Of the two speakers Sonos announced earlier this month, the Era 100 is much easier to sum up: it’s a replacement for the Sonos One, which was first introduced in 2017. Unlike the Era 300, there’s no need to ponder the value of spatial audio; the Era 100 is a relatively straightforward mono speaker, just like the One and the Play:1 before it. Don’t let that simple description deceive you, though – the $250 Era 100 is a complete redesign, inside and out, and the end result is a worthy upgrade and a very versatile speaker.

Design

At first glance, the Era 100 looks quite similar to the One, but upon further examination you’ll notice a number of small but meaningful changes. That starts with the vertically-oriented Sonos logo that you’ll find on most of their other speakers like the Roam and, naturally, the Era 300. The Era 100 is slightly taller and deeper than the One; it’s also slightly deeper than it is wide. But it should fit basically anywhere the older speaker did.

The most significant external change is on top of the speaker. There, you’ll find a redesigned set of touch controls, including dedicated track forward and back buttons for the first time. Those surround the play / pause button instead of the volume controls that you’ll find on the One. Volume has been moved to a touch slider in the center of the touch panel. Tapping either side of it raises or lowers the volume, or you can slide your finger left and right. Using the slider takes a little practice, and it’s far too easy to go from silent to deafening, but there’s no doubt it’s better for rapid adjustments than tapping a button repeatedly. There’s also a spot to mute the mic, just like on the One.

There are also some major changes on the Era 100’s back. There’s no more ethernet jack or setup button. Instead, there’s a USB-C port you can use to plug in the $20 line-in adapter or the $40 combo line-in / ethernet adapter. On the one hand, it’s annoying to have to shell out extra cash for these adapters – but this is the first time Sonos has offered line-in at all on a speaker in this price range, so it’s not a total bummer.

Aside from the USB-C port, you’ll find another switch for muting the mic. Unlike the top button, which just mutes it with software, this physically disconnects the mic for additional privacy. Finally, there’s a Bluetooth button that puts the speaker in pairing mode.

As with most Sonos products, the company has done a good job here marrying clean, attractive design without compromising on functionality. Yes, the loss of the Ethernet jack will rankle a small number of users, but for the most part these changes are improvements. I wish that they just put a line-in right on the speaker instead of requiring a dongle, but I’m more glad that the feature is here at all than I am annoyed at needing to buy an extra piece of plastic.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Setup

Getting the Era 100 up and running is pretty simple, even if you don’t already have a Sonos system. You’ll need to download the Sonos app to your phone and set up an account; from there, the app will look and see if there are any speakers plugged in it can add. You’ll also need to log in to your audio services of choice, but after that you should be good to go. Obviously you can search for and play music through the Sonos app, but there are also options if you’d rather stick with the music apps you’re used to, like AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect.

There are a few optional but useful things you can do while you’re setting up the Era 100, though. The first is Trueplay, a feature that tunes your speaker’s audio output based upon where it’s placed in your room. Trueplay has been around since 2015, but in the past it required you to have an iPhone. You’d have to walk around your room slowly raising and lowering the phone while the speaker played a test tone.

The Era 100, though, can use its built-in microphones to listen and optimize its output – that process is much simpler and faster than the old technique, and Android users aren’t left out either. I’ve been extremely happy with Trueplay’s results in the past, so I’d recommend that everyone try this out. That said, I did find that the old, manual tuning process yielded slightly better results.

You can also add a voice assistant to the Era 100. Amazon’s Alexa has been supported since the One launched back in 2017, and last year Sonos added its own music-focused assistant. Setting up the Sonos assistant is a little easier than Alexa, because you don’t need to link your Amazon account, but both are pretty straightforward at this point. Sadly, where past Sonos speakers supported Google Assistant the Era 100 does not. This is likely due to the ongoing patent battles between Google and Sonos. I personally prefer Google Assistant to Alexa, so this is a bit of a bummer.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Audio quality

While new features like easier Trueplay and new controls are important, what I really wanted to find out was how the Era 100 compares to the One it replaces. (I’ve also been comparing it to Apple’s latest HomePod as well as the Era 300.) So far, I’ve been extremely impressed. It’s immediately obvious that the Era 100 is a notable upgrade over the One.

