Little World, Cold War (LJi s10e3)
The following story based on true events is fiction as written by the author.
“Sleep world, sleep
Your favorite song will never end
Dream world, dream
Your favorite book will never close
Breathe world, breathe
Machines will program the perfect harmony...”
- Little World by Haujobb
Five years have passed since the SANS Institute's comprehensive report on my campaigns of augmented warfare. The electronics legend painted me as a patriot; I was a charlatan to my critics. My numerous ethernet expeditions against internet extremist enlistment institutions ebbed in the era of Web 2.0 user generated content. I'd hung up my gray, jangling, motley cap for a desk job at the National Security Agency as a cyber security adviser. Oodles of my adversaries had speculated on my origins in the past. I was Robert, a Baptist from Montana, by one account. That was cute.
My country knows my identity though. I am The Jester, or “Amanda Panda” to Rob Joyce, much to my chagrin. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Crime Division knows only my unsigned text dumps that outed the likes of Hector Monsegur, aka Sabu of 4chan’s Anonymous and Lulzsec. That execution ended a lawless engagement of “freedom of information” without responsibility, landing Sabu on my side of the line as a turncoat informant on other black hats. In the United States of America, Jester doxes you, Sabu.
At the Remote Operations Center, I was renowned for literally rewriting the book on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and apache server slaying software. An earlier build of XerXeS was bundled in the latest Tailored Access Operations toolkit. Paired with my social media promotions of the cyberweapon 'Saladin' in my jihadist network conquests, I had cultivated an image as close to a virtual Captain America as the world knew. Detractors tried to disprove my newest illicit exploits. I was too busy to be burdened much by their banter.
A soldier knows their duty on a battlefield. Multiple fronts were mounted by 2016. Anonymous's remnants split at the seams under the weight of their anarchic intelligence mission. I had spent years prior shredding their structure. Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Anon's pet project, had been mirrored infinitum from my efforts. There seemed to be no end in sight. I loved what the challenge equated to: an eternal war and their degradation. That worked for a digital warrior like me.
Rampant infighting broke out within Anonymous after a public release from its core damning the Republican candidate for President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Some of the hacking collective's remaining members fractured off into propagating socialism, fringe humanitarianism, and infotainment. Others joined with the alt right, male rights activists, moderate establishment Republicans, corporate elite and continental conspiracy theorists in the formation of a propaganda campaign bent on taking the country back by aiding their racist, misogynistic demagogue in the election. Where the latter sect were leaching from became my focus.
My involvement began with the creation of DCleaks. Between that new page and Wikileaks, the contents of a controversial Democratic National Convention hack was publicly released. As the single largest document drop in Wikileak's history, the ensuing media coverage included interviews with a data handler dubbed Guccifer 2.0. The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the rip came from Russia. The attack was a direct blow to Trump's opposition. Donald J. Agitator later said at a campaign rally "I love Wikileaks." The case was tracked by CrowdStrike, a leading Next-Gen security firm. They had reconstructed the attack and traced the system breech back to two names: Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.
The next piece fell into place when Fancy and Cozy emerged with The Shadow Brokers. Another unaccountable group of net squealers, the Shadow Brokers dumped on file sharing sites a set of NSA cyberweapons used in house. My baby, XerXeS, was now in the open. I took that personally. Fed up and federally authorized, I contacted my confidential informant within CrowdStrike. The toolset slung by the Shadow Brokers was authenticated by the Edward Snowden NSA leak of 2013. Both repositories contained a duplicated sixteen character string from a house manual. Krypt0nik357 of CrowdStrike released the third handle wanted in connection to the DNC hack and file share: Gucci 2.0.
Guccifer, Gucci for short, was a code-name of an ex-KGB technical crack operative from the cloak-and-dagger days of the decrepit Soviet Union. The moniker was refurbished during the 1990's web boom. In a time when people were still listening to modems dial out like malfunctioning R2 units, non-official cover government hackers of the Russian Federation had poached tetrabytes of American intelligence. Moonlight Maze came in 1996, four years before Putin's ascent to power. Storm Cloud hit after, followed by Maker's Mark. The FBI designated each of those attacks on U.S. systems outsourced from the Russian Federal Security Service, the KGB's successor. The entire picture was chilling. The Cold War had never exactly ended. It had simply traded terrain. I was now setting foot in the American espionage endemic of the atomic age.
