Hi and welcome to Sabirism's malicious life. I'm Ren Levy.

When landing at our destination airport, we would like to be greeted with balloons, chocolate cakes, loving relatives, or a cardboard sign with our name written on it in big blue letters.

If there's one thing we wouldn't want to see waiting for us at the airport,

it's a couple of FBI agents wearing their trademark suits.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what awaited Chris Roberts on April 15, 2015 when he landed at Syracuse, New York on a flight coming from Chicago.

Two FBI agents and two local police officers escorted him out of the plane and

interrogated him for a few hours. It wasn't just Roberts that bothered them but

also his elaborate equipment.

The FBI agents confiscated two laptops, some hard drives, and USB sticks.

Roberts, a bald man with a Gandolf-style beard, sometimes painted purple, was not allowed

to board his next flight out of Syracuse.

That was the end of his journey, at least for that day.

The FBI Warrant application said, quote,

We believe Roberts had the ability and the willingness to use the equipment then with him to access or attempt to access the in-flight entertainment

system and possibly the flight control systems on any aircraft equipped with an in-flight entertainment system, and it would endanger the public safety

to allow him to leave the Syracuse Airport that evening with that equipment. As you've probably guessed, Roberts is a hacker, but not your typical hacker, if there is such a thing. He's old school as they say and he has an ongoing

love story with all kinds of machines. He started disassembling toasters and

vacuum cleaners at the age of 10 or 11, but was later on drawn

to areas where the stakes are higher, like moving objects.

On his Twitter account, he describes himself as a hacker who's into quote

anything with wings, wheels, tracks, tires, and fins, end quote. That means cars

trucks, even space vehicles.

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