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Phrack Inc. Volume 14 Issue 67 File 15
==Phrack Inc.==
Volume 0x0e, Issue 0x43, Phile #0x0f of 0x10
|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|
|=-----------------=[ Hacking the mind for fun and profit ]=---------------------=|
|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|
|=------------------------=[ by lvxferis@gmail.com ]=----------------------------=|
|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|
--[ Contents
1 - Introduction
2 - How does the human conscious function
2.1 - Decisional pattern programming
2.2 - Role Model programming (behavioral mimetism from trusted sources)
3 - Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
4 - Why does NLP function?
5 - What is reality - "What is above is what is beneath"
6 - Human thoughts affecting reality
7 - How to create a hostile reality?
8 - The chains remain
9 - Greetz
--[ 1 - Introduction
Oh no, not another "hacking your brain" article, please! I don't
even want to know what is really going on with my mind, I love to
be fed with the bullshit I get every day because I'm an ignorant
bastard -- if you think this, then stop reading NOW because I don't
even intent to have you people as an audience. Instead, I am
addressing to those who have noticed the "glitches", the anomalies
in the "matrix"; those who became hackers not because "computers
are cool now" but because of their ancestral eager of knowledge and
keen on spotting things that are not natural to their environment.
--[ 2 - How does the human conscious function
Human mind is a self-programming bio-computer -- i'm not the first
one to say this. Human mind is programming itself consciously by
by applying a decisional pattern, by following a model or a combination
of both.
-----[ 2.1 - Decisional pattern programming
Remember when you were a little baby and felt attracted to that
flame and actually touched it. It burnt you so bad and the pain was
so intense that you never played with fire again! ;) Pain is the
method our spiritual mind uses to teach itself about the environment
it deals with. Decisional pattern programming is based on rational
analysis of facts correlated to past experiences, as similar as
possible to the new experience encountered, and all this
corroborated with the intensity of pain. Pain is nothing more but
electrical signals sent by your neural system to your brain, which
your spiritual mind interprets as a high disconfort, telling that
the environment is reacting against your body. But some people
apparently tolerate pain more than others; no, that's not true. We
all feel the pain the same, it's just we can educate our spiritual
mind to ignore the pain.
-----[ 2.2 - Role Model programming (behavioral mimetism from trusted sources)
Ever since we are little children, we have role models to follow in
society. They can be historical figures, philosophers, favourite
hiphop star, people everybody knows and that, one way or the other,
made it into this society, or simply, your mother or father, bigger
brother, one of your friends, your menthor, etc. They all share one
common feature: they posses a quality you would like to grow in you
or they are an important part of your life. Think about it, how many
times didn't you think about disappointing someone you care about if
you do something you really want. How many of you still did that
thing? By confronting our spiritual (rational) mind with the
impressions and oppinions of our role models, minute by minute we
become more like our role models, becoming what we decided we should
be like.
To understand how your mind works, start seeing your ordinary life as
a serie of events. The events fall into one of the following
categories:
- new events
- new events similar to old events
- old events
When dealing with an event, your mind starts an analysis of the
event, and searches the "archive" for an identical event. If none is
found, your mind searches the "archive" for a similar event and
tries to determine if past decisions and conditions would be fit in the
current conditions. The new and similar events are the ones
generating experience, by forcing your spiritual mind to make
decisions to adapt as good as possible to the given environment. But
everyone's decision depends a lot on previous experience. The added
experience improves your rational thinking and gives you a higher
perspective over events, under a new superior logic. Each category
of events has assigned a process that deals with it. For instance,
if your car breaks down, you would see the problem more accurately
if you are a car mechanic than if you are a doctor. The car mechanic
posses more technical informations about cars (therefore, superior
logic of things) than a doctor or a florist, for instance. By the
other hand, if your body breaks down, being a doctor will help you
determine what went wrong and what needs to be done to eliminate
this situation rather than being a car mechanic.
The process of learning is a never ending process in your mind; it
takes at least as long as you're exposed to new events. But it takes
in three stages: the conscious and willing part, the reinforcement
part and the "background" part.
The conscious and willing process is the one interacting the most with the
decisional process. It's when you see some behavior or moral virtue
or something to that extent that you like and you'd actually want to
grow that in you -- for instance you want to be a greater whitehat
than spender, because you see the whitehats as being the good guys
and you've been taught that good guys are good. To do that, you see
what got spender where he is and start to "walk" a similar path.