Nadya Tolokno of Pussy Riot has spoken of Julian Assange's direct association with the Russian government. Assange dodged any direct questions she had on the subject. It didn't surprise me that Assange willingly undermined the United States by aiding Russia. The U.S. government held nothing but contempt for him.
Assange and Edward Snowden were new age cowboys; exalted for their outlaw liberation of confidentialities at the sake of security. Snowden set us back weeks in house by spilling what any private citizen would have surmised with a thorough read of the Patriot Act. Assange amasses, mishandles, misguides, misuses, fabricates, and flagrantly flings data with little regard for who it might harm. Neither made the world safer. Neither should be celebrated. Information is a powerful responsibility; I knew that from experience.
Wikileaks was now in bed with the Russian Federation. There was no doubt this went all the way to the Kremlin. Arrogance and clownish bare-chested poses from horseback photos aside, I knew why Vladimir Putin smiled while pivoting in reply when questioned about his kompromat (“compromising material”) network. An old KGB strategy was to always disavow your covert subversion while accusing the opposition of sabotage. Fifteen years had passed since Vladimir assumed power, putting that ploy into play. He had an iron grip on his federation. In less than two decades, he'd done away with free press and the voice of dissent. Despite this, his approval rates were astoundingly high. His old spy craft was expressed in the coordinated destruction of opposition and the creation of propaganda.
America was not amused. The NSA responded in kind to each online attack: business as usual. The United States’ economic sanctions on Putin's regime from the Crimea incident of 2014 had weakened Russia's economy. Trump's opposition promised to not budge from those platforms. However, Trump promised to deal “fairly” with Putin and Russia. The internet was just another resource to Putin. As living proof of Karl Marx's worse nightmare, a fascistic bourgeoisie stood as Russia's primary executor with only a handful in his way.
When one of the many unaccountables orchestrated a massive DDoS attack using the shared XerXeS, I was done with the bullshit. It was one mistake too many. They had gone after my country. They were influencing our election. They stole from my house. They used my gun to harm people. My motley cap was off the rack and on my crown, gray and jangling.
I couldn't directly attack a Russian agency; my evidence was indirect, circumstantial, unverifiable and without corroboration. My directors awaited operational injunction. As I sat down with the metallic whine of my prosthesis at a TAO terminal in Fort Meade, Maryland, I had one goal. Vlady-Poo would remember what motherfucking hell The Jester could rain down on his agent's systems should this course of action continue.
General William Tecumseh Sherman's scorched earth campaign to the sea in the American Civil War was preceded by tactical maneuvering to push the Confederate forces back at his will; I always was a history buff. As my fingers found the keyboard beyond the one-way data diodes that disallowed up-flow from the net downstream, I purged a low end mainframe and uploaded my toolkit while smiling. My retaliation would be a brushback pitch, a reminder to the Federal Security Service, Assange, Gucci 2.0, both Bears and Putin; find the batter's box, fuckers. Jester was always on deck. Don't ever forget it.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ net page was created with a nasty cross-script vulnerability. Shaking my head while chuckling under my breath, I happily typed out my message with nimble taps of narrow fingers. Leaving an XSS injected message there was the equivalent of a sack of burning dog poop on their front doorstep. Everything else on the site functioned; tactical maneuvering with a smooth finish and no burn.
“Now, get to your room. Before I lose my temper. Or do want to play a game? (…) P.S. WOLVERINES!”
Rob groaned for weeks at that line...
cloworora has mixed feelings about the real hacktivist The Jester. They simply make an interesting character to expand and voice as an electronic vigilante. Add in the inaccuracies and speculation surrounding the real story that all of the above is based on, and it really is new age spy-fi. Now to see what the real livejournal idol thinks.