First off, the Era 100 is loud. Surprisingly so – it’s significantly louder than the One and the HomePod, and the Era 300 isn’t that much louder. Even a single Era 100 should provide enough volume for just about any room in your house. If you have a large open floor plan, you’ll probably want a couple speakers to cover the space rather than cranking a single, relatively small speaker to its limit. But in the vast majority of use cases one Era 100 should be sufficient.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to good sound than just volume. The Era 100 has significantly improved bass performance when compared to the One, again exceeding what I’d expect from a compact speaker. Bass-heavy tracks like Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” and Dragonette’s “T-shirt” had a solid thump without being overwhelming, especially at higher volumes. It doesn’t match the Era 300 or HomePod, both of which have more dynamic bass performance, but Sonos is getting a lot out of the Era 100.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

While I’m glad the bass has improved, I’m more impressed with the speaker’s overall clarity. The two tweeters definitely help make higher frequencies more defined. The sound profile is crisper and more dynamic than that of the One. The nuance and sheen of “California” by Chvrches and Metric’s “Formentera” came through wonderfully, while standard four-piece rock or metal like Metallica’s self-titled classic and Tool’s AEnima sounded lively and powerful. I also checked out my go-to film and game scores from Lord of the Rings and The Last of Us, and the intricate compositions were full and well-balanced. The One now sounds somewhat muddy by comparison, with both the highs and lows less distinct. The Era 300 sounds clearer still, thanks to the many drivers it has on board, but the 100 again is doing a lot with its comparatively limited speaker array.

If you have a larger space or just want increased volume and detail, I recommend getting two Era 100s and pairing them in stereo. While the Era 100 technically has left and right tweeters, the small size means there’s no real stereo separation to speak of. Putting two of them together naturally yields a much wider soundstage and brings out lots of details that get erased when you squish a stereo mix down to one channel.

A pair of Era 100s can also be used as rear surround speakers in a setup with one of Sonos’ soundbars. I didn’t test this, as I don’t have a great living room setup and I was more interested in the music performance, but it’s worth mentioning this feature. Sonos has long offered the option to use basically any of its music speakers as rear surrounds, and I’m glad they’ve continued with that here.

The Era 100 (and 300) are the first non-portable speakers that include Bluetooth connectivity. It’s exceedingly simple: just hold the Bluetooth button on the back of the speaker to put it in pairing mode and it should show up for your phone or other device to connect to it. I had no reason to use Bluetooth, but the fast setup and pairing process could be useful if you have a friend who quickly wants to play a tune over your speaker, for example. It’s not essential, but having more options never hurts.

Wrap-up

Sonos made a lot of smart decisions with the Era 100. The improvements it offers over the One are immediately obvious, both in sound quality and new features like line-in, Bluetooth and easier Trueplay setup. I don’t think Sonos One owners should necessarily run out and replace their speakers, but Sonos is now offering a better product at a $30 price increase, one that I think is justified for what you get.

Of course, Sonos makes things a little complicated because there are two generations of the One; they’re identical in terms of audio components, but the gen 2 model has more memory and a faster processor. If you have the One from 2017 or 2018, replacing it with an Era 100 will provide better sound and more future-proof internals.

The Era 100 isn’t the most exciting speaker I’ve listened to – I still have fond memories of being blown away by the Sonos Play:5 (now just called the Five) in 2015, and the Era 300 is also a delight. But when you take into consideration what most people will need from a speaker, the Era 100 provides impressive performance at a reasonable price.

According to a New York Times report, parts of Twitter’s source code were leaked online. Court filings published Friday reveal Twitter claimed copyright infringement to have the code taken down from Github as soon as possible. The code was removed the same day, but there’s no report on how long it was online for – or the leak's scope or depth. The Twitter executive who spoke with the NYT said the company's primary concern was that the source code could be used in future hacking efforts.

Twitter executives suspect it's the work of a former employee who left "within the last year." That might not narrow down the hunt for the leak. Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter last October, the company has shed roughy 80 percent of its staff.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Elon Musk reportedly values Twitter at $20 billion

The billionaire bought the company last year for $44 billion.

