Nobody who builds something on the back of a lies deserves, or gets, my respect.
To me, it would be in the same vein as saying, "All respect to him, he kidnapped and murdered people, but he makes 10 times the amount I do and hasn't been caught. Genius!".
>Well murdering people is on an entirely different level.
It is a different level, but dishonesty (particularly continuing and for the purposes of self enrichment) is still nothing to be proud of.
> I admire him purely for the ability to self promote.
He's not self promoting. He's promoting something that is not himself. Its fairly easy to make yourself look good and promote yourself by lying. Its much harder to do it in an honest way, someone who can genuinely self promote themselves based on their actual skills/achievements is someone to admire.
I was in first year of engineering when this guy (then in high school) walks in and gives a talk filled with such obvious bull and then gets a standing ovation from the faculty, most of whom weren't too knowledgeable either.
I consider him a genius because of his ability to fool people, just like all the Indian godmen who have a great time cheating the Indian populace.
1. Many folks are really computer illiterate beyond internet surfing and basic computer usage. If you show them a few tricks- you create the same effect a magician has on kids. People get mesmerized.
2. You can really fool people by marketing campaigns. "Best selling author" , "Helps crack emails for intelligence agencies" etc kind of campaign forces people to ask "Why would so many people buy his books, unless he has something genuine to write" - Hence increasing the books sales in this cycle.
A relative of mine did a ethical hacking certification from this guy. He showed it to all other relatives like waving a flag out of pride. Nothing that I told convinced the audience as to why the certification wasn't even worth the paper it was printed on. It was all like they were asking me to shut up and stop spewing negativity about it. They were like "At least he learned something through the certification".
3. Job promises and resume decoration, If you tell some one your are a certified ethical hacker. Ordinary joe, who knows nothing of the topic will not only believe you but rather offer you job over say an actual ethical hacker.
4. We like degrees, certificates and titles next to our names.
And lastly we just love famous people. Even if all they do is nothing. Bollywood is full of such examples.
Dont Worry, if you have been fooled.. The Music Channel - MTV had honoured him with the "Youth Icon" award, some years ago.. A big corporation like MTV could be going wrong, then think of your faculty...
All respect to him, I bet I make 10 times less with 10 times the IT skills.