>>Moran Cerf: So five years ago, I was at a party in Los Angeles when this girl approached
me and started engaging in what is known as smalltalk.
Now you've all seen that in the last 24 hours.
It has three components that you probably are aware of.
One is the person asks you what your name is.
This part is not relevant because they forget it right away.
You can practice it by trying to ask the person next to you what your name is and see how
their gaze shifts slowly to your breast as they try to remember what you just told them
minutes ago.
There's a second component which is trying to figure out where you're from, especially
if you have this foreign accent.
And then there's the main part which is trying to figure out what you do.
They ask you what you do.
And this has -- this is very loaded.
It tells people something about your status, your value, where you spend a lot of your
time.
It's very indicative, in our day and age, of people's choices.
So when she asked me what I do, I took a really deep breath because this was a new thing for
me.
I just started my entire life about a week before.
And the way it went was that as a kid people kept asking me and other kids, "What do you
want to do when you grow up?"
And kids have kind of classic answers: Fireman, taxi driver, the owner of a candy store, Superman.
And I always wanted to be a scientist.
Now, I didn't really know what scientist means at the time.
I just had a bunch of books that my dad had, and they had -- all had scientists in them.
I watched "Back to the Future" and there was this Emmett Brown character with fuzzy hair.
I loved Feynman as a character.
So I kind of had an idea of what scientists did, but I really didn't know, and I definitely
didn't have an idea would I want to be a physicist, an economist, a computer scientist.
This was far from me.
But I knew that this is something I want to do, but I didn't really know how you become
it.
There was -- it was actually easier for me to figure out how you become Superman than
how you become scientist.
This is how you start in.
But I didn't know hot to pursue it, and therefore I pursued what I did know, and this was computers.
I became a kid who started playing with computers at first just by using them, and then I learned
how they worked, and before long I started being really good and toying with them to
the point that I could actually change things.
So at first I just added one more life to Mario, and then I learned how to get the pass
phrase in (saying name), and so on and so forth, and before long, I was a really good
hacker.
So it wasn't surprising that when I became 18 in Israel, I was recruited by the Israeli
intelligence to be a hacker in the military.
And I did a really good job there.
But what was surprising was that somehow I found myself in jail at the Army for doing
the same thing.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: What happened was that as I
joined the Army, I created this little script that just ran in the background and kept collecting
people's passwords, and they were just running freely on the network and I just collected
them.
I just made a file of my colleagues in the Army.
I just collected their passwords for a while.
For three years, in fact.
And this was known to everyone.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: Everyone knew that and this
was no problem.
In fact, people came to me and said, "Anthony forgot to lock -- left his computer locked.
Can you open it for him?"
And I would just look at the password and no problem.
I was kind of the underground IT of the Army for a while.
But then something happened.
Internet became very kind of popular at the time and everyone started having dial-up at
home and suddenly there was this word "cybersecurity" and threats and people started getting afraid
of it, and they started looking for some kind of evidence that this might happen to us,
and suddenly they hear about this soldier that has a skill they've done for three years
now and has tons of passwords and this became a big thing that led to me being put to trial
at the Army and sentenced to seven days in military prison, which is nothing, but still
it's a way to make a statement.
So I was spending seven days in prison as a hacker for the first time in Israel having
to think about my life since I was going to finish the Army in a few weeks, and I really
didn't know what I'm going to do next.
But then I came out of this prison, this little detention center.
They gave me my belongings back and I got my Army uniform and I got a lot of things
and I also got my mobile phone, this bulky thing that I had at the time, and I turned
it on and there were dozens, it not hundreds, of messages from security companies offering
me jobs as hacker.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: So I'm here to tell you that
crime does pay.
So I realized that there's a market value to actually knowing how to break into computers,
so I had this idea, it was a similar theme.
It was me and other three people.
We called ourselves the B Team.
It was a play on the word "B" and "team."
"A Team" was taken at the time.
And the idea was that we were hired by banks as lawful hackers.
We were doing what we called penetration testing.
It sounds kinky, but it was actually -- we would go to a -- we would get access to banks
and try to see if there's a way for us to move money from one place to the other, to
change accounts, to see information that is not accessible for others, and then we'd go
to the banks and explain to them in details how this can be done.
We would write a long report that explains to people how you can do this and help them
in a way secure themselves better from the real villains.
So our team had me.
There was a young apprentice, a 17-year-old kid who was about to go to the army who just
joined us.
There was this psychologist who was in her late thirties, and she was in charge of what
we call hum-int, human intelligence.
She was especially good in calling people at 5:55 p.m. and saying, "Hi, I am the agent
outside and I need the password for this thing, and I have these letters A and Q but it doesn't
work.
Can you help me?"
And people would say, "No I cannot help you.
It's not okay."
And then she would say, "Oh, never mind, but I just --" She would kind of wait if people
would give her things, and if they didn't give her, she would say, "Never mind.
Thank you."
And they would be called by the chief security officer in the company telling them, "Congratulations.
