If you’re on social media and into magic (and if you’re reading this, you very likely are), odds are good you’ve been served up “The Mask Magic,” a guy wearing a Money Heist Dalí mask exposing tricks to his million-plus subscribers. This person profits off the exposures, and this understandably annoys many people, including Andi Gladwin, who reached out to his friend Mishaal Khan, an expert in open source intelligence, to unmask the exposer.
Khan figured out the identity of “The Mask Magic” in little time, and he walks through how in a YouTube video shared on his channel. The process was fascinating—I learned fun new terms like “Google Dorking”—though it was a bit scary to see how much information is available out there to those who spend a few minutes looking for it.
Google Dorking aside, it ultimately was a house plant that gave away that The Mask Magic was a 50-year-old magician from Italy. Watch the 10-minute video yourself to see how it all goes down:
After Khan’s video made waves in the magic community, Gladwin talked to One Ahead about what he hopes the exposure of the exposer will accomplish. “It’s very easy to expose someone and then watch the internet do its thing, but that’s not really justice, is it?” he said. “If this guy sees this, reflects on it, and genuinely changes his ways, I hope the magic community will be ready to welcome him. Magic is a small world, and mistakes get made, especially when views, money, and clicks are involved. The creative community is better served by redemption than by destruction.”