WASHINGTON: A prime worker of billionaire Elon Musk who’s now working in the US Justice Division beforehand bragged about hacking and distributing pirated software program, based on archived copies of his former web sites reviewed by Reuters.
Christopher Stanley, a 33-year-old engineer who has labored at each Musk’s social media firm X and space-launch firm SpaceX, is a senior advisor within the deputy lawyer common’s workplace, based on a former Justice Division official and a employees listing itemizing reviewed by Reuters.
Stanley was assigned there whereas working for Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) that President Donald Trump set as much as slash the federal paperwork. Musk has mentioned no “organisation has been extra clear” than DOGE, however there was little public info on the obligations and background of its employees.
Stanley ran a collection of internet sites and boards beginning way back to 2006, when he was 15, registration information preserved by the web intelligence agency DomainTools exhibits. A number of of these websites distributed pirated ebooks, bootleg software program and online game cheats, based on copies maintained by the Web Archive, a non-profit whose Wayback Machine preserves outdated web sites.
Stanley boasted about hacking into web sites on not less than two of the boards, based on archived posts, one in every of which dates to when he was 19. On the time, he mentioned he had put his hacking days behind him. However a YouTube video he posted in 2014 exhibits his involvement within the breach of buyer information from a rival hacking group when he was 23.
In response to questions for this story, the Justice Division didn’t straight handle Stanley’s present position or his previous however mentioned he had an energetic safety clearance that predated his employment at DOGE.
In an announcement to Reuters, US Legal professional Common Pam Bondi mentioned she had “full belief and confidence in Chris’ potential to assist the federal authorities”. Stanley, the White Home, SpaceX and X didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Within the hours after Reuters contacted Stanley, a number of of his outdated web sites vanished from the Web Archive. Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, declined to reply particular questions concerning the disappearance of Stanley’s web sites however mentioned individuals who personal the rights to websites can request to have their content material withheld from the archive.
Nationwide safety professionals had been largely break up on how critically to take Stanley’s previous. Six former Justice officers informed Reuters his background raised crimson flags, noting that the division handles delicate info, together with particulars of federal investigations and different info protected by grand jury secrecy guidelines.
“I’d have very severe considerations about hiring him in and giving him entry to those sorts of information,” mentioned Jonathan Rusch, who spent greater than 25 years as a Justice Division prosecutor earlier than going into academia. Rusch mentioned Stanley’s background was worrisome, significantly for a Justice Division worker, as a result of he had disclosed information which he had “acquired apparently illegally”.
Dan Guido, whose digital safety agency Path of Bits has labored with the Justice and Protection departments, was extra forgiving. Stanley’s historical past of hacking mustn’t disqualify him from working on the DOJ, he mentioned, citing Stanley’s youthfulness and the way in which he focused different hackers as mitigating components. “That may be a means I’ve seen lots of people study.”
Reuters couldn’t decide Stanley’s particular Justice Division obligations. The deputy lawyer common’s workplace, run by Trump’s former non-public lawyer Todd Blanche, oversees all of the US attorneys’ places of work and manages felony investigations into a spread of offences, together with hacking and different malicious cyber exercise.
Reuters additionally couldn’t set up whether or not Stanley stays employed by X and SpaceX. On LinkedIn, he nonetheless identifies himself as working for them and makes no reference to his Justice Division work. A profile photograph on X exhibits him standing earlier than the logo for the Workplace of Justice Applications, an workplace within the division that awards grant funds. Like Musk, Stanley is assessed as a “particular authorities worker” and isn’t drawing a authorities wage, the DOJ mentioned.
PIRACY, VIDEO GAME CHEATS AND HACKING
Different members of Musk’s DOGE staff have confronted scrutiny over their backgrounds.
When Reuters reported final week that DOGE staffer Edward Coristine had beforehand offered community infrastructure to a gang of cybercriminals, Democrats within the Republican-led Home of Representatives Oversight Committee mentioned in a submit on X that it was another excuse “we’d like a full investigation into who’s working for DOGE”. Coristine has not responded to requests for remark.
Beginning about 10 years earlier than becoming a member of SpaceX, Stanley ran a number of on-line boards that coated software program piracy, online game cheats and hacking. He used varied pseudonyms on these websites, together with eNkrypt and Reneg4d3, each of which he nonetheless makes use of on some social media accounts.
Reuters was capable of hyperlink the now-defunct discussion board web sites and the usernames to Stanley by cross-referencing the websites’ registration information in opposition to his outdated e mail handle and by matching Reneg4d3’s biographical information to Stanley’s.
On a few of Stanley’s earliest websites, he claimed credit score for hacking. The web site, fkn-pwnd.com, launched in 2006 whereas he was in highschool, boasted of “F****** Up Servers!” and featured a crude sketch of a penis, based on a replica of the positioning preserved by the Web Archive.
On reneg4d3.com, which he registered the next 12 months, the archives present Stanley described how he hijacked a competing message board. “Obtained admin entry,” he mentioned in a 2008 submit, simply earlier than he turned 17, describing the positioning’s operators as “silly noobs”. “Straightforward exploit,” he wrote.
Round that point, a rival online game dishonest web site, rev0lution-cheats.com, was hijacked and defaced with the message: “This website has been hacked by RENEG4D3.com.” Reneg4d3.com was suspended by its web service supplier a number of months later, based on a screenshot of the positioning preserved by DomainTools.
Reuters couldn’t corroborate sure features of the hacking exercise, together with the identification of the positioning Stanley claimed credit score for hijacking or the circumstances of rev0lution-cheats’ defacement.
Stanley went on to start out different web sites the place he and different contributors mentioned hacking, online game dishonest or piracy, together with error33.internet and electonic.internet, the Web Archive’s information present.
“I NO LONGER HACK”
At age 19, Stanley distanced himself from malicious cyber exercise in an archived 2010 submit on electonic.internet, writing: “I not hack into PayPals, achieve root entry into different peoples pc (sic) or exploit on-line web sites like StickAM” – an obvious reference to a video streaming service that shut down in 2013.
In that very same submit, he mentioned he had been threatened with a lawsuit by the South Korean gaming firm Nexon for “infiltrating their sport software program and altering sure features of the sport”.
“They didn’t take kindly to this,” he mentioned.
Reuters couldn’t independently corroborate the claims of theft, pc hijacking and software program tampering, or the threatened lawsuit. A Nexon spokesperson mentioned the corporate had been unable to find any info relating to the matter. PayPal didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Discussions on the electonic.internet discussion board present that Stanley had not totally left the hacking world behind. The web site – like others Stanley had created – supplied contraband ebooks and “warez” – web slang for pirated software program.
In December 2014, when he was 23, Stanley posted footage of himself finishing up a hack of the client database related to Lizard Squad, a hacking group that took credit score for a number of high-profile outages that included assaults in opposition to Sony Corp’s PlayStation Community. Reuters was unable to succeed in former members of Lizard Squad for remark.
Stanley posted the footage to his YouTube channel, the place he nonetheless goes by the Reneg4d3 nickname and makes use of a photograph of himself with Elon Musk as his profile image.
