 5 Blasting horns the whole podcast.
Speaker 2 That's what folks want to see.
Speaker 2 And I always thought it was kind of unsavory myself, but it really is what drives the most traffic to the website is, you know, people just want to see that.
Speaker 5 I can see the horn. You've built some amazing relationships throughout this process, too.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I've been real lucky to work with a lot of folks. I was in the right place at the right time
Speaker 2 between Joe Rogan and Red Band. I met them real early on.
Speaker 2 We were the first, Hornblasters was the first sponsor of the Kill Tony podcast. No way.
Speaker 5 That's a flex.
Speaker 2
Super cool. Yeah.
I had no, I'm so proud of everything that Tony and Brian have turned that into.
Speaker 2
But yeah, I made just a lot of friends along the way. I've had some instrumental folks along the way.
In Tampa, we would get some like newspaper press from time to time.
Speaker 2 And then one of the local radio guys there, Mike Kalta, he did me a real solid and kind of brought me into his ecosystem and introduced me to a lot lot of his other friends and uh comedians and it's just kind of parlayed from there I love that man that's so cool are you gonna go to the kill tony show this week I am yeah yeah so that was the being able to do your podcast and to go go see my friends
Speaker 2 that's what I'm super excited about I want to go to one of those these days it looks so fun it's incredible yeah it's a great show his Madison Square Garden one looked crazy yeah that was I wanted to go to that one he had one on on New Year's I just it was kind of hard to talk the girlfriend into hey we're doing this on new year's you know uh but yeah, it's it's incredible what they've grown that into, and uh, yeah, it's just a monster now.
Speaker 2 And I'd love to bring you on Sunday if you want to come, dude.
Speaker 5 I'd be honored. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 Um, your truck got destroyed.
Speaker 2 I wanted to talk about this because there's a whole PR article about this. So, what exactly happened? So, a lot of this got scrubbed from the internet.
Speaker 2 Surprisingly, there's only one page left, and that's the Daily Mail.
Speaker 7 Um, in 2014, uh, my company, Hornblasters, we threw the holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft.
Speaker 7 But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it guaranteed or your money back.
Speaker 7
Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock.
Save up to 40% your first year.
Speaker 2 Visit lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
Speaker 8 Tito's handmade vodka is America's favorite vodka for a reason.
Speaker 8 From the first legal distillery in Texas, Tito's is six times distilled till it's just right and naturally gluten-free, making it a high-quality spirit that mixes with just about anything.
Speaker 8
From the smoothest martinis to the best Bloody Marys. Tito's is known for giving back, teaming up with nonprofits to serve its communities and do good for dogs.
Make your next cocktail with Tito's.
Speaker 8
Distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Inc., Austin, Texas. 40% alcohol by volume.
Savor responsibly.
Speaker 2 For concert to try to promote the company a little more, we hired Juicy J and this young upcoming rapper from Texas named Travis Scott. So it was $5,000 and we got him to perform this concert.
Speaker 2 It was in Ybor City, which is like our historic, like a bourbon street slash historic cigar rolling cigar factory district of Tampa. That's where all the nightclubs are and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 uh i have this big f650 at the time i used it for uh promotions of my company i had that parked in uh in ybor city in a parking lot and when i got out of the concert I walked out there and the truck had been all ripped apart.
Speaker 2 I had thought I'd got broken into.
Speaker 2 When I did get in there, I found just a little note, no business cards, but on a small piece of loose leaf paper, it was like, dear sir, your vehicle was searched by the TPD K9 for the alleged scent of marijuana on the passenger side.
Speaker 2 Any questions, call Corporal Fanning with a phone number. Well, I mentioned that FM radio friend of mine, Mike Kalta.
Speaker 2 I was telling him the story shortly after, and he's like, your truck got broken into a parked truck? I said, Yeah.
Speaker 2 Well, Mike, the next day, called that corporal live on the air.
Speaker 2 And of course, the corporal wasn't allowed to comment on it because it was an active investigation just from yesterday.
Speaker 2 But again, there was nothing found in the vehicle. There was nothing in the vehicle, but they really did a lot of damage, ripping my whole vehicle apart.
Speaker 2 And that was a real bummer, and it was kind of an egg on the face of the police department.
Speaker 2
The chief of police is actually, ironically, now the mayor of Tampa. Whoa.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 Ever thought about how much EMF and radiation your body is exposed to every single day?
Speaker 5 From smartphones to Wi-Fi, modern technology never stops emitting invisible stressors that could disrupt brain function, hormone balance, and cellular health.
Speaker 5 That's where Aries comes in, the only scientifically validated solution designed to help your body adapt to today's technology.