This is where the reinforcement stage gets into place -- you already
decided that you want it, and you force yourself to take the steps
needed. You get aquinted to the Linux Kernel, find bugs, expose them
on full-disclosure, look for fights with kernel dev, etc. The
conscious interaction will help you get status of yourself: "am i
spender enough to do this?" or "what would spender do"; in the same
time it will correct behavioral flaws that might prevent you from
succeeding. After a while, the conscious interaction tends to diminish,
becoming less and less necessary. This is where stage three comes into
place.
The "background" stage is where the actual process needs no longer
interaction with the conscious mind, being perfectly adapted to
serve similar events. To continue our metaphore, at this point you
get fat dollars from sponsorships, you're being a dick to your friends,
and publish vulnerabilities you found in Linux Kernel. And all this
is normal, and you don't understand why people throwing fingers at
you. You're doing the "right" thing..
When dealing with a new event, your mind will try to categorize that
event and try to place it under one of the known events categories.
Each category of events has assigned a process; a neural process is
very similar to an AI neural network path. The processes for known
events give you the daily routine, when you don't even think about
doing something, you just do it, automatically. Therefore, PROCESSES
IN "BACKGROUND STAGE" (SERVING KNOWN PATTERNS) DO NOT REQUIRE RATIONAL
(CONSCIOUS) MIND SCRUTINY!!! This makes them as a primary target for
those trying to manipulate you.
--[ 3 - Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
According to Wikipedia, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a
controversial approach to psychotherapy and organizational change based on
"a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the
relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective
experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them" and "a system of
alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in
self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns
of mental and emotional behaviour". NLP denotes belief in a connection
between neurological processes ('neuro'), language ('linguistic') and
behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience
('programming'). The "subjective experiences" are what we called neural
processes dealing with events.
--[ 4 - Why does NLP function?
In other words, NLP says that we programmed ourselves to react in a
certain way when exposed to certain events. To a hacker, this looks
as good as a remote kernel vulnerability with great chances of
exploitation. This means that we can trigger a certain reaction or
response from someone if we know the conditions (event) that would
normally lead that person to that reaction. Hey, wait.. Is this really
about controlling your peers??? Yes, someone can use NLP to take
advantage of "free mind", by simply tricking the mind into seeing false
conditions that would lead it to take a decision according to those
false conditions.
A common feature of all contemporary societies is the "guilt
syndrome". This arose from the "original sin" trick: you're a mere
mortal, who deserves to be hurt because a very long time ago, some
retard ate an apple. This "guilt syndrome" is a very dangerous trap
because it makes human beings prone to NLP, as they want to "pay the
dues" for their "sins". But .. wait .. what if there is no sin? You
mean.. I could make someone feel guilty of something he never did
just to make that person please me whenever I want? Yep.. that's
exactly WHY neuro-linguistic programming works in every case: human
beings don't want to look bad in the eyes of their peers, and most
important to those who are our models and/or mean something important
to us.
"Mommy is feeling very sick today, but I'm sure that if you will
bring good grades from school I will be feeling better, son" -- this
is one classical example of how NLP functions. The "Mom" in our case
study is faking an illness to make her son study harder at school
and bring a good grade. In the "son's" mind, he will start feeling
guilty for his mother's illness, therefore he will force himself to
get a good grade, one way or another. In this example, NLP is not
doing bad to "son" as improving his grades is a good thing. But in
the same time, he didn't do what he wanted, instead he did what
someone else tricked him into doing.
Another example, one begger walks to your car window. She's an old
woman, with kind, warm eyes. She comes shyly and whispering, asks
you to give her money for medicines and food. You will give her
money because she looks a lot like your grandmother who you loved a
lot. And you want to help a less fortunate human-being. But, that
begger, after "work hours" is maybe richer than you because it took
advantage of the "grandmother figure" look. Most of the people have
a grandmother who raised them, took care of them when their parents
weren't around, and quite possibly have passed away. To honor her
memory, you relate to the "less fortunate grand mother" begging at
your car window, and you want to be of any help. Your good
intentions land you right in the "granny's" trap, just like a
carnivorous plant eats an insect.
These were only three examples how NLP works in day-to-day life, but
to someone aquinted to these techniques, the examples are endless.
Someone aware of NLP and how things work is controlling everybody
around them to obtain a certain result. Is it wrong to take
advantage of someone else's ignorance? Is it wrong to exploit a
vulnerability to a system if no one is able to catch you? Perhaps,
but I don't give a fuck.
--[ 5 - What is reality - "What is above is what is beneath"
Words of Hermes seem cryptic to most of you looking at the sky and
seeing no similarity to earth. What Hermes actually meant was that
our Universe is a fractal; if you zoom on a fractal, you will notice
that the image you get is very similar to the initial image. This
means that the same Laws that built the fractal on the detail scale,
also built the fractal on the large scale.
