Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Hacking Religion With My "Soul-catcher" Clause

Back in 1984, I decided to test an unusual "honor system" of program licensing. I had Morris Jones (a member of my Cyber Privateering Fantasy League Team) write a little piece of software for the IBM PC. The program licensing agreement had a clause that said, "If you make unauthorized copies of this software and do not send us the $30 within 30 days, we will own your eternal soul and may sell it to the first Smoking Blood-Drenched Apparition With Fangs (SBDAWF) that meets our price." Interestingly, over the next year, we received lots of checks in the mail from people who didn't want any SBDAWF showing up to collect their souls. The Wall Street Journal even did a little piece on it.

I got the idea from my college days, when I met my first atheist. I told him he wasn't really an atheist and I could prove it. He got all huffy and challenged me, so I pulled out two quarters, fifty cents, and said, "If you're really an atheist, then sell me your soul for four bits. Since you're absolutely sure you don't have one, you make infinite profit, and there won't be any higher power in the picture to enforce the deal."

He sold me his soul, but by the end of the semester he was begging me to sell it back to him. Turns out, he didn't want to take any chance. My atheist friend was really an agnostic. I made enough money on the sale to get me home for Christmas.

I've met only one true atheist since then, and currently own his soul. Every Christmas, I let him know it's still in…ah…good hands.

Merry Christmas, John.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Hacking the 2016 Presidential Race


This ad ran in today's Wall Street Journal on page A5.  It was scheduled to run on the front page of the section, but late yesterday, the WSJ editor-in-chief vetoed running any political ads in that jewel box on page 1. And the deal about "hacking" the 2016 presidential race? Reality is, we're running a 21st century economy on a 19th century operating system.

Worst case, Scott Smith should really be considered for a Nobel Prize in Economics. Reportedly said by a former Federal Reserve exec: "Why the hell hasn't anybody thought of this before?"

Sunday, September 20, 2015

FBI Plays Russian Roulette, Literally!

The FBI has Hillary Clinton's email server. Chances are it wasn't thoroughly wiped, or at least professionally wiped. The question is, how do they handle the data they recover? Three possibilities:

  1. They play by the rules and turn everything over the the justice department.
  2. They claim the files were professional wiped clean and that their recovery efforts didn't yield any fruit.
  3. They doctor the files that need doctored in order to prevent criminal charges to Hillary Clinton or embarrassment to the administration.
They probably won'd do #3, because several foreign governments can almost certainly contradict their efforts. And they probably won'g do #1 for all the reasons they might have tried #3. Hence, my prediction is that they'll do #2…all over the place. And then wait for one or more foreign governments to extort the US.

Selah.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Cyber Privateering, Mossad Style

According to InfoWorld's 2015 Cyberthreat Defense Report (read it here),  fully 25% of all companies have no plans to invest in a "Threat intelligence Service" (see p. 12). My guess is that 100% of the market would make such an investment if approached with the following communication:

Attached is our documentation of a ZERO-DAY security hole in your computer infrastructure. Also included is a patch we generated to nullify this vulnerability, including source code. A certified hard copy of this information has been delivered to your IT department, along with an offer to license the use of this patch as well as the opportunity for site licensing our automated Threat Intelligence and Patching A.I. technology. Sincerely yours, Israeli Mossad Threat Remediation Services.

So what do you think? Would your company take more than 24 hours to commit to this kind of threat intelligency service?

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Want A Built-in Virus? Then Buy a Lenovo PC!


I've been harping on this subject since 2011. Just type "supply chain" into the search box on the left and you'll get the picture.

Yesterday's U.K. Register verified why the U.S. Government (and several others around the world) prohibit their departments from buying computers made in China (read the story here). Turns out, they hide their "crapware" in Windos laptops' BIOS. This is called "roaching the supply chain," a subject on which I waxed poetic in February (see the story here).

Ahem. Is it true that Cisco routers are built and provisioned with software in China?

Taman Shud.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

My Bet on Which Foreign Government Will Release Hillary's Emails: China, Russia, Israel, or North Korea?