In timely fashion, Twitter owner Elon Musk says he valued Twitter at about $20 billion, according to an email seen by The Information and The New York Times. (Although this was before the reports of the source code leak.) Musk shared the valuation, a significant drop from the $44 billion he paid to buy the company last fall, in a memo he sent to Twitter employees on Friday announcing a new stock compensation program.

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It's your last chance to buy from Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS eShops

You'll still be able to download games you've already purchased.

It's the end of an era: Nintendo is shutting down its Wii U and 3DS eShops today at 5 PM PT (8 PM ET). After that, you'll no longer be able to purchase new games for those consoles, but you'll still be able to redownload titles you've already purchased. Some games will disappear forever, with 450 digital-only Wii U games, 600 digital-only 3DS games and 530 virtual console titles gone (at least from official channels), according to Video Games Chronicle’s estimates.

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Netflix strikes last-minute deal for ‘Arrested Development’ streaming rights

It’ll leave when it’s good and ready.

Fox

All five seasons of Arrested Development, including the two financed by Netflix, were set to leave the service on March 15th. However, the series is now staying put, thanks to a licensing agreement the company reached with Disney-owned 20th-Century Fox, the show’s original rights holder. According to Vulture, the new deal gives Netflix exclusive streaming rights to the series. As a result, the show’s first three seasons will not be available to watch on Hulu as of later this year. Notably, the deal reportedly gave Disney the option to sell the linear TV rights for all five seasons.

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Intel co-founder Gordon Moore has passed away

Moore famously predicted the miniaturization of computers in 1965.

Gordon Moore, co-founder and former CEO of Intel, has passed away at 94. He was the last surviving member of the Intel Trinity, which also included his fellow founder, Robert Noyce, and their first hire, Andy Grove. In 1965, Moore wrote a paper that envisioned the miniaturization of computers, introducing the world to his prediction dubbed Moore's Law.

He predicted the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year, leading to the creation and production of smaller and more powerful chips that would, in turn, enable advancements in technology. By 1975, he adjusted his estimate for the doubling of transistors to every two years, though top chipmakers disagree on whether Moore's Law still holds.

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If you've been waiting to purchase Microsoft 365 Family, now might be the right time. Amazon is offering a 12-month subscription for $100, down from $150 — plus a $50 Amazon gift card. Basically, you save $50 and get another $50 in spending money, not so bad. 

Your purchase includes all the usual Microsoft programs — Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook etc. — and 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage for easy sharing of photos and files across your devices.

Microsoft 365 is available to download immediately for up to six family members on PCs or Macs. The Amazon gift card, on the other hand, will arrive in the mail. It has no expiration date so as long as you don't lose the little card somewhere, you can hold onto it for a while (or spend it right away, no judgement here). 

If you choose to buy the family package, do yourself a favor and set a calendar reminder for just under a year from now. The subscription will auto-renew annually and there's nothing worse than finding out through a credit card statement. If you love it, great. If not, you'll have the option to cancel. 

This deal isn't completely new as Amazon offered the same one-day discount at the end of January. If you regretted skipping it then, here's your chance. But, you have to think fast, this deal is literally here today, gone tomorrow. 

It's the end of an era as Nintendo is shutting down its Wii U and 3DS eShops today (March 27th) at 5PM PST (8PM EST). After that, you'll no longer be able to purchase new games for those consoles, though you'll still be able to redownload titles you've already purchased for the time being. 

The company first warned of the eShop closures back in February 2022, and barred users from adding funds to their accounts on August 29th. Nintendo wrote at the time that that the move was "part of the natural lifecycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time."

That may be true, but a trove of over 1,000 digital games will be lost in the shutdown, including Dr. Luigi, Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge, and Pokémon Picross, to name but a few. In total, 450 digital-only Wii U games, 600 digital-only 3DS games and 530 virtual console games will disappear, VGC reported. Of the latter, 335 aren't currently available on Nintendo Switch Online. 

That means the only option for folks who want to play these classic games will be physical copies, which have soared in value. Many other download-exclusive games, meanwhile, will disappear for good. 