Speaker 5 It's trusted by elite athletes used by the UFC, WWE, Canada basketball, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's backed by science, 100-plus scientists, and 40-plus institutions confirm its effectiveness.
Speaker 5 It's patented, peer-reviewed, clinically proven, and publicly traded Wi-Fi is the most tested, researched, and validated EMF solution on the market.
Speaker 5
Upgrade your biology to keep up with modern technology. Protect yourself with Aries today.
Click the link below to learn more.
Speaker 5 That's great. Except, that was Aries' time.
Speaker 2
They you can't just sue the government for damages. You have to kind of give them notice that you intend on, you know, filing something.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 They eventually settled and paid me for the damages, but it didn't really reflect what actually got broken because it was a lot of custom work.
Speaker 2
And I just kind of had like all my life savings tied up in this vehicle at the time. And I had a real big car show that weekend.
So it really sent me back.
Speaker 2
But what's super scary is all there was a ton of press about that at the time. And it all got pulled off the internet for the most part.
It's not in any of the archives.
Speaker 2 Like I said, it's only on Daily Mail and some of the overseas things.
Speaker 5 And knowing what you know, you know, that's intentional.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Whoever's got that power to rewrite history and pull specific news articles down.
I mean, that's terrifying, you know?
Speaker 5
That is interesting. Wow.
I didn't know police could search your car, first of all, without you in there.
Speaker 2 So after, it's all part of the Patriot Act, which we just renewed.
Speaker 2 I mean, after 9-11, we passed so much stuff that I think it's within 85 or 75 miles of an international boundary, which is where like 92% of the country lives.
Speaker 2
Essentially, the entire state of Florida, because 10 miles offshore is international waters. So then 10 miles, then 75 in the entire peninsula.
Right. So there really is no protection.
Speaker 2
It's fully constitutional. There's no privacy.
And folks,
Speaker 2 your vehicle, your cell phones, everything could be intercepted at all times, pretty much.
Speaker 5
That's good to know, though. Terrifying.
Thanks for letting me know that.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that Patriot Act for us.
Speaker 5 I mean, I've been pulled over when I was younger and they just say, oh, your car smells like weed. And they search the car.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 And it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2 Like you're on the side of a highway like they're searching your vehicle yeah people are passing you yeah terrifying stuff uh but we voted for it and uh and then we renewed it so yeah that's crazy i'm sure you saw some wild stuff when you were on the inside it was it was it was crazy what they were doing even then this was like 1998 99 2000 and uh i mean they had computers that
Speaker 2 sorry devices on networks have like a mac address on them and they had computers that had no mac addresses on their network cards so they could just install these at an internet service provider and then they would hook up uh like these i there's a company called iOmega they made these things called like zip drives and uh uh they would put these zip drives on there to just capture all of the data that's going through the internet service provider um
Speaker 2 the program was called carnivore that i was working on and and it would just gather all the data they're doing that now with the large scale with the utah data center and the nsa you know it captures all forms of you know communication.
Speaker 2 Wow. All digital pocket litter, receipts,
Speaker 2 traffic cameras, everything's all aggregated, I guess, in Utah.
Speaker 5
That's nuts. Big Brother is watching.
You got to be careful what public Wi-Fi networks you join. I just found out.
Sure. Yeah.
I used to use the ones at the airport, but now I don't.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And what you're plugging into, everything.
Speaker 5 Yeah, the outlet, right?
Speaker 2 You're super vulnerable.
Speaker 2 Part of the Edward Snowden stuff from, I think it was 2011 or 2012, there was an NSA program called Dropout Jeep. And that was formed by an Israeli company that allowed you to see everything on iOS.
Speaker 2
You could push, pull, send files. You could read the contacts, edit the contacts, read the messages, send the messages.
You could. turn the microphones on.
Speaker 2
There's, you know, there's six or seven microphones on an iPhone. You could, you know, turn that on and hot mic everything.
Wow. Turn all the cameras on.
And this was stuff that Snowden was
Speaker 2
warning us about from almost two decades ago now. So who knows, you know, what there is now, but that's the price you pay if you want all the cool toys.
You know, there just is no privacy.
Speaker 5 You know, you know, it's scary because if you are an enemy in the government's eyes, they could just plant something on you, like some blackmail or some child P or whatever, and you're done.
Speaker 2
Terrifying. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Terrifying. I mean, that's super scary.
There's a lot of child P out there, too. It was, it was amazing.
Speaker 2 We didn't, when I was working with them, I didn't have too much with that, but they would have us locate people that they were investigating and trying to find folks.
