[ISN] Ankit Fadia Revealed

http://forbesindia.com/article/beyond-business/ankit-fadia-revealed/34793/0

By Charles Assisi
Forbes India
FEATURES/BEYOND BUSINESS
Feb 26, 2013


Dear Ankit Fadia,

First of all, I’d like to place my unconditional apologies on the record. In 
fact, before I started to write you this letter, I promised my colleagues these 
pages will be used to crucify and call your bluff before your 16th book on 
computer security hits the shelves a few months from now.

These apologies come with the awareness that it will cost me friendships I have 
cultivated for years in the dark corridors of the internet where people like me 
lurk and are known to each other only by our nicknames.

For a very long time, I’ve despised you as a charlatan. There used to be a time 
when I thought you a script kiddie, or a skiddie if you will. You know what 
comprises those types—plagiarists who pass off software programs developed by 
others as their own. That is why on every forum that matters, I’ve rubbished 
your credentials as a hacker of any merit. I’ve openly accused you of shameless 
self promotion. And each time you appeared on television shows or in print as 
one of the most prominent experts on computing and security in the world, I’ve 
laughed my backside off. I told everybody who cared to listen you’re nothing 
but a bag of gas, whose reputation was built by shoddy journalists that eagerly 
lapped up the tall stories you doled out.

Like I told you the other day, I thought it impossible how the books you’ve 
authored until now could possibly have managed to sell 25 million copies. I 
thought it completely ridiculous on your part to claim you were contacted by 
American “intelligence agencies” for help to decipher an encrypted email sent 
by Al Qaida operatives post 9/11.

But after an email interview and five hours of talking the other day, all I 
have to say is mea culpa. You are perhaps one of the smartest 27-year-olds I’ve 
met in all my years in journalism. And I’m willing to bet every rupee I have 
you’ll go a very long way because you’re twice as smart as CEOs I know who are 
twice your age—and that you are exponentially smarter than I am.

My interaction with you taught me a few lessons that I won’t forget and ones 
I’m sure people in the C-suite will do well to imbibe.

[...]


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