Get your popcorn ready, folks. This is going to be a most entertaining election season. I've written extensively about Hillary's email server. Check out:

  1. http://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2015/04/dear-president-putin-how-about-peak-at.html
  2. http://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2015/04/hillary-clintons-emails-secure-aswhite.html
  3. http://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2015/03/dear-kim-jong-un-hillarys-your-chance.html
  4. http://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2015/04/mossad-to-release-hillary-clinton-email.html
  5. http://www.themorgandoctrine.com/2015/03/hillary-clinton-email-server-hacked.html
The first foreign government to release them in their entirety wins a massive PR prize. So who will it be. Or, playing on my "Hu's on first" routine (see it here), Hu will be it.

Selah

Friday, August 7, 2015

Predictive Analytics From Data Exhaust: Et Tu Russia!


Sharing is caring: How the enterprise can keep pace with the hackersWho would have thought that just one day after I predicted Russia was up to something, based upon simple data exhaust on my blog viewership, that those pesky scamps would make headlines for their attack on the Joint Chiefs of Staff emails (see the Computerworld story here)?

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Data Exhaust: Is Russia Up To Something Soon?

With all the news about China getting Worldwide Überhacker Status, I'm looking at the top readers of my blog for the last week and note two terribly interesting things:

  1. Russia is the most frequent visitor to my site; and
  2. China seems to have dropped completely off the list (they're in the #3 all-time top position, just behind Ukraine and, of course, USA which is #1).
So the question is, just what is Crazy Ivan up to? For that matter, Hu's on first in China?

Watson, there's a game afoot.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

My Guerrilla Warfare Radio Interview with WSJ Cartoonist Stu Heinecke

Wall Street Journal cartoonist Stu Heinecke beat me into doing a radio interview on guerrilla warfare marketing. Here's the audio link: http://www.podbean.com/media/player/mp5ya-5780a6. Enjoy.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Hacking Team Downfall: Mistaking Marketing For Competence

screen-shot-2015-07-06-at-12-10-58.png
"The wholesale sacking of the spyware firm's systems" demonstrates a reality we all face (see the ZDNet story here). Namely, it takes more than clever marketing in the tech world. You've GOT to have the smarts to back it up. Often I get ad campaigns turned down by my clients because, in their own words, "Uh, we're really not THAT good." 

It looks like the Hacking Team should have just said, "We supply invasive systems to repressive governments; sorry about that." 

Hey guys, Karma is a bitch.

As recently as this weekend, on the 4th of July, I was reminded of my own inflated ego. Every day, I ride my bicycle up the mountain where I built The Pirate Cottage. All my neighbors think I'm quite a stud, doing that every day. I even started believing my own hype, just like I did back in 1978 when I sold my electronics company and ran for Congress. I was full of myself then, and clearly this weekend I was full of myself.

Not only did I sponsor a King/Queen Of The Mountain (KOM/QOM) bicycle race up my mountain—a mere 3.4-mile jaunt with nearly a quarter mile of vertical elevation, but I actually threw down a challenge to all the under-40 riders on my mountain. I said "Age and experience will always prevail over youth and energy." That may be true, but my own performance wasn't even on the same planet as the over-40 winner.
 I finished the race almost 22 minutes behind the winner. The good news, he was 43 years old and whipped the mortal snot out of the next-closest rider, who was 17 years old. And then to add salt to my badly bruised ego, the winner's wife achieved Queen of the Mountain status by beating my time by 10 minutes. The only good news of the day—besides my not having had a coronary on the ride—was that I beat a fellow 15 years younger than myself by 4 minutes.

Now back to the Hacking Team debacle.

You guys really need to watch the Paul Newman movie Buffalo Bill and The Indians. The great showman Buffalo Bill assembled (in his own words) the "greatest group of riders, ropers, trackers and indian fighters in the world!" When Sitting Bull, his show centerpiece, takes off, Buffalo Bill (Newman) says "get me my REAL hat and my REAL gun and let's go get him." And as the goofy troop of misfits and drunks rides over the hill, several off them fall off their horses.

So there is a difference between self-promotion delusion and quiet competence. Which is why I publicly confess my own inflated bicycling acumen. Just another in a long line of wake-up calls. As for the Hacking Team? If you really did sell surveillance solutions to repressive governments, your becoming the laughing stock of the hacking world is well deserved. I salute you, King of the Morons!

Friday, June 26, 2015

Yo Einstein, You Can't Even Protect Your Own Stuff!

