Spotting Moguls - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this blog post in 2007.

What's so bad in being a mogul?

• Moguls are boring
• Moguls are predictable
• Moguls are biased
• Moguls often use their company's over-valued financial performance -- excluding the initial investment -- as a speaking platform
• If Moguls blog, it would be on the Insecurities of Sun Tanning and everything in between
• Moguls conveniently "exclude the middle" taking credit for the Moon's announcing phrases
• Moguls often whine when they should scream
• Moguls preach, rather than teach
• Moguls neatly restart the threat cycle of a particular threat in a mostly self-serving manner
• Moguls spend too much time not just looking into the mirror, but talking to its reflection
• Moguls are bad the way synthetic drugs are, and with the time you don't have a choice buto start listing to "those voices" -- rats have big ears.
• Moguls are a bad, yet amusing necessary evil, one that must be professionally dealt with.
• Even more amusing they become, as they start baby booming.

Stay tuned!

Ten Signs It's a Slow News Week - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this blog post in 2007. 

• Articles starting that malware increased 450% during the last quarter - of course it's supposed to increase given the automated polymorphism they've achieved thereby having anti virus vendors spend more money on infrastructure to analyze it
• Articles starting that spam and malware attacks will increase and get more sophisticated

• Articles discussing a new malware spreading around instant messaging networks -- psst they're hundreds of them currently spreading

• Articles discussing how signature based malware scanning is next while an anti virus vendor's ad is rotating on the right side of the article

• Articles commenting on an exploit code for a high risk vulnerability made public -- it's been usually circulating around VIP underground forums weeks before it made to the mainstream media, with script kiddies leaking it to other script kiddies

• Articles pointing out how phishers started targeting a specific company

• Article emphasizing on how mobile malware will take over the world, despite that there no known outbreaks currently active in the wild

• Articles pointing out that having a firewall and an updated anti virus software is important

• Articles discussing which OS is the most secure one

• Articles mentioning the percentage increase in the thousands of spam and phishing emails for the last quarter

Stay tuned!

Bureaucratic Warfare Against Unrestricted Warfare - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this blog post in 2007.

In a people's information warfare scenario, the masses of end users wanting to contribute bandwidth being recruited on a nationalism level, will simply infect themselves with malware courtesy of the technical crowd possessing the capabilities to come up with such a malware. In an arrogant people's information warfare, the technical crowd or the "bot source compilers generation" will not just distribute DoS attack tools and a targets list, they will backdoor the DoS tool itself, just like the case with this tool which I believe was distributed during the frontal hacktivism attack. 

Moreover, it wasn't a cyberwar, as it any type of war you have both sided loosing or gaining tactical advantage, it was a virtual "shock and awe".

Stay tuned!

The U.S is Facing a Cyber Warfare Doctrine Crisis - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this blog post in 2007.

Is it just me, or I get depressed when I come across the words - U.S Cyber Command, Twiki.net and serial entrepreneur in the same article? Someone once said that in the long term mega corporations and governments will be mainly involved in Talent Wars, and he was right. After reading this article, I bet that Chinese cyber warriors will issue an email to their internal mailing list entitled "The Depressing State of the U.S's Cyber Warfare Doctrine" and someone will respond "What Cyber Warfare Doctrine?!". Cutting the sarcasm, this is either a sophisticated PSYOPS to on purposely let others underestimate the Cyber Command's upcoming decentralization point in history, or Human Resources department in the rush to meet a deadline.

Great stuff, so if every agency is doing whatever every agency feels like doing, you'll have several agencies collecting intelligence on the same individual/group of individuals, who will inevitably end up in a situation where they'll be collecting raw and unique to them only data, one that some of the other agencies would have already obtained and marked as outdated and irrelevant under the current circumstances.

Why the emphasis on decentralization, when it should be on distributed management as a concept?

How can you centralize your opponents when they've already reached the unrestricted warfare stage, and have long been envisioning the potential of people's information warfare?

I guess that is the core of decentralized management is that everyone is doing whatever he feels like doing.

Stay tuned!

Should a Country Physically Bomb the Source of the Cyber Attack? - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this post in 2007.

It all started with the basic speculation that a superpower should aim to physically bomb the source of the cyber attack.

Here are some thoughts:

- physically bomb the source of the attack is not a metaphor, its an indication of the wrongly understood situational awareness

- install a hxxp://makelovenotspam.com type of screensaver on each and every U.S government PC, have it periodically obtain the last list of hosts to be attacked, obtained from a central Target List repository

- if the U.S is to attack those attacking the U.S, a third party interested in taking advantage of the U.S's bandwidth and know-how would easily make it look like someone else is attacking the U.S and have the U.S attack the third party enemies

- the myth of lining up your army, and waiting for the other army to appear at a particular battlefield doesn't exist in a cyber guerilla information warfare, where you're the visible target, and your enemy is everywhere. 

- each and every of the comments regarding the stereotyped type of adversary talk like the adversary has a home address, physical headquarters

- there's no physical location to be bombed, there's no IP to be DDoS-ed since it's not theirs, there's no home PC of the commander to take control of.

