Michael S. Smith II

Michael S. Smith II is the cofounder and COO of Kronos Advisory, a private defense contractor that specializes in counterterrorism intelligence. In 2015, Smith’s work started creeping beyond the scope of Kronos’s usual projects to include a unique new alliance: He started acting as a semi-official liaison between U.S. intelligence agencies and anonymous "hacktivist" groups like Ghost Security Group and Controlling Section, which are infiltrating the Islamic State’s extensive online presence and gathering crucial, life-saving information. From picking apart terrorists' communications on Twitter to exposing real-world terrorist plots before they unfold, Smith and his nameless conspirators are at the forefront of intelligence gathering in the 21st century.