Central Intelligence Agency

In the "most devastating cyber attack in US history" (see the UK Register story here), a security system elsewhere reported as being named Einstein royally missed the boat. The incompetence of the people chartered to protect our data assets (the CIA, the NSA, Homeland Security, the FBI) keep trying to build a case for getting more budget to protect us average citizens from cyber attacks. The Office of Personnel Management (aptly acronym'd OPM—spell the letters and you'll know what they're on) is running a COBOL system! Good grief, I worked my way through college in the late 60s writing COBOL applications. If anyone still wonders why I'm promoting the privatization of worldwide cyber security, just follow this story.

Selah.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Dear Larry, It's Time to Make THE Oracle Movie

To the head of my Cyber Privateer Fantasy League, Larry Ellison, the story in last night's U. K  Register magazine about Oracle revenue had a wonderful picture of your co-CEOs Mark Hurd and Safra Catz (see the story here). The resemblance to actors Steve Carell (from the movie Evan Almighty and others) and Bebe Neuwirth (from the TV show Madam Secretary) intrigued me enough that you could cast them in a ripping romp about Oracle. You, of course, would be played by Robert Downey, Jr. in a reprise of his Tony Stark persona.

Just a thought.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Dear President Obama, It's Time for Cyber Privateers

Sir,


With due respect, the data breach that hit our Office of Personnel Management (see one of many stories, like in the Washington Post, here) represents a tangible clear-and-present danger to the Beltway-Bandit-business-as-usual mentality. And since you're clearly not enamored with the military industrial complex (one of the few things on which you and I have just a little bit of common ground), it's truly time you consider an alternative to all the federal cybersecurity hucksters with their palms out and their snouts dipped into the horn-of-plenty trough. Instead of bankrupting us with BIG TICKET solutions that obviously don't work, why not privatize worldwide cybersecurity and turn it into a way to completely eliminate the national debt on your watch. Licensed and bonded cyber privateers who adhere to a simple code (see it here) could solve the problem overnight. Think about it.

Selah.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Saving the World All in a Day's Work for MOSSAD


Once again, proof that the MOSSAD is saving the world from a jihadist Armageddon. They installed their super-virus software in hotels that hosted the Iranian nuclear talks (see today's WSJ front-page/above-the-fold story here). How good is the Israeli virus toolkit? Hey, they penetrated super-sleuth virus gurus Kaspersky Lab ZAO with an improved version of Duqu. Yep, I'll say it's improved.

One continuing request to my Israeli spookshop readers: How about you let us in on all the emails you recovered from Hillary Clinton's home server? I mean COME ON GUYS! Even the Russians hacked the White House email servers. Surely you can serve up some juicy tidbits from a much less well protected system in the Secretary of State's home.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Data Exhaust: The Beltway Bandits Want Cybersecurity Dollars NOW!

The N.S.A. Cyberwar Center in Bluffdale, UTAH
(I ride my bike by this facility every week)

The combination of Wikileaks stories (see yesterday's U.K. Register story here)—plus the massive coverage of China's third breach in the last year of current and former government employees (see New York Times story here) plus N.S.A.'s secretly hunting for hackers (see the New York Times story here)—are a drum beat of unmistakable lobbying for more cybersecurity dollars which will be flushed down the federal toilets. Big, centralized efforts don't stand a chance of succes, and that's not their real purpose. Their real purpose is to grease the palms of the Beltway Bandits, keeping the wheels of the military industrial complex well oiled. Licensed/bonded cyberprivateers are a solution that would work, albeit one that would cut out the Washington Fat Cats. Proof?

My old friend Mark Leslie coined what he calls Leslie's Law: When Small Meets Large, Small (Almost) Always Wins (see his firstround.com article here).
Selah.

Monday, May 11, 2015

"Make my May!" Hijacking the Nashville Airport Baggage Claim for Fun and Profit

If you're flying into Nashville during the month of May (paraphrasing Clint Eastwood, "Make my May!"), you'll notice all 8 pillars in airport baggage claim featuring superstars from my client ConnectAndSell. This week is the Sirius Decisions conference in Nashville, and ConnectAndSell is a sponsor and presenter at the conference. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

In 2011, I Predicted Oracle Would Buy Salesforce.com

Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Pic: Techcrunch
Today's UK Register article got my juices flowing (see the article here). They reported that Salesforce.com is being eyed for acquisition by "somebody." Given my intimate knowledge and insight into Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff, two charter members of my Privateer Fantasy League (see the league and their nominations here), I say, "It's about time!" I jumped the gun a bit, predicting the acquisition in 2011 and betting it would take place sometime in 2013 (see both predictions here). So I'm off by 2 years.