“Sleep world, sleep
Your favorite song will never end
Dream world, dream
Your favorite book will never close
Breathe world, breathe
Machines will program the perfect harmony...”
- Little World by Haujobb
Five years have passed since the SANS Institute's comprehensive report on my campaigns of augmented warfare. The electronics legend painted me as a patriot; I was a charlatan to my critics. My numerous ethernet expeditions against internet extremist enlistment institutions ebbed in the era of Web 2.0 user generated content. I'd hung up my gray, jangling, motley cap for a desk job at the National Security Agency as a cyber security adviser. Oodles of my adversaries had speculated on my origins in the past. I was Robert, a Baptist from Montana, by one account. That was cute.
My country knows my identity though. I am The Jester, or “Amanda Panda” to Rob Joyce, much to my chagrin. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Crime Division knows only my unsigned text dumps that outed the likes of Hector Monsegur, aka Sabu of 4chan’s Anonymous and Lulzsec. That execution ended a lawless engagement of “freedom of information” without responsibility, landing Sabu on my side of the line as a turncoat informant on other black hats. In the United States of America, Jester doxes you, Sabu.
At the Remote Operations Center, I was renowned for literally rewriting the book on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and apache server slaying software. An earlier build of XerXeS was bundled in the latest Tailored Access Operations toolkit. Paired with my social media promotions of the cyberweapon 'Saladin' in my jihadist network conquests, I had cultivated an image as close to a virtual Captain America as the world knew. Detractors tried to disprove my newest illicit exploits. I was too busy to be burdened much by their banter.
A soldier knows their duty on a battlefield. Multiple fronts were mounted by 2016. Anonymous's remnants split at the seams under the weight of their anarchic intelligence mission. I had spent years prior shredding their structure. Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Anon's pet project, had been mirrored infinitum from my efforts. There seemed to be no end in sight. I loved what the challenge equated to: an eternal war and their degradation. That worked for a digital warrior like me.
Rampant infighting broke out within Anonymous after a public release from its core damning the Republican candidate for President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Some of the hacking collective's remaining members fractured off into propagating socialism, fringe humanitarianism, and infotainment. Others joined with the alt right, male rights activists, moderate establishment Republicans, corporate elite and continental conspiracy theorists in the formation of a propaganda campaign bent on taking the country back by aiding their racist, misogynistic demagogue in the election. Where the latter sect were leaching from became my focus.
My involvement began with the creation of DCleaks. Between that new page and Wikileaks, the contents of a controversial Democratic National Convention hack was publicly released. As the single largest document drop in Wikileak's history, the ensuing media coverage included interviews with a data handler dubbed Guccifer 2.0. The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the rip came from Russia. The attack was a direct blow to Trump's opposition. Donald J. Agitator later said at a campaign rally "I love Wikileaks." The case was tracked by CrowdStrike, a leading Next-Gen security firm. They had reconstructed the attack and traced the system breech back to two names: Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.
The next piece fell into place when Fancy and Cozy emerged with The Shadow Brokers. Another unaccountable group of net squealers, the Shadow Brokers dumped on file sharing sites a set of NSA cyberweapons used in house. My baby, XerXeS, was now in the open. I took that personally. Fed up and federally authorized, I contacted my confidential informant within CrowdStrike. The toolset slung by the Shadow Brokers was authenticated by the Edward Snowden NSA leak of 2013. Both repositories contained a duplicated sixteen character string from a house manual. Krypt0nik357 of CrowdStrike released the third handle wanted in connection to the DNC hack and file share: Gucci 2.0.
Guccifer, Gucci for short, was a code-name of an ex-KGB technical crack operative from the cloak-and-dagger days of the decrepit Soviet Union. The moniker was refurbished during the 1990's web boom. In a time when people were still listening to modems dial out like malfunctioning R2 units, non-official cover government hackers of the Russian Federation had poached tetrabytes of American intelligence. Moonlight Maze came in 1996, four years before Putin's ascent to power. Storm Cloud hit after, followed by Maker's Mark. The FBI designated each of those attacks on U.S. systems outsourced from the Russian Federal Security Service, the KGB's successor. The entire picture was chilling. The Cold War had never exactly ended. It had simply traded terrain. I was now setting foot in the American espionage endemic of the atomic age.
