Hacking Tools, The Art Of Deception

#lying #deception #hacking #conversation

Talking, typing, reading, writing, texting, conversing, things we do each and every day.  Sometimes we tell the truth, sometimes we lie, sometimes we fabricate, and sometimes we turn a small story into a massive hyperbole.  This is common human interaction at its most basic of levels, its the foundation of modern society, and despite the fact most of the world views the hacker culture as a culture based on completely anti-social behaviors.  Reality dictates that we need some form of human interaction to be completely successful in our art.

Lets start with how and why this is a tool based on an interaction I had on the internet last night.  Young guy starts a post on a forum stating he wants to learn to hack, that's all well and good, I have no issue with helping educate someone, but they need to pass a small test for me to help for two reasons.  I don't want my ass thrown in jail for being an accessory, nor do I want to be subpoenaed for information.  Second reason, I want to see if you can lie or tell the truth without a vivid line separating fact from fiction.  So I ask the kid what his intentions are and he says he wants to hack steam accounts.  He's already failed this test with flying colors, he threw out all his cards on the table for the whole world to see, and shared his actions were of the ill variety.

Look I don't care what you plan on doing, could be good, could be bad, but I'm not going to give information to someone who would jeopardize me, you have to think of whats best for you.  So after a good whipping on the forum I said telling the world what your intent was, is stupid, you never say out loud, on the internet, that you want to steal steam accounts, you request information to learn for the sake of learning.  Lie to me, lie to the world, tell the world you want to learn, tell the world you don't want to do bad ever, you clean the slate of potential badness and you're good.  Yet this kid continued on, he said he wanted to play pranks on his friends and wanted to see how powerful he could become while hacking.

Once again he failed the test twice, I proceeded to give him a second lashing on the internet, don't do that, don't be stupid.  If we willfully shared information with someone who intended to use it for bad reasons, we would be lumped in with it and, its not good for us.  He continued to fail this simple test, and its one of the most important skills to have as a hacker.  Someone gave me crap for tearing into the kid, but I don't care, duplicity is one of the most rudimentary skills required by a hacker to be effective.  Gaining trust, being able to hold a conversation, being able to articulate your opinions and views, even if those opinions and views aren't your own, this is the beauty of deceit.

As I've said a million times over, I love social engineering, it is a key point in doing what we do.  For example, people make passwords they can remember based on events in their lives.  Favorite baseball team, their wedding date, their dogs name, their kids name, things you need to know about them.  You can easily get someones password if you know them, hell sometimes they'll even offer it up because they aren't thinking.  Post it notes plastered everywhere with bank account numbers, with social security numbers, all over their physical house.  Being able to stand next to someone you plan to deceive is paramount in an attempt to be efficient.

Our world isn't all black screens and colorless text, its not all port scans and punch cards, if you plan to deceive digitally, you must be able to do so as well verbally and physically.  Back to the kid who wanted to hack steam accounts, his friends have probably said their steam passwords a million times over, just not in order.  "My birthday is 7/26/1993, I like pizza"  Boom Pizza93, oh snap, you're in.  Its that simple.

I know I probably sound like a broken record here, but deception, the art of lying, the ability to bamboozle, is in my opinion the most important skill a hacker can have.  A second nature ability that will make your spidey senses tingle when someone says "we leave at 4:30 and no-one is in the office between 5:00 and 7:00".  The skill that makes you convince someone into offering you the keys to their house inadvertently when they say "going to the mall, no-one is home for the next 6 hours" on facebook.  Knowing when to attack, knowing how to attack, and knowing what to attack, need to be known before you can follow through with any plans.  Without this black and white ability, you only put yourself into the jaws of the beast, and anyone associated will offer up their limbs as penance for your errors.

The goal is simple, blend in, hide in plain sight, go un-noticed, and never get noticed.  Never show your hand, but expose someone elses.  Exploit what can be heard, seen, or read, but never exploit what is watching, reading, and listening.  Allow your words and your actions make you boring and uninteresting, despite the fact you're possibly the most interesting person in the world.  Learn to lie, and learn to lie well.  To the guy I gave a lashing too, was only trying to push you to lie, and lie good.  Next time someone wants to know why you want to know something that isn't by definition a good thing to do, lie to them as well.  And as always, be safe my goblins.

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