Enjoy the show, folks.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

White House Guarantees Zombie Apocalypse

America
Speaking at this year's RSA conference, White House Cybersecurity coordinator confessed complicity in assuring us of a zombie apocalypse (read the UK Register story here). Michael Daniel, special assistant to the President on cybersecurity matters, gave a green light to the "Beltway Bandits" for development of predatory virus weapons:
"We need to have a larger toolset to go after what the bad guys are doing," he said.
You might be asking. "How does this guarantee a zombie apocalypse?" Simply, every Beltway Bandit and wannabe Beltway Bandit has got to develop massively lethal cyber capabilities. According to my Perfect Virus Principle 22 (see all 22 principles of the Perfect Virus here):

  • THE PRINCIPLE OF DEFENSE:  The Perfect Virus has defenses that make Sigourney Weaver's Alien monster look like a mildly incontinent house pet. It can be directed to so fundamentally change the DNA of the host system that eradication will destroy the host, intelligently and forever. Think of it as a genetic mix of the fictional Alien and Predator (a la Arnold Schwarznegger) species. Armed with Jesse Ventura's chain gun. In fact, rent or buy and then watch the Aliens vs. Predator DVD. It'll give you some additional virus Defense scenarios to consider.
 The zombie apocalypse guarantee: Since it's illegal to test offensive cyberwarfare capability "in the wild" on the Internet, aspiring BWBs (Beltway Bandits) will be limited by their financial ability to field a robust closed test bed. The odds of some poorboy mutant virus getting loose into the WorldWide Web is virtually 100%. Some poor summer-job intern will invariably bring his BlueTooth-enabled smart phone into the testing site, and get said smart phone "Frankensteined" by a work-in-progress virus. One little dinner-date email check is all it will take to introduce havoc.

What! You don't believe me? Well Grasshopper, time will tell.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Happy Earth Day, Frank Herbert

Here is a much younger me in 1980 with my friend Frank Herbert. Sure, Frank's Dune, along with his other science fiction, eerily foresaw our current geopolitical battle lines, where technology became sufficiently advanced that one individual could wreak havoc on the entire planet. But his justifiable concern for Planet Earth, and his Philadelphia speech on the first Earth Day in 1970, is also appropriate for today. Ignoring the shrill rhetoric on both sides of the ecology argument, Frank's agenda was apolitical and common sense. We had many high-bandwidth conversations about everything from technology to religion to politics. Sure, he talked me into running for the U.S. Congress back in 1978. It might have been interesting, had I won and tried to live up to his vision of me as his "Tactful Saboteur" Jorj X. McKie. Who am I kidding, though? I'd probably be in jail today, having slipped a thumb drive past the capitol's legislative firewall and wreaking havoc on the Beltway Bandits' meal ticket.

Happy Earth Day, Frank.

Sincerely, Rick Jorj X. McKie Bennett.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Israel's Mossad to Release Bill AND Hillary Clinton's Emails

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—Sometime Before 2016—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today that Israeli's Mossad has been authorized to release the entirety of both Bill and Hillary Clinton's personal Email files. The indexed and searchable database is now available at http://www.MossadPublic.com.

"We released these documents," explains Prime Minister Netanyahu, "to protect the integrity of and our friendship with Israel's most important ally. We are aware of at least five other nations' security services that have gained access to these files from the Clinton's home-based server, and we wanted to validate that our version of these data is true, accurate, and unedited. This avoids the real possibility that other governments may be prepared to alter these files for their own geopolitical purposes."

Unnamed sources in both the Russian and Chinese intelligence communities expressed shock and dismay that Israel beat them to the punch. Exclaimed one North Korean source, "Damn! We really truly had these files first." The Clinton 2016 presidential campaign staff were not available for comment, although police received a complaint of excessive profanity penetrating neighboring offices and onto the street through open windows.

So far, no national leaders have disputed the accuracy of the Israeli-supplied files. Which means Israel's goal for protecting the data assets of their most important international ally has been achieved.

Mazel tov.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Dear President Putin, How About a Peek at Hillary's Emails?