You didn't give your password.
We're so happy for you.
We still need that password."
And then it would turn out that she was that person as well, and then she would use that
to get the password.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: And then I have one of the best
hackers out there.
He is one of the guys behind WikiLeaks, he wrote (saying name) and he is one of the guys
empowering the bitcoin currency.
He is still doing that job for many years now.
The four of us would work for a lot of banks, doing that for a while, and this was a great
job but the report.
But other than that, it was a really good job that I enjoyed doing.
And actually people, when I was asked what I do, they didn't remember my name but they
definitely remembered this job in those (indiscernible), so I felt I'm stable.
Until one day something happened that kind of changed everything.
Now, mind you, I still remembered liking to be a scientist.
I still just didn't think about that much.
So one day I was sitting in the office, and we were tasked in trying to break into a small
bank in Tel Aviv, a tiny branch, and we did a great job in figuring out how to do it in
one day.
So after one day, we could get into the bank, change accounts, move money from one place
to another, (indiscernible), say everything this was done, and I was ready to write the
report and sign off on everything when Tammy, the psychologist on our team, comes to my
office and she has this very aggressive and impatient look.
Now, I and all of us on the team knew she broke up with her boyfriend that week of nine
years because she wanted to have kids, he didn't want to have kids, they drag it for
awhile, and they end up deciding to break up that week and so I knew she's in a very
delicate state and I should be more patient with her when I talk to her.
And she came to me and said, "I want to talk to you about this report or this bank that
we just finished getting in.
I think we should re-open it and do one more thing with them."
I said, "What do you mean?"
She said, "Look at the contract we have with for them.
There's something there you should look at."
And she points out the contract that I have, and the contract looks generic like all the
contracts.
It has the job description, what we need to do, what we need to report.
And she points to one line.
I look at that line and I knew immediately that there's trouble coming.
This line said the team will employ any means of breaking into the bank, trying to find
their vulnerabilities, including software, hardware, physical and organizational.
And as I read that I knew exactly what she wanted.
She wanted us to try to break into the bank physically.
Now, up to that moment we always did that, but we were in an office, we logged in, we
tried things.
We never ever had the idea or the knowledge of how to actually go in a bank and take money,
but we're allowed to.
We were, in theory, allowed to do it.
They wanted us to study the physical security.
They wanted us to see if we can do things, and she was eager at this very delicate state
to do just that.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: And I said to her, "I don't
think it's a very good idea.
We don't know anything about bank robbery.
It's not our field.
It's not our profession.
I don't think we should do that.
This is a bad idea."
And she started arguing all kinds of things; some made sense, some did not.
And as she did that I looked to my right and I was reading a book at that time by Feynman,
"Surely You're Joking," a physicist that really influenced me in many ways, and he writes
something there about saying yes.
He said something about his idea as a scientist of taking on adventures and saying yes to
things and how this actually encouraged him to do good science and also to be an interesting
character.
And as I looked at her -- at this book, I also heard Tammy using the best argument so
far, which was, "Please, please, please, please, please let's rob the bank."
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: And I looked at this book, I
looked at her, and I said, "Okay.
Let's do it.
Let's try to break into the bank."
So I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to break into a bank before.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: There isn't a lot of information
out there for people who want to do that, like, commonly.
There's no "Breaking into Banks for Dummies" book or something.
You actually have to use some information from the Sopranos and the other TV series
you've seen or films or information that you somehow gathered yourself on how this is done.
Now the plan we had was pretty simple.
We were going to go to a small branch, only one teller.
Gaul, the young intern, is going to go first into the bank first.
He is going to act to be a customer and scan around the place and signal us from the inside
when there's only one person there, only the teller.
So no one is going -- there's not going to be any customer there.
We were afraid someone was going to, I don't know, pull a gun and start acting like a hero,
which would look really bad in the report.
So we made sure that no one is there.
And then Nathan, the fourth guy, he would stay outside in case something goes out of
hand and he is going to just come and save the day.
And Tammy and me are going to go inside and we are going to actually rob the bank.
So we get the signal.
It's Monday morning.
We approach the bank and we start walking toward the teller.
Now, as we walk towards there, there's like ten seconds where you can slowly -- time stands
still, and you walk towards her, and you know as long as you didn't say the words "This
is a bank robbery," you can take everything back.
You can still go and forget and nothing is going to happen.
But once you say those words, even if you say, "Never mind, forget it," you are still
in a bank robbery.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: So once you said the words,
there's no going back.
So I was hesitating for a while, but Tammy just broke up with her boyfriend.
She doesn't take any -- She went straight up and went to this woman, "This is a bank
robbery.
We are going to go back and take one of the safe boxes."
Now we made a lot of preparations before.
We knew which one we are going to take.
We knew there was one that has a little amount of cash.
We are going to take that into account.
And if I created the picture so far that this was like a perfect movie-like bank heist with
the excon, the psychologist, the intern, the teller was the character out of character.
