43 - crime.coin
My birthday was on Sunday - I had a wonderful weekend and I'm so grateful for everyone who helped make it amazing. I did a lot of things that I loved - being in nature, boardgaming and eating. I had an extraordinarily amazing surprise from my friends who did a CHICKEN FEAST (divine), as well as made a ROAST CHICKEN-SHAPED CAKE (gob-smackingly amazing). Literally speechless. Have I ever mentioned I love chicken?
These are all pictures of food because food is the best.
Anyway, back to some regularly scheduled programming!
Crime is fascinating, isn't it?
We get enraptured by it on the news - where horrific things occur (but not to us). We watch it on tv - with series like Breaking Bad or the Sopranos - to see the different characters and stories of how people might fall into crime.
I find this stuff really interesting to read and think about. I'm fascinated about the level of ingenuity required to get around protections. About how people exploit things, how companies try to fight back, and how they get worked around again. But most importantly, how creative and intelligent those people must be to actually do that!
My life of crime
When I was young, every time we got a new console, we went to the Caribbean Markets to get it modded / chipped so that it could play pirated games. My PS1 was chipped, my PS2 was chipped, my Wii was chipped - everything so that we could save a bit of money buying games. As I got older, I started learning how to download games and burn them on to discs to be able to play. Not very legal but eh. I didn't know any better.
I remember jailbreaking my first iPhone. There was so much functionality to unlock at the time - different apps and themes that you couldn't change unless it was jailbroken; I remember changing the screen turn-off animation and was so impressed at myself. WHAT A RUSH. Nowadays, it's too much trouble to do that - I haven't rooted my Android phone or anything. The design is just good enough these days to not require anything else.
It was kind of exhilarating learning how to get around a system, y'know? Human systems and technologies are always exploitable, and it's fascinating to find the loopholes in society, or watch as other people do it. I know that often these are bad things - but if people didn't find them, you wouldn't know about them, right? That tug of war is so human...I kind of dread a world where there is no loophole to exploit. Where would change come from otherwise?
The dark side
Have you read about ransomware? It's the concept where hackers will break into an organisation's systems, encrypt EVERYTHING, and then charge a ransom to unlock it. It's a FASCINATING area to think about, for example:
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Did you know that ransomware hackers were some of the first people who wrote incredibly succinct and basic introductions to using bitcoin? They needed the people in those organisations who didn't know how to use bitcoin to pay them using this anonymous currency - and knew that if it was harder to pay using bitcoin vs. engaging an external party to fix it, they'd be less likely to get paid. Nowadays, they even have help desks! "Hi, you've called Hackers Help Line - the next available customer service agent will be with you shortly".
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They used to charge in bitcoins, but due to a rapidly fluctuating market, they instead had to shift to use $USD amounts - even though they were basing all of their payments on bitcoin it turned around to bite them in the ass since it was too volatile!
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On that note, pricing is really interesting! At the start, ransomware hackers were charging inordinate amounts for decrypting code (like in the millions). But as companies started to shore up their defences, and IT consulting companies could help to decrypt systems, hackers again needed to adjust their pricing downwards. People would be making the decision - does it cost more to pay the hacker? Or more to engage an external consultant to fix this for me? And thus, prices shifted accordingly. What a market!
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They even link to Tor sites which have a countdown timer, with the price of decryption going up every 40 hours. Put a bit of time pressure on to play on the human psyche - dayum!
How smart would you have to be to think through all this? People as clever as you and me have turned to crime to circumvent legitimate methods of doing things. Maybe it's more lucrative. Actually, it's definitely more lucrative.
I remember last year going to a conference - SingularityU - which also talked about case studies - in some places on the dark web, you can actually buy a hacking package like you'd buy Microsoft Windows - with beautifully designed UI and usability features! Who thinks of this?!!
There's so much to talk about here with crime - I haven't even touched on encryption or the dark web, or Tor browsers, or the fascinating story of the Silk Road and how it got busted. And also other questions - How are criminal enterprises formed? What's the operating model for a mafia family? How can you ensure loyalty - like, what's the culture that you'd have to create?! What happens to trust in an inherently untrustworthy system?
Random thoughts I know, but...that's what you signed up for LOL.
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick - I use a lot of hyperbole when I recommend things, but wowee this was a good book. I knew nothing about ham radios or phone hacking - and this guy knocked them all over as the King of the Phreakers (phone hackers). I found it incredibly fascinating to see how they reverse engineered systems to pay nothing for phone calls (apparently a great win back in the day), or socially engineering a bank accountant for a daily PIN code to get into banking systems.
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How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - this is a way to think about how people work, so that you can kind of socially manipulate them to like you. Okay actually, if you think about it like that it's kinda sinister LOL, but I still think it's a really good book! It's a classic for a reason - it uses really old 1920's anecdotes but it still slaps. Try it out!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Ransomware is moving off Bitcoin - the rise of multiple types of cryptocurrency means that it becomes even harder to track criminal enterprises. Who said accounting wasn't cool?
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Primer for Surface / Deep / Dark Web - from McAfee but it's a simple primer about what we mean when we talk about these things. A longer piece here about the Deep Web and the Dark Web.
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The Story of the Silk Road and what it teaches us about e-commerce - there are so many interesting lessons when looking up things like this! A long-ish piece about the Silk Road.
🌱 The Calathea Corner
It's getting cold, and Feleafcia ain't liking it. Getting a bit yellow and brown around the edges :( I'm trying to keep her misted every day, and near a heater, but I think I'm going to move her to the shower next. Could help a bit more...