Former Canadian "spy boss" kind of confirms my assertion that major state players, like Russia, probably didn't let Hillary Clinton's State Department home-based Email server go untouched (read yesterday's UK Register story here). The most notable quote:
"Russian nationalism and organised crime are being assisted by Russian state security," Boisvert told El Reg. "The red lines have gone because of Ukraine. Organised crime is being told they can disrupt Western interests."
While I suspect President Putin's reluctance to release Hillary's Emails is probably his vote in the 2016 presidential election—he figures he could use her Emails to get what he wants out of the US's first female president—I suggest to the Russian leader that sitting on them may lose him long-run leverage if Mrs. Clinton does not win either the nomination or the election.

Paraphraising Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry dialogue, "In all the upheavals taking place around the world, do you punk capitalists really think Russia isn't the world cyber power we claim to be? Drop the economic sanctions now, or I'll take out Clinton's campaign before it even gets started. Think I'm bluffing. Come on, punk. Make my day."

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Hacking the 2016 Presidential Race with ZeroDDT: No National Debt, No Deficit Spending, and No Income Taxes!

Product Details
A guy nobody's ever heard of, Scott Smith, just published his outline for eliminating the national debt, deficit spending, and income taxes (check it out on Amazon here).  Here's the review I posted on Amazon:
Format:Paperback|Verified Purchase
Having just finished Brad Thor's HIDDEN ORDER, which gives an excellent history of the Federal Reserve System and its creation, Scott Smith's 2016 presidential platform — A NOBODY FOR EVERYBODY IN 2016 — absolutely inspired me. Problem is, we can't even get all the states to agree whether or not Daylight Savings Time should be continued or abolished. The only hope for Scott Smith is voter dissatisfaction with a Clinton-Bush ticket in 2016. But a populist movement for ZeroDDT (Zero National Debt, Zero Deficit Spending, and Zero Income Taxes) could actually sweep Scot Smith into the White House. A guy named Adam Smith wrote WEALTH OF NATIONS. His namesake Scott Smith, who paid his dues on Wall Street and has several successful companies under his belt, wrote what I believe is the sequel to Adam Smith's tour de force. The ideas are simple enough for a low-information electorate to grok, yet well-enough developed to have the skeptical economist smacking himself in the forehead and exclaiming, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?" Worst case, Scott Smith should at least be given Nobel consideration for his contribution to Economics. I'd dearly like to see Freakonomics gurus Dubner and Leavitt, or Wall Street icon Warren Buffett comment on ZeroDDT. I do know a "friend of a friend" and a former high-ranking Fed manager, characterized ZeroDDT as "…a great idea that will never fly." We'll see, eh?

Friday, April 10, 2015

Cyber-Jihadist Attack on French TV5Monde Either Inside Job or False Flag Operation

Rick Bennett as Forest Gump
At the risk of "Forrest Gumping" today's WSJ story (read it here) about cyber-jihadists hacking TV5Monde and blacking out 11 channels across the world for several hours—ie; over simplifying the reality—I say hogwash! There has not been a single verified instance of competent Islamic hackers. Ever. The reality as I see it:

  1. This was an INSIDE JOB, not out of the question given the number of Islamists now populating France. 
  2. But more likely, IMHO, this was a False Flag Operation. Probably Russian, as Vladimir Putin courted economic support from Islamic interests.
Either way, I can't wait to see which of the above scenarios is validated. There won't be a third.

On the bright side, I also can't wait to see whether it's the Islamic State or North Korea that releases all of Hillary Clinton's email. Islamic State release would be a Russian false flag operation, and North Korea would be a Chinese false-flag operation. Quoting Forrest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates…" Stay tuned.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Hillary Clinton's Emails Secure as…White House Emails; Putin to Begin Daily Prayers.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
So the Russians had access to White House emails, according to yesterday's Computerworld story (Read it here). What then, pray tell, are the odds that Hillary Clinton's State Department emails, hosted on her own server but which we are assured was put in place  by Bill's White House cyber wizards, are not also in the hands of President Putin? They are probably the exact opposite of the odds that President Putin will have a strong vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.Were I President Putin, I'd truly want Hillary to become POTUS. I might even take up prayer to make that happen. Amen.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Hacking the Utah Air Quality Equation