The bottom line, some of the most insightful and visionary for decades to come cyber warfare research papers I've ever read, were written by U.S army researchers. However, as if pretty much everything else in life, those who don't know are usually the one holding up the positions where they're supposed to know more than everyone, and exactly the opposite.

Stay tuned!

A Pragmatic Cyberwarfare Doctrine - What Money Cannot Buy - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this post in 2007. These are basically some notes that I took on the emerging back then cyber warfare doctrine problem that the U.S was facing.

Key summary points:

- never let an insider do an outsider's job

-the convergence of conventional military capabilities and asymmetric warfare

- bombing the source of the attack means, you'll have a U.S strategic bomber bombing a place somewhere in the U.S.

- subverting the enemy without fighting

- cyberwarfare attack from inside the fortification

- virtual cyber warfare competitions in a controlled environment

When you dedicate the largest proportion to keep up with the conventional military arms race, it's the superpower, or a third world country that would defeat your entire conventional military arsenal by not even confronting with it, and thus, by lacking the point of engagement render it useless in the sense of directly bypassing it.

Stay tuned!

The Most Wanted Cyber Jihadist - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this post in 2007.

This would have been an important blog post if cyber jihad were to be a issue that can be personalized, however, the reality as always has to do with another perspective, which in cyber jihad's case is diversification, localization of knowledge, and a knowledge-driven cyber jihadist communities itself. 

My point is that this guy should not be considered as the public face of cyber jihad, now that he's no longer active as a cyber jihadist, he's a cyber martyr that will be inspiring another generation of wannabe cyber jihadists to come.

Here's the article:

"In addition, Tsouli Irhabi used countless other web sites as free hosts for material that the jihadists needed to upload and share. The true extent of his material distribution network is still not known. He is credited with the large scale distribution of a film produced by Zarqawi called "All Is for Allah's Religion. His arrest struck a significant blow to al Qaeda’s cyber terrorism weaponry. With cyber weaponry only requiring widely available knowledge and skills and the only equipment required a computer that can be purchased anywhere, cyber weapons proliferation cannot be controlled."

My favorite quote - "With cyber weaponry only requiring widely available knowledge and skills and the only equipment required a computer that can be purchased anywhere, cyber weapons proliferation cannot be controlled. These facts coupled with the recent cyber attacks on utilities that blackout cities and regions show this is a serious threat."

Wait a sec. PSYOPS is a practice by itself which in this case aims to increase the investments made into securing the critical infrastructure of a country, one that I bet even the bad guys stopped targeting due to the logical nature of the attack? It is such a practice. Moreover, remember another such PSYOPS practice, namely the desired "media-echo" effect achieved?

Stay tuned!

Leadership Basics - An Analysis

NOTE:

I wrote this article back in 2007. Here's the achive.

Jefrey Pfeffer's Business 2.0 columns always load me with self-esteem, and provoke me to go beyond the patters of success, the ones I'm aware of. Integrity is an important quality, and so it adaptability and the enlightment of constant self-development.

I tend to have developed this internal Early Warning System for tensions. What does this mean? I use a cheap hushmail account, blogspot as a blogging platform, as I'm indeed trying to prove something - it's not about the blogging platform, it's not about being a domainer, it's all about the knowledge. Respect to HD Moore for still sticking to his black background, exactly the same one I was using for several months.

The chase of an utopian dream - perfection is a never ending driving force, you know you can never be perfect, since it's hard to define, but the constant idea of trying to achieve something unachievable might indeed lead you somewhere.

The ultimate question - what do others think about me? how would I be remembered when I'm gone? is where the problem starts. Being remembered means you're already gone.

There are three different dimensions of the "I", the one you really are,  the one you want to me, and the one the people perceive you as. You'd better focus more who you actually are so you can do better, and who you want to be, than ending up as being anything else but "someone else's expectation", more or less a transparent hologram of other people wanted you to be.

What would others say? What if they don't like it? What if it undermines my confidence in myself at the end of the day? Being hated, or having a "fan club" means you're definitely up to something, all you need to break through is believing it.

Hanging out with the winners of the day is an every day reality, but the reality is that the true cyberpunks often hang outside at a party or con, far away from the populist speeches, and yet another 10k keynote mind-provoker. Still in need of a real-life story? Try Jessus, who was supposed to hang out with the posers, the ones that supposedly excelled in the society at the period of time, still he was dining with the opposite parties.

To me, it's always a matter of perspective and a vision.

Reaching the "Trust no one" stage in your life means you're definitely up to something, and most importantly had the courage to raise above, the consequences among the knives flying around, behind, and above you, are the opportunity costs you have sacrificed due to your behavior such as less time spent on chasing chicky chicks for instance.

People easily forget themselves in the euphoria of temporary success, and while even the fact of forgetting yourself means you used to be someone, this desperate cry for self-awareness in itself is a pitiful personal milestone.

Don't fight for appraisal, but learn to praise yourself, be interested, not interesting, break out of definitions, and question everything, even yourself.

Cyber Intelligence - Personal Memoir - Grab a Copy Today!

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