She couldn't care less about these things.
She was studying for the SATs.
She put the bookmark and said, "Just a second."
Went to the back room.
Really not the character you want in a bank robbery.
So she goes with Tammy to the back room and there's Tammy trying to empty one of the boxes.
Gaul, this kid, he had another assignment.
His job was actually to use this time to take pictures of the bank and try to see those
kind of things that are actually physical problems like someone leaving a Post-It note
with a password next to a computer, something we can actually report.
Cameras that are not working on batteries that you can actually then take the batteries
off.
All kinds of things like that.
So he is doing that.
Tammy is in the back room emptying the safe box, and I with all the rehearsal, cannot
remember for the life of me what I'm supposed to do.
I'm sitting there waiting.
I could have brought a book or a crossword.
And I'm just waiting so I have nothing to do.
So I'm just looking around, waiting, waiting, waiting.
And then I see Gaul, who is a kind of short guy, he was in the bank trying to take a picture
of one of those drawers that were left with a key in it.
And he's pretty short so he's trying to take a picture and he couldn't reach it well, so
I say, well, I should at least help him.
So I go to this guy, hold my hands under, and he climbs on my hands and I hold them
together when he takes pictures.
Just as this happens, the teller comes back.
Now, for her, this was a customer in the bank, so you can imagine her look when she sees
the customer and the bank robber together trying to take pictures of the bank.
She is very surprised, so she realized right away that something is not right with what's
going on there.
Tammy comes back with the little box of the safe boxes we were going to empty, and I mistakenly,
apparently, open it.
And what I see inside is there's diamonds there.
Just simplest way of saying that.
We were expecting to have only a little money there we can take, but there were diamonds
and jewelry there.
This was not expected.
We didn't know that.
We were supposed to have only -- You know, money is easy.
You just transfer.
Jewelry is real stuff, and we can't take that.
And I tell her, "Tammy, we have to give it back.
This is not gonna -- there's no way --" [ Laughter ]
>>Moran Cerf: We're not insured for that.
This is something we cannot use.
We have to put it back.
We can't take it.
She says to me, "What are you talking about?"
And I said, "This is real."
And we start arguing in what now looks more and more like a Monty Python heist more and
more as we argue.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: All the while, Gaul, who has
now been exposed, he kind of looks at the teller, she looks at him, they're 17, or 25
and 17, and they start talking and he explains to her he's part of the team.
He starts engaging with her as kids do while I grab the box and I go back to the teller
in an apologetic way and I say, "Look, Miss, I'm really sorry, we have to give it back."
And she looks at me and says, "Here's the key.
You put it."
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: I take the key, go by myself
in the back room, start looking for the safe box and putting it.
Spend a few minutes doing that, come back to see the following.
I see Gaul giving his phone number to the teller.
Now, we had a long discussion over the weekend whether we should not or should wear ski masks
and gloves on us.
I'm pretty sure -- I didn't read any book, but I'm pretty sure Robbery 101, you don't
give your phone number to the person you are stealing from.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: At the same time, a customer,
a real customer entered the bank and she didn't even notice that something bad is happening
because it looked so mundane.
So she was actually writing a check for herself and holding her baby in the hands.
This is uncomfortable for her, so Tammy, who loves babies, offers to help her.
So Tammy is holding the baby, while this customer is writing a check.
So I come back, this is what I see.
I see Tammy holding a baby, singing a lullabye, and Gaul giving his phone number to the teller.
I realize this isn't going to work out.
I grab Gaul by the hand, I grab Tammy by the hand and we walk outside the bank in anger,
into the car and drive away.
Now, as we drove away I was kind of excited about it.
Tammy was a bit nervous.
She was not happy with all that happened.
Gaul in the back seat is pretty happy because he's got a date with this woman tomorrow.
And we kind of think about our day in the office, and I evaluate that and I tell myself,
you know, just saying yes to things actually led to something pretty adventurous that is
bigger than my job.
And while we fail, this might be a good time to think about things that I don't say yes
to normally and maybe consider that.
There's this thing that I was thinking about for a while that I wanted to do, and I just
kind of got into my job by getting into my job without thinking.
Maybe it's time to consider what I want to do.
There's a book that I read by Asimov that has a beautiful quote.
It says the bishop is the most important piece on the chess board in the eyes of the bishop.
And I felt like maybe I should think about the one thing that I wanted to do, and since,
you know, failure is part of my job, I might as well fail something that creates things
rather than destroy things.
And maybe I should fail in something that, in the end, if it works, promotes society,
not more than just a little bank but to greater things.
And this is when I decided that I'm going to change my career and restart everything
in a real profession I didn't know anything about.
So when I was at a party five years ago and this girl approached me and asked me what
I did, I took a deep breath and for the first time after many years of saying "I'm a bank
robber" and expecting a nice smile, I said, "I'm a neuroscientist.
And what do you do?"
She says, I'm a banker.
[ Laughter ] >>Moran Cerf: Thank you.
[ Applause ]