On March 31st, the Salt Lake Valley's air quality problem seemed insurmountable. The so-called "inversion" got breathed in by our predominantly Mormon community like a daily pack of cigarettes. But unknown to residents of arguably the most foul-aired metropolitan area in the continental United States, inventor Rick Bennett trudged through waist-deep show and over treacherously icy granite inclines to install his ionic vortex technology device atop Utah's Lone Peak. Six AA flashlight batteries activated a catalytic process that attracted five of the six most common pollutants responsible for Utah's abysmal air quality: carbon monoxide, sulphur oxides, lead, and two mining-created types of particulate matter. That's the good news. But…

By noon today, Bennett had to remotely deactivate his device. Two "unintended consequences" caused a bit of an uproar in both Salt Lake and in Utah Counties.

First, the rapid attraction by the ionic vortex catalytic process created hurricane-force winds that literally tore the roofs off several Suncrest mountain top homes. According to Bennett, "There are some liability issues that far exceed the limits of my own homeowner's insurance policy."

The second, and by some accounts, the most serious problem is the device's creation of a 25,000 ton monolith that residents on both sides of Lone Peak are calling The Rickcicle. Local television stations are having difficulty interviewing residents, as even the most pious in this strongly religious community turn the air blue with invective as they react to the new view outside their bedroom windows.

News crews could not interview Bennett on camera, as crowds of irate neighborhood residents had surrounded his home. The telephone interview was cut short by the sound of breaking glass, just after Bennett lamented, "I bet this is how Dr. Frankenstein felt…"

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Huawei Gets Green Light to Infect British Infrastructure

David Cameron, Prime Minister, meets Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei Technologies, in Downing Street, 11th September, 2012.
Good grief! Giving Huawei a clean bill of health (see the UK Register story here) is letting the fox in the henhouse. Heck, 37 years ago I was putting foolproof back doors into the RSTS timesharing system I had installed in my home and from which I ran my 1978 race for the U.S. Congress. The revelation that NSA put back doors into the firmware on US-manufactured disk controllers ought to be proof enough that any reasonably competent developer can create absolutely undetectable hooks. Somebody (probably multiple somebodies) on Her Majesty's  Cyber Security team has been well and truly…bought.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Spy vs. Spy, or With Friends Like These…


Yesterday's WSJ story on the administrations' pique at the audacity of Israel's actually spying on US-Iranian nuclear talks (see story here)is a real knee slapper, given that the US found out about the spying from their own spying on Israel. Two paragraphs in the story say it all:

SPY
The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.
 vs. SPY
The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Dear Kim Jong Un: Hillary's Your Chance to Be a Superstar!


Heaven help me, but I never thought I'd be giving meaningful PR advice to a Megalomaniac Mental Midget (M-cubed or maybe 3M?). But I was talking yesterday to Jeff Walker, one of the charter members of my cyber privateer fantasy league team and the inspiration for The Perfect Virus (see his nomination here), and Jeff came up with this idea. Simply, challenge KJU to release all of Hillary Clinton's email to the world! Not only would it beat the hell out of publicly spanking Sony, but the PR value could greatly endear this emotional pygmy to a GOP-controlled congress and perhaps even a 2016 POTUS candidate or two.

I confess I've been selfishly monetizing the NORK's "Beloved Leader" in my own humble way. Those of you who might be attending the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on April 27-28, 2015 will see the following ad:

Did you know that there is no royalty free stock photography of Kim Jong Un available for advertising use? So I had to hire a caricaturist to pull this off (and full disclosure demands I fess up to owning stock in the company being advertised). Shamelessly plagiarizing from the Sony movie that drew M-cubed's wrath, the "fun factor" kept me from seeing the big picture. 

Thanks to Jeff Walker, the NORK Wee Warlock Wonker (W-cubed?) could actually become a media sweetheart. All he has to do is promise his Chinese sponsors that he'll play nice with the world for 12 months in exchange for their treasure trove of Hillary Clinton emails. As I previously posted, it's flat guaranteed that the Chinese have all those emails (see my rationale here). 

Of course, Jeff's brilliant idea will never happen, because none of the midget's minions would dare present His Royal Himself with this insulting article. After all, who wants to get torn to pieces by hungry dogs on NORK television? But maybe one of my Chinese readers (the third most frequent visitors to this blog, second only to Ukraine and the United States) might scrub my sarcasm and cause an Utterly Unbelievable Ungasm in a small and easily manipulated brain, accompanied by the tune Springtiime for Hitler.

