Why Hacking Changed Part II.

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In my previous article I went about and on purposely provoked people with various statements. The reason I do this stems from the idea I learned in philosophy. I had many conversations with friends, strangers and people with a degree and without a degree in computer science, or any other science.



Consensus



In proper philosophy you generally learn to play the advocate of the devil. The reason why this is so important is because when you take on the standpoint of someone else, or someone you normally totally disagree with to defend the arguments you are against. Some people hated me for this a couple of times, which is actually very hilarious. And it is true. If you ever have a dialogue with me; be prepared. Because I can suddenly shift standpoints. Not for the reason to provoke someone, or not willing to stand my ground, but to come to a consensus about a topic and make other people feel insecure about their ideas I normally apply to. It also can spark a change in thinking of your opponent and yourself, which seeds the arguments even stronger. I mean, the only way you know you are right, is because you believe I am wrong because of my false arguments.



A problem and a solution.



Change is often difficult, it involves a certain acceptance. But on the other hand it can also be exciting. In business, change often means opportunity. And there are a lot of lessons to be learned from business men. An opportunity to change perspectives doesn't come around often. Usually it is biased by interests. Everyone has interests, vendors must ensure their income and usually that happens through pure lies, or ignorance. No business men is interested in the real science or passion behind a product. They have people for that, so in computer security --which is a serious topic to be concerned with-- it is difficult to read between the li(n)es and screen everyone's agenda. Why are they saying what they are saying? on which interests do they act? and so on.



History produced some refreshing quotations by many artists and scientists. Some even leaked insider information in them. Quotes like: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources" -by Einstein, or, "If anyone ever knew how hard I worked to come to my mastery, it wouldn't be that fantastic at all." - spoken out by Michelangelo, shows a different kind of image of the scientist or artist that myths produce. Generally success comes with a price, you get what you put into it. If you are into security, hacking, science or the Arts, it usually works this way.



The problem with hacking is, that it never meant to be a criminal endeavor. But when it does, it no longer is a passion for breaking security measures. A criminal doesn't care how he enters a building, like business men he is interested in financial gain, not the actual knowledge how to pick locks for the passion of it. Since my early teens, I toyed with electronics and built various electronic circuits. Not for financial gain, but for the joy it. It is the best spent time ever to engulf yourself into your passions and joys. You have nothing to prove, you haven't got a clue about the ego, and you don't have interests. This changes of course, because with the knowledge you've gained with just hacking around electronics or computers, you can play tricks on people. Not necessarily for some gain, but pure curiousness.



When you see a watch, you want to know how the watch looks from the inside. At least, I'm interested about that. I took apart about anything I got my hands on, to great frustration to my parents sometimes. I mean, it's obvious when I detonate capacitors in my bedroom by feeding it too much voltage, just to see what happens. That is a totally different idea of hacking and what it really means. The utter uselessness of any art is a high virtue. When usefulness arises, it usually becomes a dull form of entertainment or practise, it get's rid of it's actuall meaning which is no meaning.



Opportunism is key.



Criminals only want to gain access to what is inside and what is protected by the perimeter. They want their objective as quickly as possible and low cost. This is where hacking changed to be a sport to a profession. Anyone who trades in his passion for money, will indulge in these kind of acts and gain a sole interest in the object instead of the perimeter. Naturally, the more secure it is, the more knowledge is needed to bypass it. Well, not necessarily. This is where it changes. What would you do, if your target was vulnerable to SQL injection? sure, you could go nmapping the target and hope something pops up. A more logical way is to just to try it with a browser, you'll know in 20 seconds if you can get in, and if not, you can resort back to network scanning. I don't know about you, but it figures. Committing a crime means exploitation of means, and the more easy it is the better.



To close this article, I wrote a little story to sketch the issue. Criminals are opportunistic, and usually choose an easy target, but in some cases a hard target can bring about unusual opportunities equally without trying to bypass a complicated system, but rather to make use of it's functionality and human errors.



The Night Shuffle.



On a cold and rainy night with a full moon in the sky, he saw his target. In a rural area of town, he walked like a shadow among the empty streets. Suddenly his eye fell on a mansion on his left. He noticed that the mansion was surrounded by huge fences. A red sign on one of the fences marked the presence of sentinel dogs. Since it was raining, the dogs did not run about and were probably a sleep in a shed in the backyard. He saw no cameras as he used a special tool which scanned for optical augmentation, that reflects light of the lens of a camera anywhere the size of a pinpoint. He knew that the security company roaming the area worked in shifts, and he knew those shifts because people are predictable. He had a time frame of at least a half an hour before the security guys comes back and do his nightly round. He observed the mansion, and saw the kitchen window which wasn't closed completely. Then his attention went to the fences, and noticed that they are installed by a security company he worked for. He even designed the system they had in use. He knew, that it was secure. He also knew that he could not bypass it without tripping the alarm. He must find another way of getting to the object without trying to bypass it's security, otherwise he will get caught.



He didn't saw any other way, than to open the box outside with a set of keys he owns, and tried to tamper with the system he designed himself. It couldn't be bypassed, but still he wanted to give it a shot. Maybe the the guys who installed it left some clues inside it, since it required a special kind of unique wiring that was different in every system to prevent first hand knowledge of how it was wired. No luck, it was impossible without tripping multiple sectors this way. He went back and sat in his car, pondering for a solution. After some time the security guard came along and stopped before the mansion, the burglar noticed that the guard punched in the code and went inside. He got out of his car, through the rain and figured that when the guard disables it, he system is bypassed until the guards turns it back on again. He went through the gate in the backyard and waited until the guard went away. The guard will return in two hours, so he had enough time to get into the house and find his objects of desire.



He noticed as he walked around the house that the mansion was only protected by one heat/motion sensor in the corner of the hallway. Since the house was surround by a fence he could freely move without being in fear of someone sneaking up on him. That is the great advantage of fences he figured. He could bypass the sensor. The sensor detects motion and heat, they need to be detected both, before the alarm trips. So, he either have to move at a very slow pace, or don't radiate body heat. Since it was freezing cold that day, and he being out in the pouring rains for several hours, he had a good chance of getting undetected due to his low body heat emission, if he walked slowly across the hall into the living room. He climbed into the kitchen widow, and tested his luck. it worked, he moved at a slow pace and due to the cold his body heat was not detected. He noticed that the owners were not at home, maybe they went on a trip or something, and so he made his way through the whole mansion. He was done, went outside in the pitch black backyard, waiting for the guard to return.



When the guard returned, he made his escape through the gate and walked away into the dark night with his objects of desire...