"Nothing is safe. Not your email, your personal information, your photos, your files, If it is stored on line, it's theoretically accessible to anyone with the skills and wherewithal to grab it" (1)
The skill to get the wherewithal to grab it is called hacking, the art of creative problem solving, whether that means finding an unconventional solution to a difficult problem or exploiting holes in sloppy programming.
Hacking in the age of the Internet can be broken down into three distinct categories: Personal (hacking of your home computer for nefarious reasons, mostly financial but also setting up botnets), secondly, hacking of commercial entities (mostly for financial gain and information or intimidation, for example utilities) and thirdly, hacking of government entities. (military or government agencies, mostly to influence national policy). Although these are distinct categories, they overlap in many cases. For instances, using personal computers via botnets to Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) that in theory could shut down worlds stock markets with horrific financial consequences. In case of military use, Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyberweapon that shut down Iranian centrifuges. Benign hacking has been used show weaknesses in the computerized instrumentation in cars, hospital equipment, planes and normal household items. For instance the Nest thermostat. These weaknesses can be triggered not only by hackers but also stray EMF radiation.
Hacking
in the area of Computer Software has existed since the first DOS Program was
written. It has given resulted in numerous text books
and actual classes for the “White Hat” hackers and numerous articles but few
books regarding the Black Hat Hackers.
In this SD/G we will try to answer the question of what hacking really means in our daily lives and how our entire privacy has become non-existent as well as it can now affect our health, privacy, personal finances and safety.
(1) Data downer: Hackers will grow increasingly bold in 2017. David Lazarus, LA times, Friday, December 30, 2016
1.
The Internet:
a. What is
Cyberspace or Hyper-connectivity?
b. How does
the Internet work?
c. what is
Internet security?
d. Who
governs or controls the Internet?
e. What is Hacking?
2.
Hacking: The White, Grey and Black Hat hackers of the Internet.
a. Their
function?
b. Who
are the criminals?
c. The
ethics of hacking
d. The
Anonymous Group
e.
Privacy expectations In Europe versus the US
3. Computers
can be attacked via:
a. Software,
b. Hardware
(think Intel/AMD - Meltdown and Spectre)
c. A.I.-
How it affects anti-hacking and hacking software
4. Hacking
of Personal Data - Targeting the Individual
a. ID
Theft
b. Financial
theft
c. Privacy
Invasion
d. Can
one protect themselves?
5. Commercial
Hacking - large Scale
a. Bank
theft (remember Willy Sutton) & Bitcoin
b. Stock
manipulation
c. DoS –
Denial of Service attack.
d. Financial
blackmail
e. Personal
information – Equifax, Anthem Insurers, JMaxx, JP Morgan Chase and the list
goes on.
f. Industrial
Espionage
6. Hacking
of Governments as a tool of Diplomacy and War.
a. NSA
hacking Sadam Hussein’s conversations to determine Iraq’s war strategy
b. Stuxnet
– an act of war?
c. Elections
in Estonia and Germany
d. How
does this relate to “classic” wiretapping?
7. Wikileaks
and Effect on Government and Corporate America.
a. E-mail
from the Democratic committee and H. Clinton
b. Snowden
and Manning – Is using a memory stick to steal data really hacking?
c. Release
of Government Treaties) – Trans Pacific Partnership being one.
d. Source
codes from NSA and NASA
8. The Press,
Government and First Amendment Rights.
a. Is
using stolen data by the Press ethical?
b. Does
it fall under the rights of the 1st Amendment?
c.
Is creating virus software a 1stAmendment right?
d.
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
9. Can
Democracy Survive the Computer Age?
a. Voting
Machines
b. Early
Voting via Computer (Wisconsin, Arizona, Illinois)
c. LA –
Wireless attack on electronic ballot counter at Precincts.
d. Botnets
and how “fake” data is spread
e. Fake
Data and News – how do we stop that? 1st Amendment rights?
10. The
Internet of Things –
a. Cars,
b. Thermostats,
c. Drug
Delivery systems
d. Ring (Video
doorbell), Door locks – WiFi enabled.
e. Google
Home Mini or Amazon’s Alexa
f. WiFi,
Modems & Routers
11. State Sponsored Hacking
a. US,
Russian and Korean hackers
b. Infrastructure
attacks
c. Chemical
and Nuclear Plants
d. Espionage
12. Tor:
The Underbelly of the Internet.
a. What
is TOR?
b. Who developed
and still uses TOR?
c. Criminal
Element Virus and Hacking Tool Market
d. Criminal
Data Market – Credit Card Numbers, Social Security Numbers, Bank Accounts.
e. Tor
allows circumvention of Censors, Skirt Surveillance, search data sites behind
National Firewalls.
13. Defenses
Against Hacking, - Current and Future
a. A.I.
– Double edged sword
b. What
tools are available for private citizens?
c. How
to tell what is “Fake” News and Data
d. Internet
sites that check for accuracy in data and statements.
14. Election
of 2016 and upcoming 2018 + Current Events not anticipated.
a. What
happened in 2016? (Technical details, what so far has been discovered, etc.)
b. Will
it repeat in 2018?
Cyber Security and Cyber War P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman, Oxford University Press, 2014
Cyber War, Richard A. Clark and Robert K. Knake, Harper Collins, 2010
After Snowden, Ronald Goldfarb, St. Martins Press, 2015
Stanford Students Partner with Government in Ethical Hacking Courses, LA Times, 12/20/16
Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, Fred Kaplan, Simon and Schuster, 2016
Markets for Cybercrime Tools and Stolen Data Hackers’ Bazaar, Lillian Ablon, Martin C. Libicki, Andrea A. Golay, Rand Corporation, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbUbgohooRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EBW5wAMTl4
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/obamas-concerned-ai-hack-americas-nukes/
http://www.auburn-rose.com/the-threat-of-ai-hacking/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-need-snowden-artificial-intelligence-matthieu-vermeulen
https://www.inverse.com/article/5509-why-hackers-stay-ahead-of-artificial-intelligence
https://blog.kaspersky.com/hacking-chemical-plant/9603/
http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/industrial-ethernet-switches-ies-vulnerabilities/
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/37625/cyber-crime/hackers-black-market.html
https://www.hacker9.com/best-hacking-websites-list.html
http://www.underground-hackers.com/
https://www.wired.com/story/cryptojacking-critical-infrastructure/
https://www.wired.com/story/cryptojacking-has-gotten-out-of-control/
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-what-you-need-to-know/
https://www.howtogeek.com/341021/do-you-realize-how-much-you-share-your-location/