The creator of the Facebook page “I f*cking love science” is journalism’s first self-made brand

In retrospect, I could easily have ignored the picture that appeared on my Facebook feed on a lazy Sunday two years ago, labeled simply “Sand under a 250x magnification.” Cheesy, I thought, glancing at the post, not noticing until my nose grazed the monitor that I’d leaned in closer to look. The grains looked like tiny manmade sculptures, ceramic bulbs of fuchsia, orange, and beige. The gee-whiz appeal of the image was sort of embarrassing, but the result was unquestionably beautiful—and the 5,000-plus people who debated its authenticity in the comments section, calling it, variously, “bullshit,” “impossible,” and “stunning, just stunning,” seemed to agree. In total, 102,832 people “liked” the image, which had been shared by a six-month-old Facebook page with an unforgettable name: “I Fucking Love Science,” or IFLS.

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During his last six years working as an elite security researcher for Google, the hacker known as Morgan Mayhem spent his nights and weekends hunting down the malware used to spy on vulnerable targets like human rights activists and political dissidents.

His new job tasks him with defending a different endangered species: American national security journalists.

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