I spoke to Walter O’Brien again regarding his claims of being a genius, which is what the tinny CBS procedural Scorpion is loosely based on. I had been suspicious of O’Brien’s claims, as he proclaimed himself a bonafide supergenious yet sounded merely pompous and also said a bunch of stupid shit like that Blackwater should assassinate unpopular world leaders at will, which I found to be idiotic.
I was a little bit too easy on O’Brien in my first post, having taken for granted most of his claims as being halfway substantiated. They are not. To recap:
1) O’Brien claims to have the 5th highest IQ in the world.
2) He claims to have hacked into NASA’s database at which point he was given an Extraordinary Ability Visa by the US Government.
3) He claims he was a prolific computer programmer from a young age whilst living on a farm in rural Ireland.
O’Brien has propped himself up to a Godlike status, so initially I was intimidated to speak to him. Then I remembered God is just pretend. Once I started asking him questions I realized he is merely a liar who tricked CBS into purchasing the rights to his life story. CBS currently has him lawyered up and have apparently barred him from offering any details to people like me who call him pretending to be reporters from LA Weekly. He cannot back anything up.
When pressed, a nervous O’Brien points only to various news articles to substantiate his claims. Perhaps he knows the press corps died of smoke inhalation after Watergate and is currently represented mostly by lazy suckers who print what the government tells them, and that I, as an American, don’t hold them up to a high standard. I wonder if Jayson Blair ever did a puff piece on O’Brien? (RIP Michael Hastings.)
All of the lazy copy and paste repurposed articles written about O’Brien after he helped sell a TV show are based on one initial article in The Irish Times. This leaves one exhibit to backup to his plethora of claims. What if he convinced some dumb writer of a pack of lies and has coasted ever since? Or paid someone…
I asked O’Brien if he could prove his IQ score was valid.
“I can’t prove them beyond what has been written… the burden of proof would be on you to prove I am wrong.”
I’m not a genius, but I know when someone’s pulling the wool over my eyes. Pascal’s Wager debunked this type of schlock long ago. In short:
“God exists, because you can’t prove he doesn’t.”
Not really. God needs to come and introduce himself and until then you’re weird if you trust a guy you’ve never met. There is zero reason to believe any of O’Brien’s claims, and as he has been advised to not disclose any information by the morons at CBS who paid seven figures for his story and are advising him to keep mum, the burden of proof has shifted squarely onto him.
I don’t know if O’Brien’s computer security firm called Scorpion is legitimate or not. I don’t know how CBS can name a show after a legitimate business and not be fined heavily by the FCC either. O’Brien claims to have security contracts with the government, which I believe not necessarily because he told me, but because of his familiarity with paramilitary corporations such as Blackwater (they changed their name to Akademi because people started to talk) and Halliburton among others. The media frequently props up such war mongering one percenter stock holder associations, which I mentioned to O’Brien as he bristled.
“…This just looks like conspiracy theory stuff that does you more harm than good in my opinion. You are missing the real story here and the real good that comes out of the show.”
‘The real good.’ A TV show glorifying the military industrial complex and offering a nuanced world view, featuring a chubby nonthreatening male lead and a chick with nice tits. What am I missing? When I initially heard O’Brien speak about Scorpion he detailed his role as, aside from Executive Producer, a Consultant.
“I explain to the actors what they are actually talking about, help them grasp the concepts.”
The show isn’t that heavy bro, and these actors probably don’t appreciate you insinuating they are too dumb to learn basic bogus security jargon speak. They probably think you’re really annoying.
I don’t know if O’Brien is a shill. I do know his story is bullshit. I don’t really dislike him personally. I find it comical he was able to deceive CBS and everyone else into granting him EP rights on a network show. I know his story is a house of cards, and I genuinely hope he does not have me accidentally hit by a bus just for the halibut, although I doubt he is in that deep.
My only question at this point is whether the government is using him or not, and whether or not he is aware. I retain a healthy skepticism.
Music by Leonard Cohen.
