"Digital Intrusion: Homeless Man's Bold Gym Hack"

[My bold, devious attempt at stealing identities, while sleeping behind a gym, homeless]

If you are an addict in recovery, an addict in active addiction, family member or friend of addicts, or an employee of just about any pawn shop in the world, chances are you are painfully aware of the fact that addicts will say anything, do anything and be anyone they need to be in order to get high, a sad(sometimes comical) reality of addiction. Need $50 for a nice speed-ball of meth and heroin? "Hey Mom, my iguana Steve slipped a disk at his gymnastic tournament and doesn't have insurance, he needs $50 for the copay can we help him out," said with golden confidence, "Son, you don't own an iguana and if your fictional iguana, who happens to have the most generic name possible, doesn't have insurance then there's no copay," says Satan. "Okay, i'm gonna do the right thing here. I lied i'm sorry. He has insurance he's just embarrassed because he spent all his money on Bibles for all the lost souls in the world." Checks out right? Thus the story continues.

[George Costanza] from "Seinfeld" delivering his famous line, "Jerry, it's not a lie if you believe it." This train of thought was quite common for me during my addiction.

I was less than 4 weeks homeless at this point, sleeping behind a gym in the Tech Ridge shopping center in North Austin. I lived behind an electrical box, which believe it or not, was actually quite hospitable! I had a concrete slab fresh with ever revolving amounts of sticky bird-shit to sleep on, no aerial coverage from rain or hail along with plenty of insects and vermin to contend with. A real ritzy environment. Deciding that life was being extra mean to me, downgrading me to my current situation, I decided I would spite the world by shooting as many speed-balls(meth & heroin in the same needle)as I could in the very spot where they made me sleep at night, to illicit feelings of guilt and shame from them(obvi-bro). Those assholes. I heard a rumor that Jesus doesn't even love them. They probably eat Tofu milkshakes for lunch and listen to Yono-Oko's greatest hits.

In my opinion, the most dangerous and damning foundational symptom of addiction is resentment. Resentment breeds victimization(why are you making me ruin my life!) and victimization breeds delusion. In the deluded, addicted brain, my solution to my problems is akin to drinking poison expecting you to die. When you die, I will go to your funeral and blame you for making me drink that poison which somehow bypassed my system, grew legs, jumped out of me and into you, killing you like you so justifiably deserved(hey I don't make the rules man). To the non-addicted, rational person, as well as chipmunk, squirrel and pretty much every other living being on earth, this rationale is b-b-b-bat shit fuckin' crazy. But to the addicted mind, "all ya'll are wrong, get your shit together, then get on my level." The struggle is real ya'll(holla if you hear me). Being a deluded, degenerate, pathologically lying, Chameleon-like junkie, this train of thought was just a normal Tuesday for me.

[Electric-Box] where I slept for months, behind the gym I attempted to victimize.

In-front of my palace in Shangri-La there was a gym which, at the time, was a 24 hour establishment. The best part about this gym was that anytime between 1am-6am, their was virtually no one inside other than the Dungeons-n-Dragons playing teenage employee who was about as bright as winter in Alaska. During my previous reconnaissance missions at the gym(always scheming), I noticed that the employee computers sat beautifully nestled in the back corner, safe from view(wait for it) and NEVER were logged out. Rookie mistake ya'll. Thus, I hatched a beautifully deviant plan worthy of an Academy Award.

One night I decided I would introduce myself to Dungeons-n-Dragons as a newly hired personal trainer. Being only a few weeks on the street, physically I looked fairly normal and could pass as a personal trainer with no problems. I would proceed to give him an outrageous back story of how I just wanted to "get ahead at work", due to my vicarious dedication, warning him that every now and then I would be popping-in late night to catch up on paperwork, fill-out forms online and rob them for everything they had. Okay I left out that last one. As I expected, Dungeons-n-Dragons not only bought it hook-line-and-sinker, he went on to ask me advice on work ethic, discipline and motivation. I graciously filled him in on how to achieve anything he put his mind too and praised him for his tenacity. I'm a really swell guy.

Now, knowing quite a bit about computer networks, software programming and black-hat hacking techniques, I proceeded to the next step of my mission- installing a non-detectable, remotely controlled keylogger on the system which handled all gym-goers payment information. If you're not familiar with keylogging software, it is what it sounds like- it logs every keystroke one makes on said computer. The installation took under 5 minutes, was only detectable when a certain keyboard sequence was initiated and it automatically reported every keystroke to an anonymous email I established. Although most people would call this a 1st degree felony, I chose to look at the glass half-full and call it in-genius(delusion anyone?)

Black Hat Hacker] term given to a group of malicious computer hackers.

Being the slimy convict shit-head that I was, I knew that I couldn't take each day's worth of illegally harvested payment information and start using it right away, lest more heat would eventually come down on me than Dwayne Wade in the NBA finals. So, my plan was to harvest the payment information for 30 days then strike all at once, all on one night and make away with my fortune, which I would then invest in low-risk stocks and bonds, IE Methamphetamine & Heroin.

There's a saying in religious texts, "be sure you're sins WILL find you out." I was quite aware of this, being raised in an evangelical Christian home, yet I figured I was exempt(because I

'm so special).Throughout my life I have become painfully aware of how God always stands ready to protect me from harm. Unfortunately for me, he ALSO stands ready to protect others from harm, which at this juncture meant myself. On the 30th day of harvesting stolen credit cards, debit cards, social security numbers, bank accounts and anything needed to completely steal someones identity, I giddily opened my email ready to conquer the world. When I opened the text file which contained the information, I smiled and laughed out loud. Due to most computer programmers being quite aware of degenerates like myself, there is a cute thing in cyberspace called data encryption. Essentially on this system what that meant was every number that had been recorded on said system had been replaced with random, hieroglyphic looking symbols, something that I took very personally. How dare these assholes protect their information. Didn't they know how smart I was? Who do they think they are? Fuckin-A man. After it was all said-and-done, I was left with a bunch of random names accompanied by even more random symbols which had absolutely no value or meaning. Thanks John Mcafee(dick).

[Verse] from the Bible which became my own personal omen.

As I grow more as a person I start to realize how at the time God was not only protecting the victims of my perpetration, he was protecting me as well. Obviously there were the potential legal consequences of my actions, which could of resulted in decades of prison time, but more importantly, he protected me from having something as egregious, horrendous and shameful as that on my conscience the rest of my life. Its bad enough that I went that far and attempted to do this awful thing to complete strangers all for my own sick junkie greed, something that led me to ledges, barrels of pistols and receiving ends of razor blades multiple nights due to the overwhelming guilt and shame I carried. But if I had successfully completed the task I set out to complete, I hate to think of what that burden would of felt like and ultimately how I would of handled that. I'm quite certain I would have ended my own life. The more I grow, the more I see and believe that God can take the darkest piece of sin and turn it into light, redeeming me and anyone else so far beyond what I thought was possible. This ultimately gives me much needed hope, gently encourages me to continue to make amends for my harm caused to others and provides me incentive to continue walking the path of recovery. For this I am eternally grateful.