Speaker 2 I mainly sat on like internet relay chat and was trying to buy and sell credit cards, but a lot of it was trying to find those nefarious folks as well. And there's just so many of them.
Speaker 2 It's way more common than people realize.
Speaker 5 People are just selling credit cards on chat rooms.
Speaker 2
Yeah, by thousands at a time. That's so wild.
We were soliciting to purchase them.
Speaker 2 We'd go to Western Union in the middle of the night when we'd find someone that was interested, that was advertising that they had stuff. We'd go to Western Union, send them the money.
Speaker 2
Sometimes they were just bluffing and they'd get to keep the money. Sometimes they'd send the stuff and then from there we'd have the probable cause to go after them.
And
Speaker 2 this was a wild, wild time. What should have been my high school years?
Speaker 5 Yeah, that is crazy. Any times you felt unsafe or like an investigation went south?
Speaker 2 No, not at all. And I didn't really have any like
Speaker 2 face-to-face with any of any of the folks we were investigating. Some of the agents I was working with, though, they were wild.
Speaker 2 I mean, we would, we would pull out cash for the Western Union from these accounts at the ATM in these sketchy neighborhoods in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 I just remember one of the guys I worked under, you know, all these guys carried a lot of weapons, of course, and uh, they'd pull the money out of the ATM and then they're just driving outside with their hand out the window with fistfuls of cash.
Speaker 2 Come on, someone, rob us.
Speaker 2 So they were kind of,
Speaker 2
you know, yeah, imagine trying to rob an FBI agent. Totally.
It was.
Speaker 5 I love seeing those police body cams when they're trying to arrest an undercover FBI agent.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Have you seen those? I've seen those and ones who claim that they're FBI or not, you know, like the stolen valor kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Folks, the security guards,
Speaker 2 so much great body cam footage out there now.
Speaker 5 Yeah. So are you pretty removed from the hacking community these days?
Speaker 2 Holy yeah.
Speaker 2 And even then, I knew stuff. I knew enough to get in trouble, but I wasn't
Speaker 2 that
Speaker 2
bleeding edge with the technology or anything like that. Now I'm a rusty.
I don't know if I'm a boomer. I'm 43, but
Speaker 2 yeah, I'm totally, totally out of it.
Speaker 5 Do you feel like it's way harder now to hack stuff?
Speaker 2
I don't know. There's tons of zero-day exploits all the time.
And there's tons of vulnerabilities. And folks that just have a lot of spare time to poke and prod and try to get into things.
Speaker 2 you know, there's, there's definitely
Speaker 2
there's things that can be done out there. Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 There's some clever ones.
Speaker 2 There's some clever hacks.
Speaker 5
I got sim hacked. That sucked.
I couldn't do anything about it. Oh, man.
Speaker 2 That's a, they just, they cloned your number and then from there.
Speaker 5
They called my carrier pretended to be me. They must have bought my social security number off the dark web because I heard you could do that.
So they must have gave them that information.
Speaker 5
Maybe got a fake ID somehow of me. And then, yeah, they switched it to his phone.
No bueno. Switched my phone to his phone.
Speaker 2
Oh, gosh, man. Yeah.
Luckily, no one's going after the air horn guys.
Speaker 2 All right. But
Speaker 5
yeah, social engineering hacks, though. I remember MGM and Caesars got hacked a few years ago.
Did you see that one? Yes, sir. Just social engineering.
Speaker 5 That's crazy.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 Lots of ways to get the bag out there. Yeah.
Speaker 5 Well, dude, what's next for you? What do you got planned this year?
Speaker 2 Man,
Speaker 2
I wouldn't say I'm a Trump supporter, but I am a Trump voter. And I have always had his back with stuff.
But these tariffs are really messing my business up personally the past couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 weeks a lot of our stuff is made here in the usa so i'm not worried about most of it but some of our more complex electronics regrettably come from china damn and uh it's killing me now how much did those what percent increase did it go up it's a lot i'm hearing you know it's it's over i'm hearing 245 now and stuff like that that would ruin your business it's a bummer uh especially since uh i just launched a whole bunch of new products and uh he warned us though in his during his first administration he said you know if you're doing business with china re-evaluate all damn uh and i kind of took that with a grain grain of salt and threw caution to the wind.
Speaker 2 So here we are.
Speaker 5 We'll see long-term how it plays out.
Speaker 2
Interesting times. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 Like if you're being objective, it makes sense. If they're tariffing us, why can't we have 50% or sometimes 100% of what they're charging us? Sure, sure.
Speaker 5 But I guess the immediate effects are obviously catastrophic.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And I'm just seeing how it's
Speaker 2
causing hiccups in the supply chain. And I hear there's like empty trains now and the freight, freight ships.