Nadya Tolokno of Pussy Riot has spoken of Julian Assange's direct association with the Russian government. Assange dodged any direct questions she had on the subject. It didn't surprise me that Assange willingly undermined the United States by aiding Russia. The U.S. government held nothing but contempt for him.
Assange and Edward Snowden were new age cowboys; exalted for their outlaw liberation of confidentialities at the sake of security. Snowden set us back weeks in house by spilling what any private citizen would have surmised with a thorough read of the Patriot Act. Assange amasses, mishandles, misguides, misuses, fabricates, and flagrantly flings data with little regard for who it might harm. Neither made the world safer. Neither should be celebrated. Information is a powerful responsibility; I knew that from experience.
Wikileaks was now in bed with the Russian Federation. There was no doubt this went all the way to the Kremlin. Arrogance and clownish bare-chested poses from horseback photos aside, I knew why Vladimir Putin smiled while pivoting in reply when questioned about his kompromat (“compromising material”) network. An old KGB strategy was to always disavow your covert subversion while accusing the opposition of sabotage. Fifteen years had passed since Vladimir assumed power, putting that ploy into play. He had an iron grip on his federation. In less than two decades, he'd done away with free press and the voice of dissent. Despite this, his approval rates were astoundingly high. His old spy craft was expressed in the coordinated destruction of opposition and the creation of propaganda.
America was not amused. The NSA responded in kind to each online attack: business as usual. The United States’ economic sanctions on Putin's regime from the Crimea incident of 2014 had weakened Russia's economy. Trump's opposition promised to not budge from those platforms. However, Trump promised to deal “fairly” with Putin and Russia. The internet was just another resource to Putin. As living proof of Karl Marx's worse nightmare, a fascistic bourgeoisie stood as Russia's primary executor with only a handful in his way.
When one of the many unaccountables orchestrated a massive DDoS attack using the shared XerXeS, I was done with the bullshit. It was one mistake too many. They had gone after my country. They were influencing our election. They stole from my house. They used my gun to harm people. My motley cap was off the rack and on my crown, gray and jangling.
I couldn't directly attack a Russian agency; my evidence was indirect, circumstantial, unverifiable and without corroboration. My directors awaited operational injunction. As I sat down with the metallic whine of my prosthesis at a TAO terminal in Fort Meade, Maryland, I had one goal. Vlady-Poo would remember what motherfucking hell The Jester could rain down on his agent's systems should this course of action continue.
General William Tecumseh Sherman's scorched earth campaign to the sea in the American Civil War was preceded by tactical maneuvering to push the Confederate forces back at his will; I always was a history buff. As my fingers found the keyboard beyond the one-way data diodes that disallowed up-flow from the net downstream, I purged a low end mainframe and uploaded my toolkit while smiling. My retaliation would be a brushback pitch, a reminder to the Federal Security Service, Assange, Gucci 2.0, both Bears and Putin; find the batter's box, fuckers. Jester was always on deck. Don't ever forget it.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ net page was created with a nasty cross-script vulnerability. Shaking my head while chuckling under my breath, I happily typed out my message with nimble taps of narrow fingers. Leaving an XSS injected message there was the equivalent of a sack of burning dog poop on their front doorstep. Everything else on the site functioned; tactical maneuvering with a smooth finish and no burn.
“Now, get to your room. Before I lose my temper. Or do want to play a game? (…) P.S. WOLVERINES!”
Rob groaned for weeks at that line...
cloworora has mixed feelings about the real hacktivist The Jester. They simply make an interesting character to expand and voice as an electronic vigilante. Add in the inaccuracies and speculation surrounding the real story that all of the above is based on, and it really is new age spy-fi. Now to see what the real livejournal idol thinks.