Duqu "hints" of an alien architecture

My Quantum Leap Buzz "cyberwar dashboard" fired off a new alert to me about the Duqu command and control servers being "…written in a language the researchers had never seen before…"

The link cited an article, in which I found the following paragraph:

Another question is that one of the components for the Duqu command-and-control (C&C) servers was written in a programming language that the researchers had never seen before. "It was a very curious procedural language .. we don't know why they chose to write it in a different language, and we don't know what this language is," Raiu says. "Solving this [may] help us understand who created the communication module, or if different groups don't know about one another," for example, he says.

I've written multiple times about the "holy grail" of The Perfect Virus being Black Box Portability (principle #7). From this latest bit of intelligence (I really like running my own news-aggregation/analysis dashboard, rather than leaving it up to any news organization to tell me what THEY think is important), I make the following inferences:

1. The creators of Duqu have made a government-level investment in attack architecture.
2. The creators of Duqu are a Western goverment (most likely the U.S.).
3. This may explain the slacking off of China's cyber misbehavior (ie; "There's a new sheriff in town.").
4. If I were one of the whacky anarchists attacking supporters of SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act), I'd think twice about using extra-legal means, as hard prison time for a late-teen/twenty-something prisoner could have some nasty experiences in the general population of a federal prison.

Net net: You wild and zany guys from Anonymous/Lulzsec might line up some legal heavyweights. And when you decide to file lawsuits challenging SOPA, you might seriously considering filing in the jurisdiction of the only federal judge who knows dittley-squat about cyber law. That would be Judge Clark Waddoups in Utah, about whom I've opined over a year ago (see my article on how Judge Waddoups kept 1-800Contacts from hijacking the Internet).

I just got an email obviously sent by Anonymous to all of the Stratfor subscribers giving me George Friedman's mobile and home phone numbers, along with a spoof "butthurt" incident report website. While I am ashamed of myself for laughing so hard, especially since I think George Friedman and Stratfor have been pretty on the money in their analyses, I'm afraid that some hard jail time for the anonymous culprits will give their concept of "butthurt" a whole new meaning.

Oh, yes. And for those of you who are the least bit paranoid, I'd recommend getting your own BUZZ dashboard going and sending you cell phone text messages whenever the H5N1virus starts trending into your state. If you wait for the evening news to figure out there's a story afoot, it could be way too late for you and your family.

I predicted the Anonymous/Lulzsec attacks 6 days ago

For those of you keeping score (my prediction of 12/20 based based upon Twitter "data exhaust"), I suggested that those zany folks at Anonymous/Lulzsec need to quickly up their game and do something before the new year. Yesterday, I got an email from George Friedman announcing that the Stratfor Global Intelligence think tank had been hit. Here is the email:

My Quantum Leap Buzz "Anarchist Dashboard" confirmed today that Anonymous/Lulzsec were taking credit for this attack, threatening to make "charitable contributions" from Stratfor customer credit cards. This was rather brilliant of them, because those zany anarchists forced Stratfor to notify the world. Of course, my question to Stratfor's George Friedman: "Given the number of government-sized entities you've gotten the better of over the years, didn't you think to get some rock-solid security in place?"

My next prediction (I'm on a roll, now):  A similar groundswell of cyber warfare will soon take place against supporters of the Software and Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I strongly suggest that supporters of that idiotic legislation (see the list here that my Buzz dashboard gave me) circle their cyber wagons and get set for some awful retaliation. Almost a year ago, I wrote about one "righteous hack" of Hollywood. My preference, of course, is to beat SOPA in court and via legal means. Unfortunately, the world does not turn upon my whim, and I therefore predict some serious mischief against the above referenced organizations. One of the best tweets unearthed as strongly trending by Quantum Leap Buzz: 

"Under SOPA, you cd get 5 yrs for uploading a Michael Jackson song- one yr more than the doc who killed him."

Stay tuned.

"Zombieland" meets "Person of Interest"

As I've pontificated before, "data exhaust" from Twitter can be used to gain all kinds of actionable intelligence. The Derwent Capital hedge fund is using their own Twitter data feed to beat the market. So, my budding cyber privateers, you can download the free (until Leap Day, 2/29/2012) Quantum Leap Buzz analytics program to set up your own predictive analytics dashboard. Not only can you get news the major news organizations dare not bring you (like real arguments against SOPA, because people like CBS and Disney have been complicit in selling "entrapment" software that they are now suing people for using), but you can get one heck of a good laugh (download Buzz and then type "bird flu zombie" for a real knee slapper). Everybody with a Web-connected computer ought to have this running continually. Here's a video about Quantum Leap Buzz:

To get your copy of Quantum Leap Buzz, go to…yep…www.QuantumLeapBuzz.com.

