The Morgan Doctrine: February 2021

Thursday, February 25, 2021

CONTEST: Hack a Porn Blackmailer: Win a STAR WARS assortment of Pez candy dispensers

Imagine my surprise when dozens of these emails showed up every day. "I have videos of you enjoying youself watching porn, and I'll send it to all your friends unless you pay me in Bitcoins." Since I've never been to a porn site in my life, I ignored them. It was easy enough to have a mail filter drop them into JUNK. Interestingly, if the culprit knew the first thing about DMARC, he'd know his claims of being inside my computer were ludicrous. Here's a smattering of subject lines from my trash bin, along with the letter he sent from each one:

And here's the sender source:

So my challenge to my hacker friends around the world (several hundred-thousand of you have visited this blog): Find the owner of the Bitcoin wallet 16aqr3rXxCtxa8AK3ErftnBQLfzyyhjpXJ and do something funny to him (I leave the definition of "funny" to your twisted minds). Then send me a picture. The best photo will win a swell Star Wars assortment of Pez candy dispensers.

Cheers,

Destroying Angel

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Hacking Your Old QuarkXpress for the New Mac OS (Big Sur)

Yegads, I upgraded my Mac OS to Big Sur (11.1) and…crap on a stick!…my QuarkXpress 2017 won't work. So I called them and was told I had to upgrade for $395/year on their new subscription business model and no, they weren't going to issue a fix for 2017 because it was "end of life."

Guess what, sports fans? I dumped Adobe over their swell new Photoship/InDesign monthly licensing scheme, and damn well didn't want to support Quark in theirs. AND ANOTHER THING! There are alternatives to Adobe and there are alternatives to Quark. Free ones. Better user interfaces and better functionality.

Want to read a scathing review of Quark? Enjoy https://tidbits.com/2020/07/22/unless-you-are-a-masochist-do-not-buy-quarkxpress/.

Want to replace Quark or InDesign? Try LucidPress.

Want to replace Adobe Photoshop? Try Krita.

Down with these Adobe and Quark greedheads!

#quark #adobe #indesign #photoshop #lucid #krita

Background: Welcome black hats, white hats and cyber swashbucklers

The Revolutionary War was fought, financed, and pretty well WON by bonded privateers, legalized pirates who were given Letters of Marque and Reprisal by the Continental Congress and authorized to attack, capture and monetize British ships. The purpose of this site is to explore the possibility of a modern-day doctrine much like the Monroe Doctrine, by means of which the U.S. government could legally and, more importantly, effectively stop international hackers. Current cybercrime law is not only ineffective, but downright stupid. My Linux servers are attacked hundreds of times a day (mostly from China and former USSR domains), yet if I retaliate against those servers with some creative technology at my disposal (I know some VERY smart guys), then I am in violation of federal law and subject to some onerous penalties. We need more than a new law. We need a new international doctrine. I call it The Morgan Doctrine, named after Morgan Rapier, a fictional character I've created (hey, this is my way of establishing ownership of the concept, should it ever see the light of day).

Why a new international doctrine? Simply, nothing else will work. Introduced on December 2, 1823, the Monroe Doctrine told the world to keep their hands off the Americas. Combine this with current legal thinking on "hot pursuit" of fugitives. In 1917 the US Army went into Mexico after Pancho Villa. More recently, in 1960 Israeli Mossad agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from Argentina. Granted, much of the world regards the Eichmann adventure as a violation of international law. I don't share that opinion and therefore use it as the third leg of my Monroe-Pancho-Aldof platform for The Morgan Doctrine.

If someone comes into your home and attacks or attempts to rob you, you may shoot them dead. You may do so as long as they expire on your property. But what about cyber criminals? They attack you in your home from their homes. Retaliate in kind, and you go to jail. The Morgan Doctrine states simply that if you attack my computers (or my banking assets held in US-based computers), then under a certain set of well-defined conditions, a licensed and bonded "cyber privateer" may attack you in your home country and split the proceeds with the U.S. government. For the sake of argument, let's call it a 50-50 split (heh heh).

Right now, American law enforcement is completely unequipped to deal with the sheer number international cyber hackers. Sure, I could report each of the thousand daily attacks to the FBI, as could the millions of other attackees in the USA. But the volume of such reports would make any meaningful resolution laughable. Not to mention that the FBI has no jurisdiction outside the USA. Yet to make such "enforcement" profitable to recognized (ie, "bonded" "deputized") privateers, as Heath Ledger's Joker said in his last role, "Now you're talking!" You raid our bank accounts, we raid yours. You make money from off-shore child pornography, we're going to loot your bank accounts and, with some REALLY creative black hat operations, you will be taken off the grid worldwide to the extent that you'll not even complete a cell phone conversation for the remainder of your miserable depraved life. Okay, that last part probably won't fly, but you get my drift.

The purpose of this site is to explore the mechanics, legalities and practicality of The Morgan Doctrine.

And I will be the sole arbiter of whether or not your comments get posted. As Mel Brooks wrote, "It's good to be king."