Let's take a trip to the atom world. The diversity of chemical
elements present in our Universe is merely given by the number of
electrons orbitting each element's atom (and ofcourse, protons and
neutrons and other sub-atomic particles but that's beyond the scope
of this article). So.. what makes an element have more electrons
than another? The answer is simple, it's the electromagnetical
forces. Quantum mechanics identified 4 types of electromagnetical
forces: 2 strong and 2 weaker, resulting from a combination of first
two. But all these forces together create a quadripolar magnet. This
quadripolar magnet is the "blueprint" our world is made on. Each
element in the Mendeleev table has a unique combination of these 4
forces, this giving it's unicity.
So, you mean that our Universe is nothing but electromagnetical
forces combined at different layers, in different combinations and
amounts? Yes, exactly. Without electro-magnetism our Universe would
be an uniform mass of initial matter particles. This is what Einstein
theorized when he said about the 4th form of aggregation of matter,
at absolute zero (e.g. the absolute absence of electro-magnetism,
because heat is nothing but the result of the interaction between
electricity and magnetism).
This also means that, if you can determine the exact amount and
combination of electro-magnetical forces present in a certain
element's atomic structure, and replicate that exact combination and
amount to another element's atomic structure you would be able to
transform the second element into the first one, down to the
grittiest detail.
Remember the alchemists trying to make gold from dust? ;)
--[ 6 - Human thoughts affecting reality
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the
soul with evil."
-- Socrates
There is a huge number of cases when Initiates affected the world
around them and people were too amazed to understand the miracle.
Look at the fakhir's in India, or the buddhist monks of Tibet. There
are documented cases when yoga masters managed to purify water by
the power of meditation. So, how is this happening? Continue
reading..
Quantum mechanics brought to light a very interresting fact. The quantum
mechanics experiments are not consistent in time and over
researchers. It would appear that the observer's mind highly affects
the result of the experiment. It got to a point where, if the
scientist thinks his experiment will end up one way, then most
definetely, the experiment will. But as soon as another scientist
comes into place, with a different mind set and with less faith in
the success of the experiment, the experiment will give another
result. Therefore, scientists concluded that quantum mechanics
experiments are rarely conclusive.
Early twentieth-century experiments on the physics of very small-scale
phenomena led to the discovery of phenomena that could not be predicted
on the basis of classical physics, and to new models (theories) that
described and predicted very accurately those micro-scale phenomena so
recently discovered. These models of the real world being observed at
this micro scale, could not easily be reconciled with the way objects are
observed to behave on the macro scale of everyday life. The predictions
they offered often appeared counter-intuitive to observers. Indeed, they
touched off much consternation--even in the minds of their discoverers. The
Copenhagen interpretation consists of attempts to explain the experiments
and their mathematical formulations.
We like to think of our brain as a massive data storage for all the
experiences we had since our childhood, but is it?! There is no
actual evidence that data is stored in our brain, the only hard
evidence existing now is that our brains emit "waves".Our brain is
nothing but a big antenna, receiving/emitting electro-magnetical energy,
as waves. There are more types of brain waves, some are easy to measure
with instruments, most of them aren't. Our brains are nothing but
wide open wireless access points, emitting signal everywhere around
us and receiving signals from our environment. Err.. wait..
electro-magnetical brain waves??? WTF man.. But you said our
Universe is based on electro-magnetism.. If humans can emit
electro-magnetical energy this means that.. they can actually affect
reality? Yes, they do. But not all antennas have same signal
strength: some have stronger signal, some lesser. But all of them
modify reality according to what they think of reality; some modify
reality in a substantial way, that is actually noticeable and some
others, in a less perceptible way. But EVERY SPIRITUAL MIND (let it
be human, animal, floral or mineral) AFFECTS REALITY ACCORDING TO
WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT REALITY AND WHAT THEY THINK REALITY SHOULD BE
LIKE. If you create an image in your mind, and believe in it
strongly and with passion, you will actually make it happen. No,
it's not esoteric stuff, it's very day-to-day stuff -- you don't say
any magic spell, you just figure out a way to make that image come
true. If you REALLY want something and WORK hard so that you DESERVE
that certain something, there are GREAT chances that the Universe
will grant you that something.
Well, things aren't that easy, really, but simplified, that's how it
is. Perhaps, at some other time, maybe next Hacking Your Brain, I
will explain you how to make your wishes come true, and how those
wishes should look like so that they have greater chances of
happening.
