==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