In yet another embarrassing development for new Twitter boss Elon Musk, court filings published Friday reveal that portions of the social media site's source code — the base programming that makes Twitter possible — have been leaked online, the New York Times reports.

Per court filings, Twitter claimed copyright infringement in an effort to have the offending code taken down from the Github collaborative programming network, where it had been posted. While the code was removed the same day, details as to how long the code had been left up were not made available, nor were the leak's scope or depth. As part of the takedown request reminiscent of Raytheon's famous -- failed -- attempt at court-sanctioned doxxing, Twitter also asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California to order Github to reveal both the identity of the user who posted the code and those who accessed and downloaded it. 

The NYT reports that, per sources within the company privy to the internal investigation into the leak, Twitter executives strongly suspect it's the work of a disgruntled employee who had left, "within the last year." Coincidentally, Elon Musk purchased Twitter last October for the eye-watering price of $44 billion and proceeded to lay-off and otherwise lose 80 percent of the company's staff, not the 75 percent that everybody feared Musk would enact in the run-up to his purchase.  

The executive who spoke with the NYT are primarily concerned that revelations gleaned from the stolen code could empower future hacking efforts, either by revealing new exploits or allowing bad actors to access Twitter user data. If the increasingly temperamental page functionality wasn't enough to send the site's user base running for the hills that the site's resurgence of scammers and white nationalists since Elon's takeover didn't already scare off, will the threat of outright hacking be the final straw for advertisers and users alike? 

Good news, Arrested Development fans. You can continue watching the highly acclaimed sitcom on Netflix. As The Verge outlines, all five seasons of the show, including the two financed by Netflix, were set to leave the service on March 15th. However, the series is now staying put, thanks to a licensing agreement the company reached with Disney-owned 20th Century Fox, the show’s original rights holder.

According to Vulture, the new deal will see Netflix gain exclusive streaming rights to the series. As a result, the show’s first three seasons will not be available to watch on Hulu as of later this year. Notably, the deal reportedly gives Disney the option to sell the linear TV rights for all five seasons of Arrested Development. That means the show could end up on network television, much like BoJack Horseman did in 2018. Losing Arrested Development would have been a tough blow for Netflix. After Fox canceled the series in 2006, it found a home on the streaming service and was one of its early draws. It was also one of the first Netflix Originals after the company and Fox commissioned a new season in 2011.

Elon Musk values Twitter at about $20 billion, according to an email seen by The Information and The New York Times. Musk shared the valuation, a significant drop from the $44 billion he paid to buy the company last fall, in a memo he sent to Twitter employees on Friday announcing a new stock compensation program. The billionaire reportedly warned Twitter’s significantly diminished workforce that the website was still in a precarious financial position. “Twitter is being reshaped rapidly,” he wrote, adding the company had, at one point, been four months away from running out of cash.

According to Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer, Musk additionally told employees he sees a “clear but difficult path” to a $250 billion valuation, a hypothetical outcome that would make the company’s current stock grants worth 10 times as much in the future. Musk said Twitter would allow staff to sell stock every six months, a policy similar to one in place at SpaceX. According to Musk, the program would give employees “liquid stock” while shielding them from the “price chaos” that comes with equity at a publicly traded company.

To put Musk’s valuation in context, at $20 billion, Twitter would be worth more than Snapchat creator Snap, a company with nearly 140 million more daily active users. It’s also worth noting that the estimate likely reflects the difficulties Twitter has faced as a direct result of Musk’s decisions. At the start of 2023, the company’s daily revenue was reportedly down 40 percent from a year ago after more than 500 of its top advertising partners had paused spending on the platform. Many of those companies left following the firm’s messy relaunch of Twitter Blue, which saw verified trolls abuse the service to impersonate brands. Based on recent reporting from The Information, there were only about 180,000 Twitter Blue subscribers in the US at the beginning of February, suggesting the service is nowhere close to making up for the financial downturn Twitter has experienced since Musk’s takeover.

The European Union has agreed to make a carveout for synthetic fuels in its proposed 2035 ban on the sale of new combustion engine cars. Per the Associated Press, the bloc made a deal with Germany on Saturday to allow automakers to sell new ICE cars past 2035, provided those vehicles run on climate-neutral fuels only. The agreement ends a dispute that had threatened to scuttle the EU’s signature climate change policy. At the start of March, the European Parliament delayed a vote that would have codified the proposed ban after Germany, with support from automakers, said it would not back the mandate without an exemption for synthetic fuels.