YOU ARE THE CENTER OF YOUR OWN UNIVERSE. YOU ARE THE MASTERS OF YOUR
OWN UNIVERSE. BE TO YOUR OWN UNIVERSE WHAT GOD IS TO THE WHOLE
UNIVERSE AND TRY TO BE AS MUCH AS GOD AS YOU CAN. Oh, and one more
thing, if you think God is an old man with beard, then you're a
moron. I don't care how you call it, the God I speak of is beyond
any religion, being the MIND THAT CREATED THE PERFECTIONIST SYSTEM
WE CALL LIFE.
7. How to create a hostile reality?
Well, who would create something that would hurt himself, you might
say. But, crazily enough, people actually do it without even being
aware of it. I will give you an extreme example, bare with it, but
it should give you an insight on how humans can be tricked into
doing bad to themselves.
Let's take a hypothetical case. Let's a consider a very esteemed
group of scientists whose research concluded that a small spoon of
crushed glass poured in your food will keep illness away. Ofcourse,
now you will say "hey everybody knows crushed glass will hurt you"
but let's assume you don't know that and, there will be a LOT of
people TRUSTING the scientist group enough to actually pour crushed
glass pieces into food. This will give you a VERY BAD STOMACHAL
problem but you would not dare to think that the scientists you
trust so much could be wrong. So you will think your stomachal pains
are of a different nature, or worse, you will think that the pain
comes from the crushed glass fighting the illness. So you will take
MORE crushed glass to make sure the illness is defeated for good.
Have you guys seen "Idiocracy"? It's a great movie -- and I took
this example from the movie. Our hero, Joe, is a semi-retarded
military who, by chance, makes a trip 500 years into the future
when he discovers that the crops are watered with a Gatorade-like
sports drink named "Brawndo", he finds himself knowledgeable enough
to correct the problem. The narrator comments that "Brawndo has
replaced water virtually every where" and that Brawndo purchased the
FDA and FCC. In response to the plan to correct the problem,
White House cabinet members continuously repeated the Brawndo tag line,
"Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes." Yet, no one
had a clue what electrolytes are. They just knew what they've been told.
This is a very good illustrated example of how people are most of the
times too trusting and ignorant for their own good. Ofcourse Brawndo
was bad for the crops, because the plants need water, not artificial
flavor -- but that artificial flavor beverage was keeping half the
country employed.
By following what trusted sources tell us is good without questioning
and thinking for ourselves, we become slaves of our own ignorance.
Ever since we are little, we rely on others to tell us what's good
or bad for us. First, there were the parents & family; later, our
trusted sources circle gets larger, including our friends and
colleagues. When we grow up, we also consider mass-media, internet
and press as trusted sources, because we are told they are reliable
sources that will never deceive us. BUT ALL THIS MENTALITY IS BASED
ON THE GOOD WILL AND INTENTIONS OF THE TRUSTED SOURCE; WHAT IF THE
TRUSTED SOURCE SLIGHTLY MODIFIES THE INFORMATION SENT TO US (just
like in NLP case studies), JUST TO TRIGGER A CERTAIN BEHAVIORAL
PATTERN FROM US?
The best example that comes to my mind is that of a imaginary hacker
character, let's call it The_C0nd0r, who breaks into one of the
largest telco in the country, without exploiting a single
vulnerability in the computer systems. You guessed it, it's the case
of the Master of Social Engineering. To be honest, I learnt about NLP
when i was studying social engineering. The trick with social
engineering is to make your peer STRONGLY BELIEVE into a fake reality
you are feeding him. You just need to make that "reality" as accurate
as possible so he doesn't realise it's a trick. And this is exactly
when NLP steps into place. First of all, you need to adopt a similar
posture to your target (not physical necessarily). For instance, if
you're targetting an employee, act as an employee who is in big trouble,
make him to be a part of your "drama". When people are confronted to
dramatic situations happening to others they usually think "oh, fuck this
could happen to me aswell" and they will give you that password.
I will give you an example again. Let's say, your best friend got
into a fight with another friend of yours. You trust your best
friend when he tells you that the other friend said bad words about
you, and he stood up to take your side. But, what if the things were
opposite? What if your best friend was the one saying bad things
about you and the other friend said he should stop talking of you
when you are not around? Your "natural" urge is to ally with your
best friend and "wage war" against the other friend, because you
trust a message from a trusted source that someone is doing wrong to
you.
