As a teenager, HD says he ran ToneLoc across the entire 512 area code for years.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“I was running ToneLoc across the entire 512 area code pretty much every night for years.”
Episode
05 April 2022 Official episode · Official transcript
research penetration test bug hunter
Interview with HD Moore covering his early phone-system exploration, professional penetration testing, creation and evolution of Metasploit, exploit disclosure, Meterpreter, legal concerns around dual-use security tools, and his later network-discovery work.
Topics: Exploit development and exploit toolkits, Penetration testing, Payload and exploit modularity, Shellcode and NOP encoders, Antivirus and network-detection evasion, Vulnerability disclosure and public exploit publication, Zero-day vulnerability discovery, Samba exploitation, Browser and ActiveX fuzzing, Meterpreter post-exploitation, In-memory payloads and persistence boundaries, Credential hash collection, Wireless evil-twin and fake-access-point attacks, Botnets and command-and-control infrastructure, DDoS attacks and DNS redirection, ARP spoofing, Network discovery and device fingerprinting, Patch reversing, Heap exploitation, Dual-use security tooling and legal risk, Open-source licensing and commercialization, Wassenaar Agreement and export controls
Links published on the Darknet Diaries episode page. Not LLM output.
No Sources heading on this episode page.
Qualified statements from this episode, not graph facts.
As a teenager, HD says he ran ToneLoc across the entire 512 area code for years.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“I was running ToneLoc across the entire 512 area code pretty much every night for years.”
HD Moore USES War dialing
HD used war dialing to find computers accepting inbound connections.
Explicit Confidence 97% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“he started dialing random numbers to see if any would be picked up by a computer.”
HD Moore MEMBER_OF Computer Sciences Corporation
HD says Computer Sciences Corporation gave him his first security-related job.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“he set me up with a interview with Computer Sciences Corporation”
Computer Sciences Corporation ASSOCIATED_WITH Air Intelligence Agency
CSC was doing work for the Air Intelligence Agency, formerly referred to as AFIC.
Explicit Confidence 94% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“they were doing work for – I think at the time it was called AFIC, or – it eventually became AIA.”
HD Moore MEMBER_OF Digital Defense
HD says he and the team left CSC and started the startup Digital Defense.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“So, we took the whole team and started a startup. That was Digital Defense.”
Metasploit DEVELOPED_BY HD Moore
HD is described as deciding to make Metasploit to organize and share his exploits.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“that’s why HD Moore decided to make Metasploit.”
HD Moore USES Metasploit
HD used Metasploit to conduct penetration tests and test systems.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we desperately needed this tool to do our job”
“HD even tried attacking it with Metasploit”
Metasploit USES Samba zero-day exploit
HD says he wrote his own version of the Samba zero-day exploit and put it on metasploit.com.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we wrote our own version of the exploit, put it on metasploit.com”
Samba zero-day exploit EXPLOITS Samba remote zero-day
The exploit was created for the previously unknown remote Samba vulnerability.
Derived Confidence 96% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“he realized this was a completely unknown vulnerability to everyone, which is called a zero-day exploit”
Samba zero-day exploit AFFECTS Samba
The zero-day exploit targeted the Samba service running on the employer's demo website.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“They developed their own exploit and attacked HD’s employer’s website”
“there’s a really awful remote 0-day in Samba”
Samba zero-day exploit DISCOVERED_BY HD Moore
HD captured the incoming traffic, carved out the exploit, and analyzed the unknown Samba vulnerability.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we were able to carve out the initial exploit”
“Did some analysis on it”
Metasploit USES ARP spoofing
An attacker ARP-spoofed an ISP gateway in an attack connected to the Metasploit website.
Explicit Confidence 91% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“ARP-spoofed the gateway by hacking the ISP’s infrastructure”
Blaster USES Metasploit
HD says Windows shellcode first published by Metasploit soon appeared in the Blaster worm.
Explicit Confidence 95% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“The first Windows shell code ever published by Metasploit ended up in the Blaster worm almost immediately afterwards.”
Butterfly botnet DEVELOPED_BY Iserdo
The episode says Iserdo created the Butterfly botnet.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“The Butterfly botnet was created by a guy named Iserdo”
Kronos DEVELOPED_BY Marcus Hutchins
The episode says Marcus Hutchins developed malware that became known as Kronos.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“he developed malware which became known as Kronos”
Meterpreter DEVELOPED_BY Matthew Miller
HD identifies Matthew Miller, known as Skape, as the architect behind Meterpreter.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“Meterpreter was the brainchild of Matthew Miller, Skape”
Metasploit USES Meterpreter
Meterpreter is presented as a payload integrated into Metasploit.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 114 Details
“At some point, Metasploit got a new feature called Meterpreter.”
Meterpreter USES Remote desktop access over VNC
Meterpreter could load a VNC desktop-sharing service in memory and provide immediate remote graphical access.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we had a way to load the VNC desktop-sharing service in memory as part of the payload itself”
HD and colleagues used browser fuzzers to find large numbers of Internet Explorer and ActiveX vulnerabilities.
Explicit Confidence 99% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we put together some browser fuzzers”
HD used the Karma toolkit on an airplane to induce wireless clients to connect and reveal password hashes.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“we thought it’d be fun to run this tool on the actual airplane”
Metasploit OPERATED_BY Rapid7
After Rapid7 acquired Metasploit, a Rapid7 team worked on it full time and commercialized a professional version while keeping the framework open source.
Explicit Direction flagged Confidence 97% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“Even now, there’s a whole team at Rapid7 working on Metasploit full time.”
Metasploit ASSOCIATED_WITH Wassenaar Agreement
HD says Rapid7 lobbying helped separate Metasploit framework from the Wassenaar Agreement's US interpretation.
Explicit Confidence 94% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“splitting Metasploit framework from the Wassenaar Agreement”
SAINTexploit ASSOCIATED_WITH Metasploit
HD describes SAINTexploit as having substantial similarities to Metasploit framework, including shellcode and exploit code.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“Half this shell code is ours and half these exploits really look really like the code that we wrote.”
HD says he started Rumble after leaving Rapid7 to work on network discovery.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“I started my own company about three and a half years ago doing network discovery stuff. So, Rumble”
Rumble Network Discovery DEVELOPED_BY Rumble
Rumble Network Discovery is presented as the product created by the Rumble company.
Explicit Confidence 98% · HD Moore EP 114 Details
“the product Rumble Network Discovery can now find all your networks”
Works mentioned in the transcript. Distinct from show-note sources.
Model gpt-5.6-luna · prompt 1.5.19 · schema 1.5.19 · 2026-09-13T07:32:59.834729+00:00