3/3/15
@MatthewRalston – you and Mike Masnick (from TechDirt) are my heroes for calling out this douche-bag fraud Walter O’Brien. I am among many folks in the Los Angeles area (ok, Orange County) that know or have worked with Walter. The guy is full of shit through and through. As you have said, all of his bullshit is very difficult to disprove, and also cannot be proven by him. So, here we are, in purgatory – waiting for someone to blow the lid on this idiot. You may not be a big fan of God, but me and some of my peers that do know him are doing God’s work in trying show the regurgitated media who this turd really is. It’s a tough battle when CBS has already picked up the show and has drawn the wool over their eyes to protect their snake-oil investment. But anyone with half a brain wouldn’t fall for this nonsense, just check out his failed Reddit AMA for proof of that.
Anyway Matt, thank you for this brilliant piece. The truth is out there!
Its weird. Yeah. Thanks for reading.
You might also check the sites he is affiliated with. So far EVERY SINGLE ONE with a basic whois query on the site shows a “creation” date not older than 2011. Talentorumalliance.com / strikeforcecorp.net / scorpioncomputerservices.com and last but not least 2045.com (this one does have a creation date of 2000) . I know that doesn’t mean a company does not exist, but even microsoft shows a created date of 1991 I think. Yea he is a gov hacker spook, but even Lockheed is allowed to have a website, heck the Navy SEALS even have one. How come all the sites related to him seem to be all so new except one and that one is pretty out there.
Interesting. I don’t have all the time in the world to research this fraud, but that makes sense. Thanks for the feedback!
Doesn’t have a good point. People can be amazing so why do you insist on proving him wrong and do u really think if God is real that he would introduce himself to people. Doesn’t mean that he’s real but leaves the possibility.
People can be amazing? Yeah definitely. Usually the people who are amazing are not the people who lie about being amazing.
“I don’t know how CBS can name a show after a legitimate business and not be fined heavily by the FCC.” Why would the FCC have anything to do with this, or even care? Scorpion is just a title. If there was some trademark on it which applied, then surely O’Brien controls it. Still, he’s a fraud and otherwise a good piece.
Well my point was if this was actually a legitimate business it would be trademarked. I’m not an expert. Thanks for the read.
interesting… i live in ireland and did some digging on his early years, spoke to people he namedrops… 98% of his story in ireland is total shit. links ect in my timeline @half__ro
Let me know if you find anything. Thanks.
sue karlin recently published article with info myself and some others had found… for me there is a lot more to this, i want to talk to the irish journalist who published the vast majority of stories about him in the 90’s. I am convinced she was handed storeies and got them printed without questioning anything. I want to know who started the myth and where the stories originated. So far i have managed to get hold of one of her colleagues to try and convince her to talk.. nothing yet.
I will read it, thanks.
i had walter work on a network ACL project for capital group. he knew nothing of how network ACL’s worked. later on, he told a few people he bought a linksys router from fry’s. i should have fired his ass!
What a tool
He’s comically bogus.
It would be trivially easy to prove that Walter O’Brien isn’t a genius (proving that YES — you can disprove something quite easily). Just like it would also be trivially easy for Walter O’Brien to prove that he is one. All you have to do is give him an IQ test. When he fails to get anywhere near 197, he’s a fraud. As for God, you can’t prove whether God exists or does not exist. That’s true. You simply cannot claim to KNOW (as opposed to BELIEVE) that God is “just pretend.” Once you make a claim of KNOWLEDGE that also subjects you to a requirement to “prove your claim.” That’s why everyone who is intellectually honest is an agnostic–some are agnostic atheists and some are agnostic theists but ALL are agnostics.
True it would be much easier to prove Walter O’Brien is not a genius than to prove God’s existence. Thanks for reading. The site will now be updated frequently.
I was in the same class as Walter at university.. He was a total fantasist who would tell us he was tired from being up all night because Bill Gates wanted his opinion on things. He was a mediocre student and very much a laughing stock.. He does seem to have been quite successful at something though…
That’s not surprising.