"Actionable" BUZZ from Twitter "data exhaust"

I thought I'd share my Quantum Leap Buzz dashboard as it periodically analyzes and sends me telephone text message alerts from my personal Twitter feed.  Here's the dashboard as of this morning:

Through "Leap Day 2012" (February 29th), anyone anywhere can download the free beta copy of Quantum Leap Buzz from (duh) www.QuantumLeapBuzz.com. After March 1st, all bets are off. This is my own text-me-immediately dashboard for actionable data that gets sent to my cell phone, wherever I am. Unlike mere Twitter searches (or anything else, anwhere else), this little gem runs on my always-on Mac (as well as on my PC when I get really curious about a lot of stuff), so some cloud aggregator can't spot and market my unique insights. Here are some notes on my key dashboards, top to bottom:

1. Breaking news from Twitter is a jumble without Buzz analytics. But using the same Pattern Based Analytics for which the Department of Defense has paid them tens of millions of dollars, it's really easy to spot trending BIG NEWS even before the major news organizations get their biased little hands on it.
2. Naturally, for the purposes of this blog, my International Cyber Dashboard will tell me when the next Duqu (or response to it) hits. Things have been relatively silent for a few days, but expect something to hit this weekend, when everybody in our command structure is trying to take some family time.
3. This is my "Romney" dashboard, and…
4. …this is my "Huntsman" dashboard. Okay, I live in Utah and find the mutual animosity between my two "brethren" somewhat disconcerting. And the antics of Huntsman's daughters on the social networks almost prove Pastor Jeffress' case. Almost (Huntsman is right: Jeffress is a moron).
5. I'm sensing that India is the vortex for events in Asia, and I'm closely following trends in that part of the world.
6. My "Anarchist Dashboard" is a great predictor of those zany guys at Anonymous and Lulzsec. They're not getting a lot of traction over the last four days, so I would expect (soon) another high-profile temper tantrum. Certainly before the new year.
7. "Waiting for bad stuff" is a sorrowful list of text messages. But I need to know where to send my charitable donations. As one of my favorite late mentors once said, "You can't do everything you must, but you must do everything you can."

Since I've put my proverbial neck on the line by making a few predictions, my next post will be a summary of my batting average. Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a festive Kwanzaa, a…well forget it if your into human sacrifice, as I've got to draw the line somewhere…and a safe/fulfilling 2012, even if you are an Aztec.

Ultimate "Twitterverse" analytics breakthrough now public

Back in August, I reported that Twitter is the new cyberwar dashboard (click here). It turns out, analytics on what I call the "data exhaust" from Twitter could be extended to a phenomenal number of areas. Heck, CNN reported that one UK-based hedge fund (click here) is actually beating the market using a Twitter data feed to predict market movement. I've been pushing Quantum Leap Analytics (Full Disclosure: I sit on their board of directors) to deliver Twitter-pattern based analytics for every man. I contend that this "throw-away" (ie; ugly, but low-cost or even free) application would give non-technical consumers a whole new look at the world and the power of Pattern Based Analytics for higher-end business products from Quantum Leap. How about these capabilities for a mere proof-of-concept utility?

1. Get emerging news stories before the press reports on them.
2. Strip off the news bias to find out which reports are getting traction by the public.
3. Set up your own dashboard for emerging trends.
4. Get actionable intelligence before your competition even knows something is "afoot."
5. Set trending-development NOTIFICATION on your dashboard, so a triggering threshold prompts YOUR COMPUTER to send a private text message to YOUR CELL PHONE.
6. Keep YOUR UNIQUE INSIGHTS private to YOUR COMPUTER, not to be mined and aggregated by some cloud service provider.
7. Find out who is "gaming the system" to artificially inflate sentiment scores.
8. Discover criminal behavior in your neighborhood (a former high-level intelligence professional pointed out one set of tweets that appear to be a drug dealer's coded set of messages for customers to make pickups).

Sound interesting? Well, you can download the beta version of this product free of charge to your very own computer by going to www.quantumleapbuzz.com/trial. Calling this a kind of "Google for Twitter" almost undervalues the product. It's much more valuable than either Google or Twitter. One thing is certain: Quantum Leap Buzz should be an essential part of a cyber privateer's tool kit.

Try it. Let me know what you think.