Another example, on a larger scale now. There is a HUGE press
campaign against alimentary product X, saying that it highly affects
health, etc. People trust mass-media and, as a result of the
campaign, they stop using X. The company producing X is experiencing
big difficulties because their market share diminished a lot. You'll
say "Good! They were selling stuff affecting people's health, they
outta be put of business!" and I couldn't agree more. But.. there is
always a "but". What if there was a competitor for product X called
product Y. And the PR department of product Y contacted big
publications and tv networks owners and paid them a shit load of
money for this campaign. What if product X wouldn't actually be that
harmful, in fact, being less harmful than product Y? The market
share of the company producing X will diminish in the advantage of
the company producing Y. Even if company X publish a study stating
that their products are not as harmful as claimed, and even less
harmful than product Y, no one will trust the statement. If trust is
broken once, it will never reappear or if it does, it does with
great sacrifice.
And another fictionary example now. Let's assume hackers would exist
and they can hack (unlike kingcope;). Let's continue to assume
stuff. We also assume that this hacker (fictionary character,
remember?) is not a good guy working for the Man. Instead he's a
rebelious youngster (mid 20's) with the unique ability to break into
any computer system he puts his mind to. This hacker is aproached by
the owner of company A who is crushed under the competition of
company B, whose product is far superior and the distribution
network is by far, the largest. Let's assume the owner of A asks the
hacker if it would be possible to do something to company B. The
hacker would go unnoticed and mess with the client database, mix the
deliveries, steal secret info about the product, etc. In short,
anything that would give company A a competitive advantage.
Ofcourse, to the masses this would appear as company B is either
A) in big trouble, B) doing something nasty behind closed doors or
C) can't secure their shit right, and by extension can't secure
customer's trust either. Gosh, we're so lucky hackers only secure
our networks and iPod's instead of doing things so scary.
A real life example, this time, comes from the Middle East. During
the recent war between Israel and Lebanon, the Hamass posted on the
Internet images of crippled or killed children, dismembered, etc.
This ofcourse, had a huge impact on the international community and
a lot of countries and important people took position and asked
Israel to stop the war. But after all, it was just a good press
campaign organised by the Hamass, manipulating the media and the
society.
The point is that by EXPLOITING HUMAN BEING IGNORANCE AND CONFORT IN
TRUSTING WHAT THEY CONSIDER AS BEING "TRUSTED SOURCES", OR BY FAKING
A SOURCE MAKING IT LOOK TRUSTWORTHY, YOU CAN TRICK PEOPLE INTO
ACTING AGAINST THEMSELVES, AND SURPRISINGLY, BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
-- [ 8 - The chains remain
Slavery is long gone, most people think. Just because the chains
don't ring anymore as we walk, it doesn't mean they disappeared.
It's just that today chains have been more subtle and harder to
perceive. The society, through its members, or mass-media, or tv
networks, books, religion, banking system and it's loans, and so on,
EVERYTHING is keeping us bonded to these chains we hate so much. By
telling us how we should behave in certain conditions because that's
"normal", by feeding us distorted information aimed to harden the
concept of "normal" and "what we should do", by creating fake needs,
desires and dreams we become addicted to the society and less aware
of our real selves.
The society is feeding you models, driving expensive cars, living in
big houses, living the good life, you know. Automatically, in your
mind you start to want the same (because society taught us that
second place is for the losers), so you get deeper into it. You
contract a loan from the bank just to get a bigger house, or a
faster car. You start to work extra-hours just to impress your boss
enough to promote you: a promotion would allow you to buy more
things. You start stealing stuff because you don't see another mean
of getting the money you WANT. Unknowingly, you become bonded to the
system, without the possibility of escaping from it. You become a
slave of your work/bank just to satisfy your NEEDS. But these are
not real needs, instead it's what your TRUSTED SOURCES told you you
need.
If you want to break loose of the chains holding you down, you need
to ACCEPT. You need to accept what is happening to you, either it
being "good" or "bad". The Universe and Its Laws don't think in
terms of duality, but Unicity. You need to understand that
EVERYTHING HAPPENING TO YOU IS THE RESULT OF YOUR PREVIOUS ACTIONS
AND THAT YOU ONLY GOT HERE WHERE YOU ARE AS A RESULT OF YOUR
CHOICES. You need to understand that TO OBTAIN SOMETHING FIRST YOU
MUST DESERVE that thing and that there are no shortcuts in life.
"Any competition is the entertainment of the rulers at the expense
of the slaves"
--[ 9 - Greetz
t3kn10n of Ac1dB1tch3z, zf0 ppl, spender for being the greatest
and whitest whitehat of all times, kevin mitnick for being owned so
many times using the social engineering skills himself pioneered,
king cope for not being able to find a bug on himself but instead
using "hack your mind" tricks to use other people's bugs/codes in
his exploit codes, Jesus Christ, Hermes, Socrate and finally, my
mentor, Pythagoras
