I had an engaging conversation with Emily Crose, a renowned cybersecurity expert, former US intelligence officer, and co-founder of Neuralized AI. Emily, with her extensive experience at the CIA, NSA, and United States Army INSCOM, delved into her latest book, Hack to the Future, which explores the transformation of hackers over the last 50 years. In the discussion, Emily highlighted how hacking communities, once seen as fringe outlaws, have evolved into vital assets in geopolitics. She said: "It takes about 50 years for this sort of weird, misfit group of hackers to go from freelancing to becoming resources that governments actively seek to recruit. The shift from seeing hackers as outlaws in the early '90s to consulting them in Congress by the late '90s marks a significant transformation." Emily also emphasised the global context of hacking, challenging the traditional US-centric narratives: "Technology didn’t exist in a vacuum in the 1970s. Other countries had similar technologies...