And
Speaker 2
it's going to ripple through. I don't know what this is going to do to the economy.
We'll see all the the best. I mean, I know something has to give.
Speaker 2 Just wild times we're living in. It always is, I suppose.
Speaker 5 Well, you started streaming too.
Speaker 2
I started kicking recently. Kicking.
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's the new movement. We're on all the socials.
Kick was the only new one for me. And I'm like, hey, this is kind of fun.
I was hanging out with my buddy Tyla Yawe last week. He was kicking.
Speaker 2 And I said, man, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 5 So you're doing IRL kicks? Are you doing gaming?
Speaker 2 Yeah, just IRL.
Speaker 2 I did some.
Speaker 2 I had a bunch of facebook stock back in the day so i bought the meta quest when it came out yeah and man i got super addicted to the the vr games in there and like the there's like first-person shooter games but you know it's come a long way since doom and quake that i used to play yeah uh so i find myself fully addicted to like these vr first-person shooter games um i'm trying to stay off of that i don't want to go that route i've just been doing just irl stuff and and trying to uh show some of my friends and people that I you know hang out with day to day.
Speaker 5 That's cool.
Speaker 5
Did you try Five Nights at Freddy's on the quest? No. Oh, my gosh.
That game gives me nightmares.
Speaker 2 That's cool.
Speaker 2 I met the in
Speaker 2
Shobiz Pizza, I guess is what that was all based off, that movie or the Five Nights at Freddy's, which eventually turned into Chuck E. Cheese.
What?
Speaker 2 Chuck E. Cheese was
Speaker 2 pre-part for Chuck E. Cheese was.
Speaker 2
Pizza. And I guess that's what the Five Nights at Freddy's thing is based on.
Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah.
My buddy Mike Busey in Orlando, he uh is a super Chuck E.
Speaker 2
Cheese fan, as well as like McDonald's. He's an interesting guy.
You got to Google Mike Busey.
Speaker 5 Yeah, I think is he an actor?
Speaker 2 Uh, or is that a different? He does all kinds of stuff. His uh, his alleged uncle is Gary Busey.
Speaker 5 That's who I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2
Mike owns the wildest house in America. It's called the Sausage Castle, it's in central Florida.
It's it's kind of the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2 It's an 88-acre adult playground, like an adult Disney World, essentially.
Speaker 5 Sausage Castle.
Speaker 2 Incredible guy, incredible guy. One of my best friends for 20 years.
Speaker 2
Really sweet. Really, really sweet dude.
We've worked together
Speaker 2 as much as we can.
Speaker 2 Share the same friend groups, essentially.
Speaker 2
Shout out Mike Busey. That's cool.
Yeah.
Speaker 5 I'm trying to think what a sausage castle would entail. You got me thinking right now.
Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2
He's big. He's like the most canceled man on the internet, essentially.
He's had 20 different YouTubes and Snapchats. Sometimes he just posts a little too much and it gets taken down.
Speaker 2 I think he'd be an excellent person for kick, probably, now that I think about it.
Speaker 5 I love him on the show, too. Sounds like an interesting interesting person.
Speaker 2 He's great and just a really, really sweet guy. He wanted to be,
Speaker 2
he went to like a seminary school. He wanted to be a priest.
And then he pierced his ear with a cross.
Speaker 2
And the president of the school said, you know, that's not very godlike. So then that kind of made him reconsider the path that he was going down.
Whoa.
Speaker 2 And now he's just, he's covered in tattoos, but they're all really cool, like American tattoos.
Speaker 2
Super patriotic guy, just a really nice cat. That's cool.
Yeah, absolutely great guy. Shout out.
Shout out, Mike.
Speaker 5 Shout out to Mike.
Speaker 2 You got any tattoos i don't and i'm not against it i there's just nothing i feel that compelled to i'm the same yeah yeah hasn't called me yet yeah yeah i kind of like being clean though too yeah it's it's i think it's more rare to not have tattoos these days
Speaker 2 plus once you get one you're not stopping at one that's how it is yeah it's a slippery slope and you got a sleeve and you got to do the legs yeah never ends it sounds cool maybe one day but yeah so so far nothing yet yeah well where can people find you man it's been fun uh hornblasters on all social on everywhere hornblasters.com and uh on every social media thing, it's just horn blasters.
Speaker 2 My personal one is Matt from Hornblasters. Boom!
Speaker 5 Get yourself a horn, guys. I'm gonna get one for the studio.
Speaker 2 We should, we should put one under the table
Speaker 5 to scare the guests.
Speaker 2 Absolutely, let's do it, man.
Speaker 5 Check them out, guys. I'll see you next time.