“We have found an agreement with Germany on the future use of e-fuels in cars,” Frans Timmermans, the executive vice president of European Green Deal, posted to Twitter on Saturday. “We will work now on getting the CO2 standards for cars regulation adopted as soon as possible.” Environmental group Greenpeace criticized the agreement. “This lazy compromise undermines climate protection in transport, and it harms Europe,” the organization wrote in a statement.

As The Guardian notes, making synthetic fuels is incredibly energy intensive. Moreover, without direct air capture tech, e-fuel cars produce almost as many greenhouse emissions as their conventional ICE counterparts. According to one estimate published before Saturday’s announcement, a carveout for synthetic fuels could result in as many as 46 million fewer cumulative EV sales in Europe by 2050 “without providing any additional CO2 savings.” It’s also worth noting that no company is producing synthetic fuels at scale yet. That’s a significant point because e-fuels are unlikely to save European drivers money. By 2030, Transport & Environment estimates the average EU driver will pay €782 a year more to fill their car's tank with synthetic fuel than conventional gas.

One of Engadget’s favorite pair of noise-canceling headphones is on sale at Amazon. After a nearly $85 discount, you can get the Sennheiser Momentum 4 for $265. If you’re not fussy about color, the white model is an additional $6 off. Either way, that’s a new all-time low for Sennheiser’s flagship Bluetooth headphones.

Engadget Senior Editor Billy Steele awarded the Momentum 4 a score of 82. He came away with their audio quality, noting they were among the best-sounding Bluetooth headphones he tested in 2022. Also impressive was their ANC performance and battery life. With noise cancellation turned on, Steele found he could get up to 60 hours of playtime on a single charge. That’s double what most noise-canceling headphones offer. If you don’t mind the Momentum 4’s somewhat forgettable design, they’re a great pair of headphones. I'll also note here Amazon has a handful of other Sennheiser products on sale, including the company's excellent HD 599 SE headphones. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

The internet has connected nearly everybody on the planet to a global network of information and influence, enabling humanity's best and brightest minds unparalleled collaborative capabilities. At least that was the idea, more often than not these days, it serves as a popular medium for scamming your more terminally-online relatives out of large sums of money. Just ask Brett Johnson, a reformed scam artist who at his rube-bilking pinnacle, was good at separating fools from their cash that he founded an entire online learning forum to train a new generation of digital scam artist.

Johnson's cautionary tale in one of many in the new book, Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry, from Harvard Business Review Press. In it, Professor of Forensic Accounting at DePaul University, Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope, chronicles some of the 20th and 21st century's most heinous financial misdeeds — from Bernie Madoff's pyramid schemes to Enron and VW, and all the Nigerian Princes in between — exploring how the grifts worked and why they often left their marks none the wiser.

Harvard Business Review Press

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry by Kelly Richmond Pope. Copyright 2023 Kelly Richmond Pope. All rights reserved.

Cyber Monday

I was doing my morning reading before class, and a story about a reformed cybercriminal caught my attention. I always wanted to learn more about cybercrime, but I’d never interacted with a convicted cyber offender. Here was my chance.

I did a quick Google search and found his personal website. I reached out, explained my interest in his story, and waited. By evening, I had an email from gollum@anglerphish.com. I was immediately suspicious, but it was a legit address of Brett Johnson, the man from the article.

After a few email exchanges, we got on a call. He was super friendly and had the voice of a radio DJ. I invited him to come speak to my class at DePaul.

“I teach on Monday nights for the next eight weeks, so whatever works for you will work for me,” I said.

“How about I hop in my car and come visit your class this coming Monday?” he said.

I was a little shocked—Birmingham, Alabama was a long drive— but I immediately took him up on his offer.

Brett was born and raised in Hazard, Kentucky, “one of these areas like the Florida Panhandle and parts of Louisiana, where if you’re not fortunate enough to have a job, you may be involved in some sort of scam, hustle, fraud, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

Maybe there was something in the water because his entire family engaged in fraud. Insurance fraud, document forgery, drug trafficking, mining illegal coal. You name it, Brett’s family did it.