Taman Shud. 

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Hillary Clinton Email Server Hacked, Guaranteed!

Okay, suppose you are Russia or China. You're aware that the U.S. Secretary of State is actually dumb enough to host her own email server. Even if you're a third-world country without the infrastructure to create serious cyber attacks yourself, a few thousand dollars in Bitcoins to Hackers-R-US will get you zero day exploits to crack just about any individual server. Either way, you're going to OWN that server before the next national holiday (pick your country, pick your holiday). Several options present themselves:
  1. Hope Hillary runs for POTUS so you can push your agenda, holding "sensitive personal stuff" over her head?
  2. Monetize your email haul right away by selling them to the Clinton campaign.
  3. Monetize your email haul by going for the much deeper pockets of  the GOP.
  4. Do a Snowden and make yourself famous when the time comes.
Have I missed anything? Needless to say, the late-night comics are about to get a treasure trove.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Finally, a Home for Cyber Privateers



After watching Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress yesterday (see the full version here), is there any doubt which one country in the world could become the cyber security bastion of freedom and protection for all of us? Even if Israel has to "stand alone" they "will stand." Selah.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

NSA Crippling the U.S. Tech Economy

Thanks a million, spooks. My bread and butter depends on tech clients, and the good old NSA mental midgets are killing the tech economy (read proof here). I've opined about China building spyware into their supply chains, and recently how the U.S. is corrupting our own tech products (read my latest post here). Add to that how companies like Monsanto are corrupting our food chain with GMOs, and how Big Pharma is"gaming" FDA checks and balances (see my "Welcome to Zombieland" article on the Jeff Hays movie BOUGHT here). Top it all off with a U.S. president who was toilet trained at gunpoint and is now getting even with the world, and my case for privatizing worldwide Internet security with licensed and bonded cyber privateers isn't such a bad idea at all.

Friday, February 20, 2015

Hacking the Food Chain, Turning the USA into ZOMBIELAND

Holy smokes! Haven't Big Food and Big Pharma seen even one ZOMBIE movie? I couldn't resist creating this full-page ad (a "tactical nuke") that ran in today's Wall Street Journal's ARENA section, their OSCAR issue. Filmmaker Jeff Hays couldn't have picked a better time (OSCAR weekend) or a better venue (The Wall Street Journal) to blow the whistle on the people who have no problem trading life for money. Here's the ad:


Question: Shouldn't President Obama consider some creative Executive Orders?

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Beyond the Ultimate Virus: Hacking the Supply Chain

Just about a year ago, I last opined about embedding malware into fresh-out-of-the-box computers, peripherals, and smart phones (see the story here). Today's UK Register story blows the whistle on those whacky guys at the NSA (see the full story here). Dig this, sports fans:
The US National Security Agency (NSA) infected hard disk firmware with spyware in a campaign valued as highly as Stuxnet that dates back at least 14 years and possibly up to two decades – all according to an analysis by Kaspersky Labs. 
The campaign infected possibly tens of thousands of computers in telecommunications providers, governments, militaries, utilities, and mass media organisations among others in more than 30 countries. 
The agency is said to have compromised hard drive firmware for more than a dozen top brands, including Seagate, Western Digital, IBM, Toshiba, Samsung and Maxtor, Kaspersky researchers revealed.
I always figured that the feds had some pretty good reasons for blacklisting certain PC manufacturers from selling to the U.S. goverment (ie; Lenovo Huawai to name just two). Turns out, they justifiably feared a Quid Pro Quo from China. Hey, we're doing it to them, so we'd better make sure they don't do it to…U.S.

The new golden rule of cyber security: Keep the bad guys from doing unto U.S. what we're already doing to unto them.

So, you think the spooks are going to single handedly tank the U.S. tech economy?

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Another "Proof" that Israel Could be the Ultimate Cyber Privateer Haven


What a great ad agency he has! I'd give my eye teeth to be on his speech-writing team as Bibi prepares to speak before the U.S. Congress (or at least those who don't go AWOL to support a POTUS with such a visceral hatred of the Israeli Prime Minister). I think one speech coud pretty well solve the world cyber security problem. Do a search of "Israel" (in the left-hand box) for my previous articles on Israel. Selah.