Young Brett was a natural liar. As he grew up, he participated in the family scams.

Eventually, he branched out on his own. His first scam: in 1994, he faked his own car accident. Second scam: eBay fraud.

He reached his peak in the mid-’90s, during the Beanie Baby heyday. The Royal Blue Peanut, essentially a cobalt stuffed elephant toy, sold for as much as $1,700. Only five hundred of the dolls were manufactured, making it one of the most valuable Beanie Babies.

Brett was trying to earn some extra money. A Beanie Baby scam seemed easy and quick.

He advertised on eBay that he was selling Royal Blue Peanut for $1,500. Except he was actually selling a gray Beanie Baby that he dipped in blue dye to look like Royal Blue Peanut for $1,500.

He accepted a bid and instructed the winner to send a US postal money order. “It protects us both,” he said via email. “As soon as I get that and it clears, I’ll send you your elephant.”

The bidder sent Brett the money order; Brett cashed it and sent her his version of the blue Beanie Baby. The phone rang almost immediately.

“This is not what I ordered!” yelled a voice on the other line.

Brett’s response was swift. “Lady, you ordered a blue elephant. I sent you a blue-ish elephant.”

Brett gave her the runaround for a few weeks until she finally disappeared.

This experience taught Brett two very important lessons about cybercrime:

• Delay the victim as long as possible.

• Victims rarely report the crime and eventually go away.

Brett continued to perfect his skills and graduated to selling pirated software. From pirated software, he moved to install mod chips (a small electronic device used to disable artificial restrictions of computers or entertainment devices) into gaming systems so owners could play the pirated games. Then he began installing mod chips in the cable boxes that would turn on all the pay-per-view on clients’ TV channels for free. Then it was programming satellite DSS cards (the satellite DSS card allows access to tv channels).

He was getting requests for his cable boxes from customers all over the United States and Canada. He was on a roll. Finally, it occurred to him: Why even fulfill the cable box order? Just take the money and run. He knew that no customer would complain about losing money in an illegal transaction. He stole even more money with this updated version of his cable box scam but soon worried that he’d get flagged for money laundering. He decided he needed a fake driver’s license so he could open up a bank account and launder the money through cash taken out of the ATM.

He found a person online who sold fake licenses. He sent a picture, $200, and waited. He waited and waited. Then reality punched him in the face: He’d been scammed. The nerve.

No one hates being deceived more than someone who deceives for a living. Brett was so frustrated he started ShadowCrew.com, an online forum where people could learn the ins and outs of cybercrime. Forbes called it “a one-stop marketplace for identity theft.” The ShadowCrew operated from August 2002 through November 2004, attracting as many as four thousand criminals or aspiring criminals. It’s considered the forerunner of today’s cybercrime forums and marketplaces; Brett is known as the Godfather of Cybercrime.

“Before ShadowCrew, the only avenue you had to commit online crime was a rolling chat board,” he told my students. “It’s called a IRC chat session and stands for Internet Relay Chat.” The problem with these rolling chat screens was that you had no idea if you were talking to a cop or a crook. Either was possible.

ShadowCrew gave criminals a trust mechanism. It was a large communication channel where people in different time zones could reference conversations. “By looking at someone’s screen name, you could tell if you could trust that person, if you could network with that person, or if you could learn from that person,” he said. The screen name on the dark web became the criminal’s brand name. They keep this brand name throughout their entire criminal tenure and it helps establish trust with others, so the screen name matters.

When Brett was in class, he showed my students how information ended up on the dark web. “You can find social security numbers, home addresses, driver’s license numbers, credit card numbers on the dark web for $3,” he explained. All the information is there, practically begging to be taken.

In 2004, authorities arrested twenty-eight men in six countries, claiming they had swapped 1.7 million stolen card numbers and caused $4.3 million in losses. But Brett escaped. He was placed on the Secret Service’s Most Wanted list. After four months on the run, he was arrested.

Brett has been in and out of prison five times and spent 7.5 years in federal prison. Today he considers himself a reformed white-collar offender.